Month: January 2020

Report: The poison we breathe

This Lancet article discusses the poison we breathe. As of 2018, WHO’s World Global Ambient Air Quality Database, which draws on computations from air monitoring stations from 4300 cities, stated that nine out of ten people on Earth breathe highly polluted air, and more than 80% of the population living in urban cities have to endure outdoor pollution that exceeds health standards. The condition is even worse in India, which is home to 11 of the 12 cities with the highest levels of particulate pollution, with Kanpur leading with an annual average of 319 mg/m3 of PM2·5, the most perilous particle routinely measured.

World Health Organization (WHO) Global ambient air quality database.

http://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/health-impacts/en/

Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

This Yale Environment 360 article discusses Deep Decarbonization – A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change. Global emissions have soared by two-thirds in the three decades since international climate talks began. To make the reductions required, what’s needed is a new approach that creates incentives for leading countries and industries to spark transformative technological revolutions.

In 1969, in the middle of the spiraling U.S.-Soviet arms race, international relations expert McGeorge Bundy wrote a prescient article in Foreign Affairs about how to “cap the volcano” of armaments. Success in arms control, he explained, required a laser-like focus on the strategic incentives for both sides to change behavior and stick with their agreements. Awareness of the dangers of arms racing, by itself, wasn’t enough.

Today, the same kind of laser focus is needed on climate change. The problem is a lot more complicated than strategic arms control, of course — there are many more relevant countries, not just two dueling superpowers, and the problem of heat-trapping emissions is deeply embedded in the modern industrial economy. Cutting emissions to nearly zero isn’t merely an activity, like redirecting the purchase of armaments, that governments can control directly. But the point remains: Success requires less moralizing and more strategizing.

DOI Is Speeding Harm to Lands Before Election Day

This Outside Online article discusses how the Department of the Interior (DOI) is trying to lock in fossil fuel interests before Election Day. As a Trump reelection looks less certain, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is accelerating work for oil and gas industries.

ast week, an analysis published by public lands advocacy group The Center for Western Priorities, revealed 74 policy changes and 120 alterations to Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections that the Department of the Interior intends to take before the November elections. All of the actions benefit the oil, gas, or agriculture industries. Some of the benefactors include former lobbying clients of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

It can be hard to comprehend the ways in which the Trump administration’s corruption impacts your daily life. If Jared Kushner accepts tens of millions of dollars from secret foreign investors while conducting foreign policy without Congressional oversight, does it really trickle down to your bottom line? But that’s different at the Department of the Interior. There, former lobbyists for, and employees of the industries it regulates, are actively trying to destroy the world we live in.

Can a Whole City Go Green? Yes!

This The Tyee article discusses whether an entire city can go green? Yes! A future based on renewables isn’t some far-off utopia. This northern Finnish community is almost there.

The Finnish community of Ii (pronounced ee) is unusual for more than its name. It stands on the Gulf of Bothnia (the northern end of the Baltic Sea) at the mouth of the Iijoki River. The population is 10,000, about that of Quesnel, British Columbia. At 65 degrees 19 minutes north, Ii’s latitude is a little north of Dawson City, Yukon (population 1,400). The nearest big city is Oulu (population 200,000), a 25-minute drive south.

Canadians might blink at towns and cities that big, that far north. But even Helsinki, far to the south, is at 60 degrees north, the latitude of Whitehorse. Nevertheless, the Finns thrive in their northern land, and in Ii they thrive on renewable energy. They also show how, if a town can go green and prosper, a whole country can.

Starting around 2012, Ii decided to take climate change and renewable energy seriously and began adopting measures to move away from fossil fuels.

“We do not use fossil fuels for heating our houses and premises any more in town facilities,” Ii’s Mayor Ari Alatossova told The Tyee in an email. “Instead, we heat by using ground heat pumps, solar panels and wood chips. All the technology and knowledge needed to do that already exist. And it’s profitable compared to oil. Electricity and wood chips are produced by companies located in our town. So it’s also good for the local businesses.”

Australia is ‘ground zero’ in climate crisis and must show leadership, top researchers say

This The Guardian article discusses why Australia is ‘ground zero’ in climate crisis. Adaptation to bushfires might not be achievable without stronger action to curb emissions, letter warns.

