Month: September 2018

Policy and Politics

A new space station sensor that will lay the foundation for future long-term observations of Earth’s climate is moving ahead, despite repeated attempts by the Trump administration to kill it.  The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures has issued its first status report, revealing that over 500 companies are now supporters of it, including the world’s largest banks, asset managers, and pension funds, responsible for assets of nearly $100 trillion.  On the subject of preparing for the effects of climate change, more academics are approaching questions once reserved for doomsday cults: (1) Can modern society prepare for a world in which climate change threatens large-scale social, economic, and political upheaval?  (2) What are the policy and social implications of rapid climate disruption?  In his Wednesday column in The Guardian, George Monbiot tackled the threat that continued economic growth poses to limiting greenhouse gas emissions.  A new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined the cost of climate change to the economy of each country, as well as to the global economy.  They found the biggest impact to be on India, but that the global impact was much greater than the impact on any individual country.

Speaking to Oliver Milman of The Guardian, Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist and a co-author of the upcoming IPCC report on the feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5°C, said “It’s extraordinarily challenging to get to the 1.5°C target and we are nowhere near on track to doing that. … While it’s technically possible, it’s extremely improbable, absent a real sea change in the way we evaluate risk. We are nowhere near that.”  Nevertheless, reviewers of the report are concerned that the “Summary for Policymakers” is being altered to make the dangers of climate change seem less alarming.  As a result, they say, policymakers could seriously underestimate the risks of global warming.  A new paper in the journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources, written by a group of UK academics after reviewing almost 200 published papers, concluded “Further delay in pursuing an emissions path consistent with 1.5°C likely renders that target unattainable by conventional means, instead relying on expensive large-scale CDR [carbon dioxide removal], or risky solar radiation management.”  Amazingly, the Trump administration appears to be using this situation as justification for freezing the Obama administration’s automobile fuel efficiency standards, stating in the environmental impact statement for the freeze, that things are going to be so bad that additional CO₂ in the atmosphere will have a minor effect on the outcome.

Lawmakers are divided on whether to extend a popular tax credit for electric cars.  EV manufacturers face a cap of 200,000 vehicles that are eligible for the credit, a level now being reached by Tesla and General Motors.  The Washington Post published content from Siemens about the infrastructure that will be required for cities to accommodate large numbers of EVs.  According to The Hill, the EPA plans to merge its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the EPA administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, with the Office of Science Policy and place them under the Office of Research and Development.  This moves the Science Advisor one tier lower in the organizational structure.

Climate

Carbon Brief has produced a new map showing both how the temperature has changed up to present day and how it might change in the future for every different part of the world.  The map combines observed temperature changes with future climate model projections.  It breaks up the world into “grid cells” representing every degree latitude and every degree longitude.  Clicking on a grid cell produces a side bar with the temperature information for that location.

Beyond Meat –makers of meat-free burgers – commissioned a study with the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan to conduct a “cradle-to-distribution” life cycle assessment of its Beyond Burger and compare it to that of an uncooked quarter-pound beef burger.  They found that the Beyond Burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 46% less energy, and has 99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use than the beef.

In its continuing coverage of the impacts of climate change on human heritage sites around the world, The New York Times published an article about the efforts to protect ancient archaeological sites in the Orkney islands of Scotland from sea level rise.  Closer to home ProPublica investigated the on-going costs and environmental justice issues of beach replenishment on the East Coast of the U.S.  A new study published Monday in the journal Environmental Research Letters has warned that climate change has adversely and uniquely affected many of the 417 national parks spread across the U.S. and its territories.  Eroding coastlines, recurrent flooding, increased temperatures, etc., will all act to cause Americans to move during the remainder of this century.  Writing in The Guardian, Oliver Milman looked at the impacts of the “climate migrants.”  A sea level research and communications group’s rapid analysis of the storm surge from Hurricane Florence has found that 1-in-5 of the homes impacted along the Carolina coast wouldn’t have fared so badly had sea levels not risen significantly since 1970.

We typically think of sea level rise as the main consequence of melting glaciers and increased CO₂ and methane emissions as a major consequence of melting permafrost.  In mountainous regions of the world, however, those events can lead to slope destabilization, causing more landslides.  On the subject of melting permafrost, scientists have discovered that a lake in Alaska formed by it is leaking large quantities of methane.  It is also leaking other hydrocarbon gases typically found in gas wells, suggesting that at least part of the methane is from a fossil source, rather than being formed by microbial decomposition of organic matter in the lake bottom.

