Month: December 2020

Doctors warn of climate impacts on medications

E&E News discusses Doctors warn of climate impacts on medications.

As a heat wave blanketed Boston last summer, an elderly woman called 911 saying her husband was disoriented. Found in a high rise with no air conditioning, the man was diagnosed with heat stroke soon after paramedics brought him into the emergency room. His body temperature was 106 degrees.

His living conditions were obviously to blame, but, doctors wondered, why didn’t his wife suffer the same fate?

One possible answer: heat-induced complications with his blood pressure medicine, which can cause dehydration.

“It’s like if you see someone who has been smoking for 50 years and develops lung cancer, you can’t say definitively that the smoking caused the cancer but you know it surely contributed to it,” says Dr. Renee Salas, who treated the man at Massachusetts General Hospital’s emergency room. “In this case, I have a fair degree of certainty that his medications contributed to his developing a severe complication.”

Climate Stories that flew under the radar in 2020

DeSmogBlog discusses These Are Some Climate Stories That Flew Under the Radar in 2020: disasters, world-wide fires, plummeting fossil fuel prices, cheap renewable energy, exposing risk and denialism, and activism.

Report: Is nuclear fusion the answer to the climate crisis?

The Guardian discusses Is nuclear fusion the answer to the climate crisis? Promising new studies suggest the long elusive technology may be capable of producing electricity for the grid by the end of the decade.

If all goes as planned, the US will eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from its electricity sector by 2035 – an ambitious goal set by President-elect Joe Biden, relying in large part on a sharp increase in wind and solar energy generation. That plan may soon get a boost from nuclear fusion, a powerful technology that until recently had seemed far out of reach.

Researchers developing a nuclear fusion reactor that can generate more energy than it consumes have shown in a series of recent papers that their design should work, restoring optimism that this clean, limitless power source will help mitigate the climate crisis.

While the new reactor still remains in early development, scientists hope it will be able to start producing electricity by the end of the decade. Martin Greenwald, one of the project’s senior scientists, said a key motivation for the ambitious timeline is meeting energy requirements in a warming world. “Fusion seems like one of the possible solutions to get ourselves out of our impending climate disaster,” he said.

EPA finalizes first-ever airplane greenhouse gas regulations

E&E News discusses EPA finalizes first-ever airplane greenhouse gas regulations.

EPA today finalized its first greenhouse gas emissions regulations for airplanes, a historic step after a decade of legal wrangling.

It marks the first time EPA has regulated planet-warming emissions from airplanes and a rare move in the waning days of an administration that has rolled back regulations across the board.

But it was also met with criticism from environmental groups, which for months have said the agency’s proposal does not go far enough.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement, “The U.S. leads the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and today’s historic action that finalizes the first-ever GHG standard for aircraft will continue this trend.”

The final rule, which has yet to be published in the Federal Register, would align the United States with emissions standards set by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which take effect in 2028.

The Gospel of Hydrogen Power

The New York Times discusses The Gospel of Hydrogen Power. Mike Strizki powers his house and cars with hydrogen he home-brews. He is using his retirement to evangelize for the planet-saving advantages of hydrogen batteries.

In December, the California Fuel Cell Partnership tallied 8,890 electric cars and 48 electric buses running on hydrogen batteries, which are refillable in minutes at any of 42 stations there. On the East Coast, the number of people who own and drive a hydrogen electric car is somewhat lower. In fact, there’s just one. His name is Mike Strizki. He is so devoted to hydrogen fuel-cell energy that he drives a Toyota Mirai even though it requires him to refine hydrogen fuel in his yard himself.

“Yeah, I love it,” Mr. Strizki said of his 2017 Mirai. “This car is powerful, there’s no shifting, plus I’m not carrying all of that weight of the batteries,” he said in a not-so-subtle swipe at the world’s most notable hydrogen naysayer, Elon Musk.

Making sure climate solutions don’t make more problems

Marketplace discusses Making sure climate solutions don’t make more problems.

We’ve been looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change as part of our series “How We Survive.” One big problem is the technology that could help us survive is not being evenly distributed.

Environmental justice is the idea that the effects of climate change are disproportionately felt in poor countries, poor communities, and often by people of color.

So building resilience can’t only be about one home, one tribal chapter, one town at a time. Melissa Roberts is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit American Flood Coalition. She says some people and communities will be able to pay to lift their homes or take other measures to avoid floodwaters. “And those with the least means who are often in harm’s way already won’t be able to do those things,” Roberts said. “That’s just not a system that makes our community or country resilient. And that just is not fair.”

Of course, the type of systemic change that Roberts and White-Newsome are calling for takes policy, awareness and the participation of business. And big tech companies are starting to make resilience and adaptation part of their portfolios. You can learn more about that in our hourlong climate special. Listen and read here.

Japan adopts green growth plan to go carbon free by 2050

Politico discusses Japan adopts green growth plan to go carbon free by 2050.

Japan aims to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles in about 15 years, the government said Friday in a plan to achieve Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s ambitious pledge to go carbon free by 2050 and generate nearly $2 trillion growth in green business and investment.

The “green growth strategy” urges utilities to bolster renewables and hydrogen while calling for auto industries to go carbon free by the mid-2030s.

Suga, in a policy speech in October, pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions in 30 years. As the world faces an environmental challenge, green investment is an opportunity for growth not a burden, he said.

Report: NC Will Pay for Climate Inaction

Coastal Review discusses a report showing that NC Will Pay for Climate Inaction.

A new report finds that if steps aren’t taken immediately to fight climate change in the state, it will come out of the pockets of North Carolinians over the next 20 to 30 years.

The Environmental Defense Fund commissioned RTI International to look at the short-term financial ramifications if no urgent action is taken to curb climate-warming pollution. The report, “Climate Change in North Carolina: Near-term Impacts on Society and Recommended Actions,” is a 56-page document released Dec. 14 by the independent, nonprofit research and development institute in the Research Triangle Park.

RTI researchers relied on the findings from the North Carolina Climate Science Report, or NCCSR, released in June and updated in September that assesses historical climate trends and potential future climate change in the state under increased greenhouse gas concentrations.

ANALYSIS-Hungry for change: Faulty food systems laid bare by COVID-19 and climate crises

Thomson Reuters Foundation discusses Hungry for change: Faulty food systems laid bare by COVID-19 and climate crises. The pandemic has made it harder for farmers – already grappling with climate extremes – to sell their harvests, while rising poverty pushes more city residents to use food banks.

From wildfires in California and locust attacks in Ethiopia to job losses caused by pandemic lockdowns in Italy and Myanmar, climate change and COVID-19 disrupted food production and tipped millions more people into hunger in 2020.

Now there are fears the situation could worsen next year as both the coronavirus crisis and wild weather exacerbate fragile conditions linked to conflicts and poverty in many parts of the globe, aid officials told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Study: Climate change: Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020

BBC discusses Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020. The world continued to pay a very high price for extreme weather in 2020, according to a report from the charity Christian Aid.

Against a backdrop of climate change, its study lists 10 events that saw thousands of lives lost and major insurance costs.

Six of the events took place in Asia, with floods in China and India causing damages of more than $40bn.

In the US, record hurricanes and wildfires caused some $60bn in losses.