Category: Climate News Roundup

Talking about climate change is difficult for a whole host of reasons.  This article in Grist by Amelia Urry has lots of good sound advice about how to do it.  On the other hand, a recent study published in Nature Climate Change found that focusing on risk reduction is a worthwhile strategy for convincing people of the need for action.  Perhaps Apple’s new initiative, called “Apps for Earth”, will increase the public’s conversations about climate change and other environmental issues.  It is pretty hard to summarize it in a sentence so you’ll have to read about it if you’re an Apple user.

In a recent Weekly Roundup I included an item about Dominion Power filing a brief supporting the Clean Power Plan.  In a post on her blog, Ivy Main presents her take on why they did this.  One possible reason is that Dominion’s parent company transmits and sells natural gas.  However, there are real questions about whether the shift to natural gas from coal for electricity generation will have the desired effect of slowing climate change because of the leakage of methane (the main component of natural gas and a powerful greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.  Chris Mooney ofThe Washington Post had a good retrospective this week on the methane issue.  Finally, climate scientist James Hansen offers his opinion on how fracking and methane impact the presidential election.

Over 130 nations, including the U.S. and China, have announced that they plan to be present at the U.N. headquarters in New York City on April 22 to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.  The strong interest in signing now has arisen because if 55 countries accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions sign the agreement before the end of President Obama’s term of office, the next president would have a difficult time pulling out of the agreement should he/she want to.

Sammy Roth had an interesting essay in USA Today about the “Keep it in the ground” movement.  He writes about Kaitlin Butler, a Salt Lake City-based researcher with the Science and Environmental Health Network and “Keep it in the ground” supporter, who thinks climate advocates can win that battle if they promote an “empowering” message.  Her message of choice: “that if we make good decisions today, we can improve the lives of our children, grandchildren and thousands more generations.”  Isn’t that what we all want?

Recognizing that limiting warming to 2 C may not provide adequate protection to vulnerable areas of Earth, the Paris Climate Agreement included an aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C.  Given the fact that 85% of the world’s energy use is from fossil fuels and that time will be required to wean us from them, it is likely that meeting the agreed-upon 2 C limit, let alone the aspirational goal, will require the use of “negative emission technologies.”  In other words, we will have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  This week Carbon Brief presented a series of articles on negative emission technologies: 1, Ten negative emission technologies; 2, feasibility of negative emissions; 3, History of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS); 4, Do we need BECCS to avoid catastrophic climate change?; and 5, Analysis, is the UK relying on negative emissions to meet its climate targets?

One proposed pathway to a clean energy future is to rely on hydrogen gas for many uses, with the hydrogen being produced by electrolysis of water using electricity generated from solar or wind facilities, or by steam reforming of methane, with the resulting CO2 being captured and stored.  Now it looks as if the city of Leeds in the UK will be the first to try this on large scale, with complete conversion by 2025-2030.

Peabody Energy, the largest U.S. coal company, announced early Wednesday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Concerning the cause, Benjamin Hulac of E&E News wrote: “Cheap and plentiful natural gas, as well as an oversupplied market of inexpensive coal — not environmental regulations — are the primary forces behind Peabody Energy Corp.’s bankruptcy and others in the U.S. coal industry, a wide range of financial experts said.”  Meanwhile, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund sold its shares in 52 coal-dependent companies, thereby divesting from coal.

In addition to the melting of glaciers due to global warming, there are several natural phenomena that contribute to sea level rise.  Now a new paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, has found that over the period 1970 to 2005, two-thirds of sea level rise was due to human influences.  In addition, subsidence, both natural and human-caused, is making a significant contribution to “recurrent flooding” in a region from Delaware to northern North Carolina, according to a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.  Finally, another new paper in Nature Climate Change has found that many more small island will become arid in the face of climate change than had been thought previously.  Now it is thought that 73% are at risk of aridity, rather than 50%.

An analysis by the World Resources Institute has found that dedicating just a small percentage of a carbon tax to the redevelopment of communities in West Virginia’s coal country would have a major impact on preventing economic collapse in the region.  That information was presented at a national energy conference in Morgantown focusing on the future of West Virginia.  A more detailed accounting of the conference can be found here.

For the first time in three years, U.S. solar panel manufacturer First Solar Inc. is producing panels for less than China’s largest supplier, Trina Solar, Ltd., thereby justifying more than $3 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government.

A new meta-analysis of the various papers estimating the percent of climate scientists that agree that humans are causing climate change by emitting long-lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has confirmed that the value is between 90% and 100%.

The start of the melt season in Greenland is defined as the day the percent of the ice sheet undergoing melting equals or exceeds 10%.  The record earliest start date was May 5, 2010.  Well, on Monday (April 11, 2016) 12% of the Greenland ice sheet was melting, setting a new record for earliest start.  Perhaps that was because January through March was the hottest three month start to any year on record, according to NASA.  Also, March 2016 was the hottest March on record according to both NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Although wind turbines kill far fewer birds than do buildings and domestic cats, bird mortality, particularly for eagles and other raptors, is still a concern.  At a recent American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) conference in Charleston, SC two new technologies were showcased that help detect birds and bats flying near wind farms.  Also AWEA announced in Denver this week that wind produced 4.7% of the nation’s electricity in 2015.