According to a study published Thursday in the journal Science, last year’s record hurricane season – which saw Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria cause devastation across North and Central America – was primarily driven by “pronounced warm conditions” in the tropical Atlantic Ocean.  On September 19 and 23, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its seasonal minimum extent for the year, at 4.59 million square kilometers (1.77 million square miles). This ties 2018 with 2008 and 2010 for the sixth lowest minimum extent in the nearly 40-year satellite record.

A recent paper in the journal Earth’s Future used modeling to estimate climate sensitivity (the warming associated with a doubling of CO₂ in the atmosphere) using the energy balance technique, but with corrections for the two weaknesses that have been discovered in the technique.  The results showed that the estimates were larger than previously calculated with the technique and were consistent with mainstream climate science estimates.

Energy

In earlier Roundups I have linked to articles about zinc-air batteries, potential competitors to lithium-ion batteries for energy storage.  Now NantEnergy has announced that it has made zinc-air batteries rechargeable and reduced their cost to $100 per kilowatt-hr, compared to $300 to $400 per kilowatt-hr for lithium-ion batteries.  Currently, there are still limitations on the applications of zinc-air batteries, but they hold promise for micro-grid and other utility-scale energy storage.

The Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) announced Wednesday that it will speed up the retirement of its coal-fired generation by as much as 10 years — planning to retire the majority of its remaining plants in the next five years and the entire fleet within 10.  In its place, NIPSCO is looking to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind coupled with battery storage.  Spanish electric utility Iberdrola SA, the world’s biggest wind power producer, plans to expand its renewable capacity in the U.S. by about 50% over four years as part of its global plan to reduce carbon emissions.

The unfinished nuclear power plants in Georgia and South Carolina are facing different fates.  In Georgia, the primary owners of Plant Vogtle say the project will continue after they resolved a disagreement about multibillion-dollar budget overages.  In South Carolina, the Office of Regulatory Staff argued that SCE&G should have abandoned construction of two more nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station more than two years before the project ultimately collapsed, and thus construction costs after March 12, 2015, should be disallowed as “imprudent”, freeing ratepayers from having to pay them.  Two federal appeals courts have now upheld state nuclear power plant subsidies, and in doing so, they have also helped to solidify the legal footing for state renewable energy programs across the country.

The UK, Canada, Denmark, and Spain have joined the now 19-strong global Carbon Neutrality Coalition, a group of nations striving to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions during the second half of the century, in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.  China is aiming for renewables to account for at least 35% of electricity consumption by 2030, according to a revised draft plan from the National Development & Reform Commission.  Nevertheless, according to CoalSwarm, newly released satellite photos appear to show continuing construction of coal plants that China said it was cancelling last year.  Wind is set to become the European Union’s largest source of electricity by 2027, according to International Energy Agency.

Sunpreme, a California-based solar cell and bifacial panel maker, plans to open a Texas manufacturing facility in 2019.  Canadian solar panel manufacturer Heliene is opening a solar panel manufacturing plant in Mountain Iron, Minn.

Since 2012, Texas has approved 43 petrochemical projects along the Gulf Coast that will add millions of tons of greenhouse gas pollution to the atmosphere, according to an environmental study released this week by the Environmental Integrity Project.  The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative committed to cutting methane emissions to an intensity of 0.25% of the group’s total fossil fuel production.  Such a reduction would equate to 350,000 tonnes of methane annually.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Policy and Politics

While some have touted the necessity of using negative emissions technologies for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere to limit warming, researchers from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin, Germany, urged a thorough ethical analysis of the technologies before they are broadly applied.  An analysis commissioned by Greenpeace has found that the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars in Europe must be phased out before 2030 if the auto sector is to play its part in holding global warming to 1.5°C.  Although many advocate for carbon pricing as a way to decrease fossil fuel use, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has concluded that carbon prices in major advanced economies are too low to cut greenhouse gas emissions and stave off the worst effects of climate change.  Recently released documents show that like Exxon, Shell knew in the 1980s the impacts that continued burning of fossil fuels would have on the planet.  Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum will join the European-led Oil & Gas Climate Initiative, adding $300 million to its fund for carbon-reduction ventures.  “The Climate Mobilization” is a nonprofit that advocates for a World War II-style mobilization for fighting global warming.

