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Fall AGU 2017

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It’s that time of year again. #AGU17 is from Dec 11 to Dec 16 in New Orleans (the traditional venue in San Francisco is undergoing renovations).

As in previous years, there will be extensive live streams from “AGU On Demand” (free, but an online registration is required) of interesting sessions and the keynote lectures from prize-winners and awardees.

Some potential highlights will be Dan Rather, Baba Brinkman, and Joanna Morgan. The E-lightning sessions are already filled with posters covering many aspects of AGU science. Clara Deser, Bjorn Stevens, David Neelin, Linda Mearns and Thomas Stocker are giving some the key climate-related named lectures. The Tyndall Lecture by Jim Fleming might also be of interest.

As usual there are plenty of sessions devoted to public affairs and science communication, including one focused on the use of humour in #scicomm (on Friday at 4pm to encourage people to stay to the end I imagine), and a workshop on Tuesday (joint with the ACLU and CSLDF) on legal issues for scientist activists and advocates.

AGU is also a great place to apply for jobs, get free legal advice, mingle, and network.

A couple of us will be there – and we might find time to post on anything interesting we see. If any readers spot us, say hi!

Reader Interactions

56 Responses to "Fall AGU 2017"

  1. #37 Barton Paul Levenson said Similar = same!

    No, it doesn’t. That’s why it’s called substitution, not lithium2, e.g. Any replacement, of any element, brings its own limits, its own new problems.

  2. #47 sidd

    If I am understanding the abstract, it is saying we may have trouble estimating how much trouble we’re in.

    That’s a given, isn’t it? Not really much to respond to.

  4. MA Rodger@38, Donald @30.
    The EIA has in fact been notorius for underestimating the future trajectory
    of renewables. Every year they predict that the rate of deployment has already
    peaked and till decline. They’ve done this despite more than a decade of being
    proved wrong. Whether its an institutional bias, which makes the conservative
    assumption that only projects currently in the pipeline will be built, or
    a similar assumption, that renewables technology and prices won’t improve
    the result has always been the same. They just aren’t credible anymore.

  5. #46 nigelj said Killian @44,

    The following article is a good analysis of global lithium reserves and implications for electric cars. There’s enough for many millions of electric cars but there are limits obviously.

    Limits? Fifty freaking years is way beyond “limits.”

    Can lithium batteries scale up? …the short answer is… not just no, but hell no. …we get about 50 years of supply

    And, dear nigel, why do you keep acting as if EVs are made of pure lithium. Go ahead, figure out the limits to the hundreds of other things in a car.

    But I still don’t know what else you expect us to do? If we don’t use the lithium available for something, what have we gained?

    This is what denialists say. I repeat my contention you are a soft denialist. Don’t change Capitalism, don’t reduce (much), don’t change the socio-political system…. change nothing, but be sustainable! You are either so far out of your league you are not only not in the ballpark, but are on a different continent or are a denier. The effect is the same. Yet, you continue to lecture and never listen.

    If lithium becomes expensive to use and extract, there are other probable battery option like aluminium and some new carbon battery I read about.

    And the article *you* posted says they face the same constraints.

    …to help stop dangerous climate change.

    You are already facing an existential threat.