This Huffington Post article discusses 7 numbers that show just how dire climate change got this decade – heat, wildfires, hurricanes, sea ice, flooding, disaster costs, and GHG emissions. From melting ice caps to record-breaking wildfires, hurricanes and floods, the deadly consequences of human-caused global warming are here. The United Nations released report after report detailing the heightening emergency of human-caused global warming and warning world leaders to take dramatic and swift action to avert catastrophe.
Month: December 2019
Report: North Atlantic Current May Cease Temporarily In The Next Century
This Science Magazine article discusses how the North Atlantic current may cease temporarily.
The North Atlantic Current transports warm water from the Gulf of Mexico towards Europe, providing much of north-western Europe with a relatively mild climate. However, scientists suspect that meltwater from Greenland and excessive rainfall could interfere with this ocean current. Simulations by scientists from the University of Groningen and Utrecht University showed that it is unlikely that the current will come to a complete stop, due to small and rapid changes in precipitation over the North Atlantic. However, there is a 15 percent likelihood that there will be a temporary change in the current in the next 100 years. The results were published on 30 December in the journal Scientific Reports.
‘The oceans store an immense amount of energy and the ocean currents have a strong effect on the Earth’s climate,’ says University of Groningen Associate Professor in Numerical Mathematics, Fred Wubs. Together with his colleague Henk Dijkstra from Utrecht University, he has studied ocean currents for some 20 years.
Reference: D. Castellana, S. Baars, F.W. Wubs and H.A. Dijkstra: Transition probabilities of noise-induced transitions of the Atlantic Ocean Circulation. Scientific Reports 30 December 2019.
Some reasons for (cautious) optimism on the climate change front in 2020
This CBC article discusses some reasons for (cautious) optimism on the climate change front in 2020. 2019 was the year that climate policy took a decisive turn in Canadian politics.
Report: New industry develops around sucking carbon dioxide out of atmosphere
This CBC article discusses how a new industry is developing around sucking carbon dioxide out of atmosphere. Carbon Engineering’s groundbreaking plant is one project hoping to help combat climate change. [No report link provided.]
Somewhere in west Texas, amid one of the most productive oilfields in the continent, a Canadian company is building a plant that it hopes will eventually suck from the air a million tonnes of carbon that is pumped out of the ground all around it.
Carbon Engineering’s groundbreaking plant is one of many projects hoping to help in the fight against climate change by turning its main driver — carbon dioxide — into a useful product that can be profitably removed from the atmosphere.
“We’re pulling the CO2 back down,” CEO Steve Oldham said in a recent interview.
People in labs and boardrooms around the world are beginning to confront the realization that more needs to be done than cut emissions if the world is to remain livable. Vast amounts of carbon already in the atmosphere will have to be removed.
A 2017 paper in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change calculated that to stabilize climate change at two degrees Celsius, between 120 billion and 160 billion tonnes of CO2 will have to be sucked from the air and stored underground.
Report: Inspired by the Tissues of Living Organisms, Researchers Take One Step Closer to Harvesting “Blue Energy”
This Yale Environment 360 article discusses how researchers are attempting to harvest “Blue Energy” from the ocean tides and waves. Scientists have long recognized the potential to generate renewable energy from the world’s oceans by harnessing the power of tides and waves. These forms of energy are often more difficult to tap into than other renewable sources like wind or solar, but new research, recently published in the journal Joule, highlights the possibilities of harnessing osmotic, or “blue,” energy.
The energy agency that could thwart Democrats’ climate plans – FERC
This Politico article discusses the energy agency that could thwart Democrats’ climate plans. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have endorsed a call to reshape FERC as a climate regulator, but is it necessary for a Green New Deal?
Democratic presidential candidates’ promises to fight climate change could hinge on whether they can reshape an obscure federal agency that has overseen a surge in oil and gas projects.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent regulator of pipelines and power markets, derives its authority from decades-old laws that largely predate worries about climate change and were focused primarily on ensuring that energy supplies remain cheap and reliable. But that mandate may interfere with some of the more aggressive climate plans Democrats are contemplating, and candidates are facing pressure to overhaul the agency if elected.
Report: When U.S. Emissions Dropped, Mortality Dropped Dramatically
This Forbes article discusses how, when U.S. emissions dropped, mortality dropped dramatically.
U.S. air pollution emissions dropped dramatically from 2008 to 2014, driven in part by the closure of coal-fired power plants. Now researchers have documented that health damages from air pollution dropped just as dramatically during that time.
“Not only have the emissions decreased, but the damages—the health damages—from those emissions have decreased very rapidly, more than 20% over the course of six years,” said Inês M.L. Azevedo, an associate professor in Stanford University’s Department of Energy Resources Engineering.
The study, published in PNAS, contains very good news for utilities—which radically reduced the damage they do to public health and the economy, Azevedo said—but it contains very bad news for agriculture.
Report: What’s Behind Big Oil’s Promises of Emissions Cuts? Lots of Wiggle Room.
This Inside Climate News article discusses Big Oil’s emission cut promises. Here’s what the major fossil fuel companies are committing to do on climate change, and how that falls far short of what’s needed.
The oil and gas industry seems to have entered a state of cognitive dissonance. Like never before, energy companies are publicly acknowledging the threat posed by climate change and the need for society to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, oil and gas production in the U.S. and globally continues to soar.
Major oil companies have announced a series of commitments to reduce their emissions, even as they continue to invest in new projects that will boost production of the very fossil fuels that are driving climate change.
Instead, the world is on track to produce more than 40 percent more oil and gas by 2040 than would be consistent with the Paris goal of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, a United Nations report published in November found. Another recent report, published by the climate and financial think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative, found that the largest investor-owned oil companies had recently invested billions in new projects that are not consistent with that goal.
2019 was a brutal year for American farmers
This Vox article discusses why 2019 was a brutal year for American farmers. Record flooding, a delayed harvest, and a trade war with China are hammering US agriculture this year.
US farmers have taken a particularly harsh beating this year from a one-two punch of nasty flooding exacerbated by climate change and a trade war with China.
Severe floods spurred by record rainfall soaked the southeast and the Midwest this summer, delaying plantings of corn and soy crops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the 12-month period ending in May of this year was the wettest 12 months on record in the United States. (NOAA’s full climate and weather assessment for 2019 will be available in January.) Flooding on the Mississippi River this year also set records for how long it lasted in several locations.
In August, the US Department of Agriculture reported that farmers weren’t able to plant more than 19.4 million acres of cropland in 2019, the most since reporting began in 2007. Most of this area was spread across 12 states in the Midwest and Great Plains.
Financial News Focused on Climate Change
This article discusses the year the Australian Reserve Bank sounded the climate change alarm. When our buttoned-down economic guardians at the Reserve Bank describe something as a “serious challenge” and a “systemic risk” it’s time to pay attention. Those are just some of the strident terms it chose to use this year about the threat of climate change. Amid the fractious national debate over climate policy in 2019 the Reserve made two striking interventions.
This article discusses why the Bank of England boss is calling for faster action on climate change. The head of the Bank of England urged companies to move faster on cutting carbon emissions. Mark Carney gave an interview to the BBC’s Today program, guest-edited by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. He said the world of business needed to step up action, including on disclosing climate risk from their operations. He said: ‘A question for every company, every financial institution is: what’s your plan? We now have $120 trillion of balance sheets of banks and asset managers wanting this type of disclosure.’ But he stated that such action is ‘not moving fast enough’. Mr Carney is soon to become UN special envoy on climate action and finance.