The Interior Department eased requirements that oil and gas firms operating on federal and tribal land capture any methane released.  The move will have negative impacts on the fight against climate change and thus environmentalists and Democrats vowed to fight it in court.  On the other hand, Shell announced on Monday plans to limit leaks of methane across its oil and gas operations.  On Wednesday, the EPA announced that it is proposing a rule to rescind a 2016 regulation that would have phased out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), strong greenhouse gases, as refrigerants in appliances.  A number of states have moved to make it harder to protest oil and gas projects.  Now in Louisiana, the first felony arrests of protesters could become a test case of these tougher laws as opponents vow a legal challenge.  If all of the flooding associated with Hurricane Florence has you concerned about the susceptibility of your home to flooding, you can check FEMA flood maps here.  If you are thinking of buying a house, you might want to look into the laws in your state requiring disclosure of flood risk.  Virginia has essentially none.

When David Goodrich retired from his job as a climate scientist at NOAA, he resolved to ride his bike across America to see what climate change was doing up close.  He shared some of his observations at National Geographic.  Wired published an interview with Stewart Brand, who had this to say about climate change: “We can see the problem but we can’t see the solution.  So the problem fills our minds.  But here’s the thing: Solutions don’t have to fill everybody’s mind—they just have to fill enough minds so that we can work them out.”  Peter Sinclair has two new videos, one entitled: “Textbook Trauma – The Emotional Cost of Climate Change” and another entitled: “Jennifer Francis: How Climate and Ice Melt Intensify Hurricanes.”

Climate

Scientists studying the Wilkes Subglacial Basin of East Antarctica have found that during the late Pleistocene interglacial intervals, when air temperatures were at least 2°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, extensive melting of the glaciers occurred, causing sea levels to be between 18 and 40 feet higher than they are today.  NASA is continuing with its Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project, a five-year, $30 million effort aimed at improving sea level rise projections by understanding how warming oceans are melting ice sheets from below.  Last week I linked to an article about the planned launch of ICESat-2 by NASA on Saturday, Sept. 15.  The launch was successful.  Reuters had a very interesting article about the difficulties and dangers of collecting data in Greenland.

Perhaps as a result of a blocking pattern associated with a warm Arctic, Hurricane Florence produced an extraordinary rainstorm that statistically had a 1-in-100 chance of occurring each year (a 100-year storm).  Over substantial areas, the deluge had a 0.1% chance of happening (a 1,000-year storm).  Flooding from Florence was widespread and its impacts disproportionately hit poor and minority communities, as reported in this story in The Guardian.  The U.S. isn’t the only place with climate-related flooding.  In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers reported that extreme floods on the Amazon River that had occurred roughly once every 20 years in the first part of last century are now happening about every four years.  Climate change is also impacting the nature of summer thunderstorms in the U.S. desert Southwest, making groundwater recharge more problematic.

Although most of us are unaware of it, fungi play a major role in regulating the climate by influencing the amount of carbon stored in the soil.  Tropical forests were once a major carbon sink, taking up much of the CO₂ released to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.  Now, deforestation, degradation, and general disturbance have combined to make tropical forests a net carbon source rather than a sink, meaning they’re losing more carbon than they can absorb.  Writing for Yale Climate Connections, Daisy Simmons reviewed the status of tropical forests today.

Rising temperatures have a direct impact on those who work outdoors.  Michelle Chen wrote about those impacts, as well as other occupational health issues associated with climate change.  The number of undernourished people around the globe increased to nearly 821 million in 2017, the third straight year of growth and the highest figure since 2009, according to a new report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The New York Times will publish a “Climate Solutions Special Report” in the September 24 print edition of the International NYT.  Today’s electronic edition of the NYT carried nine articles from the report: (1) things that are being done to adapt; (2) examples of fighting climate change or its impacts; (3) turning chicken waste into jet fuel and other useful products; (4) how Costa Rica is moving toward being the globe’s first carbon-neutral nation; (5) how reforestation in Columbia is saving hummingbirds as well as fighting climate change; (6) in Sweden, trash heats homes, powers buses, and fuels taxi fleets; (7) electric trucks are being used by UPS in London for deliveries; (8) G.E. has entered Europe’s offshore wind market; and (9) Rwanda is trying biogas as a way to curb deforestation.

A combination of warmer water and nutrient runoff is thought to be fueling a bloom of sargassum seaweed in the Caribbean, threatening everything from the tourist industry to turtle survival.

