RadReduction (Larry Edwards)
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radreduction.bsky.social
RadReduction (Larry Edwards)
@radreduction.bsky.social
310 followers 530 following 620 posts
Follow me about radical reductions of climate harming emissions (especially from flying, cruise). Interests: climate, policy, overtourism.

My location: Under the global cloud of GHGs.

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Larry-Edwar
Posts Replies Media Videos
radreduction.bsky.social
Just like dealing with the mob (which this is, under Trump).

A clip from the FT article. (H/T @allouryesterdays.bsky.social). Nice post, Doug.
While the Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for the UN and multilateral organisations, diplomats and experts warned that the behaviour at the IMO crossed a line, with potential long-term consequences for global governance. “It was like the New York street,” said a diplomat from a nation that was threatened with visa restrictions for shipping crews and other penalties, including increased fees to access US ports, if it did not drop its support for the framework. “They went from delegation to delegation ... threatening them. Telling them to go back and speak to their capitals, warning what would happen if they didn’t change their minds,” the diplomat said. A second veteran of IMO meetings said the US tactics had left the entire organisation — usually a forum for technocratic discussion and consensusbased decision making — in a state of “complete shock”. “It’s like dealing with the Mob,” the veteran added. “It’s bully-boy tactics. They don’t need to tell you exactly what they’re going to do to you, just make it clear that there will be consequences.” A State Department official did not address the personal threats to delegates
November 4, 2025 at 1:52 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
.@antoniajuhasz.bsky.social, just a wild shot here that this may be something you would be interested in reporting on, when he has it ready.

See: www.herringscraps.com/hs40/
In the course of several years living in Sitka, Alaska, I noticed and became curious about the discrepancy at the heart of this thesis: In governing/managing the Sitka sound sac roe herring fishery, the Alaska Dept of Fish & Game is applying a knowledge system about herring that seems out of sync with the lived experiences and observations of locals generally and Indigenous elders specifically. I recognized in this problem an important example of how scientific authority can override community opposition to extractive projects. I returned to school to develop this thesis, in hopes of better understanding this particular knowledge controversy. In the thesis, I attempt to draw on a deep reservoir of archival material - decades of annual reports, newspaper articles, and Board of Fisheries records - to trace how the bundle of knowledge involved in herring enumeration and biomass allocation has been constructed by the State over time, to describe how that knowledge has then been enacted in the world, including by promoting an expanding commercial fishery, and to reflect on what this case study means in the context of concepts like Shifting Baselines Syndrome.
October 13, 2025 at 6:27 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
Just published, in Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences:

"Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the technofix"

Open access:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Screen shot:
Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the technofix Gareth Dale, Josh Moos and Alistair Bernal Holmes ABSTRACT This paper argues that rising aviation emissions, which are disproportionally driven by the wealthy, pose a serious threat to climate goals. Using the UK’s Jet Zero strategy as a case study, it explores how policymakers and industry promote speculative technologies—efficiency gains, electric and hydrogen aircraft, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon capture, and offsetting—to justify continued aviation growth. We critically assess these claims: electric aircraft are limited to short routes; hydrogen faces major storage and infrastructure barriers, and green hydrogen remains scarce. SAFs, often derived from land-intensive crops, risk deforestation, biodiversity loss, and higher net emissions. Second generation SAFs, such as used cooking oil, are scarce, and power-to-liquid is speculative and prohibitively expensive. Carbon capture is unproven at scale, and offsetting enables airlines to claim reductions without cutting actual emissions. These “solutions” align with a political agenda that prioritises economic growth and airport expansion. We argue that this techno-optimism delays real action. Rather than gambling on future breakthroughs that may never materialise, policymakers should pursue immediate demand-reduction strategies and support a just transition—ending frequent-flyer incentives, shifting short-haul flights to rail, removing aviation fuel subsidies, and retraining workers for low-carbon sectors.
October 10, 2025 at 9:37 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
Here is a powerful, eye-opening video lecture by @naomioreskes.bsky.social summarizing her latest work & the core of her new 500-page book "The Big Myth."

