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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2025

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  • Yeah, it can get messy, depending on which data source you’re looking at, or if one article pulls from multiple different data sources. But I agree, any increase in coal use is a bad thing, and certainly no one should be building new coal plants, and we should be retiring existing coal plants ahead of schedule.

    Seeing the recent news that renewables has overtaken coal for global energy supply makes me happy, but there’s still so much work that needs to be done.





  • We are not still on track for RCP 8.5. That pathway was based on continuing growth in coal use that was seen in the early 2000s that didn’t continue. And the dramatic drop in price for renewables and batteries is already having an impact, and the energy transition will continue. (Whether the US likes it or not.)

    I’m not trying to pretend everything is fine, it’s absolutely not, but we need to be realistic about what our trajectory is. Right now, I think we’re on track for 3C by 2100, closer to RCP 4.5 or RCP 6, which is still awful. But it shows that we have made progress relative to 20 years ago, and there is still plenty more work to be done. Every fraction of a degree matters, and I’m not throwing in the towel yet.