Energy

A new report by BVG Associates and commissioned by Virginia’s Sierra Club chapter says Virginia’s port infrastructure, experienced maritime workforce, and geographical advantages make it an ideal candidate for becoming a hub for the East Coast offshore wind supply chain.  However, Virginia will face stiff competition in doing so, as evidenced by New Jersey’s recent solicitation for 1,100 MW of offshore wind capacity — the largest single-state offshore wind solicitation in the U.S. to date.  All forms of energy have an environmental impact; the trick is to examine the costs and the benefits when siting a project.  An example of the tug-of-war that takes place whenever a project is sited is the proposed wind farm more than 30 miles off the coast of Montauk, Long Island.

ARPA-E, the Department of Energy’s blue-sky research program, this week announced $28 million in R&D grants for 10 projects aimed at delivering energy storage systems that can last for days.  David Roberts provided some background on ARPA-E and a summary of some of the ways for storing energy that are being investigated.

A new paper by Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, argues that the costs of improving energy efficiency are lower than previously believed and the benefits are verging on unlimited. The paper says the world can sustain continued improvements in efficiency much more easily than previously thought, a key part of fighting climate change.

Faced with Hurricane Florence’s powerful winds and record rainfall, North Carolina’s solar farms held up with only minimal damage while other parts of the electricity system failed.  According to a report by Bloomberg NEF, solar projects that incorporate battery storage are becoming cheaper to build per megawatt-hour in parts of the U.S. Southwest than new gas-fired generation.  Consequently, some analysts question gas industry projections for growth.  Net metering is the policy that compensates rooftop solar owners at retail rates for the electricity their solar arrays send to the grid.  Replacements for it have been debated nationally for years and now sector leaders say some replicable policies may finally be emerging.

EU energy ministers agreed on Tuesday to pool efforts to increase the use of hydrogen in transport and power as part of the bloc’s attempt to cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.  Meanwhile, Germany has rolled out the world’s first hydrogen-powered train, signaling the start of a challenge to diesel trains by costlier but more eco-friendly technology.

David Roberts at Vox wrote about market research and polling concerning renewable energy done on behalf of the Edison Electric Institute.  After presenting some of the findings, he summarized this way: “The basic message from the public … is this: We want clean, modern energy, and we’ll pay for it.  We’re willing to let experts work out the details, but we don’t want to hear that it can’t be done.  Just do it.”  The Japanese energy conglomerate Marubeni will no longer build coal-fired power plants and it plans to slash its ownership in coal-fired energy assets in half by 2030.  Chicago-based Middle River Power LLC and New York-based Avenue Capital said Thursday that they would end their efforts to purchase the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Policy and Politics

California solidified its role as a world leader on climate action as Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday to shift the state to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.  Timed to coincide with the opening of the Global Climate Action Summit on Wednesday in San Francisco, Gov. Brown and UN Special Envoy for Climate Action Michael Bloomberg had an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times touting the many actions that have been taken in the U.S. to counter the negative impacts of the Trump administration on the fight against climate change.  Nevertheless, a new report released Wednesday at the Summit projected that by 2025, the U.S. will have cut greenhouse gas emissions by only 17% below 2005 levels, rather than the 26-28% it had pledged under the Paris Climate Agreement.  Thousands took to the streets of San Francisco, New York, and other cities around the world prior to the summit.  Climate Home News reported on the Summit and the significance of the large Chinese delegation.  Meanwhile, at the UN, Secretary General António Guterres said in a speech to world leaders, “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change.”  Some of the world’s biggest investment houses, controlling $30 trillion worth of funds, have agreed to join forces to put pressure on governments to adhere to the promises they made in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s administration announced Wednesday that the state would seek to regulate methane emissions from natural gas infrastructure.  On the other hand, the EPA plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that oil and gas companies monitor and repair methane leaks and the Interior Department is expected to release its final version of a draft rule, proposed in February, that essentially repeals a restriction on the intentional venting and burning of methane from drilling operations.  A comment published Wednesday in Nature Communications by a group of prominent climate scientists criticized a new European directive that treats wood harvested directly for bioenergy use as a carbon-free fuel, stating “replacing fossil fuels with wood will likely result in 2-3x more carbon in the atmosphere in 2050 per gigajoule of final energy.”

