Month: March 2020

Politics and Policy

The coronavirus stimulus bill that was passed by the Senate and House this week and signed by President Trump on Friday afternoon contained bad news for the wind and solar industries, but at least contained a little bit of good news in that the $3 billion to buy oil for the strategic reserve was eliminated.  While the virus has had a huge impact on the economy, slowing it greatly, one thing that it hasn’t impacted is the Trump administration’s timeline for rolling back environmental regulations, which many career scientists disagree with.  In addition, the administration will ease enforcement of environmental regulations covering polluting industries to help them cope with impacts from the coronavirus outbreak.  As emergency managers plan for the upcoming natural disaster season, they have another challenge: how to prevent disaster relief shelters from becoming breeding grounds for COVID-19.

While health is foremost in all of our minds, it is interesting to note that two of the amicus briefs filed in the children’s lawsuit were from two former Surgeons General and from leading experts in public health and medicine and organizations representing thousands of health professionals.

In a huge victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota, the future of the Dakota Access pipeline has been thrown into question after a federal court on Wednesday struck down its permits and ordered a comprehensive environmental review.  On Thursday, California adopted a new emissions target for its electricity sector that would double the state’s clean energy capacity over the next decade and halt the development of new natural gas power plants.

Two lifelong conservative voters who work with Citizens’ Climate Lobby and RepublicEn had a message for GOP lawmakers: “Stop playing with small ball climate solutions.”

Climate and Climate Science

National Geographic’s special Earth Day 50^th anniversary edition features a “verdant Earth” on the front cover and a “browner Earth” on the back cover, reflecting the uncertainty we face in our fight against climate change.  Inside the magazine, Emma Marris presents the optimistic view of the outcome of the battle, while Elizabeth Kolbert presents the pessimistic view.

A study published this week in Geophysical Research Letters revealed that Denman Glacier in East Antarctica has retreated about 3 miles over the last 22 years.  This suggests that the glaciers in East Antarctica may not be as stable as previously thought and pose an increased threat of sea level rise.  At the other end of the globe, meltwater from Greenland is pouring into the North Atlantic, impacting the Atlantic conveyer belt that carries warm water northward and cold water southward.  While a new study published in Science on Wednesday decreases the fear that the meltwater will stop the circulation entirely, it found that its strength dropped sharply before rebounding during periods of peak warming in three recent interglacials.  Such a drop would likely strongly impact the climate in Europe.

The Australian governmental agency responsible for the Great Barrier Reef has confirmed that the reef has suffered its third mass coral bleaching episode in five years.  Smoke from Australia’s bush fires killed hundreds of people and sent thousands to hospitals and emergency rooms, according to a new study published Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia.  According to a new paper in the journal Current Biology, marine species are migrating towards the earth’s poles to escape rising ocean temperatures near the equator.

A study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that more than 500 million people are likely to be hit by heat stress above safe levels if global average temperatures rise 1.5°C above pre-industrial times, almost 800 million at 2°C of warming, and 1.2 billion at 3°C.  Project Drawdown released its “2020 Drawdown Review”, which examined the costs and savings associated with holding the global temperature increase to 1.5°C.  Without even accounting for the savings associated with improved public health and avoided climate damages, keeping global temperature rises below 1.5°C would result in a global net economic savings of $145 trillion.

According to a new study in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, if the U.S. grain belt were to be hit by a severe four year drought, the effects would ripple out around the world, hitting hard those countries that depend on food imports.  At Inside Climate News, Georgina Gustin argued that climate change will force agriculture into new areas, which will mean more conversion of natural habitat into crop land, thereby increasing human/animal contact and the transfer of animal viruses like the novel coronavirus to humans.  At Yale Climate Connections, Kristen Pope provided a sampling of some of the climate-related threats to wildlife around the globe.

Energy

Carbon Brief has published a major update of its map of the world’s coal-fired power plants, based on the latest “Global Coal Plant Tracker” from Global Energy Monitor.  Also, according to the Monitor, coal-fired power plant development worldwide declined for the fourth year running in 2019.  Of course, China is the world’s largest user of electricity derived from coal.  Thus, whether the decline will continue depends largely on their 14^th Five Year Plan, which covers the period 2021-2015.  A new paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production suggests that coal mining may be a bigger contributor to levels of atmospheric methane than the oil and gas industries, with emissions set to grow considerably in the coming years.

