Jamie Dimon Says “We are getting energy completely wrong” and He’s Right – Mish Talk

October 29, 2022

Transition to Where, When?

“We are getting energy completely wrong and it’s made the environment worse.”

Eventually, we will transition because we have to. But not as fast as expected, and certainly not without pain.

Meanwhile, policy missteps by the US, EU, and California made the transition worse.

California’s 2020 Wildfires Negated Years of Emission Cuts

The Scientific American reports California’s 2020 Wildfires Negated Years of Emission Cuts

Carbon pollution from California’s 2020 wildfires erased 16 years of the state’s greenhouse gas emission cuts, according to a new UCLA study.

The fires were the state’s most destructive on record, burning 4.2 million acres, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of homes. The study—published in Environmental Pollution—adds another statistic: the fires released roughly 127 million megatons of greenhouse gas emissions, or about twice California’s total emission cuts from 2003 to 2019.

“What happened in 2020 was basically like a new sector; a new sector of emissions just came out of nowhere,” said study co-author Amir Jina, a University of Chicago professor. The wildfire emissions were “almost as big as their main emission sector, which is transport.”

If those trees grow back over several decades, they could absorb the carbon released from the fires, he said. But that’s not guaranteed, he said, and in the meantime, those emissions will contribute to climate change.