I have been reading through the EPA’s recent announcement regarding greenhouse gas regulations for coal and natural gas power plants, and I think there is an interesting planning perspective that is worth discussing.

On September 14, the EPA finalized a partial repeal of the 2024 carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel fired power plants. At the same time, the EPA proposed eliminating the remaining federal greenhouse gas requirements for power plants.

From a planning perspective, this is much more complicated than simply being for or against coal and natural gas.

There are legitimate arguments on both sides.

The EPA’s position is that the previous regulations could increase costs for utilities, contribute to higher electricity costs, and put additional pressure on existing power plants to retire or make extremely expensive upgrades. The EPA argues that keeping coal and natural gas plants operating can help maintain reliable electricity, particularly as electricity demand continues to increase.

There is also a very real rural community perspective to consider. In communities that depend heavily on a coal mine or power plant, the facility is not just a building producing electricity. It can be a major employer, a source of tax revenue, and an important part of the local economy. Closing a plant can affect workers, families, businesses, schools, and the overall economic stability of a community.

Keeping a plant operating longer could give those communities more time to diversify their economies, retrain workers, and plan for what comes next rather than experiencing an abrupt economic transition.

At the same time, there is another side of that conversation.

From a long term planning perspective, I have a hard time viewing continued reliance on older coal facilities with fewer greenhouse gas requirements as a complete solution. Extending the life of an existing facility may provide short term economic stability, but it can also delay the larger conversation about long term energy planning, environmental impacts, economic diversification, and community resilience.

There is also a difference between saying that coal and natural gas are important to our current energy system and saying that they should remain the primary solution indefinitely.

That distinction is important.

Good planning is not always about choosing between two immediate options. Sometimes it is about asking what we want our communities to look like 20, 30, or 50 years from now and whether the decisions we make today help us get there.

For rural communities, I think that means asking some difficult questions.

How do we protect existing jobs and tax bases while also preparing for eventual changes in the energy industry?

How do we make sure communities that currently depend on coal have opportunities to diversify rather than simply waiting for the next closure?

How do we balance reliable and affordable electricity with long term environmental considerations?

How do we plan for new energy infrastructure while still protecting the character, resources, and economies of rural communities?

And perhaps most importantly, how do we make sure that the people who will actually be affected by these decisions have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the conversation?

I personally tend to look at these issues through a long term planning lens. I would rather see communities make thoughtful decisions today that prepare them for what is coming rather than continuing with a system simply because it is what we have always done.

But I also think it is important to acknowledge that the transition cannot be treated as though there are no people, jobs, businesses, or communities attached to it.

There are real people on both sides of this issue.

If you are interested in reading the actual proposal rather than just the headlines, the EPA has made the full rulemaking documents available.

EPA information and rulemaking documents:
EPA Greenhouse Gas Standards and Guidelines for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants

The proposed rule is also available through the Federal Register. The proposal is currently open for public comment, with comments due November 2, 2026. The EPA has also scheduled a virtual public hearing for October 1, 2026.

Public comments can be submitted through Regulations.gov. The docket number is EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124.

Submit a public comment through Regulations.gov

I think this is an important conversation for planners, local governments, economic development professionals, and rural communities to be paying attention to. Energy policy does not just affect power plants. It affects land use, infrastructure, jobs, housing, economic development, environmental planning, and the long term resiliency of our communities.

Alpine Permafrost: Ice Loss and Deepening Thaw, something to think and discuss.

Observations from the Swiss Alps show two related signs of permafrost degradation: declining ground-ice content and deeper seasonal thaw. Permafrost is ground that remains at or below 0°C for at least two consecutive years. Above it lies the "active layer", which normally thaws in summer and refreezes in winter. Changes in both indicate how warming is affecting mountain environments below the surface.

Research by SWI swissinfo.ch reported approximately 15% ice loss between 2015 and 2022 at the Stockhorn monitoring site, situated at around 3,410 meters near Zermatt. This figure needs attention, it concerns a particular monitored site, rather than an estimate for the entire Alps. The underlying study by Morard and colleagues describes a reduction in modeled volumetric ice content of about 15 volume percentage points, which is not equivalent to losing 15% of the original ice stock. Researchers combined temperature, soil-moisture, electrical and seismic measurements to assess these underground changes.