Even if you know a lot about how industry has captured US & European politics & culture, this will shock!

dist02.tobira.ethz.ch/mh_default_o...
This is the introduction slide of Naomi Oreskes 6 May 2025 talk titled "How the Myth of the Free Market has blocked climate action." The biography on the slide is, "The renowned scientist Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) on economic ideology and its role in obstructing science-based responses to today's most pressing challenges." The talk is a Speed-2-Zero perspective, sponsored by ETH Zurich, eawag, Empa, EPFK, PSI and WSL. The moderator is Swiss climate scientist Sonia Senevirantne. The talk runs 50 minutes, followed by 18 minutes of pithy questions, and answers. The talk is a summary of the core of Oreskes' new book "The Big Myth," covering how untruths about the free market and how the economy works in broad terms got ingrained in US and European culture from the 1920s onward, through an intentional corporate collusion relying on propaganda.
September 27, 2025 at 9:07 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
Among your most interesting points, in my view, are these at the end of your reply to Question 4:
The climate realities of 2005 and 2025 are worlds apart. The pace, scale, and nature of the challenge have shifted so dramatically that earlier modelling offers little useful guidance. Still, some lessons remain: 1. Challenge the framework: Whether net zero, 1.5°C or 2°C, we must question the boundaries of accepted analysis, and even whether temperature is the best framing. 2. Widen the lens: Climate change is one part of a broader ecological and social crisis. Treated in isolation, it invites narrow, technocratic fixes that deepen injustice and shifts damage elsewhere. 3. Break the taboo on discretionary emissions: Structurally locked-in emissions dominate discourse; discretionary emissions – especially from the middle and upper classes – are ignored. Even now, questioning these lifestyles remains taboo, despite their hugely disproportionate impact and capacity for rapid change.
September 13, 2025 at 8:41 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
And then there is this, from Hare (1997).

www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Taking the climate sensitivity to be 3.5oC, with a limit of a 1oC increase in global mean surface temperature above pre-industrial levels and assuming that other greenhouse gases contribute about one quarter of the effect of CO 2 alone in the long term, the ‘carbon budget’ over the next century can be estimated in terms of billions of tonnes of carbon ( GtC). With these assumptions, the ‘carbon budget’ is: - 145 GtC - With no action to stop current trends of deforestation (as forests release carbon when destroyed), with 80 GtC emitted from this source over the next century. - 225 GtC - With major action to halt deforestation, stabilising the role of forests at current levels, which would involve a significant global reafforestation programme next century. - 265 GtC - With major action to halt deforestation and a major global afforestation programme to sequester (take up) an extra 40 GtC. There is an uncertainty of around 50% associated with these budgets deriving from uncertainties in the climate sensitivity, the role of other greenhouse gases, in the carbon cycle models and other factors. It should be noted that limiting the long term temperature rise may mean getting back below a 1.0oC increase above pre-industrial levels as it may not be possible to avoid a rise of 1.0oC. Because of the lag between temperature rise in the air and the thermal expansion of the sea, it is still possible to avoid breaking the limit for sea-level rise if fast enough action is taken.
September 11, 2025 at 1:56 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
That's all true, and is again a nice generality. If government acts on it, it's hard to say what you will actually get.

An example of specifics—Hawaii's Dept of Transport, seeing cruise tourism as less important that sea cargo, put the below cruise ship restrictions in its June draft GHG plan:
(Table) Marine Strategies HAR: Harbors HAR-1, Description Reduce the Number of Cruise Ship Calls and the Size of Cruise Ships Allowed to Dock: HDOT, in coordination with cruise Lines, Local businesses, stevedores, ground transportation providers, and affected communities, will implement regulations to reduce both the number and size of cruise ships visiting Hawaii ports. This strategy is designed to reduce marine sector emissions in the state, enhance Local air and water quality, and Lessen the environmental and social impacts of Large-scale cruise tourism. implementation Timeline: 2030: 50% reduction in overall cruise vessel calls, 75% in >3,000 passenger vessel calls. 2035: 75% reduction in overall cruise vessel calls, 100% in >3,000 passenger vessel calls. 2040 through 2045: Limit the cruise vessel calls to 75% below 2023 levels. Roles and Responsibilities: • HDOT: Develop, adopt, and implement the regulation/policy. Benchmark: Reduction in Cruise Ship Traffic - Track the percentage decrease in total cruise ship calls and large cruise ship calls (those carrying more than 3,000 passengers) at commercial ports compared to 2023 Levels using PortCall.com data.
September 8, 2025 at 9:47 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
Final paragraph of Fressoz (2025), doi.org/10.1016/j.er... "In tech we trust: A history of technophilia in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) climate mitigation expertise" (open access):
New questions need to be studied. What, for instance, would be the social and economic implications of deliberately downsizing or phasing out specific sectors? How would a sustained decline in international tourism affect welfare and employment? What would be the conse­ quences of halting new road construction in high-income countries, of reducing drastically meat consumption and car usage or of dismantling the military-industrial complex? How might such structural shifts reshape broader economic systems and collective well-being? These questions may appear speculative, but they are arguably no more so than the vision of hydrogen-powered aircraft featured in the recent IPCC working group III report. Only by engaging these questions can mitigation expertise begin to support a serious democratic debate on sufficiency, reduction, and dismantlement. As CO2 concentrations continue to rise, such issues are no longer peripheral—they are central to any realistic assessment of climate futures. If climate expertise re­ mains tied to speculative technological assumptions, it risks being judged not as a force for political or economic reorientation, but as a system that delayed necessary action by narrowing the scope of legiti­ mate solutions.
September 7, 2025 at 6:56 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
In thinking of the trillions in should-be-stranded fossil assets Trump & the GOP are protecting, don't overlook the huge Paris-Agreement-sanctioned expansion of aviation and cruise industry assets: more airliners, more cruise ships, airport expansions, new cruise destination resorts. Big business!
Image of the original Bsky post by David Ho, @davidho.bsky.social on August 28, relaying a New York Times article: David's post says, "Because destroying the US is not enough, Trump is using tariffs, visa restrictions, and trade deals to pressure other countries to abandon climate goals and increase fossil fuel use, further destroying the world and the future." The NYT headline was, "Trump, With Tariffs and Threats, Tries to Strong-Arm Nations to Retreat on Climate Goals," and the link to it is https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-international-pressure-climate-oil.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk8.Ks3F.S-JFEYw8YcUW&smid=bs-share
August 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
Some more or the text from the petition (280,000 signatures so far, 300,000 targeted):

