FAUX NEWS OUTRAGE
'Squad' Dem faces backlash for smearing Israel as 'racist state': 'Truly disgusting' 

NOT A SMEAR 

Patrick Hauf
Sun, July 16, 2023

A member of the "Squad" of far-left House Democrats received backlash over the weekend on social media after she accused Israel of being a "racist state."

The condemnation of Israel from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, came in response to outbursts from pro-Palestinian protesters who interrupted a panel she spoke on.

"As somebody who’s been in the streets and participated in a lot of demonstrations, I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy, that the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us, that it does not even feel possible," Jayapal said at the far-left Netroots Nation Conference in Chicago.

"It is people that are literally trying to make sure that we do not take the positions we take, that the rest of the progressive caucus has been pushing and pushing," she added.

HOUSE DEM JAYAPAL GRILLS FBI'S WRAY ON COLLECTING AMERICANS' DATA, WARNS OF 'DIFFICULT' FISA REAUTHORIZATION

The video of the exchange quickly went viral, with a wide variety of criticism toward Jayapal.

"A disgraceful statement that's particularly tone deaf when thousands of Israelis are in the streets protesting to protect their democracy," Jason Brodsky, the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, tweeted." "#Israel's previous government included Ra'am in the coalition. That's not what a racist state does."

"You can never be extreme enough for these people," Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist and Fox News contributor, tweeted.

"[Rep. Jayapal], you are despicable," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., tweeted. "This is truly disgusting, especially coming from a member of Congress."

Several members of "The Squad" have announced they will boycott Israel President Isaac Herzog’s address to Congress this week. Jayapal has repeatedly called for a two-state solution in the region.

"There is no way in hell I am attending the joint session address from a President whose country has banned me and denied [U.S. Rep. from Michigan] Rashida Tlaib the ability to see her grandma," Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said in a series of tweets. She also said the U.S. government should not have invited him to speak in the first place.

"Pramila Jayapal is on stage, slandering Israel, and by extension the Jewish people's right to freedom and self-determination as 'racist.' This is anti-Semitism," Caroline Glick, a senior contributing editor at the Jewish News Syndicate, tweeted.

REP. JAYAPAL CLASHES WITH CNN HOST OVER AMERICANS SUPPORTING SPENDING CUTS AS PART OF DEBT LIMIT DEAL

Several members of the Squad have announced they will boycott Israel President Isaac Herzog’s address to Congress this week.

"Calling the only nation state of the Jews ‘racists’ when offers all its citizens, including Arabs & Muslims equality rights, is something I would expect to hear from the Ayatollahs in Iran or members of the mullah regime "parliament", NOT a member of Congress! FOR SHAME JAYAPAL!" Karmel Melamed, a journalist, tweeted.

United Airlines pilots reach 'historic' agreement in principle, with big pay raises, other perks


Sarah Rumpf-Whitten
Sat, July 15, 2023 

United Airlines and the union representing its pilots said Saturday they reached agreement in principle on a contract that will raise pilot pay by up to 40% over four years.

Over the course of the proposed four-year contract, pilots would receive 34.5% to 40.2% increase in pay, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said in a press release.

United Airlines jetliner parked at airport tarmac, featuring Star Alliance logo and various text markings, San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, June 7, 2023.

Garth Thompson, chair of the United pilots’ union, called it an "historic agreement" that was made possible by the resolve of the 16,000 pilots.

Along with a significant pay increase, the proposed contract includes improvements in quality of life, vacation, and other benefits to pilots who have faced a turbulent working conditions since the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We're pleased to have reached an agreement with ALPA," United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said. "The four-year agreement, once ratified, will deliver a meaningful pay raise and quality of life improvements for our pilots while putting the airline on track to achieve the incredible potential of our United Next strategy,"


Thousands of United pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA), are participating in a nationwide picket on Friday as they push for higher pay.

Pilots with the Chicago-based airlines have not had a contract with the airline for four years as pilots demanding better conditions from management.

United's contract came up for renewal in 2019, and negotiations have been underway since.

Last year, its pilots overwhelmingly voted against a tentative contract, which the union said fell short of what members were seeking. Since then, United pilots have been protesting for a better deal.

United Airlines pilots picket outside San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, US, on Friday, May 12, 2023.