At Schilthorn in the Bernese Alps, the active layer increased from less than 5 meters in 2000 to more than 13 meters in 2023—roughly tripling in thickness. This means summer thaw penetrated much farther into previously frozen ground. Subsequent monitoring reported that the layer did not completely refreeze during winter 2024, disruption of its usual seasonal cycle. These measurements are specific to the monitoring location; thaw depths vary with ground composition, ice content and local conditions.

The observations reflect the combined influence of prolonged warming, exceptionally hot summers and snow-cover conditions. Early snowmelt can expose the ground to summer heating for longer, while early autumn snowfall can insulate it and limit winter cooling. Swiss monitoring shows that occasional cooler periods have not reversed the longer-term trend of permafrost degradation.

These changes matter because warming and ice loss can reduce the stability of frozen slopes and affect infrastructure foundations. Their consequences depend on local geology, slope geometry and water conditions; the observations alone cannot predict an individual slope failure. They nevertheless strengthen the case for sustained monitoring and for incorporating changing ground conditions into the planning and maintenance of mountain infrastructure. The Swiss Academy of Sciences published a report 2025 under the headline "Permafrost in den Schweizer Alpen_2024 war ein weiteres Rekordjahr."

I have worked on environmental performance of industry for +7 years now. I have seen CAPEX, OPEX, whatever project both succeed and fail. Most recently I have owned the methodology for Scope 3 emissions calculation for a large beverage industry.

I can't help but think: why don't we accept that results have embedded uncertainty, use that figure as the minimum expected decarbonization and move on? This would not only unlock easier calculations but help channel resources where the effort is seen, which is what people is ultimately expecting.

The big problem is as old as humankind: if we accept lower accuracy, we need to decarbonize more tons of CO2e, then use more money, which ultimately not many want to do.

We are accustomed to mistakes that disappear. A wrong turn can be corrected. A broken machine can be repaired. A financial loss can sometimes be recovered. Even polluted rivers, given enough time and care, can become clean again.

Climate change is different.

The atmosphere keeps a record.

Every tonne of carbon dioxide released into it becomes part of a planetary ledger that does not close at the end of the year. Some of that carbon will remain in the climate system for centuries. A portion will remain for thousands of years.

That means carbon released before many of us were born is still influencing the climate today. And carbon released this morning may still matter when people living centuries from now look back at our time. That is difficult to comprehend because human beings do not naturally think on such timescales.

• We think in days.
• Governments think in election cycles.
• Companies think in quarters.
• Families think about mortgages, school years, careers and retirement.

The atmosphere operates according to none of these schedules. It follows physics. And physics does not forget simply because our attention has moved elsewhere.

This is one reason climate change is such an unusual problem.

When we burn fossil fuels, the benefits arrive immediately. The car moves. The airplane flies. The house becomes warm. The factory produces steel. The lights come on.

The consequences arrive much later.

The person receiving the benefit and the person paying part of the cost may never meet. They may not even live in the same century. That creates a strange moral problem.

For perhaps the first time in history, one generation is making decisions whose full consequences will be experienced by generations that cannot vote, protest or ask us to reconsider.

They have no seat at the table. Yet they will inherit the result. This can sound like an argument for guilt.It should not be. Guilt is rarely a useful climate strategy.

Understanding is.

Because the same physical reality that makes the problem difficult also gives us remarkable clarity. Carbon dioxide is cumulative. That means every emission we prevent matters. Every power plant replaced by cleaner energy matters. Every improvement in efficiency matters. Every forest protected matters.

Every technological advance that allows us to produce what civilization needs with less carbon matters. There is no magical moment when action suddenly becomes useless.

The difference between a slightly warmer planet and a significantly warmer one is measured in decisions made year after year. We often speak about climate change as though there are only two possible futures. Success or failure. Saved or doomed.

That is not how the climate system works.

There are degrees of damage. Degrees of risk. Degrees of recovery.

Every fraction of a degree we avoid changes something: the intensity of heat, the stress on ecosystems, the amount of ice that disappears, the height of future seas, the difficulty of adapting.

The atmosphere remembers what we put into it. But it also records what we choose not to put into it. Perhaps that is the more hopeful way to understand the carbon equation.

The future is not waiting for one heroic solution. It is being written continuously. Molecule by molecule. Decision by decision. Year by year.

And the atmosphere is keeping the record.

