⏳ 10-Second Climate

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows / Dylan

Author

Max Aitken
September 28, 2025

Be ready for a transformed world. This email cuts through the climate/energy noise - preparing you for the impact on your life, business & investments.

Don’t keep this a secret! Share the email with friends (sign up here). As always, send feedback or stories to [email protected].

What mattered this week

Renewables investment up 10% to $386bn

Good news! Yes - rate of growth down a bit, but not bad at all.
But we need to go faster? Yes. A lot faster.
Read more: Zero Carbon Analytics; The Guardian

Hot air is like actually literally damaging us like right now

Real or metaphorical? For once, real hot air - as air heats, it has more energy and absorbs more water. We’re up 5% - that makes extreme events more common.
Impact? Some terrifying footage this week alone - road collapse in Como; cars floating away in West Bengal and in Arizona; and water smashing the Fullerton Ocean Park Hotel in Hong Kong. This is gonna hurt 😱.
Read more: The Climate Brink: “The undeniable science of extreme weather”

One thing to worry about

“It used to be global cooling. If you look back years ago in the 1920s and 1930s they said, ‘Global cooling will kill the world. Then they said ‘global warming will kill the world.’ But then it started getting cooler … It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

Donald Trump, United Nations Speech, September 2025

Hot air, above from Trump, and below… where we live.

One thing to be optimistic about

Big news: China’s CATL launching salt batteries for cars (Autonews). Promised for years, and finally the power/weight ratio works.

  • Sodium (salt) is cheaper than lithium: batteries will be 20–30%

  • Salt is widely available, especially in China - no long supply chains like lithium

  • Sodium batteries work better in cold weather, and are safer in fire

No-one can keep up with China.

If you’ve got more time…

Is the rate of warming about to double? The 1980s OG climate scientist, James Hansen, thinks so. However, his emails are dense & difficult for non-specialists. 

So, read this breakdown by Inside Climate News on what he’s saying:

  • Our anti-pollution measures are cutting aerosols (tiny particles from burning coal, oil, etc.)

  • Aerosols cool by reflecting the sun; fewer means faster heating

  • Their effect is poorly measured and uncertain. Hansen says IPCC models underplay the speed of change

If he’s right, it’s serious.

“Something is going on in addition to greenhouse warming,” Hansen wrote, noting that July’s average global temperature soared to its second-highest reading on record even though the Pacific Ocean is in a cooling La Niña phase that temporarily dampens signs of warming.

Between now and 2040, he wrote that he expects the climate’s rate of warming to double in an “acceleration that can be traced to aerosols.”

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