Union's representing the pilots believed they were in a strong position to renegotiate a strong contract following the resurgence of traveling post pandemic as well as Delta Air Lines and American Airlines recently receiving industry-leading contracts.

Delta Air Lines ratified a new contract that includes over $7 billion in cumulative increases in pay and benefits over four years.

Industry officials say Delta's new contract has become a new benchmark for contract negotiations in North America. Rival American Airlines in May also reached a labor deal.

Reuters contributed to this report.

United Airlines pilots reach labor agreement, boost pay


United Airlines plane at Newark Liberty International Airport

Reuters
Sat, July 15, 2023

CHICAGO (Reuters) -United Airlines and its pilots on Saturday reached a labor agreement that will give the latter a significant pay increase, after the union rejected an earlier offer last year instead to seek even higher wages with pilots in short supply.

The pilots will get cumulative 34.5%-40.2% increase in pay raises in a new four-year contract, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said.

With fewer pilots, the group has been enjoying enhanced bargaining power. Consumers have kept up spending on travel even with inflation high, and the industry is short thousands of pilots.

ALPA represents about 14,000 pilots at the Chicago-based carrier. It said it reached an agreement in principle with United management, which includes substantial improvements to compensation, as well as advancements in quality of life, vacation, and other benefits.

"We're pleased to have reached an agreement with ALPA," United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said. "The four-year agreement, once ratified, will deliver a meaningful pay raise and quality of life improvements for our pilots while putting the airline on track to achieve the incredible potential of our United Next strategy," he added.

The deal comes months after pilots at Delta Air Lines ratified a new contract that includes over $7 billion in cumulative increases in pay and benefits over four years.

Industry officials say Delta's new contract has become a new benchmark for contract negotiations in North America. Rival American Airlines in May also reached a labor deal.

United, Delta, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are estimated to hire about 8,000 pilots this year.

In the past two years, unions across the aerospace, construction, airline and rail industries have rebuffed initial offers from management, seeking higher wages in a tight labor market.

United pilots turned down a deal last year that included more than 14.5% in cumulative wage increases and enhanced overtime and training pay.

Analysts at Jefferies estimate the United States is short about 10,000 pilots. This supply-demand gap is projected to last until 2027.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Baranjot Kaur in BengaluruEditing by Nick Zieminski, Diane Craft and Aurora Ellis)

Teamsters president says he's asked the White House not to intervene if UPS workers go on strike

The Associated Press
Sun, July 16, 2023 

 President Joe Biden, center left, talks with Teamsters union President Sean O'Brien, facing, after he spoke about strengthening the supply chain with improvements in the trucking industry, April 4, 2022, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. The head of the Teamsters said Sunday, July 16, 2023, that he has asked the White House not to intervene if unionized UPS workers end up going on strike. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) 


NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the Teamsters said Sunday that he has asked the White House not to intervene if unionized UPS workers end up going on strike.

Negotiations between the delivery company and the union representing 340,000 of its workers have been at a standstill for more than a week with a July 31 deadline for a new contract approaching fast.

The union has threatened a strike if a deal is not reached by the time the collective bargaining agreement expires. Asked during a webcast with members Sunday on whether the White House could force a contract on the union, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said he has asked the White House on numerous occasions to stay away.

“My neighborhood where I grew up in Boston, if two people had a disagreement and you had nothing to do with it – you just kept walking,” O’Brien said.

“We don’t need anybody getting involved in this fight,” he said.

The Teamsters represent more than half of the Atlanta-based company’s workforce in the largest private-sector contract in North America. If a strike does happen, it would be the first since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter century ago.

Before contract talks broke down, both sides had reached tentative agreements on several issues, including installing air conditioning in more trucks and getting rid of a two-tier wage system for drivers who work weekends and earn less money. A sticking point in negotiations is wage increases for part-time workers, who make a minimum of $16.20 an hour, according to UPS.

Last week, UPS said it will temporarily begin training nonunion employees in the U.S. to step in should there be a strike.

South Indian woman shares ‘controversial’ opinion about colorism within the Desi community


Neia Balao
Thu, July 13, 2023 


On July 12, Kaaviya (@kaavikiwi), a South Indian model based in Los Angeles, took to TikTok to discuss the “scarcity mindset” she sees people operating in, as well as colorism within the Desi community.

