Ben Matthews

  • New here on lemmy, will add more info later …
  • Also on mdon: @benjhm@scicomm.xyz
  • Try my interactive climate / futures model: SWIM
  • 0 Posts
  • 36 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 15th, 2023

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  • I’d like to have no phone at all, I don’t like small screens, nor being interrupted. Problem is that phone apps are now almost obligatory for IDs, transport tickets, passes, banking, etc. So I’d just like a phone-receiver (modem) with a sim card on a USB stick that can enable phone-app-stuff via my laptop or tablet. (Yes some tablets have data sim cards, but we still need sms and occasional phone functions for ‘verification’ etc.). Any suggestions?






  • It seems the problem is the regional governments , which are prioritising regional coal mining, to prioritise regional jobs. In China there is plenty of renewable energy capacity but the sun and wind are mainly in the W and S, while the old coal mines are in the E and N. China has plenty of climate scientists and diplomats pushing central government policy, but these have less influence on ‘local government’. As many ‘local governments’ in China govern populations larger than European countries, this is something like Poland trying to keep it’s coal mines alive, in contradiction to European climate policy. Eventually there will be surplus energy, some coal contracts are going to break, question is who wins and loses then. Western observers tend to think of China as a big centrally controlled monolith - it isn’t, the ‘local’ chiefs have a lot of power. Similar central / ‘local’ governance problem with housing bubble and debt.













  • As it happens I’ve been calculating per capita emissions for 28 years, since COP2. You can see my model here.
    No I certainly don’t include Russia nor Turkey, although europe is more than EU. Korea is indeed notable. Regarding what they call ‘consumption emissions’, you can get such data from Global Carbon Project, on that I’m less an expert but my hunch is that industry emissions are dominated by heavy products like steel and cement for construction (made with help of gigatons of coal), rather than light consumer goods for export. Over-construction is the root of the problem, global emissions will peak (maybe now) as that bubble bursts.