Bill McKibben introduced a video of poets Aka Niviana of Greenland and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner of the Marshall Islands as they present their moving poem “Rise”.  Speaking of Greenland, in order to understand how climate change is affecting both the animals and the Indigenous communities that depend on them for food, income, and cultural identity, the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources teamed up with scientists to listen to what locals have observed.  Economic columnist Robert Samuelson had a thought-provoking piece in the Washington Post entitled “Why we don’t prepare for the future.”  New York Times best-selling author Anne Lamott, author of Almost Everything – Notes on Hope, recently wrote in National Geographic: “Hope is the belief that no matter how dire things look or how long rescue or healing takes, modern science in tandem with people’s goodness and caring will boggle our minds, in the best way.”  There is another cli-fi book out: The Completionist by Siobhan Adcock.  Amy Brady interviewed her at Yale Climate Connections.  Nathaniel Rich reviewed William T. Vollmann’s two-volume Climate Ideologies in The Atlantic.  Rich wrote “Vollmann’s meager wish is for future readers to appreciate that they would have made the same mistakes we have.”  The National Science Teachers Association called on science teachers from kindergarten through high school to emphasize to students that “no scientific controversy exists regarding the basic facts of climate change.”

Climate

There was much media coverage of Hurricane Florence as it approached the Carolinas, so I will not attempt to cover it.  However, there were two articles I would like to call to your attention.  Andrea Thompson explained “compound flooding” and why it could make the impacts of Florence more severe than the storm’s category would suggest.  And Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and contributing writer for Grist, had this to say about Florence: “We have entered the heart of climate change’s period of consequences.”  In addition, a team of scientists from Stony Brook University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated that Florence’s rainfall forecast is more than 50% higher than it would have been without global warming, and that its projected size is about 48 miles larger.  The population along North Carolina’s coast is almost 50% higher now than 20 years ago, fueled in part by a pro-development government that rejected long-term projections of sea level rise.  The New York Times examined the history and impacts of such policies.  Meanwhile, on the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria, Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell wrote that the impact of the storm on Puerto Rico “was a manufactured catastrophe, created by an explosive mix of politics, Wall Street corruption, poor planning and rising carbon pollution.”  Lest we forget, in the Pacific, Super Typhoon Mangkhut is expected to barrel through the northernmost tip of the Philippines early on Saturday, carrying the 125 mph wind speeds and the gusts of up to 155 mph that it has maintained since it struck Micronesia earlier in the week.  Finally, new research, published in Journal of Climate, investigated the intensification of hurricanes in a warming world and found that it will occur more rapidly, just as it did with Maria last year and Florence this year.

A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters revealed that precipitation during the rainy season in the Amazon rainforest increased by 7 to 24 inches between 1979 and 2015.  Furthermore, the increase was caused primarily by increases in the sea surface temperature in the Atlantic Ocean.  A modeling study published Monday in the journal Science found that placing large wind and solar farms in the Sahel could increase precipitation there by nearly 20 inches a year.

A study published Thursday in the journal Climatic Change found that global warming of 3°C to 4°C could raise mortality rates by between 1 and 9% compared to limiting warming to 2°C or less.  Global hunger has reverted to levels last seen a decade ago, wiping out progress on improving people’s access to food and leaving one in nine people undernourished last year, with extreme weather a leading cause, the UN has warned.

A new study in the journal PLOS One has examined changes in the arrival of spring along four bird migratory routes in North America.  It found that the changes varied from north to south along three of the routes, which could impact reproductive success of the birds.  A warmer world also impacts the reproduction of alpine wildflowers, which along with other pressures, makes them more susceptible to extinction.

NASA plans to send the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) into space on 15 September from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will focus on measuring changes in ice thickness in Greenland and Antarctica, but it will also collect data on forest growth and cloud height.

In an effort to reduce methane emissions from rice fields, farmers have been advised to intermittently flood them, rather than leaving them constantly flooded.  Now, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that the practice greatly increases the emissions of nitrous oxide, another potent greenhouse gas.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has stated that there is a 70% chance of a recurrence of an El Niño weather event before the end of this year.  El Niño events have a number of impacts on the weather, including increased warming.  In addition, the WMO indicated that climate change may be influencing the frequency with which the events occur.

Energy

Accurate carbon counting has two practical goals. The first is to establish the current trends and future trajectories of global emissions, so we can determine whether the world is on target for restricting global warming to less than 2°C. The second is to determine whether individual nations are meeting their promises under the Paris Climate Agreement.  Fred Pearce reviewed progress toward each of those goals at Yale Environment 360.  On Thursday, Jocelyn Timperley published an article at Carbon Brief explaining why the cement industry has such high CO₂ emissions (if it were a country, it would rank 3^rd in the world) and what might be done to reduce them.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that, based on preliminary estimates, the U.S. “likely surpassed” Russia in June and August, after jumping over Saudi Arabia earlier this year, to become the globe’s biggest oil producer.