“Eat with me while I say controversial s*** about the Desi community on social media,” Kaaviya begins.

@kaavikiwi

if yall wondering why i’m always saying “south indian south indian south indian” THATS WHY.♬ original sound – kaaviya

Being in spaces that “are not intended” for them, Kaaviya says, can lead to “shame.”

“I think a lot of people in our community feel shame when they enter spaces that are not intended for us, aka entertainment, beauty, modeling, all of that,” she says. “The last thing I need is insecurity. People around me are operating in a scarcity mindset, and the mindset of those around you is contagious.”

Kaaviya then shares that she wanted to walk for an Indian bridal show but was told she “wasn’t a good fit.”

“I watched the show and I saw some girls in the show and I noticed something about the show, which was that every single girl that was casted was North Indian, super-fair skin,” she explains. “The way that that felt to me was that the Indian standard of beauty, which is mainly based on skin color, still exists within our community.”

Per SodhaTravel, North India, which is landlocked, is “generally defined by the Hindi-speaking belt of Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana.” Surrounded by the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, South India “includes the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Kerala.”

According to a Vogue India article, Indian beauty brands previously neglected to offer foundations or concealers that catered to darker complexions.

“Colourism in India is embedded within a deep history of class and caste discrimination, a history that supported the idea that fair skinned people were more intellectual, more attractive, and held a higher place in society than darker skinned people,” reads the article.
‘You don’t have to just cater to your particular niche or niche you think you’re supposed to be in’

Kaaviya argues that in order for her to “break that shell,” she “needs” to ensure that she doesn’t surround herself with people that “still have very outdated mindsets.”

“The idea of being in a group where I’m only creating content for other Desi people and putting myself in a box really is not something that’s congruent with my long-term goals,” she explains. “I want to be able to teach other minorities that you don’t have to just cater to your particular niche or niche you think you’re supposed to be in.”

Women of color, the South Indian model believes, should feel empowered to create content for everybody.

“I make a lot of brown-girl-friendly content and I’m very passionate about that because there’s a lack of brown-girl content,” she says. “But I also believe in my ability to make content for a very wide audience.”

Bollywood, the Indian film industry based in Mumbai, features “stereotypical portrayals of South Indians,” says South Indian writer Roshni Mohan of the Michigan Daily.

“Bollywood’s stereotypes about South Indians are blatantly harmful, especially since there is so much previously established anti-South Indian rhetoric in the North alongside systemic discrimination and the ‘jokes’ just further the rhetoric,” writes Mohan. “The stereotypes only further alienate us from the others in the North instead of uniting us all as Indian, which in turn pushes the narrative that we are ‘less Indian.'”
‘Real, I’m glad people are speaking up about the desi community in general and it’s values’

TikTok users have shown their gratitude for Kaaviya’s video and for her advocacy for increased South Indian representation in media, modeling and beyond.

“i’ve witnessed many situations where south indians— regardless of their skin color, would be excluded, simply bc they’re south indian,” @sugarcookiesruthi revealed.

“I used to get bullied for having darker skin and curly hair that it made me so insecure so thank you for sharing this!!” @rahini_nedunuri commented.

“Real, I’m glad people are speaking up about the desi community in general and it’s values,” @joyy27_g wrote.

SEE

HINDUTVA IS FASCISM

Solar Farms Out at Sea Are Clean Energy’s Next Breakthrough

Bloomberg News
Thu, July 13, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Buffeted by waves as high as 10 meters (32 feet) in China’s Yellow Sea about 30 kilometers off the coast of Shandong province, two circular rafts carrying neat rows of solar panels began generating electricity late last year, a crucial step toward a new breakthrough for clean energy.

The experiment by State Power Investment Corp., China’s biggest renewable power developer, and Norway-based developer Ocean Sun AS is one of the most high-profile tests yet of offshore solar technology. It’s a potential advance in the sector that would enable locations out at sea to host renewables, and help land-constrained regions accelerate a transition away from fossil fuels.

Most initial trials of solar-at-sea have involved small-scale systems, and there are numerous challenges still to overcome — including higher costs and the impacts of corrosive salts or destructive winds. Yet developers are increasingly confident that offshore solar can become a significant new segment in renewable energy.