The world’s wind power capacity grew by 19% in 2019, after a year of record growth for offshore windfarms and a boom in onshore projects in the U.S. and China.  Because the offshore wind industry is in its infancy in the U.S., the interruptions associated with the coronavirus are hitting it at a critical time.  The question is, just how disruptive will they be? 

Companies are selecting Detroit as a perfect location for the design and assembly of electric commercial vehicles, like delivery vans and shuttle/school buses.  According to data from AutoForecast Solutions seen by Reuters, North American production of SUV models by GM and Ford will outpace production of traditional cars by more than eight to one in 2026, and 93% of those SUVs are expected to be gas-fueled.  A new study, published Monday in the journal Nature Sustainability, found that electric vehicles produce less CO₂ than gasoline-powered vehicles across the vast majority of the globe – contrary to the claims of some detractors, who have alleged that the CO₂ emitted in the production of electricity and the manufacture of the vehicles outweighs the benefits.

Europe’s energy storage boom stalled last year due to a slowdown in large-scale schemes designed to store clean electricity from major renewable energy projects.  A recent report from IDTechEx observed that “While the stationary energy storage market is currently dominated by Li-ion batteries, redox flow batteries (RFBs) are slowly being adopted with an increasing number of projects all over the world.”  Rather than using batteries, another way to smooth out short-term variations in the supply-demand balance of electricity generation is to use flywheels, as explained in The Conversation.

Rosatom, a Russian state company, is financing and building nuclear power plants across the world, reaping for Moscow both profits and geopolitical influence that will last for decades.  The UK is trying to figure out the best way to make home heating “net-zero” CO₂ emitting by 2050.  One way is to convert their natural gas distribution system from methane to H₂.  The Guardian examined the various aspects of the question and it provides useful lessons for the U.S.

Potpourri Because of the coronavirus-caused shut-downs across the U.S., a coalition of youth-led organizations that had planned massive marches for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day next month are now planning a three-day livestream event instead.  Bill McKibben argued in The New Yorker that lessons learned from fighting the coronavirus could help in the battle against climate change, as did Beth Gardiner at Yale Environment 360.  Several other people also wrote articles comparing the response to the coronavirus to the response to climate change, but I found the one by Joseph Majkut of the Niskanen Center to be most interesting.  Greta Thunberg announced on Tuesday that she and her father, Svante, had symptoms of COVID-19 and that while hers were mild, her father felt far worse and had a fever.  Stephen Rodrick had a very interesting profile of Thunberg in Rolling Stone that goes much more deeply than others have.  By the way, a drawing of Greta is on the cover of the print edition.  Publisher Jann Wenner devoted his editorial to “The Price of Greed.”  Amy Brady had two interviews with authors, one this week, and one last week that I missed.  This week she spoke with Bjorn Vassnes, author of Kingdom of Frost, which reveals how, in an age of climate change, a shrinking cryosphere could mean catastrophe for over a billion people.  Last week she interviewed Alex Irvine, author of Anthropocene Rag, a novel dealing with the relationship between climate change and artificial intelligence.

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.

Politics and Policy

Of course, the main thing dominating the news this week is the new coronavirus and its impacts.  Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat who was instrumental in brokering the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, said that governments must not let the pandemic derail action on climate change.  Our government, as well as others, is working on stimulus packages to help reduce the financial fallout associated with the virus.  Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, said such stimulus packages marked a critical moment for governments to “shape policies” in line with climate action.  One industry asking for money is the airline industry, raising the question of whether any assistance should be tied to conditions.  Democrats are voicing concern that the White House may pursue broad relief for the oil and gas industry in the stimulus package.  They are also pushing to add climate change provisions to any stimulus.  Kathy Castor, chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, has announced that the Committee is postponing the release of the framework of its plan to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions. 

