The Climate Realist

Heat pumps typically only work when the outside temperature is above -25 C or so. Today, we're tackling heat pumps, and how they handle the winter.

Imagine a world powered by clean, abundant energy. No more fossil fuels, no more dams. This is the promise of nuclear fusion, a technology that harnesses the power of the sun right here on Earth.

In this episode of The Climate Realist, we're diving into the world of fusion. We'll explore how it works, compare it to traditional nuclear fission, and discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

This isn't a future fantasy. Scientists are now making significant progress in developing fusion reactors, and it could be the key to solving the climate crisis. But there are still hurdles to overcome.

The food that we all waste turns out to be a major contributor to climate change.

This episode of The Climate Realist podcast goes over how you can personally help, and save money at the same time by reducing your grocery bills.

Some good articles to read on the subject are:

From the UN food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

Food wastage footprint

From the World Wildlife Fund (WWF):

Fight climate change by preventing food waste

From the US Department of Agriculture (USDA):

Food Waste and its Links to Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change

From the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste

In the next year or two, all of these brands will have electric trucks available for sale in North America.

As you can see around you, we North Americans love our trucks. It’s heartening to see that Electric models are becoming a practical reality.. But, they still have their limitations. Listen in to find out.

We’ll compare and contrast:

Ford’s conservative but practical approach to electrification with their F150 Lightning.

RAM also takes a practical approach, but adds a game changing V6 range extender option for the Ramcharger REx.

GM’s Chevrolet Silverado EV is more daring, and is both a bottom up and top down re-imagining of what a pickup should be.

Rivian has a very interesting product. But the big truck brands are nipping at their heels.

And finally, the Tesla Cybertruck. A radical design. Love it or hate it, they are just hitting the streets now.

Today, December 13, the COP28 climate conference in Dubai wrapped up. We’ll discuss what came of this conference, compared to the 27 conferences before it.

In this episode, we examine what caused the ice ages, glacial/interglacial periods, and previous global warming events. How do we know our current climate change isn’t just a natural cycle?

Natural climate change is affected by a combination of atmospheric chemistry, solar radiation, ocean currents, and most relevant to today’s conversation, something called the Milankovitch effect.

In this episode, we examine the potential of trees and forests to naturally absorb more CO2. We discuss a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature on the subject. It turns out that forests worldwide could absorb about 7 years of worldwide Carbon emissions, if we just got out of the way and let them do it.

This episode, we’ll talk about how we could use hydro electric dams, and pumped hydro as gigantic storage batteries, enabling all of western Canada to be powered by renewable solar and wind power.

Governments around the western world are setting electric vehicle mandates, where a certain percentage of the new vehicles supplied by each manufacturer need to be zero emission by some arbitrary year. Some governments are setting ambitious goals of 90% of new vehicles by 2030. Is this realistic?

With my AI co-host Sophie, we have a wide ranging discussion of food security in our time of changing climate. We talk about the 100 mile diet and all sorts of related technologies and systems, ranging from local gardens, indoor growing, and commercial scale vertical gardens and storage systems.