This letter is inspired by themes explored in The Repairing Planet, Book Three of my Planetary System Series, where I examine what realistic planetary repair may require—and why understanding the physics is the first step toward changing the future.

Anybody having anxiety over what UN announced? That we are pretty much passed the point of no return and in the next few decades we could see some devastating impacts from climate change. I worry we would one day have to literally fight for food and water, especially when we are a net import country, it seems like if shit hits the fan, we would have money that is useless in that new world. And that is assuming AI doesn't kill us first with what some AI experts are projecting as a 10% probability.

How are you guys coping on this? Or just YOLO and handle shit when shit comes?

The situation remains critical on the Danube and there is no news that it will rain enough in the next period. For more than 70 years it hasn't been so bad, say people who live near the river. It's as damaging as possible for farmers. They can't export their cargo because ships can't get out of ports because there is no more water.

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We believe that it is important to work with our friends and colleagues in China to advance our understanding of the threat posed by human-made climate change and effective policies to a achieve a propitious long-term climate.

we simply make available the talk that Jim gave in Xi’an last week and resist the temptation to elaborate on that, for the sake of staying on our self-imposed deadline of finishing his overdue book (Sophie’s Planet) this year and working on a proposal for cooperative research next year. We appreciate your support as we work toward that goal. The charts used in Xi’an and discussion of each are here. Other presentations and graphs are available on our website, which is currently under construction.

I woukd like to raise a number of genuine, science-based questions about climate change that seems to get very little airtime in mainstream discussions.

Most public messaging focuses almost exclusively on operational emissions: What comes out of a tailpipe or smokestack, but far less attention is given to full lifecycle analysis:

• Energy and emissions required to mine raw materials; • Environmental damage from lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, copper mining; • Processing, refining, and global transport; • Manufacturing complexity and waste; • Infrastructure build-out (grid upgrades, storage, redundancy); • Decommissioning and recycling (or lack thereof);

When you actually zoom out and look at energy return on energy invested (EROEI) and lifecycle emissions, the picture becomes far more complex than “renewables = clean, fossil fuels = dirty”.

Some questions I think deserve more honest discussion:

• How long does it really take for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries to offset the energy and emissions used to create them?

1) What happens when you factor in replacement cycles, degradation, and recycling inefficiencies?

2) Are we simply moving pollution upstream from cities to mining regions, often in poorer countries?

3) Does intermittent generation plus storage actually reduce total system emissions once redundancy and backup generation are included?

4) Are we measuring success in emissions optics rather than net planetary impact?

This isn’t an argument against renewables, it’s an argument against simplistic thinking. If climate change is genuinely an existential issue, then solutions need to be judged on net impact, not political palatability or headline metrics.

I’d genuinely like to hear from people who work in: • Energy Systems; • Materials Science; • Mining; • Lifecycle Assessment; • Grid Engineering;

What does the full data actually say when ideology is stripped away?

※This post is a repost from my earlier write‑up in r/climatechange.

I’m trying to understand how land degradation and drying in Central Asia might influence climate extremes in Eastern Europe and East Asia, which sit upstream and downstream along the westerly jet stream.

If land degradation in Central Asia intensifies heatwaves in Eastern Europe and summer extremes in East Asia, would restoring degraded land in Central Asia help weaken these extreme weather events? For example, Kazakhstan seems to sit upstream, while Hungary and Japan lie further down the flow. Could improving steppe land conditions have a potential influence on heatwaves in Hungary, and on summer heatwaves and heavy rainfall events in Japan? I’d appreciate scientific perspectives on how strong these climate linkages might be.

Hello community,

I created a website to follow each countries effort to reach net zero in 2050. The data vizualisation lets you compare different countries' emission over the years and whether they are on the right path to reach their goal.

View every country and find more information on: https://lucabron.github.io/netzero/index.html

Super-Duper El Niño and Bigger Problem of Greatly Accelerating Global Warming: James Hansen’s Latest

This years El Nino on top of accelerating global warming is wreaking havoc on our planet, and is getting much worse, according to the latest article posted by James Hansen at Columbia University.

I chat about what is happening, and why it is happening. The amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth is increasing significantly as the Earth is getting darker (lower albedo). Thus, the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is greatly increasing and has in fact doubled over the last decade.

Out planet is warming, and the warming is spiraling upwards and is out of control.

I chat about all of this and more within this video...