Even though CO₂ emission rates have fallen as a result of the pandemic, analysts are concerned about what will happen as a result of stimulus packages as infection levels begin to drop.  In the longer term, although the direct impact on health in many developing nations has so far been small, many are worried about how the global health and economic impacts of COVID-19 will influence the climate ambitions of developing countries.  The COP26 climate summit planned for Glasgow in November may have to be delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak.  A coalition of green groups has canceled three days of nationwide protests in April that were to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

A federal judge last week rejected an argument from the Trump administration that sought to invalidate California’s cap-and-trade program.  DOE said on Thursday it will buy up to 30 million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by the end of June as a first step in fulfilling President Trump’s directive to fill the reserve to help domestic crude producers.  The world’s largest investment banks have funneled more than $2.66tn into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement in 2015, new figures show, prompting warnings they are failing to respond to the climate crisis.  Unfortunately, shareholder efforts to influence companies’ approaches to issues related to climate change have suffered blows from both financial regulators and a federal judge in recent weeks.  The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases across southern Utah, some of which are within 0.5 miles of Canyonland N.P. and 1.5 miles of Arches N.P. 

In a conversation with Elizabeth McGowan, NRDC attorney Gillian Giannetti, a self-described “FERC nerd,” explained the legal issues behind the Atlantic Coast Pipeline case now before the U.S. Supreme Court.  On Thursday FERC approved a controversial natural gas pipeline and marine export terminal project at Coos Bay in Oregon.  Unusual coalitions in Congress are interested in reforming the Natural Gas Act — a 1938 law that regulates interstate natural gas pipelines.  The Heartland Institute is ousting its president, Frank Lasée, after being buffeted by financial turbulence that led to significant layoffs.  For about 12 minutes in Sunday night’s Democratic presidential debate, former Vice-President Biden and Senator Sanders addressed their climate change proposals.  In The New York Times, Lisa Friedman wrote: “In interviews with two dozen activists and voters who consider the planet’s warming their top issue, almost all said they worried that Mr. Biden has not made the issue a sufficient priority or been specific enough about his plans.” 

Climate and Climate Science

The organizers of a climate research expedition in the frozen Arctic Ocean have canceled a series of research flights after the Norwegian government imposed travel restrictions as part of its efforts to fight the coronavirus.  An article that came out Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters reported that Greenland lost an extraordinary 600 billion metric tons of ice by the end of the summer last year, although some was recovered as winter set in because of new snowfall.  At Hakai Magazine, Erin McKittrick wrote about why acidification is a worse problem in the Beaufort Sea than in warmer water bodies.

Chlorofluorocarbon chemicals, which were once widely used as refrigerants and as components in foam insulation, are strong greenhouse gases.  Because they also destroy the ozone in the stratosphere, they were banned by the Montreal Protocol.  Nevertheless, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications, their emissions into the atmosphere from 2000 to 2020 were equivalent to 25 billion metric tons of CO₂.

A new analysis, published in Nature Sustainability, looked at how protecting and replenishing soils – both in agricultural and natural landscapes – could combat global warming.  It found that if techniques to improve soil carbon were employed at the maximum assumed level worldwide, they could remove up to 5.5bn metric tons of CO₂ each year, an amount just under the U.S.’s emissions.  As the planet grows warmer, the effects of heat stress on organisms trying to survive outside the temperature envelope within which they evolved is becoming increasingly evident.  At Yale Climate Connections, Bruce Lieberman explored the pros and cons of planting trees to address climate change.  According to satellite imagery from INPE, Brazil’s space agency, the rate of deforestation in the Amazon in January and February was 70% higher than during the same period in 2019. 

There is an interesting article in Rolling Stone about human climate migration that makes the important points that most will occur within a given country and that significant migration is already occurring.

Wildfires burned 890,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) last year in the mainland U.S., a sharp drop from the previous two years when wildfires burned an average of 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres), and the lowest burn area since 2004.  The U.S. trend in 2019 does not change long-term patterns, experts said, and likely resulted from anomalies such as heavy precipitation that left forests and grasslands wetter than normal.  As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, a third of the U.S. is at risk of flooding this spring, according to the spring flood outlook released by the National Weather Service on Thursday.

Energy

In an article about coal at Vox, David Roberts wrote: “…in the U.S. and across the world, coal power is dying.  By 2030, it will be uneconomic to run existing coal plants.  That means all the dozens of coal plants on the drawing board today are doomed to become stranded assets.”  Driven largely by a plunge in coal-fired power generation, German greenhouse gas emissions fell by 6.3% last year, the steepest reduction recorded since 2009.  In The Netherlands the amount of electricity produced from coal fell from 27 billion kWh to 17 billion kWh last year.

