To be entirely accurate, Tesla did not win the contract but have been selected to supply the batteries. The contract was given to French company Neoen, which has been awarded a $650 million contract by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to establish a second electricity storage location, consisting of Tesla Megapacks.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mega...oogle_vignette

You might say the same about the religious thread.

Regarding the above line I highlighted, this is what people should get from this thread. The only alternative is to keep spitting in the ocean and buying the propaganda campaigns of multi-billion dollar fossil fuel corporations still receiving vast amounts of Corporate Welfare from the Fed. They want us to believe crap like "Buiy Solar Power and curse the darkness in the cold!" Not only do they want us to believe "it's all on you" (individually) but they have our interests in mind (and not their wallets, stockholders or qualifications for welfare subsidies) and protect us from cold and darkness. Numerous TV and Newspaper ads from the 50s through the 90s have been struck down for bad statistics and the Majors pointing fingers at the Minors.

Make no mistake, we are certainly complicit. We like things cheap, abundant, and convenient and we will buy such products in the marketplace BUT Demand Rarely precedes Supply in the late 20th Century and the 21st. Almost nobody in the 50s thought or said, "You know I'd really rather stop using metal and wood and rather have stuff made of cheap plastics". Back then "Made in Japan" was a pejorative in the US because it's products were all about cheaper and cheap plastics back then cracked and splintered if you looked at them funny. Did corporations stop using plastics? No, they made better formulations anticipating the long term profit from proven increased sales because there is ALWAYS a market for price.

So Yes, we are in the mix but the fact remains that corporations are responsible for a very large percentage of the responsibility for Human Influenced Global Climate Change. Estimates vary because statistics can be formulated with a bias, but the most conservative estimates are that "if every person on Earth recycled, drove an electric car, stopped using plastic bags and straws, and installed photovoltaic cell arrays on their roof, some 70-100 corporations would still be producing 20% of todays harmfull emissions". Much looser statistics claim 70% but that's complicated and unlikely.

The point is that buying an electric car or installing solar power does help but the most important effect you can possibly have is to contact your governors and urge them to sponsor bills that curtail corporate welfare, especially those profiting from fossil fuels, and get serious about curbing the headlong rush into climate disaster.

Mjolnir is correct that some areas enjoy increased agricultural production with rising temperatures but some experience losses and none of that matter much if our ports are under sea water. Some people in vulnerable areas might also find concern at the prospect of Category 6 and 7 hurricanes and F6 tornadoes. A greater concern should be with simple climate instability since 6 weeks of warm sun can be followed by weeks of massive snow and ice storms in uncommon areas when things get more chaotic.

Arguing that we don't know very much should be of even greater concern since we have no experience of major tipping points, events that suddenly accelerate to a new, even more unknown paradigm. If you don't know the actual severity of a threat, only that it's coming, shouldn't you/we prepare for some balance between likelihood and severity?

I matter-of-factly believe that "we don't have any idea how this planet works," and we should stop pretending that we do, because we're only harming ourselves. Needlessly.

We know by now that most of North America was once covered by ice. Talk about "climate change!" But we actually do not have any idea why "all that ice" was there. The only thing that we can say for certain about this amazing planet is that it is still chock-full of mysteries. Perhaps we would do all of us a favor if we simply acknowledged this . . . As Einstein discovered, even "Newton's apple falling from a tree" conceals another mystery.

There are those who worry that the glaciers at Glacier National Park are vanishing – and, they are. However, of this I am quite certain: "they will return."

@enorbet: I'm no Chicken Little. I don't believe that the sky is falling anytime soon. I don't think that there's any actual "threat" nor that we have any meaningful way to "prepare for it," if it did. Your "clean" electric car is actually powered by coal. The only difference is that you don't see the power being generated. If you are recharging your car "overnight," the power that is instantaneously doing so did not come from wind nor solar.

I'm going to guess that there isn't an Encyclopaedia Britannica or World Book in your house.

@sundialsvcs: A recent BSD fortune cookie seemed to sum up your world view fairly simply. In fact, our views on the planet are not that far apart. I don't share the certainty of scientists who make definitive statements about what was going on zillions of years ago, because their views are constrained by their view of world history. But we do know a fair deal about how the planet works. What you're saying is that geologists & biologists should pack up and go home. I just think they should stick to present times, and say less on distant times.

A more pertinent view was outlined by the founder of Permaculture, the late Bill Mollison I think we are living through a period in history that will be much reviewed later, like the rise of the Nazis. It's people ruining the future for profit, and the world (= people alive today) is consenting. And when the Global South (whose countries are becoming uninhabitable) come to our shores, we limit immigration.

Noticed a big rental car company is abandoning hydrogen cars.

My family went all hybrid, and would have gone all electric had they been available for less than twice the price. Looking forward to the price going down.

And changed by voting habits to never support anyone who stands with big oil. EVER! No matter what party they claim.

My new water heater, furnace, and AC are all ultra-high efficiency. I will go with all heat exchange heating and cooling if it is available when this stuff goes bad.

Trying to get more solar, but the contractors doing that want to hit the bigger communities. They are not doing the rural areas unless someone offers them big money or a big project, and I do not have enough. I expect to need 50% more solar capacity to support an EV or two. Would prefer to not pull from grid EVER!

Time, and the new infrastructure packages passed by the US congress, will help. Right now it is still a bit difficult.

That's kind of a silly statement, isn't it?

