Month: February 2020

3 WAYS TO TELL IF CORPORATIONS ARE GENUINE ABOUT FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE

Ensia discusses how to tell if corporations are genuinely attempting to fight climate change. Experts offer criteria for separating legitimate climate plans from hollow claims.

When Larry Fink announced in mid-January he’d be putting solving the climate emergency at the center of his US$7.43 trillion investment company BlackRock’s strategy, even long-time critics acknowledged it was a huge deal. “It takes leadership and a certain kind of courage to admit that change is needed,” wrote Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune at CNBC. “Now we must keep the pressure on.”

BlackRock had earlier stated a commitment to “sustainability,” yet for years faced pressure from the Sierra Club and others over its investments in fossil fuels and Amazon deforestation. In a letter last month to shareholders, Fink promised measurable change: BlackRock would no longer invest in companies deriving 25% or more of their revenues from thermal coal.

Shortly after, however, the environmental and human rights group Urgewald calculated that less than 20% of the coal industry would be affected. “The scope of the policy is still far too limited and further steps will need to follow quickly,” it argued.

How cutting your food waste can help the climate

BBC discusses how cutting your food waste can help the climate. All food generates greenhouse gases to reach our plates, but when nearly a third of it is thrown away or wasted, does that mean we could be doing more to protect the climate?

How much did you leave on your plate last time you ate? A few scrapings? A couple of rogue chips? Or perhaps even a few mouthfuls you were too stuffed to finish off?

It is worth considering, then, that every time you throw leftovers away, you’re not just binning tomorrow’s lunch – each forkful of food was responsible for greenhouse gas emissions before it even got to your plate. Growing, processing, packaging and transporting the food we eat all contributes to climate change. And then when we throw it away, as it rots it releases yet more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It has been estimated that if food waste was a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. One third of greenhouse emissions globally come from agriculture, and 30% of the food we produce is wasted – about 1.8 billion tonnes of it a year. If, as a planet, we stopped wasting food altogether, we’d eliminate 8% of our total emissions.

 

Study: Listening to marine mammals is helping scientists understand Arctic impacts of climate change

Mongabay discusses Listening to marine mammals is helping scientists understand Arctic impacts of climate change.

  • A 4-year bioacoustic study of marine mammals in the northern Bering Sea will help scientists track the impacts of global climate change on Arctic ecosystems.
  • A team of researchers studied how seasonal variation in sea surface temperatures and sea ice affect populations of five species of endemic Arctic marine mammals: bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus), beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), ribbon seals (Histriophoca fasciata), and walrus (Odobenus rosmarus).
  • The researchers captured more than 33,000 individual vocalizations from whales, walruses, and seals over the course of the study, which was conducted between 2012 and 2016. They say that their findings showed consistent seasonal distribution and movement patterns for most of the studied species, supporting previous scientific and traditional knowledge about the distribution of marine mammals in the northern Bering Sea, while providing more precise data than was previously available.

Researchers with WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), Columbia University, Southall Environmental Associates, and the University of Washington wanted to understand how seasonal variation in sea surface temperatures and sea ice affect populations of five species of endemic Arctic marine mammals: bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus), beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), ribbon seals (Histriophoca fasciata), and walrus (Odobenus rosmarus). They detailed their findings in a paper published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

Study: ‘Unprecedented’ globally: more than 20% of Australia’s forests burnt in bushfires

The Guardian discusses how more than 20% of Australia’s forests burnt in bushfires. Researchers’ figure contrasts starkly with proportion of forest burned over such a period on any other continent.

More than 20% of Australia’s forests burned during the summer’s bushfire catastrophe, a proportion scientists believe is unprecedented globally, according to new research.

Research published in a special edition of Nature Climate Change focused on the bushfire crisis finds that 21% of the total area covered by Australian forests – excluding Tasmania – has burnt so far in the 2019-20 bushfire season.

 

A third of plants and animals risk mass extinction

Climate News Network discusses why a third of plants and animals risk mass extinction. As planetary temperatures rise, the chances of species survival lessen. Mass extinction is coming. The challenge is to measure the loss.

Within 50 years, a third of all plant and animal species could be caught up in a mass extinction, as a consequence of climate change driven by ever-rising temperatures. What is new about this warning is the method, the precision, the timetable and the identification of a cause.

And – entirely felicitously – support for the prediction is backed by a series of separate studies of individual species survival in a world rapidly warming because of human commitment to fossil fuels.

Tiny marsupial insect-hunters in Australia could, on the evidence of direct experiment, fail to adapt to ever-higher thermometer readings, and quietly disappear.