Information continues to come to light concerning what and when the oil and gas industry knew about the link between CO2 emissions and climate change.  This time the focus is on the American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for oil and gas.  The Center for International Environmental Law has revealed that the Stanford Research Institute presented a report to API in 1968 that warned the release of CO2 from burning fossil fuels could carry an array of harmful consequences for the planet.  Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has sued to block a subpoena issued by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking more of its documents on climate change.

More bad news about coral this week.  A new paper in the journal Science has found that there has been a mechanism operating in the Great Barrier Reef that protects the coral from death when it experiences a bleaching event due to elevated temperature.  Unfortunately, in the future as temperatures continue to warm that mechanism will no longer happen.

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.

There was an important decision this week in the children’s lawsuit against the federal government over the government’s failure to protect them from the impacts of climate change.  Lawyers from the government and the fossil fuel industry had asked to have the lawsuit dismissed, but the judge refused, noting that the go-nowhere political debate about climate change “necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government.”  The judge’s ruling is here.

There were a couple of articles this week about sea level rise that weren’t all doom and gloom.  One deals with how Norfolk is responding in a positive way, seeing opportunities for developing the city to be more resilient and becoming a case study for others to emulate.  The other describes how the UNC Institute of Marine Science in Morehead City, North Carolina is working with NOAA on a citizens’ science project to document where flooding occurs during King Tides as a way of anticipating what the future may bring.  While neither will stop the inevitable rise of the sea, they both demonstrate a willingness to tackle the problem in a positive way.  We can also learn from what others are doing all over the U.S. and the rest of the world to adapt to higher seas, as outlined in an article in Smithsonian.  Speaking of sea level rise, NASA unveiled a new site this week that allows you track what’s going on around the world.

If you suffer from seasonal allergies caused by airborne pollen, then climate change brings bad news.  Climate change is causing longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures are increasing the rate of plant growth.  In addition, CO2 is a plant “food” because it provides the carbon needed in photosynthesis.  Combined, these factors mean more pollen and as a result, doctors are seeing an increase in the number of people with allergies and in their responses.  Other health related impacts of climate change are documented in a massive new report issued by the Obama administration on Monday.  The White House issued a fact sheet and Rebecca Leber does a good job of summarizing the key findings on Grist.

Growing rice the traditional way in flooded fields results in significant methane emissions.  Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it would be great if growing techniques could be modified to reduce those emissions.  Well, U.S. rice farmers and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have done that and EDF is working with rice farmers in India and Vietnam to see if the technique will work there as well.  EDF has also been working with utilities to apply a new sensor that allows detection of methane leaks from natural gas distribution systems in cities.  The work has shown that cities with old distribution systems can have a much larger number of significant leaks than cities with newer systems.  The good news is that the sensor allows the utilities to pinpoint exactly where in their distribution system the worst leaks are occurring, allowing them to be repaired on a priority basis.

When Saudi Arabia starts moving out of oil, is that an indication of a major shift in the oil industry?  Thirty-year-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has revealed that the country will begin selling shares in its oil company and transfer the assets to the Public Investment Fund, creating over a 20 year period the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

Strip mining and mountain top removal for coal have left a legacy of destroyed landscapes across the U.S.  Coal companies are supposed to remediate their damage and must post a bond to cover the costs in case they go out of business and the government has to do the job.  A provision in the law allows larger companies to self-bond.  Unfortunately, as coal declines, several of those companies are in bankruptcy and others may also declare.  This raises the question as to who will pay for the restoration of the land?  Also, what will happen to the laid-off coal miners?

Another economic article of interest concerns a modeling study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.  It found that climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5 trillion, but if action was taken to limit warming to 2 C the losses would be reduced $1.7 trillion, even after the cost of limiting warming was accounted for.  Another account of the study can be found here.

A group of current and former lawmakers, as well as several tech companies, has filed a brief supporting the EPA in the lawsuit challenging its authority to regulate CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants.  And, wonder of wonders, so has Dominion Power.  Several other friendly filings were made this week ahead of an impending deadline.

In a run-up to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance Conference in New York this week, Joe Ryan surveys the major players in renewable energy and asks whether one will become dominant, much like John D. Rockefeller did in the emerging oil market of the late 19th century.  Speaking of renewable energy, it is worth noting that it grew at the fastest rate on record in 2015.  Still new ideas are in the pipeline; columnist David Ignatius writes about some of the innovative ideas coming out of the ARPA-E program at the Department of Energy.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) of CO2 emitted by power plants is a technology that has been difficult to make effective and economic at large scale.  Nevertheless, a new study in Nature Climate Change has found that it will be essential if we are to keep atmospheric levels of CO2 low enough to limit warming to 2 C.  Perhaps Net Power has the answer on how to make CCS economic (both in dollars and energy efficiency).

Also in the good news category this week is an analysis that shows that 21 countries have reduced their CO2 emissions while also managing to grow their economies.  Carbon Brief extended the analysis to a greater number of countries, finding an additional 14 that have cut the tie between economic growth and CO2 emissions.  On a similar note, the University of Notre Dame has released the latest rankings in its Global Adaptation Index, indicating which countries are doing the best and worst in preparing for climate change.

