Katharina Umpfenbach

Working for @dena_news. Views expressed are my own.

[George Lakoff @GeorgeLakoff]

How to keep democracy alive in 2025:

1. Be Brave. Avoid helpless/hopeless talk. Authoritarians want you to feel powerless because it makes their work easier. Courage, faith, and optimism are essential. Fascism feeds on cynicism and pessimism. Starve it.

[Urban Cycling Institute 🚲  @fietsprofessor]

Paris proves bold leadership transforms cities. 🌍

From suffocating smog (2007) to clean, green & livable streets (2023):
🚴‍♀️ 100s of km of bike lanes
🌳 Tens of thousands of trees
🚗 Car-free zones & 30 km/h limits

Millions now breathe clean air.
When will we dare to follow? 💪

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

This week the Guardian's owner, the Scott Trust, gifted the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media.

This isn't just a dark day for journalism, it's a sign.

Meet the team.

This is Putin giving Tortoise's energy advisory board member an 'Order of Friendship' medal in 2017.
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[Ingwar Perowanowitsch @Perowinger94]

In Norwegen lag der Anteil an E-Autos bei den Neuzulassungen im November bei unglaublichen 96,3% und der Anteil an Benziner bei 0,14%. In zwei Wochen dürfen in 🇳🇴 als erstes Land in 🇪🇺 überhaupt keine neuen Verbrenner mehr zugelassen werden - ein Meilenstein für mehr Klimaschutz und Lebensqualität und auch die Verkehrswende schreitet in Städten wie Bergen oder Oslo unbeirrt voran. Und in 🇩🇪? Hier will die größte und vllt. nächste Kanzlerpartei das Verbrenner-Aus ab 2035 wegen „grüner Ideologie“ tatsächlich wieder rückgängig machen. Warum geht es hier bei so vielen Entwicklungen derzeit immer genau in die falsche Richtung?

[Heiner von Marschall @HvMarschall]

Die Zahl der #Verkehrstoten in Berlin ist in diesem Jahr um mehr als 50% gestiegen: von 33 im Jahr 2023 auf aktuell 55 im laufenden Jahr. Wo bleibt die #VisionZero ?
Heute wieder drei Mahnwachen für getötete Zufussgehende:

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

1. The conventional explanations for food deserts—that these places are too poor or too rural to generate enough spending on groceries, or too Black to overcome racist corporate redlining—fail to grapple with a key fact: food deserts didn’t used to exist. https://t.co/bTWm0rPJ6e

[@ChrisStoecker @ChrisStoecker]

Kolumne: Der Umgang mit der bedrohlichen Schwächung der Nordatlantikströmung #AMOC, ist etwa so, als wisse man, dass es eine realistische Gefahr gebe, dass der Heizkessel im eigenen Keller explodieren könnte, man sich aber entscheidet, das zu ignorieren. https://t.co/Es5XEVLSIz

[Jan Rosenow @janrosenow]

Pessimists sound clever.

Optimists change the world.

I love this depiction of the energy transition by RMI.

[Montel Analytics @MontelAnalytics]

Netherlands, this morning solar generation was much lower than day ahead forecasts had predicted. With wind at very low levels and also the Danish Cobra interconnector offline, demand turned out significantly higher due to colder than expected temperatures.

Energy production and imports fell short by almost 1400 MW at its highest. Prompting the activations of all available reserves in the Dutch market, well over 500 MW of aFRR reserve was deployed and the total available capacity of 924 MW of mFRR (incident reserve), to tackle the shortage in the market. This resulted, despite the Netherlands recently joining the pan European balancing market through Picasso in balancing prices of up to €2748 per MWh.

As the market ran out of capacity, this highlighted a future market change. If the market runs out of capacity, a scarcity factor will be added to the balancing price. This mechanism will only come into effect from 1 December 2025. The impact of that measure, if it would have been live to day would have been significant as it extrapolates the prices of the last 100 MW in the balancing merit order linearly to match the total imbalance.

A theoretical maximum price would then become possible of up to € 68.000/MWh

In today's example a highest price of around € 21000/MWh could have been hit at an imbalance of 1400 MW. If the scarcity factor had been active today.
#energymarkets #Netherlands #solargeneration #Picasso #energyprices

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Plans to create a vast privately-owned network of concentration camps – what could go wrong?
https://t.co/BD8HdUE6MG

[Nick Hedley @nickhedley]

Major French ski resort Alpe du Grand Serre has closed permanently just ahead of the 2024-25 winter ski season due to the impacts of our warming world.

‘We are devastated and shocked' https://t.co/uqcIi4DWHh

[Rupert Read 🌍 🔥 @GreenRupertRead]

A dire dire day for the living planet. Probably on balance literally the worst day ever.
Future generations will curse those who made today possible. That is not any kind of nastiness; it is simply a statement of fact.
#USA2024

[Katharina Umpfenbach @UmpfenbachK]

@leahmcelrath So why then did it happen?

[Jan Rosenow @janrosenow]

Huge demand for grid upgrades:

The world’s largest producer of transformers has warned its industry is “overwhelmed” and unable to meet exploding demand for grid equipment.

We will need an all-hands-on-deck approach to build out new and better manage existing grids.

https://t.co/8JvqBSXQ5t

[Volcaholic 🌋 @volcaholic1]

I'm crying. My heart hurts so much 💔🇪🇸

[Nahel Belgherze @WxNB_]

Satellite imagery reveals incredible before & after views of the disastrous Valencia floods. The new death toll stands at 205, with a staggering 1,900 people still unaccounted for.

[Stefan Holzheu @HolzheuStefan]

Ich bin ein großer Befürworter des EE-Ausbaus

ABER

ich bin dafür, dass wir die feste Einspeisevergütung für kleiner PV-Anlagen so schnell wie möglich beenden.

🧵

[Zeke Hausfather @hausfath]

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. While individual actions can reduce impacts, gov't policy will play a big role to make clean energy cheap and widespread.

The most important climate action you can take today is to vote.

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

A pregnant teenager died after trying to get care in three visits to Texas emergency rooms.

It took 20 hours and three ER visits before doctors admitted 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain to the hospital as her condition worsened.

She's one of at least two women who have died under Texas' Republican-endorsed abortion ban. https://t.co/dCRIsWMCqQ

[Dirk Messner @DirkMessner]

Erneut ein Panorama der Zerstörung, dieses Mal in Spanien. Die globale Erwärmung zieht weltweit Schneisen der Verwüstung durch unsere Städte und Landschaften. Keine neue Erkenntnis: Klimaschutz ist eine Investition in die Sicherung unsere Lebensgrundlagen. https://t.co/QBuzwyTgik