“The application of this is virtually unlimited,” because many regions have constraints on the use of land, including parts of Europe, Africa and Asia along with locations like Singapore and Hong Kong, said Ocean Sun’s Chief Executive Officer Børge Bjørneklett. “In these places, you see there’s a huge interest for this technology.”

Shandong, the industrial hub south of Beijing, plans to add more than 11 gigawatts of solar offshore by 2025, and to ultimately build 42 gigawatts, more than the current power generation capacity of Norway. Neighboring Jiangsu has a target to add 12.7 gigawatts, while provinces like Fujian and Tianjin are also studying proposals. Japan, the Netherlands and Malaysia are among other nations conducting or preparing test projects.

Even with investments in solar forecast to surpass spending on oil production for the first time this year, many regions face challenges in finding land to install vast arrays of panels, either because of a lack of available space, as a result of inhospitable terrain, or because to do so would require deforestation.

That’s spurring the push to examine new, and sometimes unlikely, sites for solar that’s already seen hundreds of floating projects delivered on lakes, reservoirs, fish farms and dams. Japan has dozens of smaller arrays, China and India have added major operations, and facilities have been built in nations including Colombia, Israel and Ghana. In January, the largest floating solar project in the US was brought fully online, supplying enough power for 1,400 homes from panels at the Canoe Brook water treatment plant in New Jersey.

“Renewables installation must grow, but the realistic question is where to build,” said Li Xiang, head of the solar-on-water unit at Hefei, China-based Sungrow Power Supply Co., one of the world’s largest renewable energy equipment makers. “We think water surfaces have great potential.”

Stretched out across the dark green water of an artificial lake in Huainan, in China’s eastern Anhui province, is an installation of about half a million floating solar panels clustered into vast blocks, with white geese swimming by. The project built by Sungrow, on the site of a former coal mine since filled with water, covers the size of more than 400 soccer pitches and generates power for more than 100,000 homes.

Adding solar systems on existing reservoirs could theoretically allow more than 6,000 global cities and communities to develop self-sufficient power systems, researchers including Zeng Zhenzhong, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said in a paper published in March. “We don’t need to fight for farmlands, nor do we need to cut forests or even go to the deserts,” Zeng said in an interview.

Yet more assessments are needed of the potential long-term consequences of covering water bodies with panels, the researchers found. China’s authorities have become wary too. New developments in some freshwater locations were banned last May amid concerns about the impacts on ecosystems and flood control. A solar installation in Jiangsu province that covered 70% of a lake’s surface was partially dismantled after local officials raised objections.

While solar plants on freshwater sites are forecast to continue to expand globally, some of those concerns — and the potential of projects at sea — are helping to drive activity in the offshore sector. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has made it a key priority to develop near-shore floating technologies by 2025, while companies such as Sungrow are among those collaborating with researchers.

Ocean-based solar arrays that can handle waves of up to four meters could be ready for commercial deployment within a year, and systems able to withstand 10-meter high swells will take at least three years to perfect, according to Ocean Sun. Viable technology could be ready within one to two years, according to Southern University’s Zeng, who is also studying offshore developments.

Developers are experimenting with differing concepts. Ocean Sun’s ring-shaped floaters, made of high-density plastic pipes and a membrane with panels laid out across the surface, undulate with the movement of waves. Rotterdam-based SolarDuck AS mounts panels on triangular platforms and has agreements to test its systems, including in Tokyo Bay and in a project off the coast of Tioman Island in Malaysia.

Questions remain about the ultimate scale of the offshore solar market. Developing panels at sea could be around 40% more expensive thanks to more complex installations and costly subsea cables, according to BloombergNEF estimates. Unlike offshore wind, which produces more power than onshore farms because of stronger gusts and larger turbines, there’s no major benefit to power generation in harvesting the sun’s rays at sea versus land.

“Offshore solar in some ways is the worst of both worlds,” said Cosimo Ries, an analyst with Trivium China. “You get the higher installation costs, but you don’t get the higher power output.” Solar-at-sea is likely to end up a niche sector, mostly serving land-starved coastal cities like Singapore, Ries said.

Advocates insist the technology is fast improving, and will win a role in helping nations with large populations and a lack of land to curb emissions and — for many developing economies — to meet still rising energy demand.

Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest producer of panels, is developing modules specifically suited for conditions at sea, and has a study underway in Jiangsu province. While it sees the market size as limited now, there’s “relatively large potential for offshore solar,” the company said in a March conference presentation in Xiamen.

China alone has potential to host about 700 gigawatts of offshore solar — about as much as the combined electricity generation capacity of India and Japan — according to a State Power Investment forecast.

“It is not going to be difficult,” said Southern University’s Zeng. “People have not yet realized how much potential it has.”

Bloomberg Businessweek

Opinion

Letters to the Editor: We ignored Al Gore in 2000. We're paying the price of climate denial

Fri, July 14, 2023 

People watch the Ottauquechee River rise after extreme rainfall in Quechee, Vt., on July 10. 

(Jessica Rinaldi / The Boston Globe )

To the editor: Wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, abhorrent heat, ocean temperatures rising to unheard of amounts — this is not the "new abnormal," but most likely the "new normal." ("Fires, floods, heatwaves. Is the extreme weather from coast to coast ‘a new abnormal’?" July 12)

Twenty-three years ago, Al Gore, then running for president, pointed to scientific reports that predicted all of this. Millions of us heard it but chose to disregard it or not believe it.

It's hard to believe that many in this country are still in climate-change denial or at least pretend to be. And why is that? Because as Gore said, it is an "inconvenient truth."

Linda Cooper, Studio City

.
To the editor: There's been buzz about the beginning of a new geological epoch caused by human activity for more than 20 years, but it now appears to be on the way to becoming official — the Anthropocene began between 1950 and 1954.

However, a 2015 study published in Nature says the Anthropocene probably began around 1610, with the exchange of species between continents.

Previous epochs began and ended owing to factors including meteorite strikes, sustained volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the continents and climate change. Now human activity has driven Earth into a new epoch. We're very clever but haven't been very wise.

We're finally wising up. Can we stop burning fossil fuels and changing Earth's climate and atmosphere? Can we can stop depleting groundwater and changing Earth's geology? Can we can stop driving the species we depend on to extinction?

Maybe. It's theoretically possible, but can we overcome human nature?

Carol Steinhart, Madison, Wis.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Shell Explores Selling Stake in Renewable Power Unit

William Mathis and Dinesh Nair

BLOOMBERG
Thu, July 13, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Shell Plc is exploring options for its global renewable power operations, including a potential stake sale to outside investors, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The UK energy giant is working with advisers to study a range of possibilities that could also include separating the business into a more independent unit, the people said. It’s approached a number of international investors to gauge their interest in buying a stake, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

The deliberations come as Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan focuses the company’s investments on fossil fuels in a bid to increase shareholder returns and narrow the valuation gap with Shell’s US peers.

Discussions are still at an early stage, and there’s no certainty they will lead to a transaction, the people said. Shell may also consider introducing outside investors into some other operations such as its downstream assets, one of the people said.

A representative for Shell declined to comment beyond a capital markets day presentation in June, when the company flagged plans to divest certain power assets through 2025, but also make selective investments in the business.

If a deal does happen, it could be a significant shift in Shell’s green strategy. The oil major has spent more than two decades trying to figure out just how big of a player it wants to be in renewables. Over the years, some CEOs have set targets for low-carbon alternatives to oil and gas, only for their successors to focus more squarely on the fuels that drive most of the company’s profits, but also cause climate change.

It could also be seen as a concession to activist investor Dan Loeb, whose Third Point LLC fund built up a significant stake in Shell in 2021 and urged previous CEO Ben van Beurden to break off its natural gas and renewables operations into a standalone business. There is a precedent for such a move — Italian oil giant Eni SpA has separated its renewable-energy assets into a separate entity called Plenitude.

Shell’s approach in recent years was emblematic of the European oil majors’ efforts to position their businesses for a world that cuts carbon emissions and relies less on fossil fuels in the coming years. It’s been a stark contrast to their US peers Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., which have stuck more closely to their core businesses of oil and gas.

Under van Beurden, Shell rapidly grew its green power business and briefly sought to become the world’s biggest electricity producer. The company’s portfolio, which had 6.4 gigawatts in operation or development at the end of last year, includes offshore and onshore wind farms in Europe and the US. It recently acquired Indian solar developer Sprng Energy, Danish biofuels producer Nature Energy and American renewable power company Savion.