And then there are the good news/bad news items, such as the impacts of retreating sea ice.  Some whales are evidently prospering right now (long-term prospects are unknown), in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, whereas polar bears in the Arctic are hurting, having lost significant weight because of reduced opportunity to hunt seals on ice.  If you want to know more about sea ice Roz Pidcock at Carbon Brief has an analysis of ice behavior this year.

A new study published this week in Science examines the role of mixed-phase clouds (i.e., those containing both ice and liquid water) in the reflection of sunlight and the absorption of infra-red radiation from Earth, factors that contribute to the global energy balance.  Although the press release from Yale, where the study was done, emphasized that the results from the study show that climate models underestimate the amount of warming associated with increased CO2 in the atmosphere, Chris Mooney quotes NASA’s Gavin Schmidt as saying such a conclusion is premature.  Like many things in climate science, it’s complicated.

The World Bank, the world’s biggest provider of public finance to developing countries, said it would spend 28% of its investments directly on climate change projects, and that all of its future spending would account for global warming.

There was more information about food waste and its impact in the news this week.  A new study by the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found that up to 14 percent of emissions from agriculture in 2050 could be avoided by managing food use and distribution better.

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.

Antarctica and sea level rise are in the news again because of another new paper, this one in the journal Nature.  This modeling study provides additional evidence that the IPCC sea level projections are too conservative and that sea level rise by 2100 may be twice as high as they predicted, if we continue emitting CO2 as usual.  According to glaciologist Eric Rignot, as quoted by The Washington Post, “People should not look at this as a futuristic scenario of things that may or may not happen. They should look at it as the tragic story we are following right now.”  A main take-home from the paper – a lot depends on what we do about our CO2 emissions.  Also in The Washington Post, Chris Mooney has done an excellent job of drawing together the findings from several recent studies on Greenland and Antarctica.  And Elizabeth Kolbert adds a bit of history in The New Yorker.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday that the Arctic sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 5.607 million sq miles on 24 March, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

A new documentary, “Ice and the Sky”, illuminates the work of French scientist Claude Lorius, 84, who was instrumental in obtaining the first ice cores from Antarctica, as well as many other activities that have led to what we know today about the climate.  Another scientist who made early discoveries important to our understanding of climate change is the late Charles David Keeling, father of the iconic Keeling curve showing the rising saw-shaped curve of atmospheric CO2 over time.  Eric Roston remembers his accomplishments.

Last week I linked to an article about coral health around remote uninhabited islands, which indicated that it was better than that around inhabited islands.  Unfortunately, not all scientists agree with that conclusion, as indicated in this post on Storify by John F. Bruno, a marine ecologist and professor at UNC Chapel Hill.  (Note, the article I linked to was also by Joshua Emerson Smith, but was in The San Diego Union-Tribune rather than the LA Times.)  So maybe the news was not so good after all.  On a similar note, on Tuesday Australian scientists announced that the most pristine section of the Great Barrier Reef was experiencing the worst, mass bleaching event in its history.

Also last week I provided a link to an article about Missouri denying approval of the Grain Belt Express high voltage power transmission line proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas to users in Illinois and Indiana.  Now, in a similar case, the Department of Energy has invoked a 10 year old law to prevent Arkansas from blocking approval of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line proposed by the same company to carry clean energy from Oklahoma to Tennessee.  The decision has created considerable controversy.

Much of China’s renewable energy is generated in the northern and western inland, far from the eastern coastal regions where most power is used.  Because China’s grid is inadequate to carry all of the renewable energy, large amounts go to waste.  China is responding to this situation in two ways.  First, the country’s energy regulator has ordered power transmission companies to provide grid connectivity for all renewable power generation sources and end the bottleneck that has left some clean power idle.  Second, it has halted construction of new wind power facilities until the grid can be upgraded.

According to a new earthquake map issued by the U.S. Geological Survey that includes both natural and man-made (mostly due to pumping fracking wastewater into deep wells) earthquakes, areas of Oklahoma have as high a chance of an earthquake as areas around San Francisco Bay in California.  In addition, a new Canadian study has shown that fracking itself, not just wastewater injection, can cause earthquakes.  Interestingly, a new Gallup poll finds that 51% of Americans oppose fracking, up 11% in the last year.

Lawyers for the Obama administration defended the Clean Power Plan for power plants in court Monday, writing “The rule reflects the eminently reasonable exercise of EPA’s recognized statutory authority.”  In addition, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and a coalition of 54 local governments filed arguments in federal court Friday morning in support of the Clean Power Plan.  One option that many are counting on for meeting their obligations under the Clean Power Plan is carbon capture and storage (CCS).  Unfortunately, the only large-scale power plant employing CCS has run into many problems during its first year of operation.  The question now is whether they can be solved in a timely manner.

Writing in Grist, Ben Adler analyzes Bernie Sanders proposal to phase out nuclear power.  Lightbridge, a company in Reston, Virginia, has unveiled a metallic fuel for nuclear reactors that it says will make reactors’ fuel rods safer and more efficient.  Others, however, are less enthusiastic.

Wasted food is an issue that is receiving a lot of attention now, primarily because of the need to feed more and more people on the planet.  Another reason for concern, however, is the carbon footprint associated with that food.  In a 2011 report, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that in 2007, the global carbon footprint of all of this wasted food was about 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalents — that’s 7% of all global emissions.

