March 2019 – No Fricking Fracking

In Florida, Doctors See Climate Change Hurting Their Most Vulnerable Patients

This NPR article discusses the health impact from climate change on poor people in Florida.

And it may only be getting worse. The 2018 National Climate Assessment noted that the southeastern United States is already experiencing “more and longer summer heat waves.” By 2050, experts say, rising global temperatures are expected to mean that nearly half the days in the year in Florida will be dangerously hot, when the combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like it’s 105 degrees or more.

Florida utility to close natural gas plants, build massive solar-powered battery

This Ars Technica article discusses the future plans of a Florida utility – close its natural gas plants and build a massive solar-powered battery. On Thursday, that it would retire two natural gas plants and replace those plants with what is likely to be the world’s largest solar-powered battery bank when it’s completed in 2021.

Climate Change Emergency: Would It Be Legal? Would It Be Useful?

The Revelator article discusses what would be the effect of the next President declaring a climate change emergency. Environmental and constitutional law scholar Dan Farber explains what a climate change emergency declaration could achieve.

The possibility of declaring a national emergency to address climate change will probably remain under discussion for the next couple of years, particularly if the courts uphold President Trump’s wall “emergency.” As a legal scholar, I want to explain how a climate emergency declaration would work and what it could and couldn’t do. But first I want to emphasize three key points:

Declaring a climate emergency should be off the table if the Supreme Court rules against Trump.
An emergency declaration is not a magic wand that gives presidents a blank check. A declaration would allow some constructive steps to be taken, but within limits.
The ultimate goal has to be congressional action, and an emergency declaration should only be considered as part of a larger legislative and administrative agenda.

Study: Stopping Human-Caused Air Pollution Would Prevent 5.6 Million Air Pollution Deaths Per Year

This article discusses a study that shows that if we stop human-caused air pollution, it would prevent 5.6 million air pollution deaths per year.

If humans stopped emitting air pollution, an astonishing 5.6 million premature deaths per year due to global outdoor air pollution could be prevented, according to research published Monday. About 65% of these deaths are due to burning of fossil fuels, with the remainder due to such activities as biomass burning and agriculture. Eliminating human-caused air pollution would also significantly reduce drought in monsoon regions, but it would allow more sunlight to reach the surface, increasing Earth’s surface temperature by at least 0.36°C (0.65°F). Overall, the effects would be hugely beneficial.

The study, Effects of fossil fuel and total anthropogenic emission removal on public health and climate, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by a team headed by atmospheric researcher Jos Lelieveld of the Max Planck Institute. The study built on their previous work, published on March 12, which found that the health burden of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution is much higher than has been previously assumed. They concluded that outdoor air pollution from PM2.5 and ozone causes 8.79 million premature deaths globally each year. Of that total, natural sources of outdoor air pollution accounted for 3.24 million deaths per year, and human-caused sources were 5.55 million per year. According to air pollution scientist Susan Anenberg of The George Washington University, who was not involved in the study, “these results of the new study are in line with previous research showing that the global burden of ambient PM2.5 on mortality could be substantially larger than previously thought, indicating about a doubling of the estimates currently reported by the Global Burden of Disease study.”

Brace yourself for more attention — and attacks — on climate change and the environment

This Environmental Health News article by Peter Dykstra discusses why we need to get ready for more attention, and attacks, on climate change and the environment. Climate and the environment may be poised to take center stage in American politics. But for many, it’ll be as anti-environment talking points.

Advocates of action on climate change have long been galled by the neglect of the issue in reporting on national politics.

Presidential debate moderators haven’t found the topic worthy of a question since 2008. The relationship of climate change to extreme weather events is almost completely absent from stories about unprecedented deluges, droughts, bomb cyclones, wildfires and more.

Such attention may well be coming, and for environmentalists, it may not all be the welcome kind. I wrote last week about gullibility in climate politics, and in February, I cited the first sign of a return to the Red Scare days, with Greens in the crosshairs.

DeSmog Blog

This week’s posting contains articles on the oil industry subterfuge. activists fighting the chemical industry in Louisiana, Australian deniers meeting with the Koch Brothers, the financial impact of Trump’s rollback of clean car standards and his appointing an Independent Petroleum Association of America insider to the top DOI post, the impact hurricanes will have on the coasts, a proposed ban of Exxon-Mobil from lobbying the European Parliament, and an expose of Australian denier Peter Ridd.

Five part post on cutting GHGs

This series of Yale Climate Connections articles address how to cut your carbon footprint:

2 Articles on battery storage

This article discusses renewable energy using batteries.

This article discusses the same topic.

Report: the Past Four Years Were Warmest on Record

This article discusses a U.N. report finding that the past four years were the warmest on record. Extreme weather affected 62 million people in 2018, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

THE PAST FOUR YEARS have been the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual State of the Climate report. Climate change impacts are worsening, according to findings from the United Nations’ weather agency. The report, released Thursday, found that 62 million people were affected by extreme weather last year.

This article discusses the same problem. The World Meteorological Organization released the 2018 edition of its annual State of the Global Climate report, which finds “accelerating” impacts of climate change, and confirms 2015 through 2018 are now the four warmest years on record.

The WMO’s report, its 25th annual report, tracks a number of changes, including record sea level rise, and “exceptionally high” temperatures both on land and in the ocean during the 2015-2018 period.

Study: Where Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes Will Go In The Future

This NPR article discusses just how far north mosquitoes could migrate because of climate change.

Based on estimates of future temperatures across the world, the authors of a study published this week in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases mapped where the mosquitoes that transmit diseases like dengue and Zika might travel if climate change continues unchecked.

Based on their worst-case scenario projections, the researchers believe as many as a billion people could be newly exposed to these illnesses within the century.

“We’re really worried about major urban centers in places like Europe, the United States and China especially,” says Colin Carlson, co-lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, who specializes in ecological modeling.