So far investors have rewarded the US oil majors’ strategy, pushing their valuations far above their European competitors.

Shell’s renewable-power business has come under pressure as Sawan pursues what he’s called a “ruthless” approach to prioritizing returns, meaning the unit has to generate profits in addition to cutting the company’s carbon footprint. While Sawan said he will continue to invest in renewable power, he’s vowed to be more selective and only pursue projects that create sufficient value.

As Shell’s approach to green power has shifted at the top, some executives in the business have departed. Renewable-power boss Thomas Brostrom quit to pursue another job. Shell’s UK head of offshore wind, Melissa Read, also left the company.

Shell leaves experts fuming with latest admission on 2050 pledge: ‘They are making so much money right now’

Erin Feiger
Sat, July 15, 2023 

Shell has backpedaled on its climate change pledges to provide bigger payouts to shareholders, in a move slammed by many as shady.

What’s happening?

After a surprising announcement last year, in which Shell set 2050 as its target to reach net-zero planet-overheating gas pollution, the company became the latest to join others like BP in scaling back their climate pledges, according to Euronews.green.

Shell said oil production levels will remain stable until 2030, justifying it by saying selling its interest in the Permian Basin oilfield in 2021 allowed it to reach production reduction goals until then.

Euronews.green further reported that the company will invest $40 billion in oil and gas production through the next 13 years, all of this amid record profits, leaving many questioning the dirty energy company’s alleged commitment to shift to clean energy.

Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, which unites shareholders to push Big Oil to clean up its act, told the Washington Post, “We have to regain momentum, or these companies will keep on saying they can continue with oil and gas because the majority of shareholders want them to do that. The fact that they are making so much money right now is not helping.”

Carla Denyer, co-leader of the U.K. Green party, told Euronews.green that Shell’s actions are “pure climate vandalism,” with Friends of the Earth adding that “like other fossil fuel giants which have also scaled back their ambitions, Shell now admits that it has no plans to change its business model.”

Why is this climate pledge pivot concerning?

Dirty energy sources, like oil, gas, and coal, are the largest contributor to Earth’s rising temperatures, accounting for more than 75% of the world’s overall heat-trapping gas pollution and nearly 90% of harmful carbon pollution, according to the U.N.

Because they’re such a huge part of the problem, dirty energy companies like Shell need to be a big part of the solution.

Making pledges like the ones Shell is now scaling back on to convince us that the company is a friend to our planet is called greenwashing, which is when a company makes false or misleading statements about the environmental benefits of one of its products or practices.

Greenwashing is a particularly sinister problem because it prevents real and very necessary progress from being made, while duping customers into spending our money with companies that are lying to us and hurting our planet.

What can be done?

Many organizations are working to hold Big Oil companies accountable for enacting real change, but it’s a long road.

As individuals, we can work to mitigate the harm done by these big companies by moving away from using their dirty energy sources.

We can switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, limit the amount of single-use plastics we use, and switch to alternative sources of power at home when possible.

Nations call for swift fossil fuel exit to tackle climate change

AFP
Fri, July 14, 2023 

No target for ending the use of fossil fuel use has yet been set 

(Valentine CHAPUIS)

The world needs an "urgent" exit from fossil fuels as part of efforts to slash planet-heating emissions and rein in global warming, a coalition of countries including EU economies and climate-vulnerable nations said Friday.

In a statement released at the close of climate talks in Brussels, the High Ambition Coalition said the year-end COP28 talks must pave the way for "an urgent and just transition to renewables, a more climate resilient world, and climate justice for all".

"We must accelerate the global energy transition away from fossil fuels," said the statement, signed by representatives of countries including Germany, France and the Marshall Islands, as well as the European Commission.

It called for greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025 at the latest and be cut by 43 percent by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, in line with recent updates from UN climate experts.

"This requires systemic transformations across all sectors, driven by an urgent phase out from fossil fuels, starting with a rapid decline of fossil fuel production and use within this decade," the countries said.

The statement follows a ministerial summit in Belgium where the incoming COP28 president outlined priorities for the crunch Dubai meeting.