A group of gas grid operators, oil firms, and utilities is planning a green H₂ pipeline to supply industrial customers in northwest Germany.

The Inside Clean Energy newsletter had three interesting articles this week.  One was about the impact of COVID-19 on forecasts of U.S. solar installations this year, another was about a large new solar project in Ohio, and the last about the decision to keep a nuclear power plant operational in Pennsylvania because that state joined RGGI.  The grass-roots backlash against large solar farms has become so widespread that the Solar Energy Industries Association, in a move to combat mounting negativity, last year developed and disseminated a manual that includes information on navigating community sensitivities.  According to the U.S. Solar Market Insight 2019 Year-in-Review report, released by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, solar grew by 23% in 2019 from 2018 and accounted for 40% of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S., its highest share ever and more than any other single source of electricity, with 13.3 GW installed.  However, things likely won’t be as good this year because of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The SEIA president said their projection of 47% growth in 2020 will be ratcheted down in the coming weeks and months.

Technology provider Lilac Solutions, which has a proprietary ion exchange technology, is partnering with resource developer Controlled Thermal Resources to open a pilot plant to extract lithium from geothermal brine run-off.  Sponsored by Senator Angus King (I-ME), the “Battery and Critical Mineral Recycling Act of 2020” calls on Congress to allocate $150 million over the next five years to support research on “innovative” battery recycling approaches and to help establish of a national collection system for spent batteries.

According to UBS analysts, while lower oil prices could negatively impact EV sales in the U.S., that is not likely to happen in China and the EU because factors other than cost are driving the markets there.  If you’re a truck fan, you might be interested in another article reviewing where we are in the evolution of the electric truck, both battery and fuel cell.

Potpourri

Ecologists working in Wollemi National Park in New South Wales, Australia, are using helicopters to airdrop carrots and sweet potatoes to wallabies, whose food supply was wiped out by the massive bushfires.  Peter Sinclair has another “This Is Not Cool” video at Yale Climate Connections.  This one shows how several climate scientists are handling the emotional and personal feelings associated with the potential adverse effects of climate change.  At The Guardian, John Vidal addressed the question: “Is our destruction of nature responsible for COVID-19?”.  One of Fritjof Capra’s books, The Web of Life (1996), had a profound effect on me.  Thus it was interesting to see that he and futurist Hazel Henderson had written an article together entitled “Pandemics — Lessons Looking Back from 2050”.  Zibby Owens reviewed the memoir by Greta Thunberg’s family, Our House Is on Fire, for the Washington Post. 

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.

Politics and Policy

The spread of coronavirus across the world is disrupting climate and biodiversity meetings ahead of two critical UN summits seeking to limit warming and to halt extinctions of plants and wildlife.  At Inside Climate News, Dan Gearino reviewed the climate lessons in the response to the coronavirus.  The Corps of Engineers has been given authority to provide funding to municipalities to buy out houses in flood-prone areas.  The catch is, if the municipality joins the program, it must use its eminent domain powers to force out people who won’t voluntarily sell and move.  The Senate on Thursday voted 52-40 to confirm James Danly as a Republican commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  A panel of economic experts appearing on Capitol Hill during a March 12 hearing convened by the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis delivered a clear warning that continued inaction on climate will result in enormous economic and societal consequences.  Grist compared the comments Sanders and Biden have given about climate change during the debates while Reuters directly compared their plans.  Juliet Eilperin had an interesting piece in The Washington Post under the headline “Bernie Sanders’s climate record in congress: Lots of advocacy, no compromise.”

A Fairfax County church is on track to be the first Virginia property to tap into the PACE (property-assessed clean energy) program to finance upgrades to its aging HVAC system.  Martinsville City Council approved the concept of a new solar energy facility on the former Lynwood Golf Club site.  The city would have a power purchase agreement it.  David Roberts dissected the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) at Vox, while Walton Shepard, the Virginia Policy Director of NRDC’s Climate & Clean Energy Program, had a blog post about the shortcomings of the act as passed by the General Assembly and what Governor Ralph Northam can do to fix it.  A federal judge has sided with the developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in their dispute with the Board of Supervisors of Nelson County, VA, over the permitting powers of local governments.

