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tomaswyns.bsky.social
Climate and industrial policy designer. Wallfacer. Brussels School of Governance at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
216 posts 170 followers 234 following
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Just made a visualization for myself about the unprecedented growth in solar that I thought I might share. You can see how from 1880 to 1950 all our electricity came from fossil and hydro. Then nuclear briefly grew with market share increasing with up to 1% per year in 1985. Now solar takes over.

📅 7-10 June 1979 was a historic moment for Europe. For the first time ever, citizens of the European Economic Community voted directly in European Parliament elections. A major step towards a more democratic Europe. 🔗 Find out more: europa.eu/!y9yVJG

Well this couldn’t have come at a better time www.bbc.com/news/article...

Confirmed: the May average of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa was 430.5 ppm, first time above 430 ppm in 15 million years, and a big jump from a year ago, again: +3.6 ppm! Overall, we're still speeding in the wrong direction.

Amai. @ec.europa.eu over Belgisch beleid, incl. energie. Je zult maar energieminister zijn en dit in je mailbox krijgen. commission.europa.eu/document/dow...

We (🇧🇪) did a thing.

The stingy one.

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years. What are we doing?

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

"For major emitters, today's decision means financial markets must now reassess the risks linked to their GHG emissions. Policymakers need to act quickly & ensure that major emitters pay for the damage they cause & the cost of protecting communities, in line with the polluter pays principle"

My friend is in charge of the team that wrote the climate change adaptation plan for Switzerland and this is one of the things they expected.

Europe must learn the art of ‘unpowering’ russia The EU is far from powerless — it is simply under-leveraged. Europe needs is a strategy not just of containment or building resilience but of “unpowering russia” — systematically reducing the kremlin’s ability to harm the bloc.

Unprecedented, there's that word again. ‘Unprecedented’ marine heatwave hits waters around Devon, Cornwall and Ireland Scientists warn of profound impacts as sea temperatures rise by up to 4C above average for springtime www.theguardian.com/environment/...

As the IRA gets largely repealed, Europeans will end up missing the (incremental) US green subsidies in more ways than one.

Absolutely devastating news When we need billions more trees to help suck up our emissions, global heating is destroying them faster than ever Wildfires are an increasingly dangerous positive feedback effect that will pump up carbon release ever higher www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Doen alsof er klimaatbeleid gevoerd wordt is in Vlaanderen/België uitgegroeid tot een vorm van moderne kunst. Beetje combinatie van Dada- en Nihilisme.

China is on track to become the world’s first major “electrostate,” with its electrification rate reaching 30 percent. This puts China ahead of both the EU and the US, where the proportion of electricity in total energy use has remained steady at about 22 percent in recent years.

Electrification means European energy for European homes and industry. It means energy security. It means we invest in ourselves rather than those who would do us harm. It means fewer emissions, more jobs and more control of our destiny. It is the make or break challenge of the next decade.

- effective altruism - rational environmentalism - climate realism Any movement that has a name that implicitly insults everyone else working on a problem (as ineffective, irrational or unrealistic) is just guaranteed to be trash

Bedankt voor alle mooie verhalen, meneer Terlouw, waar zowel mijn ouders als ik van mochten genieten. Ook de volgende generatie zal zich binnenkort mogen opmaken voor een reis naar Katoren: www.standaard.be/media-en-cul...

Humankind on its way to become a Kardashev scale 1 civilisation this century.

After decades of solar PV deployment, the world crossed the 1 TW (a million MW) line in 2022. Just two years later, after adding 0.6 GW in 2024, we already crossed the 2 TW mark too! @solarpowereu.bsky.social via @olofvandergaag.bsky.social

Would explain a lot nowadays

always useful to revisit this

According to the Fraunhofer Institute, canceled or delayed battery manufacturing projects in Europe now total around 700 GWh. That’s over a third of the 2,000 GWh originally announced for 2030.

90 yeas ago, Europe's best minds flew to the US when racist morons took power. Maybe it's time to come back. #chooseeurope

A new European citizen´s spirit is emerging across the Continent. We mustn’t fall below the ambition mustered on the 9th of May 1950. The EU must live up to Europe. Read this article co-authored by @sandrogozi.bsky.social here ⤵️ www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

Dit zegt ongeveer alles, eigenlijk.

Science ❤️. Cacio e Pepe a simple (and delicious) dish but extremely hard to master (for me at least).

Oops

Trump Opens Up Nation’s Aquariums To Commercial Fishing theonion.com/trump-o...

😲 “We built our last gas-fired facility in 2022, at $785/kW. If we wanted to build that same gas-fired combined cycle unit today…$2,400/kW" - NextEra CEO John Ketchum gasoutlook.com/analysis/cos... 🔌💡

#50YearsOfESA This month 50 years ago: 15 April 1975, the European Space Conference in Brussels adopts text of the Convention for a new European Space Agency, leaving just one final step before ESA could become a reality. See April's #ESAarchives #ObjectOfTheMonth 🔗 historicalarchives.esa.int#oom

Data-onderzoek dat ik samen met @sofyanelb.bsky.social deed over investeringen van boeren en belastingbetalers in emissiearme stallen die niet of nauwelijks werken. In totaal zo’n 2,4 miljard.

I wrote about why Republicans - and Trump specifically - often beat Democrats on messaging because they understand the politics of schemas and how to use them more effectively, while Democrats search for the best facts, but often lose the battle of perception: www.forkingpaths.co/p/schemas-an...

Stella Li, #2 at China's EV maker BYD in @tijd.be : "We have 122,000 engineers, it won't be easy to catch up with us."

"Then they came for the professors And I did not speak out Because I was not a professor"

Scientists hail ‘strongest evidence’ so far for life beyond our solar system

Great piece from Thorsten Brenner and Jakob Hensing. A sally to Friedrich Merz for rethinking Germany's industrial and economy strategy in terms of 'systemic competition'. A real challenge given Chinese overcapacity on on the one hand and US tariffs on the other. ip-quarterly.com/en/germany-n...

On the campaign trail today, Farage told a group of voters in the North that he understood the worries of the steelworkers because he used to be “in the metals business”. That would be the London Metals Exchange in the city where he worked as a commodities trader. (h/t Tom Baldwin)

I always knew Italy would invest its EU recovery funds wisely

An interesting side effect if the transition part of the energy transition is industry opting for multiple heat sources to use according to what energy prices are doing. And the more renewables we have, the more often the electric option will be chosen in industry.

Big meat as bad as big oil

“When faced with the second Trump presidency, Europe may be experiencing all five stages of grief at the same time: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.” My latest with Internationale Politik Quarterly on Europe’s dual challenge in the Trump era. ip-quarterly.com/en/europes-d...

WARNER: Can you explain how it helps natl security or our trade balance - I loved your fancy Greek formula which was bad math on steroids - how with a trade surplus Australia got hit with a 10% tariff as well? GREER: Australia has the lowest rate available WARNER: We have a trade surplus!

Delta Airlines earnings call today was apparently pretty clear that transatlantic air travel bookings are taking a nosedive, alongside everything else.