Our Take, with Doug Sheridan
Back in Oct 2022, Michael Bloomberg wrote, the climate change is the process of something as negligible as CO2 molecules accumulating bit by bit until the planet shakes.
Back in Oct 2022, Bloomberg wrote, the climate change is the process of something as negligible as CO2 molecules accumulating bit by bit until the planet shakes. That means it’s easy to overlook that tipping points aren’t just for desertification, collapsing ice sheets and coral bleaching.
The same gradually-then-all-at-once dynamic also applies to decarbonizing technologies. EVs take years to eke out gains in a market—but once ownership hits 5%, mass adoption goes into warp speed. The US just crossed that threshold this year.
There’s more weight to tip things over, thanks to increasingly generous incentives for everything from rooftop solar and e-bikes to furnace-replacing heat pumps. All these things fall within the realm of the personal. Even something as intangible as the fees on drivers in central London can become a force for EV adoption.
Your carbon footprint isn’t everything, but it is yours. It’s subject to direct action in a way that the collective politics of COP27 aren’t. It doesn’t get more collective than UN talks requiring consensus among all nations, and the summit to be held in Egypt will likely be defined by calls for climate reparations. The tipping point for arguing about “loss and damage,” as diplomats at COP27 call it, may prove to be Pakistan’s utterly devastating floods.
Government remains by far the biggest lever for eliminating emissions. But the personal is getting stronger, because there are more decarbonized options in people’s hands. Your dinner, your laundry, your playthings, your retirement account, your lawnmower—your power to shape our future has never been greater.
Tipping points aren't just for climate catastrophes. Solar power, electric cars, grid-scale batteries, heat pumps the world is crossing into a mass-adoption moment for green technologies.
Our Take 1: Historically, Bloomberg has published some the most bald-faced climate propaganda on the planet. And much of it has originated in its BloombergNEF unit, and flimsy tipping point and other forecasts have been at the center of the clownery.
Our Take 2: Let's take inventory of the tipping points Bloomberg told it's readers in 2022 were likely underway...
- EVs set to increase market share at "warp speed". Nope.
- Rooftop solar, e-bikes, and heat pumps were big tippers, too. Nope, nope and nope.
- Driver's fees for ICE vehicles in London would increase EV adoption in the UK. Nope.
- Meaningful agreement on climate reparations from rich nations to poorer ones at COP27 in Egypt was about to happen. Nope.
Our Take 3: We're pretty perplexed at the extent to which Mike Bloomberg is willing to allow such terrible journalism to be published by the organization that carries his name. Guess when you've got that many tens of billions in your bank account, you figure being seen as a purveyor of nonsense simply doesn't matter that much. Oh, well.