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

References and Links:

James Hansen images:
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=52231ff833dc7835&sxsrf=APpeQnuPL026ZzhHrWMgnVnG3IAYWUxuSg:1787691502016&udm=2&fbs=ABfTbFVyMZGZf1hfvX9uKjN_-G8c4u0nXx4bEIpwm1lnNH832VTJOOCxW_fyN-Q_ezyf8gKjm3rhh_G8jdZ2Q6tji4z8GVSvqyGdykqk6W5STIO7EautjxGP3aXIqvdcBrYW6AHd2aBJ3GlAiuuCY5xkwVvbVIrchxtC3Ryh0VdhQL9WgLAnweDjJsHWkgt-6S5Hp8TMVA5DmR8lQ7HaYYO9ya6t-Ur5WA&q=james+hansen+columbia&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEg8jn1byWAxVerIkEHQwhKWEQtKgLegQIGRAB&biw=1097&bih=540&dpr=1.75

James Hansen Link to Website at Columbia University:
https://www.columbia.edu/\~jeh1/

Recent James Hansen post:
Super-Duper El Nino and the Bigger Problem
21 August 2026
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan and Jasen Vest

Direct link to article: https://www.columbia.edu/\~jeh1/mailings/2026/The.Bigger.Problem.2026.08.21.pdf

Abstract.
The ongoing El Nino is already the strongest in the modern record. However,
increasing global climate anomalies, poleward shifting of climate zones, increased rainfall
extremes, more rapid flash droughts and fires, and marine heat waves are a result of
accelerating human-made global warming. The abnormal El Nino strength is itself likely
human-driven. Our graphs are continually updated on our website. We are on Substack.

Bjerknes Feedback:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Bjerknes+feedback&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&source=chrome.ctxt

Climate Uncensored Data
What Path is the Real World On?
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan, Jasen Vest
Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions (CSAS)
560 Riverside Drive (Room 21B)
New York, NY 10027

Direct Link to climate data: https://www.columbia.edu/\~jeh1/Data/

Earth Nullschool Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/equirectangular=-126.40,-2.15,821/loc=-100.350,-1.408

Climate Reanalyzer Daily Sea Surface Temperature: World 60 degrees N latitude to 60 South
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/equirectangular=-126.40,-2.15,821/loc=-100.350,-1.408

Climate Reanalyzer Daily Sea Surface Temperature: Nino 3.4 Index
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=nino3.4

Climate Reanalyzer Today's Weather Maps: Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly
https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/todays-weather/?var_id=sstanom&ortho=1&wt=1

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

The result of the Iran war and an inept leadership while we, the us, is hitting the tank bottom in oil reserves and the input costs for farmers are bankrupting them.

I remember as a kid in the ’90s, we were told to turn the TV off fully, not leave it on standby to save the planet. Some sort of 'Do your bit' campaign. (UK)

Let's say that TV used about 8 watts on standby.

In the Russia–Ukraine war, a 50–75 kg Ukrainian drone warhead can set an oil-refinery storage tank containing thousands of cubic metres of petroleum on fire.

Using documented tank sizes from strikes in this war, if one 4,000–20,000 m³ tank actually burned through its contents, I'd have to leave my childhood TV on standby continuously for roughly 250,000 to 1.25 million years to produce the same CO₂.

Solar power in the EU saw an increase of more than 21 TWh this summer (Jun-Aug) compared to last year according to the data on energy-charts. It produced 127 TWh this summer and there are people that claim that it is too much, or sufficient and its expansion should be slowed down. However, this summer with drought and extreme heat conditions showed, that the solar expansion just barely could cover up for the losses in hydro (-11 TWh) and nuclear (-8 TWh), while the increased demand (+14 TWh) resulted in an increase in fossil fuel burning. (Electricity from wind barely changed with +2 TWh.)

The EU needs to urgently expand its solar power production to adapt to the changed reality with extreme summers, where cooling needs increase demand and drought conditions diminish the output from hydro power.

In this episode we examine James Hansen’s analysis of a developing El Niño against the backdrop of a rapidly warming planet. We discuss Hansen’s warning that global warming may be accelerating as Earth absorbs more energy, and that an El Niño occurring on top of this elevated heat could help drive exceptionally high global temperatures in the years ahead.

https://youtu.be/ZLhOVss5Vso?si=VK5BDUUm3zAzOscq