The Washington Post discusses An unusual snack for cows, a powerful fix for climate. Feeding them seaweed slashes the amount of methane they burp into the atmosphere.
One of the most powerful weapons in the fight against climate change is washing up on shorelines around the world, unnoticed by most beachgoers.
It’s seaweed.
Specifically, Asparagopsis taxiformis and Asparagopsis armata — two species of a crimson submarine grass that drifts on waves and tides all around the world’s oceans.
Hakai Magazine discusses how Canada Gives BP Okay to Explore in Marine Conservation Area. How protected is a marine refuge, really, if oil drilling is allowed?
Earlier this month, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board accepted a bid from oil company BP to explore for oil and gas in an area that includes part of Atlantic Canada’s largest marine conservation area.
The move to open part of the Northeast Newfoundland Slope Closure marine refuge to oil and gas exploration has alarmed conservation groups. It has also highlighted how the confusing variety of approaches that Canada is using to reach its marine conservation goals can result in wildly varying levels of protection.
The Daily Climate discusses how The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was a record-breaker, and it’s raising more concerns about climate change. Here’s what research tells us about the 2020 season and what may be ahead.
It was clear before the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season started that it was going to be busy.
Six months later, we’re looking back at a trail of broken records, and the storms may still not be over even though the season officially ended on Nov. 30.
This season had the most named storms, with 30, taking the record from the calamitous 2005 season that brought Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans. It was only the second time the list of storm names was exhausted since naming began in the 1950s.
Ten storms underwent rapid intensification, a number not seen since 1995. Twelve made landfall in the U.S., also setting a new record. Six of those landfalling storms were hurricane strength, tying yet another record.
E&E News discusses Energy industry braces for Biden-era court clashes.
As the official transition to the Biden administration begins, the energy industry is preparing for a new round of courtroom battles against the president-elect’s anticipated tightening of restrictions on U.S. fossil fuel development.
Trade groups are watching carefully to gauge how far Biden is willing to go to regulate the energy sector and limit activities like hydraulic fracturing. Some organizations are already preparing to bring the new administration to court.
“One thing that the industry learned during the Obama years was, they would sue on almost everything,” said James Coleman, a law professor at Southern Methodist University.
Action on Biden’s campaign pledge to halt all new permits for fracking on public lands could trigger lawsuits, as could potential efforts to conduct programmatic analyses of federal energy development.
Any bids by the incoming administration to halt lease sales or permitting approvals could also draw industry challenges.
BBC discusses Climate change: Temperature analysis shows UN goals ‘within reach’.
The Climate Action Tracker group looked at new climate promises from China and other nations, along with the carbon plans of US President-elect Joe Biden.
These commitments would mean the rise in world temperatures could be held to 2.1C by the end of this century.
Previous estimates indicated up to 3C of heating, with disastrous impacts.
But the experts are worried the long-term optimism is not matched by short-term plans to cut CO2.
Wired discusses Beautiful Yet Unnerving Photos of the Arctic Getting Greener. Using tricked-out drones, scientists are watching vegetation boom in the far north. Their findings could have big implications for the whole planet.
THE ARCTIC IS getting greener, and it’s about as pretty as you might expect—vast stretches of coastal land positively glowing against cobalt seas. But all that green is in fact an alarm: Vegetation is growing more abundant as this region warms twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Northern landscapes are undergoing massive change, with potential consequences not just for the Arctic itself, but the world as a whole.
One group of researchers has been on a multiyear quest to understand that change on a fine scale. They’re combining satellite data, quadcopter measurements, and good old boots-on-the-frigid-ground fieldwork. We’re talking about labor like measuring individual leaves on plants to determine how much they’re growing, year after year. “So it kind of scales up from all of these little dramas of individual plants playing out, that then influence which plants exist on the landscape,” says Jeffrey Kerby, an ecologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and coauthor of a new paper from the team. “And when you spread that out over a huge area, it can have very consequential impacts on the carbon cycle.”
DW discusses how European court orders countries to respond to lawsuit from young climate activists. Judges in Strasbourg have green-lit a landmark climate case that could hold governments accountable for moving too slowly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Court of Human Rights has told the governments of 33 industrialized countries to promptly respond to a climate lawsuit lodged by six youth campaigners in September, giving it priority status because of the “importance and urgency of the issues raised.”
The young people, supported by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), allege the countries — which include Germany, the UK, Russia and Portugal — have failed to enact the emission cuts needed to protect their futures.
The case focuses on countries whose policies lawyers argue are too weak to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) Paris Agreement goal. They cite the country ratings of the Climate Action Tracker.
The plaintiffs range from age 8 to 21 and come from Lisbon and Leiria in Portugal. The case states climate change poses a rising threat to the six young people’s lives and their physical and mental well-being. It invokes human rights arguments — including the right to life, a home and to family — as well as claiming discrimination.
Mccall.com discusses how Average winter temperatures in Northeast have warmed by up to 4.8 degrees since 1970, new research shows.
In the winter of 1969-70, Philadelphia had an average temperature of 30.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Last year, the average was 39.4.
No one says snow and cold spells are things of the past, but winters have warmed considerably since 1970 in the Northeast, according to data compiled by Climate Central, an organization of scientists and journalists that research and report on climate.
Overall, the group found that winter not only is warmer than it was 50 years ago, it is warming faster than any other season in 38 states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.