www-change-org.translate.goog/p/claudiashe... ):
This project directly threatens: Our rights of access and use of the sea, beaches, and mangroves, our local identity, our way of life, our freedom to live here, and above all, the survival of unique and threatened ecosystems: three species of sea turtles, resident manatees, living mangroves, and the second largest coral reef in the world. We have already witnessed their environmental management: videos circulating showing the dumping of wastewater into the mangroves adjacent to their facilities. And today, it's not just a cruise ship dock, but a giant water park. 📍 This project is not an isolated case. In CocoCay (Bahamas), an identical Royal Caribbean project already led to : The exclusion of local populations from their coastline, with the privatization of coastal areas that were previously freely accessible, The massive destruction of biodiversity through the elimination of mangroves and pollution of the reef, causing a drastic reduction in marine fauna, The almost exclusive enrichment of the multinational . Royal Caribbean plans to welcome up to 20,000 tourists per day: with them, tons of chemical sunscreen, plastic waste, water-polluting mega-cruise ships, and absurd freshwater consumption in a region already suffering from water stress. All of this destroys mangroves and still-living coastlines, without a serious environmental impact study, and dispossesses local communities of their own territories, as has already happened elsewhere.
August 25, 2025 at 10:30 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
This chart from the report shows how Hawaii's Dept of Transport is planning to reach net-negative maritime sector emissions by 2045.

It features a deep cut in cruise tourism because, "Unlike cargo vessels, cruise ships primarily serve tourism and…do not necessarily enhance core economic sectors…"
Figure 3-3. Marine Net-Negative Emissions Strategy HDOT's overarching goal is to achieve absolute zero emissions as soon as possible. It is a chart, with "CO2 Emission in metric tonnes on the Y axis, and years 2025 through 2025 on the X axis. 1. Cruise Activity: 50% reduction by 2030, and 75% by 2035; restrict vessels > 3000 pax 2. Cruise Vessel: Non-home ported vessels transitioning to bio-LNG near term and e-fuels longer term 3. Interisland Operation: 100% biodiesel by 2030, transitioning to e-fuels by 2045. 4. Inter-state Operation: 70% bio-LNG by 2030, shifting to e-fuels by 2045. 5. Assist Tugs : 100% biodiesel by 2030, moving to zero emissions by 2045.
August 24, 2025 at 8:48 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
Here is a summary of Hawai'i DOT's move for reducing visits by cruise ships and the climate-harming emissions of these ships.

See previous post for a link to the June 2025 draft plan.
Marine Strategies (HAR: Harbors) Strategy Description HAR-1 Reduce the Number of Cruise Ship Calls and the Size of Cruise Ships Allowed to Dock: HDOT, in coordination with cruise lines, local businesses, stevedores, ground transportation providers, and affected communities, will implement regulations to reduce both the number and size of cruise ships visiting Hawai‘i ports. This strategy is designed to reduce marine sector emissions in the state, enhance local air and water quality, and lessen the environmental and social impacts of large-scale cruise tourism. Implementation Timeline: 2030: 50% reduction in overall cruise vessel calls, 75% in >3,000 passenger vessel calls. 2035: 75% reduction in overall cruise vessel calls, 100% in >3,000 passenger vessel calls. 2040 through 2045: Limit the cruise vessel calls to 75% below 2023 levels. Roles and Responsibilities: • HDOT: Develop, adopt, and implement the regulation/policy. Benchmark: Reduction in Cruise Ship Traffic – Track the percentage decrease in total cruise ship calls and large cruise ship calls (those carrying more than 3,000 passengers) at commercial ports compared to 2023 levels using PortCall.com data.
August 24, 2025 at 8:34 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
In 2020 @coxstan.bsky.social & I took a stab at answering that dilemma: www.researchgate.net/publication/....