The Senate energy package stalled on Monday in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee over an amendment that would limit the use of hydrofluorocarbons — potent greenhouse gases.  The authors of the amendment also have a bill under consideration by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  There were two interesting articles this week about deniers of main-stream climate science.  One dealt with their activities to counteract the influence of conservative clean energy groups, led most prominently by ClearPath and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.  The other involved a joint investigation by non-profit newsroom Correctiv and current affairs TV show, Frontal21, into the activities of the Heartland Institute to weaken climate policies in Germany.  Speaking of Heartland, it has launched a website of contrarian climate science called “Climate at a Glance”, which includes brief explanations of key climate science and policy issues, many of which are either misleading or inaccurate.  Whether Heartland can keep it up is in question, however, since it laid off more than half of its staff last week amid financial difficulties.

Damian Carrington, The Guardian’s environment editor, had an excellent opinion essay about “deadlines” for saving the world from climate change.  James Slevin, president of the Utility Workers Union of America, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a climate warrior, have joined forces to argue for a carbon tax, the first time that an energy-sector union has announced support for such a fee.  Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed an executive order to further the state’s emission reduction goals Tuesday after state GOP lawmakers blocked legislation by staging their second walkout in less than a year.  In selecting Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) to serve as his next chief of staff, President Trump is bringing into the White House a Republican lawmaker who has raised concerns about climate change and expressed a desire to do something about it, although it would be a stretch to call him a climate champion.

Climate and Climate Science

The World Meteorological Organization released its annual state of the climate report for 2019, stating that the planet is “way off track” in dealing with climate change.  Greenland and Antarctica are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date by the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise.  The melt rate is tracking the worst-case climate warming scenario set out by the IPCC.

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters has warned that if Earth warms by 1.5°C, 500 million people would be subjected to heat and humidity in excess of safe levels each year, increasing to 800 million at 2°C of warming. 

Air pollution, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, kills more people each year in the U.S. than auto accidents and homicides combined and costs the American economy up to $1 trillion per year.  Thus, curbing fossil fuel use will have immediate and significant impacts, as well as mitigate climate change.

Many seabirds in the UK are struggling in the face of food shortages and storms brought on by climate change, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee has warned.  Climate change is spurring some bear populations across the world to change their hibernation patterns.  A big question regarding the recent locust swarms in East Africa is whether they have been caused or influenced by climate change.  Daisy Dunne had a detailed Q&A about that question at Carbon Brief.  One way that climate change could have influenced the locust swarms is by altering the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).  Research reported in the journal Nature suggested that IOD events have become more frequent in recent decades.

A new study published Tuesday in Nature Communications examined the mechanics of tipping points in 40 separate ecosystems.  Drawing on pre-existing studies and modeling, the authors suggest that the collapse of large vulnerable ecosystems, such as rainforests and coral reefs, may take only a few decades once triggered.

Energy

The biggest energy news this week was the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, pushing oil prices down.  In combination with the coronavirus expansion into Europe and the U.S., this has impacted energy and other markets.  Charlie Bloch and colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Institute wrote about how this affects the global transition to a clean energy economy.  In addition, the International Energy Agency has stated that while the coronavirus health crisis may lead to a slump in global carbon emissions this year, the outbreak poses a threat to long-term climate action by undermining investment in clean energy.

Duke Energy, Dominion Energy, and Southern Company are not making investments consistent with their clean energy goals, according to a report released Monday from Synapse Energy Economics.  A study from Carbon Tracker found that in all major markets it costs less to generate power from installing new wind or solar farms than new coal plants.  Furthermore, it could be cheaper to generate electricity by building new renewable facilities than to run existing coal-fired power stations in all markets by 2030.  About 95% of nearly 21 GW of energy resources currently proposed for the New England region are grid-scale wind, solar, and battery projects, according to the Independent System Operator of New England.

Switzerland-based UBS Bank has ended support for offshore drilling in the Arctic and will also end funding for oil sands and coal projects.  At Yale Environment 360, Fred Pearce wrote: “Coal is declining sharply, as financiers and insurance companies abandon the industry in the face of shrinking demand, pressure from climate campaigners, and competition from cleaner fuels.  After years of its predicted demise, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel may finally be on the way out.”  Newly released figures from the Energy Information Administration show that coal-fired power plants in the U.S. had a capacity factor of 47.5% in 2019, the first time it’s been below 50% in decades.  Global CO₂ emissions from the power sector fell by 2% last year because of reduced coal usage in Europe and the U.S. according to a study by independent climate think tank Ember.