Australia’s current position as “ground zero” for both the impacts of climate change and policy uncertainty presents an opportunity for the country to emerge as a leader in responding to the climate crisis, according to Australian Research Council laureates.

In a letter signed by 80 ARC laureate fellows, some of Australia’s top researchers said claims strong action to cut emissions would be economically destructive have no basis and are not “consistent with Australia’s traditional optimism and ingenuity, nor with historical experience”.

“Reducing emissions is a global challenge that requires collective action,” the letter said.

Study: AI map reveals where millions of Americans will move once climate change forces them out of coastal cities – and Las Vegas and Dallas are among the top choices

This article discusses an AI map that reveals where millions of Americans will move once climate change forces them out of coastal cities. Las Vegas and Dallas are among the top choices. [No study link is provided.]

  • AI predicts where people living on the coast will move when sea levels rise
  • It found that many will choose  Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas
  • Areas in the Midwest will also experience disproportionately large influx
  • Scientists believe this study will help city planners prepare for the events

Study: Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems are facing collapse

This The Hill article discusses a study sowing that Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems are facing collapse. A new study mapped more than 100 locations where extreme weather events have affected forests and coral reefs.

  • Researchers say climate change is leading to an increase in frequency and magnitude of climatic events in the tropics.
  • Tropical forests and coral reefs host a large share of the Earth’s biodiversity.
  • The study’s authors stressed an urgent need for nations to work together to conserve Earth’s most biologically rich areas.

A perfect storm of climate change, extreme weather and pressure from human activity is threatening to collapse Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems, according to a new study.

The study published this week mapped more than 100 locations where hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, droughts and fires have impacted tropical forests and coral reefs, which host a large share of global biodiversity and provide ecosystem functions used by millions of people.

Study: Andes Meltdown: New Insights Into Rapidly Retreating Glaciers

This Yale Environment 360 article discusses how the Andes Mountains are experiencing a meltdown. Using satellite data, scientists are documenting the inexorable melting of South America’s glaciers and ice fields, with Andean glaciers thinning by nearly three feet a year since 2000. The loss of ice poses a threat to water supplies and agriculture from Bolivia to Chile.

In recent decades, nearby residents of the Cordillera Blanca have watched in dismay as the Colquepunco and surrounding glaciers have steadily shrunk. Now, researchers in Germany and France have quantified just how rapidly ice in Peru and throughout the Andes is disappearing. Using high-resolution data generated by satellites and a 2000 Space Shuttle mission to create three-dimensional representations of Andean glacier change over time, the researchers calculated that the area covered by glaciers in Peru shrank by nearly a third from 2000 to 2016.

Across the Andes, glaciers have lost nearly 3 feet in thickness annually since 2000, according to Etienne Berthier, a glaciologist at the Laboratory of Geophysical Studies and Oceanography in Toulouse, France, who recently published his findings in Nature Geoscience. Warming temperatures also have caused glaciers to swiftly recede, particularly in the southern Andes, where some glaciers have retreated 5.5 miles in the past century. Ninety-eight percent of Andean glaciers have shrunk this century.

What Australia’s Megafires Mean for the West

This Outside Online article discusses what Australia’s megafires mean for the West. Australia’s bushfires have scorched 27 million acres, more than 10 times the area burned in California’s catastrophic 2018 wildfire season. The way that Australia is dealing with devastation, and how quickly that devastation came, feels like a spooky portent for what’s coming next.

The news coming out of Australia has been almost unbearable. Despite a week of welcome rain, the worst fire season in the continent’s history—an unprecedented combination of drought, wind, and record-breaking temperatures that has been going on since September—continues, this time with a new blaze threatening Canberra. Fires have merged into megafires, species and their habitat have been flattened, municipal water supplies are full of ash, and the air was so noticeably unbreathable in Melbourne that the pros at the Australian Open started donating money for every ace. (One out of two Australians have donated money for relief efforts.) In all, over 27 million acres have burned, more than 10 times the amount scorched in California in 2018, the state’s worst year for wildfires.