Like it or not, we are all observers, with a "seventy-odd year life span with a good roll of the dice." And we are talking about a thing which is: very large, very old, and enormously complex ... in many ways that we don't even "have a cucking flue" about. Okay, so then, why do we all find it so very hard to admit this? Whoever said that "we need to have all the answers?" That's utterly absurd.

Let's just continue to make our theories and hypotheses. Let's observe, and let's try to string together every possible thing that we can. But ... knowing, and admitting, that our capacities are forever limited. There will, unfortunately, always be "a point beyond which we can't."

Sux to be mortal.

And, I've said before: "Whatever happened to ... Wonder?" How long has it been since a "serious scientist" said: "Wow! [I have no idea ...]" Without fearing for his grant funding? (Of course: I'm just(!) "making a light point.")

Acknowledge that "the climate changes." And that "the temperatures around the ocean vary." But: stop short of self-righteously proclaiming that "you know why," and that the rest of the world should conform itself ("by law," no less ...) to your views.

Yes, it is.

Pay no attention to him. Laugh at him, as do I.

Well, we do have a FEW clues. And we have been studying this world for millions of years, and writing it down for about 14,000 years. We are only limited to what we can directly observe during our lifetimes if we are willing to ignore all of the documented observations made before we started looking.

By the way, when they run into something about which they have no clue scientists are the professionals MOST likely to say "I have no clue!"! And they are the most likely to say it with a tone or wonder, or pure joy. This "discovering NEW things" is kinda what we LIVE for!

Only if we are totally ignorant of the subject does saying "I have no clue" make perfect sense. After that we should be reading up on the state of scientific knowledge on the subject, investigate the current ongoing research and findings, and perhaps consider where ELSE we might look for clues and how we might test our knowledge.

And just like that 2,500 years of science is dismissed out of hand.
Beats reading books I guess.

Yawn, all you need to do is look at state of weather predicting.... Turns out the best way is to look out your window in the morning to see what the weather is like.... Same with the scientist trying to predict climate change. More they learn, the more they don't have a clue, but they do know how to use stats and models (made up by someone) to skew data to which way the political winds are blowing which means 'money'... and use the 'fear' factor on the masses to hand over more cash... And make more laws and rules... The wind and solar installers are 'cashing' in big time too over this, and more energy consuming mining, more factories generating the pieces and parts (to help fill our landfills down the road, but hey, saving the planet). So it goes. I'll wait for the technology to mature before moving in that direction myself.

Who is going to buy a used electric vehicle BTW? More to fill landfill.

How old are you? Are you too young to recall the state of accuracy in weather prediction say in the 50s or even 60s? The improvement in the 21st Century is concrete evidence amazing progress has taken place in less than a human lifetime. It is either disingenuous or ignorant of the facts of history to say junk like "more they learn, the more they don't have a clue". I mean I might possibly understand such an attitude if you lived in Wyoming where they measure wind speed with a Logging Chain <wink, wink>.

In case you didn't guess I was joking. It's actually a lot harder to predict local weather than global climate averages. However you are correct that scientists know very little since their predictions always have been WAY too conservative. We have routinely exceeded both temperature and sea level increases year after year, and we don't know where any tipping points are excepting the Big Kahuna that turned Venus into a Hellhole and stripped Mars of all but wisps of atmosphere and water.



Incidentally, it isn't commonly scientists who get rich in economic paradigm shifts. It's corporations... well, excepting those who bet on the wrong horse. I imagine round about 1910 it would have been wise to get out of the buggy whip crafting business.

I'm not. But I can go further, and point out that D-Day in WW2 was on the 6th of June, and was a success. It wasn't on the 5th of June as originally planned, and a disaster because the Allies heeded a weather report from the West of (neutral)Ireland and kept themselves out of the rough weather in the English Channel on the night/early morning of the 5th.

Weather satellites have made a huge difference, but I can only rely on <24hours of accurate weather, and one week of general outlook. There's also statistics. For instance, a weather boffin reported times that are normally good, and normally poor. Early June, (5th -12th), 2nd week in July, & early September were traditionally good. I could immediately identify with and confirm them: End of school year exams(June); JW Convention (Mid July); and the week after we had returned to school (September).

So when it rained all summer, I booked my holidays for early September. People were cursing us, telling us about their 3 weeks of rain in Majorca. "How the <expletive> did you pick the weather?" Statistics . I doubt if they hold true any more. I'll report back if I think of it.

I'm going to direct people's attention back to something very wise I quoted earlier.
I'm going to mention methane. It seems to be everywhere - and wasted everywhere. We had a rain forest like environment here in Ireland back around 1000 A.D. but centuries of logging by a colonial power have left us with a large portion of wetlands, or bogs. Initially these were harvested for peat, which was burned as fuel. The Government set up a semi-state company to harvest peat. Nobody thought of methane. Irrigation schemes were set up to drain the bogs. Nobody thought of methane. The dried land had grass planted, and cattle could be grazed on it. Cattle farted voluminously. Nobody thought of methane.

Now grants are available to re-wet the bogs, but restricting cattle means restricting the only viable crop for small Irish farmers. What democracy reliant on farming votes is going to do thar? Methane is burnt off oil wells world wide. It is coming out of ice everywhere, and it's short term global warming potential is going to have to be factored in to the already unpleasant equations. Because every time there's a cross-check between reality and predictions, reality is worse.