You may recall that 10 years ago, on April 3, Time magazine published its special report on global warming, with its admonition to “Be worried.  Be very worried.”  I certainly do, and I did.  On Tuesday Joe Romm looked back at what has transpired over the last 10 years to prevent us from being any better prepared than we are to solve the problem.

A study published Thursday in the journal Science has found that birds that were expected to do well in the face of climate change have outperformed other species in the past 30 years in both Europe and the U.S.

On Thursday Tesla Motors introduced its long awaited $35,000 Model 3 electric car.  By Friday morning 180,000 people had preordered the car.  Still, Tesla faces some significant hurdles in making the car a reality.

Technology need not be complex to help in the fight against global warming.  For example, in Africa simple biogas reactors coupled with plastic storage bags for the methane generated are providing cooking gas for households while providing income for those operating the reactors and preventing methane from escaping to the atmosphere.  In the U.S., on the other hand, where we have a complex infrastructure, leakage of methane to the atmosphere from aging infrastructure is a problem in need of innovative solution.

A set of four duplex apartment buildings in Blacksburg achieved the first net-zero energy certification in Virginia.

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.

In a new essay in The Nation, entitled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Chemistry,” Bill McKibben summarizes recent research on methane emissions and the impact of the fracking “revolution” on global warming.

Another new essay this week, also appearing in The Nation, is by Madeline Ostrander, a freelance writer and contributing editor to Yes! Magazine.  It introduces readers to the Conceivable Future project, an organization cofounded by Meghan Kallman (partner of climate activist Tim DeChristopher) and Josephine Ferorelli (former Occupy activist) to help people deal with the difficult question of whether to have children.  I found this essay to be very moving and thought-provoking.

A significant event this week was the publication of a paper entitled “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous” in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.  The paper was written by former NASA scientist James Hansen and 20 other scientists.  I point this paper out to you for two reasons.  First, is its content.  If Hansen and his coauthors are correct (note that some disagree), the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than heretofore thought.  Chris Mooney of The Washington Post summarizes the major findings, as does Dr. Hansen in a video.  If you prefer to read a transcript of the video, it can be found here.  Second, it provides a window into peer review.  Peer review is the process that journal papers must go through before being accepted for publication.  This journal makes all of the peer review information public, which is unusual.  So, if you are interested you can go to the journal’s website, click on the “peer review” tab, and scroll down to the section “Peer review completion.”  There you will see the reviews by the referees, the author responses, and the editor’s decisions.  This journal is also unique in having an open “interactive discussion” during the review process and in revealing the referees names.

Hydroelectric dams have been the power generation method of choice in the Amazon basin, with 191 dams already present and almost 250 more being planned.  While such dams provide carbon-free electricity, a new paper in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation suggests that construction of the planned dams can significantly negatively impact the area in three ways.

Last week I provided a link to an article about coral bleaching resulting from warmer oceans.  Now for some good news about coral.  Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have reported that coral around remote islands is much healthier than coral around inhabited islands.  This suggests that efforts to reduce pollution around coral reefs is indeed worthwhile to the survival of coral as oceans warm.

After negotiators in Paris agreed on a goal of limiting global temperature increases, climate activist Bill McKibben said: “We’re damn well going to hold them to it. Every pipeline, every mine.”  His promise is playing out all over the country and around the world as activists challenge new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.  In fact, consulting engineering firm Black and Veatch recently reported that the most significant barrier to building new pipeline capacity was “delay from opposition groups.”  As an example, more than 300 climate activists protested in New Orleans on Wednesday morning at a federal auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

If people in developed countries were to eat less red meat and move steadily toward a vegetarian or vegan diet, they could live longer and lower medical costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food production by 29 to 70% by 2050, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  (Note: At least one news source incorrectly reported that total greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 29 to 70%.)

Two related news items this week painted a pretty dim picture for life on Earth.  First, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) was uncharacteristically blunt in its Status of the Global Climate report.  In releasing the report, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas stated “The future is happening now…The alarming rate of change we are now witnessing in our climate as a result of greenhouse gas emission is unprecedented in modern records.”  Second, a new paper in Nature Geoscience reports that humans are currently releasing CO2 to the atmosphere 10 times faster than at any time in the past 66 million years, including during the PETM, which caused a warming event that lasted 100,000 years and had major impacts on biodiversity.  There is some good news about meteorologists in the U.S., however: more than 95% now think climate change is happening and more than 80% estimate human activities are at least half-responsible (more than 66% “mostly” responsible).

Yale Climate Connections has an interesting post about the history of sea level rise in North Carolina and the techniques that have been used to estimate it.  In addition, a study published in Nature Climate Change found that about 70% of the shoreline from Virginia to Maine could evolve naturally to meet rising sea levels, slowing the loss of land that has been projected by other research.  The resilient shoreline comprises mostly natural ecosystems, which is what allows it to adapt.

China plans to increase its total wind power capacity by 22% in 2016.  After adding 33 GW in 2015, it plans to add an additional 31 GW, the National Energy Administration announced on Monday.  China is having to limit some local authorities’ planning of new wind projects because of the inability of the grid to handle new power flows, suggesting that once that problem is solved they will expand wind power even more rapidly.  On a similar front, Germany is working on a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 95% from 1990 levels by 2050.  The last coal-fired power plant in Scotland closed on Thursday.  A new report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme, contains both good and bad news about the global energy outlook.  The good news: the world spent more money setting up new wind, solar and other renewable installations than it spent on all new coal, gas, and nuclear plants.  The bad news: “the outlook for power sector emissions remains alarming — despite the agreement at COP21 in Paris, and despite the growth of renewables detailed in this report.”