We also reported in 2022 on scientists testifying on a policy "palatability" pathway, at a hearing of the Oireachtas (Ireland's legislature), below: www.resilience.org/stories/2022... 3/3
As the scientists discussed several times [at the Oireachtas hearing] during the hearing, the governmental action they are calling for is “not easy” and is “politically risky”, because “none of it is palatable” to the public, at least at present. But the climate physics and the now all-too-apparent and rapidly escalating climate impacts show that the only “realistic” course is for politicians, scientists and activists to strive – paraphrasing the words of the four – to make unthinkable policy thinkable, and the unpalatable palatable. There are no easy choices left; the easy choices evaporated years or decades ago. We have found that among climate scientists and politicians, advocacy for a direct fossil fuel phase-out with adaptation through resource allocation and rationing, is very rare indeed. That’s why we found the Oireachtas hearing so encouraging. We hope that the views of McMullin, Price, Sweeney, and Anderson will emanate through the world climate community.
August 18, 2025 at 7:51 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
This was the status of the Washington Monument the last time forces threatened to invade Washington, D.C.

(Circa 1861)

(Well, except for Jan. 6, but things are starting to look even more serious now.)
A photo of the stub of the unfinished Washington Monument, in 1861.
August 17, 2025 at 10:27 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
CRUISE SHIP CAP: This article details Monday's substantial win in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals by defendant Town of Bar Harbor, Maine and defendant-intervenor Charles Sidman.

The cap will stand, depending on how lower court rules on 1 remanded issue.

theqsjournal.substack.com/p/how-us-cir...
The headline from Lincoln Millstein's article in his Quietside Journal on August 12, 2025: "How U.S. Circuit Court dismantled APPLL's interstate commerce arguments" Note: APPLL is a group of Bar Harbor (Maine) businesses that formed to litigate against a citizen initiative passed by local citizens in November 2022 to greatly limit the daily number of cruise ship passengers landing there. The initiative had passed by a 2-to-1 margin.)
August 13, 2025 at 7:16 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
I mean, several years ago there was one incident of cars being flushed down a city street. It was like, "Wow, that's a step change!"

Then in 2021 such flooding stepped up a big notch, prompting me to ask this of climate & weather professionals on Twitter. I got an interesting answer:
RadReduction (Larry Edwards) ©RadReduction Questions for weather professionals: 1. In what year did you first note cars being flushed down a city's streets? 2. In what year did you first note this happening in two or more parts of the world in one season? @Weather_West @WeatherProf @severeweatherEU @richardabetts 10:39 AM ■ Jul 21, 2021 ■ Twitter Web App Prof Richard Betts© @richardabetts ■ Jul 22 Replying to ©RadReduction ©Weather_West and 2 others 1. 2004 Boscastle, Cornwall. Although it's not actually a city, there was a photo of a car I used in talks. 2. Don't know. "Season" is quite long (3 months), I wouldn't particularly remember. Recent events might be the first time I noted it in 2 places within the same week.
August 6, 2025 at 6:07 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
4 years and a week ago, with flooding around the world reaching then-epic scale (now far eclipsed), on Twitter I asked some climate/weather professionals about history of a metric of sorts of scale & frequent.