The Australian government, in concert with Global wind and solar energy firms, Engie and Neoen, is starting a project to blend green H₂ into the natural gas distribution system.  Current electrolyzers for generating green H₂ by splitting water require specialized metals and contain expensive catalysts.  Research is moving forward to reduce costs, but additional development is required before a new generation of electrolyzers can be applied at scale.  A 10MW hydrogen production plant powered from renewable energy has just opened in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.  It is thought to be the world’s largest to date.  A Utah power plant, currently powered by coal, will first be transitioned to natural gas, and by 2025, the turbines “will be commercially guaranteed” to use a mix of 30% H₂ and 70% gas.

According to the latest quarterly U.S. Energy Storage Monitor, produced by the national Energy Storage Association and analysis firm Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, annual storage deployments in the U.S. are predicted to increase from 523 MW recorded in 2019 to 7.3 GW by 2025.  Isle au Haut, an island seven miles off the coast of Maine, is going to a solar-powered microgrid with interesting innovations in energy storage.

Potpourri

At Yale Climate Connections, regular contributor SueEllen Campbell has compiled stories about the Australian bushfires that focus on the emotional and cultural impacts.  In the same vein, Australian science communicator Joe Duggan one again reached out to (mostly Australian) climate scientists, asking them to tell him about how they were feeling about their work and the state of the climate.  Thirty-eight percent of Democratic college students rate climate as their top issue.  Michael Svoboda reported on the increased media coverage for climate change in 2019 and its possible impact on public perception.

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.

Politics and Policy

At a hearing Thursday before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler defended President Trump’s proposed 26% cut to the agency’s fiscal 2021 budget.  Even though they were voluntary, stricter energy efficiency building codes were just dropped from a major energy package making its way through the Senate because the National Association of Home Builders opposed it.  Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Tom Carper (D-DE) proposed an amendment to that bill to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons, which are strong greenhouse gases.  The White House raised objections.  An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The EU Commission adopted a proposal for a European “climate law” that would commit the EU to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.  The regulation requires approval from parliament and member states.  Politico described the five political battles that must be won to gain that approval.  A group of activist youth called the proposal “surrender” and a dozen member countries called for the EU to draw up a climate target for 2030 “as soon as possible.”  The proposal also launched the process to enact a new tax on products from countries, such as the U.S., that aren’t working to reduce their CO₂ emissions.

Dino Grandoni of The Washington Post presented “The four biggest differences between the Biden and Sanders climate plans” while MIT Technology Review had a more comprehensive comparison.  Attorneys for 21 youth climate activists are petitioning for a ruling from all 11 judges of the 9th Circuit after two judges on a three-judge panel ruled they cannot sue the federal government for failure to act on climate change.

Under its new governor, Florida, which is on the front lines of climate change impacts and is still controlled by Republicans, is changing its stance on climate issues.  The question is, can they get President Trump to change his mind?  A study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that flood disclosure laws can help communities avoid flood damage by making floodplain development less lucrative.  At The Progressive, Laurie Mazur envisioned how infrastructure could be reconfigured to ward off the worst impacts of climate change.  Farm organizations, which have historically resisted calls to accept the anthropogenic nature of climate change, have adopted a new phrase for use with their members, “climatic events,” which can mean anything between weather and climate change.

Climate and Climate Science

A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests that trees in the Congo Basin of central Africa are losing their capacity to absorb CO₂ and that the decline may have been underway for a decade.  These findings parallel similar findings in the Amazon, but trailing that decline by 10 to 20 years.  They suggest that by mid-century, the remaining uncut tropical forests in Africa, the Amazon, and Asia will release more CO₂ than they take up.  A more detailed account of the study can be found here.  As if that weren’t bad enough, the world’s largest tropical peatlands could be destroyed if plans go ahead to drill for oil under the Congo basin.  In addition, deforestation of lands occupied by isolated indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon more than doubled between July 2018 and July 2019 to the highest rate in more than a decade, according to a new report released on Tuesday.  Climate Home News published an account of one family’s decision to burn the trees on their land in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Western Brazil and start raising cattle.  Torrential rains deluged the coast of Sao Paulo state in Brazil early Tuesday, causing massive mud slides.