Twelve Representatives, including Virginian Barbara Comstock, have formed the House Republican Energy, Innovation and Environmental Working Group, which will pursue market-based solutions to our energy and climate problems.  They join a similar group formed in the Senate in the fall.  Unfortunately, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination insists “I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission told ExxonMobil that it must allow its shareholders to vote on a proposal that would require the company to outline the way climate change and energy legislation impact its ability to operate profitably.  Meanwhile the Rockefeller Family Fund plans to divest from all fossil fuel stocks, singling out ExxonMobil for “morally reprehensible conduct.”

Although the adoption of electric cars has been hindered by high prices, limited range, a lack of charging stations, and competition from cheap gasoline, heavier-duty systems are undergoing rapid innovation for applications like battery-powered city buses, delivery trucks, freight loaders, and ferries.

The best winds for land-based wind energy are in the southwestern and midwestern U.S., but the major needs are in the east and far west.  Thus new transmission lines are required to move electric power from source to point of use, but such lines are running into increased opposition.  Approval is also complicated by the fact that it must be obtained in each state that must be passed through and each state has its own unique regulations.

A paper published Thursday in the journal Science holds out the promise for solar cells that are both less expensive and more efficient.  And on the subject of solar, a new report from Rocky Mountain Institute argues that the potential for community solar to expand is vast.

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.

One thing that makes preparing the Weekly Roundup interesting is that you never know what you’re going to find.  Who would have known that when I clicked on a link to an article about Mennonites building climate resilient bridges in West Virginia I would learn that the bridge in the article was designed by Harrisonburg’s own JZ Engineering?  Way to go Johann and team!  You can find a wonderful video about the project on Johann’s website.

Because there are farmers in the Valley using many of the techniques in the cover story of the March 7 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, I thought you might find it of interest.  There is also an article about biochar in the same issue.

It is now official: February 2016 was the hottest February on record, not just in the U.S., but globally, according to both NASA and NOAA.  Not only that, according to NASA the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35 C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before.

Sulfates and other aerosols can block solar radiation from reaching Earth, thereby exerting a cooling effect.  Because such aerosols are part of the air pollution emitted from coal-fired power plants, many have suspected that as those plants are cleaned up and fewer aerosols are emitted, their cooling effects will be lost, allowing CO2’s warming effect to be even more evident.  Now, two new research papers provide evidence that more severe warming is occurring, particularly in the Arctic, which is heavily influenced by emissions from Europe.

One impact of a warming world is warmer oceans because they store most of the extra heat.  That, in combination with El Nino, has put the world in the grips of the third global coral bleaching event, with the northern region of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef being hit especially hard.

Scientists have known for a couple of years that water beneath Antarctic glaciers is causing them to melt from below.  Now, a new study published in Nature Geoscience provides evidence that the warm ocean water that’s undermining the glaciers may also be weakening their ice shelves by carving 50 to 250 meter deep channels into them.  The concern is that if the ice shelves fracture, the glaciers behind them will flow outward faster and raise sea level more rapidly.

Writing in The Guardian, John Abraham provides a summary of three articles that appeared recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about current and future sea level rise.  In addition, a new study by University of Georgia scientists, published in Nature Climate Change, projects future populations of coastal counties in the U.S. and couples the data with projections of sea level rise to estimate the number of people who will be at risk of flooding.  Under the worst-case scenario, with 1.8 m of sea level rise, 13.1 million people could be impacted.  This study prompted noted shoreline geologist Orrin H. Pilkey and his children to write an opinion piece in The Guardian about the failure of developers to grasp the implications of climate change.

I missed an article that appeared a couple of weeks ago, perhaps because of its title, but upon finding it I thought it was important enough to call to your attention now.  It concerns a paper that appeared recently in the journal Nature Climate Change dealing with the carbon budget.  Apparently, the carbon budget given by the IPCC in the Fifth Assessment Report published in 2013 was too optimistic, suggesting that we will exhaust it more quickly than we originally thought.  This too suggests that it will be difficult to limit warming to 2 C.

On a more positive note, the International Energy Agency announced on Wednesday that for the second year in a row CO2 emissions from the electric power sector did not rise, even though global economic output increased.  This was attributed to surging deployment of renewable power, especially wind, with renewables accounting for 90% of new electricity generation in 2015.  Another contributing factor is that the demand for electricity in the U.S. has been relatively flat over the past decade, while GDP has gone up by about 15%.  Joe Romm has an analysis of how this occurred.  In spite of the optimism in those two reports, two recent papers suggest that it may not be possible to meet the international goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C and meet future energy demand.

Record rainfall recently occurred in Louisiana, causing extensive damage to thousands of homes.  Further west, while El Nino associated rain has bypassed southern California so far, it has been filling reservoirs in northern California.  El Nino is having the opposite effect in southern and eastern Africa, where it is causing severe drought.  Coupled with record high temperatures, the drought puts more than 36 million people at risk of severe hunger.