A record 8.5 GW of utility solar projects were procured in the first six months of this year after President Donald Trump in January announced a 30% tariff on panels produced overseas, according to a report by Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the industry trade group Solar Energy Industries Association.  Because of the falling prices of solar farms, companies around the world are now building them without government subsidies.  Juan Monge of Greentech Media interviewed Jonathan Adelman of Excel Energy about the utility’s transition to renewable energy.  The large number of sunny days this summer allowed Europe to set records on solar PV production.

United Airlines said on Thursday it has set a goal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent over the next few decades to help reduce its carbon footprint and its dependence on fossil fuels.  Several other airlines are also increasing their use of biofuels to cut their fossil carbon emissions.  Ikea is accelerating its plans for a zero-emissions delivery fleet, planning to achieve it in New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Paris, and Shanghai by 2020 and worldwide by 2025.

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, the thinktank Carbon Tracker has predicted, posing a significant risk to financial markets because trillions of dollars’ worth of oil, coal, and gas assets could be left worthless.  Oil and gas firms have rejected the idea that their assets are at risk.  By the end of the decade, Europe’s largest oil companies must roughly double the amount of money they’re now dedicating to “new energies” in order to meet key climate targets, according to a report from JPMorgan Chase & Co., suggesting that the challenge facing the fossil fuel industry has been vastly underestimated.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Policy and Politics

One question in the ongoing negotiations over NAFTA is whether Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will stick by his demand that climate change be recognized in it.  Last week I provided links to articles about the fall of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.  This week, Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic examined the possible connections between the climate positions of the Trump administration and the changing climate positions in Australia and Canada.  This is potentially quite important in light of a new report that found that while action by cities, states, regions, and businesses can go a long way towards meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, their actions alone, in the absence of national actions, are not enough to hold the global temperature increase to well-below 2°C.  Meanwhile, in spite of the EU’s strong actions on climate change, there are influential people who challenge the consensus on its causes.  A non-binding opinion written by a Member of the EU Parliament, John Stuart Agnew of the UK Independence Party, has shocked EU lawmakers for its dismissal of climate science – and the support he received to write it from mainstream rightwing and liberal political blocs.  Without first notifying his Prime Minister, environmentalist Nicolas Hulot resigned from his position as France’s minister of ecological and solidarity-based transition Tuesday morning during a live breakfast show on national radio.  A new report produced for the UN by Bios, an independent research institute based in Finland, has concluded that free market capitalism will not be able to meet the challenges posed by climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels.  Rather some other, as yet unidentified, economic model will be required.

The California legislature voted on Tuesday to require that 100% of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources by 2045.  In a letter dated Wednesday, FERC cited a recent analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as justification for allowing construction to resume along most of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s 303-mile route through West Virginia and Southwest Virginia.  A federal judge ruled that the coastal city of South Portland, Maine, did not violate the U.S. Constitution when it passed an ordinance that blocked Portland Pipe Line Corporation from bringing Alberta tar sands oil through its port for export.  Meanwhile, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday released its decision delaying the Kinder Morgan Trans Canada pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil to the Canadian West Coast.  In reaction, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said she is pulling her province out of the national climate change plan.

This week Yale Climate Connections presented 12 books illustrating authors attempts to meet the challenge of talking with children about climate change at different age levels, from pre-school to young adult.  Wes Granberg-Michaelson, former General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America, wrote this week at Sojourners about the role of ecumenical Christians in the fight against climate change.  Ivy Main explained the Virginia Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Affiliates Act with respect to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Climate

According to a new paper in Earth Systems Dynamics, by 2035 we could pass the “point of no return” for reducing carbon emissions in order to limit global temperature rise to 2°C.  Furthermore, the authors determined that the deadline to stop global warming reaching 1.5°C has already passed, unless we commit to radical action now.

A new paper in the journal Science Advances reported that even if global average temperatures rise by as much as 4°C above pre-industrial levels, the damaging effects on fishing can be reduced through improved management of fisheries, allowing even greater catches.  However, without improved management, negative impacts will be severe.