@richardabetts.bsky.social kindly sent this interesting reply:
My questions for weather professionals, sent on July 21, 2021 on Twitter to : @Weather_West, @WeatherProf, @severeweatherEU, and @richardabetts: 1. In what year did you first note cars being flushed down a city's streets? 2. In what year did you first note this happening in two or more parts of the world in one season? An answer came from Prof. Richard Betts (of UK Met Office and an IPCC lead author) the next day, July 22, 2021: “1. 2004 Boscastle, Cornwall. Although it's not actually a city, there was a photo of a car I used in talks.” “2. Don't know. ‘Season’ is quite long (3 months), I wouldn't particularly remember. Recent events might be the first time I noted it in two places within the same week.”
July 29, 2025 at 7:00 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
"A Natural Wildcard "There’s also a natural twist: El Niño. When the central Pacific heats up, the jet stream shifts, priming the pump for QRA. The study finds that QRA peaks often follow a strong El Niño—just like the one in summer 2024. If history repeats, brace yourself for a rough season ahead. “'This research shows another way we’re upsetting the climate system—and it’ll come back to haunt us with historic summer extremes,' warns Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. She wasn’t part of the study but has long studied extreme winter weather."
July 4, 2025 at 9:40 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
From the Rapporteur's report:
"VII. Multilateral reforms While it is commendable that sixteen States are supporting the call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, given the lengthy and uncertain process of treaty negotiations, it is recommended to focus on implementation and monitoring of defossilization under existing international human rights obligations in this decade. This could theoretically be done under the Paris Agreement, subject to significant reform of this multilateral climate process which has been deeply captured by the fossil fuel industry. In the absence of reform to explicitly tackle the playbook, and of the initiation of a process specifically devoted to the phaseout at the thirtieth session of the Conference of the Parties, in 2025, the Special Rapporteur recommends that the Secretary-General of the United Nations convene a process on defossilization with State and non-State actors and diverse knowledge-holders. Any such process should be intergenerational and built on transformation science and on truth-telling/listening methodologies of transitional justice approaches."
June 30, 2025 at 9:43 AM
radreduction.bsky.social
Red Lines are needed, because red blobs are becoming common and frequent (H/T, bsky.app/profile/extr...)

"EXTRAORDINARY DAY IN EUROPE
Thousands of records pulverized from the Azores to Turkey
Temperatures up to 45C ! ... A day for history books !"
Extreme Temperatures Around the World ‪@extremetemps.bsky.social‬ EXTRAORDINARY DAY IN EUROPE Thousands of records pulverized from the Azores to Turkey Temperatures up to 45C ! In about 1 hour,I ll publish 2 posts one for the records in the West (Morocco,Spain,Portugal,France,UK,etc..) one for the East (Greece,Turkey,all Balkans,etc..) A day for history books !
June 29, 2025 at 7:07 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
"This imbalance may lead to worse longer-term consequences. …the only climate models coming close to simulating real world measurements are those with a higher 'climate sensitivity'. [They] predict more severe warming beyond the next few decades [if' emissions are not rapidly reduced."
How do you measure climate change? One way is by recording temperatures in different places over a long period of time. While this works well, natural variation can make it harder to see longer-term trends. But another approach can give us a very clear sense of what’s going on: track how much heat enters Earth’s atmosphere and how much heat leaves. This is Earth’s energy budget, and it’s now well and truly out of balance. Our recent research found this imbalance has more than doubled over the last 20 years. Other researchers have come to the same conclusions. This imbalance is now substantially more than climate models have suggested.
June 28, 2025 at 9:52 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
When the case eventually reached the Supreme Court, a group of climate scientists contributed an amicus brief—a legal document in which a third party not directly involved in the case can offer testimony—sharing data demonstrating that rising global temperatures were directly caused by human activity. This led to the Supreme Court deciding that greenhouse gases did constitute pollutants under the Clean Air Act and, ultimately, to the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. The endangerment finding became the basis for governmental regulation of greenhouse gases. Sixteen years later, the Trump administration is poised to repeal it, along with other environmental protections. In a new commentary, Saleska et al., the authors of the amicus brief, reflect on the brief and the damage the endangerment finding’s potential repeal could cause. Today, many of the climate scientists’ concerns from the early 2000s have become reality, the authors say. The Earth’s 12 warmest years on record all occurred after 2009. The oceans are growing hotter and more acidic, and Arctic sea ice is retreating. ... [and more: see the EOS article]
June 24, 2025 at 7:20 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
Summary by the editor of Science Journal: "Editor’s summary Climate warms or cools depending on whether the net energy flux from incoming solar radiation is respectively greater or less than that of outgoing long-wave radiation at the top of Earth’s atmosphere. Satellite data have shown that an energy imbalance producing warming has strengthened between 2001 and 2023. Myhre et al. show that climate models with low climate sensitivity do not reproduce that trend in Earth energy imbalance. Their finding means that increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases likely will cause even more warming than most current models predict. —Jesse Smith"
June 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
The image is a Bluesky post by David Gura @davidgura.bsky.social, made an hour ago on June 12. His post says, "Sen. Alex Padilla, who was just forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, is the ranking member of Judiciary's subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, which has "oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement responsibilities."
June 12, 2025 at 8:27 PM
radreduction.bsky.social
An interesting take, 76 years ago, by Albert Einstein in 1949 (monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/w...):
For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society. Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile ...
June 4, 2025 at 7:50 PM