Steven Mufson had an interesting article in The Washington Post about Marvin Odum, the outgoing president of Shell Oil.  Odum’s tenure was cut short by Shell’s $7 billion abortive venture drilling in the Arctic.  Meanwhile, oil and gas drilling rigs operating in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest number since the 1040’s.  In addition, the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is dropping its year-old plan to allow companies to search and drill for oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean off of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, catching Virginia’s three top Democrats off-guard.

FERC has rejected the application of Veresen Inc. to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Oregon.  FERC also denied Veresen’s plan to build a pipeline with Williams Partners LP to supply gas to the terminal.

Climate scientists have been extremely cautious when attributing any particular severe weather event to climate change.  That may now change, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that has found that with appropriate studies it is indeed possible to state that a heat wave or prolonged drought has been influenced by climate change.  Chris Mooney has a summary of the report’s findings at The Washington Post while Roz Pidcock takes a deeper dive at Carbon Brief, with interviews with a number of scientists.

Solar energy in Virginia was in the news this week.  A 20 MW solar power facility near Eastville will be the latest renewable energy project on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  Front Royal is partnering with American Municipal Power and Nextera to build a 2.5-3 MW solar array within the town limits.  A new Solarize program has been initiated in Vienna that will run from March 15 – May 15.  The State of Virginia, Dominion Virginia Power, and Microsoft Corp. will partner to bring a 20-megawatt solar farm to Fauquier County.  However, Ivy Main isn’t sure this is such a good deal for the state.  In spite of the Front Royal project, something we have little of in Virginia is community-scale solar, primarily because of restrictive regulations.  RMI has released a report that enumerates the benefits associated with community-scale solar and argues that they are compelling for investors.

According to Gallup: “Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they are worried a “great deal” or “fair amount” about global warming, up from 55% at this time last year and the highest reading since 2008.”

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.

Ivy Main has a new blog post that examines the stark choice facing Virginia Governor McAuliffe on the Clean Power Plan.

On Tuesday NOAA announced that the contiguous 48 U.S. states just experienced their warmest winter (Dec-Feb) on record. Alaska had its second warmest winter. In addition, NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory reported this week that the atmospheric CO2 concentration at its Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii increased more from February 2015 to February 2016 than in any other 12 month period since 1959. The increase was 3.76 ppm, leaving the concentration at 404.02 ppm for February. Meanwhile, a new Australian study, published in the journal Plos One, projects that because of increased global energy use per person, the world will reach the agreed-upon limit of 2 degree C much sooner than previously expected.

We tend to think of the biosphere [all the plants, animals and microorganisms living on the surface of the Earth (excluding the oceans)] as a net “sink” for CO2, due to its uptake by plants as they photosynthesize. However, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas associated with the biosphere. Methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O, are both strong greenhouse gases that are given off by microorganisms living in soil, pond sediments, and rice paddies. Ruminants (cows, sheep, etc.) also release CH4. Now a new study, published this week in Nature, has found that because of modern agriculture, and its associated releases of CH4 and N2O, the biosphere is now a net contributor of greenhouse gases, rather than a sink. Furthermore, atmospheric concentrations of CH4 are increasing after being stable for several years. A new paper in the journal Science attributes that increase primarily to agriculture, although others disagree.

As I have mentioned in previous Roundups there are two types of temperature records, from surface thermometers and from satellites. Peter Sinclair has a new video explaining why scientists trust the surface thermometers more.

President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have agreed to new, coordinated measures to fight climate change. (The relevant part of the linked-to article starts just below the video.) They also pledged to institute new Arctic initiatives, including shipping corridors with low environmental impact and new protections on marine areas. Ed King of Climate Home focuses on one statement in the announcement and what it may mean for the decarbonization of the U.S. economy after President Obama leaves office.

On Wednesday, 21 teenagers appeared in an Oregon courtroom as part of a lawsuit against the federal government contending that it has failed to protect the children against harm from climate change. The lawsuit, brought by the organization Our Children’s Trust, asks the court to hold the government responsible for violating the children’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, property and equal protection under the law. This lawsuit is the second attempt to sue the federal government under public trust doctrine. The first federal lawsuit, which was dismissed, had local ties to climate activists Garrett and Grant Serrels, who, together with their cousin, Alec Loorz (founder of Kids vs Global Warming and iMatter), were plaintiffs on the lawsuit, along with other youth from the iMatter Youth Council. You can find James Hansen’s thoughts on the suit here.

The changing climate is having a severe impact on the world’s lakes with some on the verge of disappearance due to increased evaporation, lower input from rainfall, and increased withdrawals for irrigation. This can greatly decrease the agricultural productivity of areas dependent on the lakes for irrigation. On a similar note, scientists from 14 laboratories and institutions warn in the journal Global Change Biology that climate is changing faster than tree populations can adapt. As a result, even eastern forests “are vulnerable to drought and could experience significant changes with increased severity, frequency, or duration in drought,” according to the authors.

I reported last week that China’s CO2 emissions fell in 2015. Now, some think that China’s emissions may have already peaked, although China’s climate change envoy disagrees. In addition, China just released its newest five-year plan, which calls for an 18% reduction in carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP) by 2020.

Germany’s second-largest energy company, E.ON, has confirmed that it is planning to launch a residential PV-plus-storage offering for the German market in April. The product will be based on Solarwatt’s MyReserve battery systems. It is refreshing to see an energy company embrace distributed storage and work to make it part of their power grid.