A study published recently in Geophysical Research Letters used modeling to study the impacts of climate change on El Niño/La Niña events.  Summarizing their work, the lead author of the paper told John Abraham of The Guardian: “We can’t say from this study whether more or fewer El Niños will form in the future — or whether the El Niños that do form will be stronger or weaker in terms of ocean temperatures in the Pacific.  But we can say that an El Niño of a given magnitude that forms in the future is likely to have more influence over our weather than if the same El Niño formed 50 years ago.”

As documented in a new paper in Science Advances, scientists have discovered a new source of heat under the sea ice in the Beaufort Gyre of the Canadian Basin in the Arctic Ocean.  Summer sea ice has been absent from the Chukchi Sea for quite some time, allowing sunlight to directly contact the water, heating it.  That warm water is being carried under the sea ice into the Beaufort Gyre, but at a lower depth so that it doesn’t contact the ice above it.  However, should currents change, allowing the warm water to rise and contact the ice, its heat content is sufficient to melt the ice.

John Schwartz has a very interesting article in The New York Times, accompanied by beautiful photos and videos by Josh Haner, about the decline of Atlantic Puffins.  While climate change is involved, the interconnections are complex and difficult to tease apart.

While coastal cities in the U.S. face the risk of sea level rise as Earth warms, cities in the American Southwest face another hazard, extremely high temperatures.  This is requiring people to adapt in many ways.  California published its Fourth Climate Change Assessment this week, which includes a 67-page section on the state’s desert areas.  Sammy Roth summarized five major takeaways from the report.  The New York Times had an interactive graphic that allows you to enter your birthplace and year of birth and then see how the number of days with maximum temperatures exceeding 90°F has changed, among other things.  One way to lower temperatures in cities is to plant trees.  Unfortunately, nationally, 36.2 million urban trees are lost each year, along with a corresponding depletion of all their benefits, including carbon storage and cooling.

When we think about the impacts of sea level rise on Miami-Dade County, FL, the first things that comes to mind are the effects on roads, houses, and stormwater infrastructure.  Writing at Climate Changed, Christopher Flavelle argued that the main threat of sea level rise to the habitability of Miami-Dade is to its water supply.

Two articles published this week examined the impacts of warming on global food supplies.  One, published in Science, looked at losses of wheat, corn, and rice to insects.  It found that global yield losses of the three crops will increase by between 10 and 25% per degree Celsius of global mean surface warming.  The other, in Nature Climate Change, estimated that at atmospheric CO₂ levels of 550 ppm, an additional 175 million people would be zinc deficient and an additional 122 million people would be protein deficient.  One South Korean company thinks the way around such problems is to grow non-commodity food crops in tunnels, while a company in Scotland says that their indoor farm is the most advanced in the world.  And another large study of global fossil and temperature records from the past 20,000 years suggests that Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems are at risk of drastic changes as Earth warms, especially if humans continue burning fossil fuels as in the past.

Energy

Some time back I provided a link to an article about the plans of Dyson to build an electric car.  The company has now announced plans to build a ten mile test track in Wiltshire, UK.  There are now more than a million electric cars in Europe after sales soared by more than 40% in the first half of the year.  Amy Harder at Axios sought to put Telsas and other electric cars in perspective in the fight against climate change.

By 2020, Facebook plans to power its global operations with 100% renewable energy and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 75%.  Orlando, FL, has set a goal of generating all of its energy from carbon-free sources by 2050, and they are going about doing it in some interesting ways.  In Australia, a new analysis says wholesale electricity prices will almost halve over the next four years because of the installation of renewables.  A household just outside of Berlin has become the recipient of the 100,000th grid-connected residential battery energy storage system in Germany.

Japan’s consumption of liquefied natural gas is set to fall as the country’s nuclear reactors restart, with output from atomic power set for its highest since the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.  Russia is almost ready to deploy its first floating nuclear power plant.  Needless to say, the idea is controversial.  On the other hand, the South African Department of Energy this week announced that the Cabinet has approved a draft updated Integrated Resources Plan which will see increased renewable energy generation in place of a planned nuclear expansion.

A high pressure system that stalled over Britain this summer was responsible for a decline in surface winds, causing electricity generation by wind turbines to decline.  On the subject of wind turbines, research published in the journal Ecology and Evolution has revealed that European pipistrelle bats are drawn to red lights.  Researchers say that to limit bat deaths by collisions with wind turbines, operators should install on-demand lighting that only turns on if an airplane approaches.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.