With global temperatures hitting record highs last week and countries buffeted by floods, storms and crop-withering heatwaves, the world remains far off track to meet its climate goals.

That has prompted some countries to call for a decision at COP28 to entirely phase out planet-warming fossil fuels from the global energy mix.

- Fossil focus -

Emirati oil boss Sultan Al Jaber, who will head up the COP28 talks, has said he expects fossil fuels to continue to play a role, albeit reduced and with the use of often controversial technologies to "abate", or neutralise, the emissions.

Jaber said on Thursday that a phase down of fossil fuels is both "inevitable" and "essential", but has been reluctant to spell out a time frame.

But "I don't have a magic (wand)" as to when that will happen, he told AFP in Brussels.

Countries have raised concerns about any reliance on carbon capture and storage technologies -- for example those that trap emissions from power plants and store them permanently underground -- which have so far not been used at scale.

"Abatement technologies must not be used to green-light continued fossil fuel expansion, but must be considered in the context of steps to phase out fossil fuel use," the statement said.

It added that these technologies had a "minimal role to play" in the decarbonisation of the energy sector.

Among the concrete targets Jaber proposed as COP28 priorities include a host of 2030 targets, like tripling the world's renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements.

This is in line with what the International Energy Agency says is needed to meet the Paris deal target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.

bl-klm/rl

AI startups bringing dollars but lean workforces to ailing San Francisco

 AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature


By Anna Tong
Thu, July 13, 2023 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a frenzy unseen since the birth of social media in the early 2000s, investors are pouring billions into generative AI and fueling a startup boom in San Francisco.

At the same time, they are fueling hopes that the nascent AI sector will help revive the city's decaying downtown after the pandemic.

But the rapid growth of the artificial-intelligence business may not be a panacea for the city's economic and commercial real-estate woes, according to a dozen tech industry professionals interviewed by Reuters. Unlike past tech booms that have touched San Francisco, the generative AI craze brings fewer jobs, because AI firms excel at staying lean and automating work.

"I think we should curb our optimism that San Francisco commercial real estate will bounce back because of AI," said Silicon Valley investor Jeremiah Owyang. "The mentality of AI startups is AI-first. So you get AI to do the job before humans do it."

Eleven of the country's top 20 AI companies are in San Francisco and have raised $15.7 billion collectively between 2008 and 2023. However, they employ a total of only 3,400 people in the city, according to an analysis from San Francisco Mayor London Breed's office which used data from venture capital firm NFX.

That amount is just 2.3% of the estimated 150,000 daily workers that downtown San Francisco lost during the pandemic. Office workers accounted for nearly three-quarters of the city's gross domestic product before COVID-19 hit.

Generative AI, which learns from past data to create brand new content, is seen as a game-changer for workplace efficiency, especially for software engineers, the bread and butter of San Francisco's tech workforce. AI has already reshaped their work: according to research from popular code hosting platform GitHub, 92% of software developers use AI, and developers that used GitHub's coding assistant were able to complete a coding task 55% faster.

"These (AI) companies almost certainly won't have thousands of employees and corporate cafeterias, like Airbnb or Dropbox," said Erin Price-Wright, a partner at San Francisco-based Index Ventures. Airbnb and Dropbox, both based in San Francisco, employ about 10,000 people combined.

In contrast, Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which developed the smash-hit ChatGPT chatbot, has raised over $11 billion in eight years and has around 500 employees, according to the company. Headquartered in the city's hipster Mission district, the company uses AI to help solve its problems.

For instance, when faced with a deluge of support tickets, OpenAI chose to train its own AI to help its staff answer these tickets more efficiently, according to an OpenAI employee with direct knowledge of the project.

A spokesperson for OpenAI said the company uses its products to help with its work, but is also actively recruiting, including in customer support.

"We are getting to the point where AI can function as a real employee," said Matt Schlicht, CEO of Octane AI, which tailors online shopping to a person's needs. "Within your lifetime, you will likely see a one-person team start a billion-dollar company."

THREE AI EVENTS PER DAY

San Francisco, even as it battles societal issues like drugs, homelessness and unaffordable housing, has gained a reputation as the "AI capital of the world," as the city's mayor recently called it.