Solar Power Rocks is a website that advises consumers on getting solar power and they have just released their 2016 solar power rankings. Because of a variety of factors, Virginia ranks 35th in the nation, with an overall grade of D. Still, if you want to put on panels to cut your fossil fuel use you’ll get an internal rate of return (IRR) of 6.8%, giving a payback time of 14 years for a 5 kW system.

Much of sub-Saharan Africa will become unsuitable for growing key crops during this century if CO2 emissions continue as usual, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. Up to 60% of areas that currently grow beans, and up to 30% of areas that grow maize and bananas would no longer be suitable in a warmer climate. The study suggests that fundamental changes to farming may be needed to maintain food security.

A new study, published in Nature Climate Change, has found that severe rainfall has increased throughout the world’s wettest and driest regions, with daily rainfall extremes increasing by 1-2% per decade since 1950. The trend is expected to continue for the rest of this century.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is joining a growing list of financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo & Co., that have pledged to stop or scale back support for coal projects. Meanwhile, U.S. utilities closed down over 14 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical power generation capacity in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Ever wonder why Americans aren’t concerned about climate change? Perhaps it’s because they never hear about it on television. During 2015 less time was devoted to climate change by the major news media than in 2014, even though 2015 was filled with climate related events, such as the Paris Summit and several record setting hot months.

The spring issue of Yes! magazine is entitled “Life after Oil.” It contains an explanation by Bill McKibben of why we need to keep 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

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.

If you tend to worry too much about climate change, then perhaps Andrew Revkin’s interesting and introspective essay will help. I particularly like his climate change “serenity prayer”: “Change what can be changed, accept what can’t, and know the difference. Science can help clarify which is which.”

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed a bill that would give the General Assembly authority over the state’s implementation of the Clean Power Plan for curbing CO2 emissions for electric power generation. The Senate failed to override the veto.

I subscribe to a blog called RealClimate that is run by climate scientists. I don’t normally include links to posts in it because they tend to be pretty technical. However, while I was out of town there was a post about sea level rise that I thought you would appreciate. Scientists have been able to reconstruct historical sea levels back around 2500 years. This shows that what has happened during the 20th century is indeed extraordinary. Similarly, The Atlantic had an article on how scientists study sea level rise, which gives a good perspective, but lacks the graphics in the RealClimate post. Meanwhile, German scientists, using Copenhagen as a case study, have concluded that damage costs increase much more rapidly than sea level rise itself, which seems logical.

Utility Dive has released its 2016 State of the Electric Utility Survey. It revealed that for the second year in a row, electric utility executives responding to the survey ranked energy storage first among the technologies for future investment. DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) claims to have made significant advances in battery technology so things may be happening rapidly in the future. The Utility Dive survey provides interesting insights into how electric utilities are planning to respond to the changing energy landscape. In addition, 91% of respondents indicated they expect utility-scale solar to increase significantly or moderately in their fuel mixes over the next five years, while 77% see wind doing so.

Heather Clancy writes on GreenBiz: “Despite uncertainty surrounding the future of the Clean Power Plan and contractual nuances that make even the smallest project feel unnecessarily complex, big businesses seem more committed to renewable energy than ever.” In fact, new data just released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration suggest that in the coming year, the solar sector will add more new electricity-generating capacity than any other — including natural gas and wind.

A new paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres adds further evidence for the concept that drought was a contributor to the ongoing Syrian conflict. Using tree ring data going back 900 years the investigators found that the recent drought is likely the driest period on record and almost certainly the worst in 500 years.

According to data from its National Bureau of Statistics, China cut its CO2 emissions by 1-2% in 2015 while installing a record amount of wind (32.5 GW) and solar (18.3 GW) power. (Joe Romm has an analysis of China’s coal policy and Sophie Yeo takes a deep dive into what is happening with China’s coal consumption.) Meanwhile Australia’s CO2 emissions increased 3.2% from July 2014 to July 2015.

A draft inventory of US greenhouse gas emissions reports that emissions in 2014 were 1% higher than they were in 2013, marking the third year in a row that they have increased. Most disturbing was a 27% increase in methane emissions, causing EPA to hold off on publishing an official value until they have reviewed the data more thoroughly.

Even though El Nino was supposed to bring rain to California, as of last Tuesday 38% of the state was still in “exceptional drought” compared to 40% at a comparable time last year. Furthermore, according to an analysis of official temperature records by the Los Angeles Times the average high temperature during February in L.A. was almost 2 degrees F above the previous record.

French-speaking Indians who live deep in a Louisiana bayou, some 50 miles south of New Orleans, became the United States’ first official climate refugees last week when the federal government awarded them $48 million to relocate.

ClearPath is a foundation whose mission is to accelerate conservative clean energy solutions. They have recently released a survey of voters concerning their views on energy. Their website allows you to view state and district level opinions on energy by party affiliation. The results for the 6th congressional district are quite interesting. Meanwhile, Ivy Main reports on the fate of renewable energy bills in the Virginia General Assembly this year. Perhaps the members of the GA should examine the results of the ClearPath poll.

Did global warming really slow down for a decade or so in the 2000s and does it really matter if it did? Graham Readfearn of The Guardian examines this question in light of a recent paper in Nature Climate Change that has analyzed air temperature and other data relevant to global heat content. Michael Mann, one of the authors of the paper, comments on the attempts by climate change skeptics to manufacture a controversy among climate scientists as a result of the paper.