As frogs and other amphibians in Central America are wiped out by invasive fungal pathogens – perhaps assisted by climate change – a set of snake species that prey upon them have also become increasingly at risk.

Flood insurance is sold as protection from climate change. As costs rise, it could push people from their homes instead.

The Center for Public Integrity discusses flood insurance is sold as protection from climate change. As costs rise, it could push people from their homes instead.

When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, Thalia Panton watched in disbelief as floodwaters careened down her quiet, tree-lined street in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Sparks flew from downed electrical lines as rushing rapids rose past her thighs.

The water receded as quickly as it appeared. But the damage was done. When the skies cleared, Panton was left with $60,000 in losses. The basement had flooded, damaging musical instruments her husband and son use for their gigs as well as electrical equipment that kept the house running. Panton and her neighbors didn’t get flood insurance until after Sandy because Canarsie wasn’t considered a major flood risk at the time of the storm.

Report: What JP Morgan Chase really thinks about climate change

Rolling Stone discusses how JPMorgan Chase became the doomsday bank. The financial giant is the fossil-fuel industry’s biggest lender. Protesters hope a national campaign of civil disobedience will force it to change course. Bankers like numbers. Numbers tell the story. No emotion gets in the way. So let’s look at the numbers: Over the past three years — that is, in the years after the world came together in Paris to try to slow climate change — JPMorgan Chase lent $196 billion to the fossil-fuel industry. Over the past three years, JPMorgan Chase lent more money to the fossil-fuel industry than any bank on Earth — 29 percent more. And over the past three years, JPMorgan Chase lent more money to the most expansionary parts of the fossil-fuel industry (new pipelines, Arctic drilling, deep-sea exploration) than any other bank — 63 percent more. That’s not to say that other banks don’t do plenty of damage: Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are all in the hundred-billion-dollar club. But Chase is in a league of its own. It’s the First National Bank of Flood and Fire. It’s Hades Savings and Loan. It is the Doomsday Bank.

The Guardian discusses a leaked report from JP Morgan economists who warn that the climate crisis is a threat to the human race. Leaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says Earth is on unsustainable trajectory. The JP Morgan report on the economic risks of human-caused global heating said climate policy had to change or else the world faced irreversible consequences.

Solar Power Just Miles from the Arctic Circle? In Icy Nordic Climes, It’s Become the Norm

Inside Climate News discusses Solar Power near the Arctic Circle. In Icy Nordic Climes, It’s Become the Norm. As solar prices fall and efficiency increases, countries like Finland are discovering the benefits of summertime solar.

For years after northern Finland’s largest printing plant blanketed its facility’s eight roofs with solar panels, the curious beat a path to the extraordinary spectacle.

There were skeptics who doubted that solar power would pay off in this northern city, just 100 miles shy of the Arctic Circle, a geography known not for its sunny climes but rather its dark, snow-bound, sub-zero winters.

“They wanted to see what we’d done, how it worked, whether it worked,” said Juha Röning, chief technician at the Kaleva Media printing plant. In 2015, the 1,604 solar photovoltaic (PV) units made Kaleva Media’s rooftop the most powerful photovoltaic solar plant in Finland, and indeed in all of Scandinavia’s north country.

Sierra Club Insider, February 25, 2020

This weeks stories include discussions about JP Morgan not financing Arctic Refuge drilling, vegan diets, greenwashing the climate crisis, trump’s wall and its impact on endangered species, technology and climate change, birds and bees impacted by pesticides, the Supreme Court and pipelines, plastics, zero waste, and NEPA,

Amid the non-stop Trump news, don’t ignore the persistent assault on the environment

Environmental Health News discusses how, amid the non-stop Trump news, don’t ignore the persistent assault on the environment. Trump’s environmental protection rollbacks quietly continue, but there are more signs of climate awakening in TV news.

These days, the front pages and cable gabfests are nearly all-Trump: Impeachment hearings, Presidential Twitty-fits, pardon-a-paloozas and more.

American news organizations, particularly TV news, choose to devote little bandwith or interest to Trump’s relentless, ongoing assault on environmental protection.

Thus, these actions, which carry impacts that will be felt for decades, are carried out with relative stealth.

Trump’s EPA chief Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, took another step toward unbuilding the regulatory wall in late January by finishing off what was left of the Obama-era Waters of the United States rule.

Wheeler’s new rule would remove Clean Water Act protections from thousands of small or seasonal waterways and nearly half of America’s wetlands, limiting the landmark 1973 law to “navigable” waterways.