For instance, Dubai-based entrepreneur Mike Grabowski told Reuters that in June he saw a tweet from Owyang, the Silicon Valley investor, which said, "In SF, there are 44 AI events in two weeks, about three a day."

Grabowski, who has started a company that uses AI to write content for social media influencers, hopped on a flight to San Francisco on the same day. Two days later, jetlagged but optimistic about meeting prospective investors, he went to an AI event hosted by Owyang, who said he received 560 applications to attend the meetup.

The excitement about AI is palpable at tech events in the city, reminiscent of the decade before the pandemic when companies like Alphabet's Google opened offices and startups colonized more industrial parts of town.

The "City by the Bay" became a tech hub coinciding with an eight-year tax break dubbed the "Twitter tax break" aimed at encouraging tech companies to relocate there.

Recently, though, San Francisco's problems have made headlines.

Office buildings are over 30% vacant, according to real estate firm CBRE, as people continue to work from home, venture capital firms choose calmer parts of town, and many large tech firms have slashed workforces. Ridership on the BART rapid-transit system in downtown San Francisco is still at one-third of pre-pandemic levels, according to city government data.

As the crises of drugs and homelessness have spiraled, tourists and business visitors have stayed away, pushing some hotels to the brink of default. Dismal foot traffic has prompted companies including Nordstrom to shut their downtown stores.

Some tech professionals think that in time, AI will still buoy the city's economy, even if it scripts a different destiny from the previous tech boom.

Since AI makes it easier to run a company, there will be more small firms hiring dozens of people, as opposed to a few big tech companies that previously hired thousands, said Lee Edwards, a technology investor at San Francisco-based Root VC.

Others think it will be more of the same, and that rewards from the technology will go to fewer people, exacerbating the inequality that already plagues California's third-largest city.

"Generative AI is even more concentrated than previous waves of digital technologies, and a handful of companies are going to be at the forefront," said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how technology affects inequality.

"Top executives and their upper cadre of engineers, programmers, managers are going to benefit a lot more."

(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver and Matthew Lewis)

GLASS HALF FULL
Fossil-Fuel Demand for Electricity May Have Peaked Globally

Priscila Azevedo Rocha
Thu, July 13, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- The exponential growth of renewable energy is pushing down global electricity prices and helping remove so much carbon from power systems that fossil fuels are no longer economical, and their use has peaked, according to a report.

From China to Europe, the capacities of solar, battery and wind power are surging, the Rocky Mountain Institute said in an analysis released Thursday in conjunction with the Bezos Earth Fund. That means sending demand for gas, oil and coal linked to electricity generation into a steep decline, a critical step toward curbing emissions linked to climate change.

“Fossil-fuel demand in the electricity system, specifically, has clearly peaked in 2022,” Kingsmill Bond, senior principal at RMI, told reporters. Moving forward, it’s “very hard actually for fossil-fuel demand to grow from these levels simply because of the speed of which these alternative technologies grow.”

The shift comes as governments and industries rebuild their energy infrastructure following supply shortages and skyrocketing prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The high rates of deployment also are driving down prices for renewables, rendering higher cost hydrocarbons uncompetitive.

Solar Beats Coal in Europe for First Time - But There’s a Glitch

Solar panels and wind turbines will supply more than a third of global electricity by 2030, compared with about 12% today, the RMI forecasts. Those sources should produce as much as 14,000 terawatt-hours, overtaking fossil fuels.

While China and Europe lead the growth in clean energy, deployment is reaching other parts of the globe. Namibia, the Netherlands, Palestine, Jordan and Chile have boosted solar and wind generation at sufficient rates for five years, the report said.

Renewables are already considered a cheaper form of electricity, with costs plummeting during the past decade, according to BloombergNEF. Solar and battery costs declined 80% between 2012 and 2022, offshore wind dropped 73% and onshore wind fell 57%, the data show.

The increasing adaptation of clean-tech is set to halve its prices by 2030 — falling to as low as $20 a megawatt-hour for solar from $40-plus now, RMI said. The shift in capital out of fossil fuels is also set to boost investment in low-carbon forms of energy.

“Change is happening faster than we think,” Christiana Figueres, an architect of the Paris Agreement on climate, said during a roundtable discussion. “The tripling of renewables by 2030 is not guaranteed but is more possible today than it ever was because of the exponential trends that we are seeing.”