The extreme fires that razed parts of Australia late last year were 30% more likely because of human-induced climate change, says an international group of climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution project who have analyzed the disaster.  Record sea-surface temperatures in much of the Great Barrier Reef region have intensified the risks that coral bleaching already underway could develop into another mass bleaching event.  It is likely that the high sea temperatures will linger into March.

The journal Scientific Reports has retracted a paper claiming that climate change is due to solar cycles rather than human activity.  A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that adding iron to Earth’s oceans is not likely to result in the increased removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere due to greater growth of phytoplankton.  

Europe’s average temperature for December through February was 6.1°F above the 40-year average, breaking the previous record by more than 2°F.  In the U.S., temperatures were above average for every state but Alaska.  Many parts of the world are likely to experience above-average temperatures over the next few months, even without an El Niño effect, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.  New data from the USA National Phenology Network showed that in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and northern Florida, spring arrived more than three weeks earlier than average, and earlier than at any point in the last 39 years.

According to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change, uncurbed climate change could cause half of the world’s sandy beaches to vanish by the end of the century.  An article in Science examined the role of climate change in weather “blocking” by the jet stream.  According to a January paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the amount of warming associated with contrails from commercial airline flights could be reduced significantly by slightly changing their altitude.

Energy

General Motors has introduced its new electric vehicle (EV) battery that allows extended range and will be cheaper to produce than today’s batteries.  The new battery cells are soft, flat pouches, which allows the battery pack to have a greater variety of shapes.  In addition, the batteries use less cobalt, which makes them less expensive.  The world’s best-selling cargo van – Ford Transit – will debut an all-electric version for the U.S. and Canada for the 2022 model year.  Buyers of plug-in hybrid cars should be aware that the gasoline engine may turn on while in EV mode when certain energy-intensive operations are performed.  The U.S. vehicle fleet hit a record for fuel efficiency in 2018 averaging 25.1 mpg in real-world driving as it rose 0.2 mpg, the EPA said.

The UK’s CO₂ emissions fell by 2.9% in 2019 and nearly 30% over the last decade despite a growth in GDP, according to a new analysis by climate policy website Carbon Brief.

Robert Harding and Amanda Levin of NRDC examined the 2019 power sector data released last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to generate a state-by-state comparison of the move toward cleaner energy.  Dan Gearino at Inside Clean Energy summarized national trends from the EIA report about the surge in wind and solar energy.  More than 5% of all K-12 schools in the U.S. produce solar energy — double what it was just three years ago.  Greentech Media predicted that more than $200 billion in capital expenditures for offshore wind will be spent between 2020 and 2025.

In a new twist on pumped storage, a California developer wants to move water back and forth between two abandoned open pit mines as a way of storing solar energy.  Others aren’t sold on the idea.  Officials in Monterey County California approved a massive clean-energy battery farm project spearheaded by Tesla and PG&E that officials say would be the largest of its kind in the world.  A huge green hydrogen plant will be constructed in the northern Netherlands as a part of a Royal Dutch Shell partnership with Dutch gas company Gasunie.  The green hydrogen plant will be powered by a new offshore wind farm near Groningen province.

New York Magazine business writer Malcolm Harris attended a meeting of the Shell Scenarios team and wrote “These companies aren’t planning for a future without oil and gas, at least not anytime soon, but they want the public to think of them as part of a climate solution.  In reality, they’re a problem trying to avoid being solved.”  One thing the oil and gas industry is counting on in its business model is more plastics.

Potpourri

At Yale Climate Connections, Daisy Simmons presented trailers for seven climate-related films from the 2020 Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA.  Amy Brady interviewed Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Anne Charnock about her new novel, Bridge 108.  To observe Women’s History Month, Yale Climate Connections presented a selection of new and recent books on how women’s lives will be affected by climate change and how women are changing the politics and prospects for action.  Speaking of women and climate science, David Suzuki presented an interesting bit of history about Eunice Newton Foote and her contribution to the field.  Patti Wetli contrasted our responses to climate change and to the coronavirus.  Naomi Seibt, a 19-year-old German YouTuber whom conservatives have dubbed the “anti-Greta,” expressed support last Friday for a Canadian alt-right commentator at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

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.