Gernot Wagner
@gwagner.com
Climate economist, Columbia https://gwagner.com It's pronounced "juggernaut" without the "jug"
"Heat kills — both lives and livelihoods." "And it is often rather small changes in the average that lead to large threshold effects" @chinadailyusa.bsky.social gwagner.com/china-daily-heat "only one additional day above 32 C in any given year lowers annual payroll by 0.04 percent" gwagner.com/hle
First call I've seen by any politician for an emergency heat summit. 41°C today in Vienna Kudos @lgewessler.bsky.social orf.at/stories/3438177
Grüne-Chefin Gewessler fordert Hitzegipfel
orf.at
short-termism /ˌSHôrtˈtərˌmizəm/ an excessive focus on immediate profits or quick results at the expense of long-term value, stability, and growth. It often appears in business, finance, and politics when decision-makers prioritize fast payoffs over future success
The wonders of economies of scale, via @akshatrathi.bsky.social: solar just passed 3TW origin.www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... In 2024, @economist.com put "The Dawn of the Solar Age" on its cover: The 3 key ingredients that make it so? Sun, sand, and human imagination, and all three are limitless.
Here's one key integrity metric for the AI age: Overdue writing & review assignments. If your journal's overdue author/reviewer submissions have dropped precipitously over the past couple of years, you may be getting duped into publishing AI slop.
Flashbacks to summer 2007, when the first Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed: "debt-fueled bets on AI's dazzling future left him on the wrong side of a brutal sell-off." There's a "Burning ashes" pun in here for the inevitable @economist.com leader
Not to platform the Telegraph, but having just returned from a part of the Mediterranean where it was 105 F and smoky and 200,000 people were being evacuated from their homes, I actually just don't think this political message will resonate with people any more!
Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 7d agoNighty night.
It's ⅒ of the cost, both in dollars and energy. Even if it's ½ as good, it's 5x the ROI — both in dollars and, significantly for [gestures around] in energy.
The Times and Sunday Times@thetimes.com · last wk.China’s AI is not the best but it can still come first
Not the most important aspect of extreme heat. (That's people dying, in case that isn't clear.) But yes, pinpointing winners & losers, “‘…is the trillion-dollar question,’ says [me], a climate economist at @columbiabusiness.bsky.social.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article... @bloomberg.com gift link
How Extreme Heat Is Shifting Corporate Bottom Lines
The economic burn of heat waves isn't evenly spread across industries, creating new investment opportunities and concerns for Wall Street.
bloomberg.com
Musk was humiliated in his interview with The Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes. She called him out on his bullshit, pointed out his lies and ignorance and extreme prejudice. We need more interviews like that. This is the response of the world’s thinnest-skinned man.
Next week: Business & Climate Change aka BCC block week! 18 hours, 4 guest speakers, climate risk, policy, tech, finance…in 2½ days between Wed & Fri. The encouraging bit: BCC is the most popular elective at all of @columbiabusiness.bsky.social, taken by 500 of 800 MBAs. Syllabus: gwagner.com/bcc
Yesterday afternoon 14:09 in Lacanau Océan in France. A pale red sun through the smoke tinged everything in Mars style orange. Welcome in the climate emergency! Despite all denial of the fossil fuel lobby, it’s scientific fact: CO2 emissions heat up Earth & make fires worse. 🔥🔥🔥
And we're doing this again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Both the deadly heat—and journalists illustrating deadly heat with pictures of a day at the beach. Sigh. apnews.com/article/hot-... @apnews.com
Heat dome expands across the central United States, creating dangerous conditions for millions
A heat dome is set to expand across much of the central United States, pushing temperatures above 100 degrees from Dallas to North Dakota.
apnews.com
I wrote a thing for OPEC, well for the OPEC Fund's 50th Anniversary book. I have visions of MBS having it on his coffee table, stumbling upon page 165, and learning a thing or two about climate finance: gwagner.com/opec-finance
The future of climate finance
The trend is clear. So are the challenges. One key task is to de-risk capital investments to lower costs. This is where public climate finance must play…
gwagner.com
When the story of why humanity didn't stop climate change is written, it will feature front pages like this. Even as the skies blacken with climate change-induced wildfires, right wing media continue their relentless crusade against measures to tackle it.
From the LinkedIn of an academic I have a lot of respect for.
I'm old enough to remember when the Very Serious People told us not to worry about gas stoves because that 15%-of-childhood-asthma-linked-to-gas-stoves study was merely a correlation, not causation. And yes, IKEA sells induction plates for $50. Cost isn't an excuse either.
Sammy Roth@sammyroth.bsky.social · 2w agoInsane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/electric-s...
Fun AI × Climate chat with a few dozen incoming MBAs today. Yes, CO₂ is up. Yes, big question whether productivity gains justify added CO₂. Yes, AI can help cut some CO₂, but see (1) & (2). And yes, I began with videos of Dimon, Buffett &…Andrew Tate. gwagner.com/climateCATALYST-AI (sound up)
Sperm Whales should really get together and spell out something. Anything. "Free Willy!" Missed opportunity.
Josh Luke Davis 🏳️🌈@joshlukedavis.com · 2w agokind of obsessed with the idea that someone has mapped the "concentration" of sperm whales in the ocean like they were a liquid also nice to see the whales have ordered themselves so neatly off the antarctic coast
Too much solar is bad because negative power prices. 🙃 Stop building wind because…curtailment. 🙃 Meanwhile, West Texas oil & gas producers wasting one of their two core products: www.wsj.com/finance/comm...
Why not indeed. So many win-wins on the fiscal side, it's hard to keep track.
Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 2w agoMiatta Fahnbulleh – the UK's new climate and energy secretary of state – writing in the Guardian seven years ago... "Why not invest in taking carbon out of our economy in a way that creates millions of good jobs and lifts living standards?" @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social
New cement decarbonization analysis just out. Yes, there are cost-effective, eminently deployable solutions. Yes, full decarbonization requires emerging technologies. business.columbia.edu/insights/climate/cement
Just to the south of the stadium is Europe’s densest neighborhood with over 50,000 people living within one square kilometer.
Gernot Wagner@gwagner.com · 2w agoNotice the difference?