Satellite images suggest tropical forests from the Amazon to the Philippines are disappearing at a far more rapid pace than previously thought, a University of Maryland team of forest researchers say. Others, however, disagree with the methods used.

A new study published in the journal The Cryosphere finds that Greenland is darkening, contributing to a positive feedback loop in which melting leads to a “darker” surface, increasing heat absorption, leading to more melting, etc. I have put darker in quotes because the darkening is not necessarily visible to the naked eye, but may occur at wavelengths outside of our visual range. Unlike other studies, this one did not find that soot from wildfires elsewhere on Earth was a significant factor.

A couple of weeks ago I provided links to a study that showed that middle and high schools teachers were often unprepared to teach effectively about climate change. Now John Cook, founder of the Skeptical Science website and Climate Communication Fellow at The University of Queensland in Australia, has written about an effective technique for teaching “controversial” topics.

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.

The big news this week was the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  Andrew Revkin reviews his dissent in the 2007 case in which the Court ruled that EPA had the authority to regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.  Brad Plummer at Vox discusses how Justice Scalia’s death might influence the fate of the Clean Power Plan while Elizabeth Harball and Emily Holden document the variety of opinions and approaches among state regulatory agencies re the CPP.  In addition, Chris Mooney argues that electric power companies are likely to keep transitioning to renewable energy sources and natural gas at the expense of coal, regardless of what happens with the CPP.

As some states continue to work on their plans for complying with the CPP one option that they are considering is cap-and-trade, such as in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast.  However, activists in the environmental justice movement argue that cap-and-trade will allow coal-fired power plants, with their associated health impacts, to continue to operate, thereby impacting people of color, a disproportionate number of whom live within 3 miles of such plants.

Grist has an interesting essay entitled “How Obama went from coal’s top cheerleader to its No. 1 enemy.”  It traces the history of the Clean Power Plan, arguing that it was an inevitable outcome of 50 years of Clean Air Act regulations.  Meanwhile, the Virginia Senate voted on Monday to extend the coal tax credit until 2020.  The credit had been scheduled to sunset at the end of this year.

In the wake of last week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to delay implementation of the Clean Power Plan until the Appeals Court rules on it, many commentators conjectured that a ruling against the Plan would be the end of the Paris Agreement.  Ed King of Climate Home disagrees and argues that local conditions in many developing countries will lead them to reduce their emissions regardless of what we do.  In addition, the diplomatic consequences of the U.S. pulling out of the Paris agreement would be very serious.

Even though some prominent Florida politicians deny or downplay climate change, local communities in the state are working to minimize the impacts of sea level rise and determine the most effective strategies for adapting to it.  One Florida Republican politician who takes climate change seriously is Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who started the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus with Rep. Theodore Deutch, a Democrat.  Marcia Yerman has an interesting interview with Rep. Curbelo.

On Tuesday Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe joined governors from 16 other states in signing The Governor’s Accord for a New Energy Future.  In doing so the governors pledged to accelerate their efforts to create a green economy in the US by boosting renewables, building better electricity grids and cutting emissions from transport.

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has just released its analysis of Earth’s surface temperature data for January 2016.  They found that the global average temperature for January was 1.13 degrees C above the 1951-1980 average, setting a new record.  The previous record for January, set in 2007, was 0.95 C above the average.  El Nino hit its peak in January, which doubtless contributed to the new record. NOAA and the Japan Meteorological Agency also found January 2016 to be the hottest January on record.  The warming in the Arctic has been particularly acute, although perhaps not record setting.  Finally, The New York Times has published an interactive graphic showing the 2015 daily temperature and rainfall data for 3,116 cities provided by AccuWeather.  Record highs and lows are marked so you can easily see how your city (i.e., local airport weather station) fared.

​A new study published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles has found that the North Atlantic Ocean has absorbed 50% more CO2 in the last decade than in the previous decade, thereby accelerating ocean acidification.  Another study, published in Scientific Reports, found that while mussels make more brittle shells in an acidic ocean they develop a better repair mechanism, allowing them to more rapidly repair cracks when they occur.

Warming waters in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans have caused increased mortality of sea stars and lobsters.

According to a new study algae-produced neurotoxins that are deadly in high doses ​have been found​ in 13 marine mammal species across Alaska, including as far north as the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.​  The study​,​ from ​NOAA’s Northwest fisheries center​, document​s​ a major expansion of the areas along the Pacific Coast of North America where harmful algal blooms are known to occur​.​  This expansion is thought to be associated with the warming of Pacific coastal waters.

​Scientists have developed a new “vegetation sensitivity index”, which indicates to what extent plant growth is affected by fluctuations in the climate​, and used a mapping system to illustrate that sensitivity.  The index includes three variables, temperature, water availability and cloud cover.​  The maps allow easy visualization of Earth’s ecosystems that are most sensitive to climate change.​

A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters has found that the United States could be responsible for between 30 and 60​%​ of the global growth in human-caused methane emissions since 2002​.​  Joe Romm has a very interesting commentary on the study, with a particularly valuable bibliography at the end.

Germany has a reputation as a leader in renewable energy.  Now it is hoping to move into a leadership role in bicycle commuting by adding biking highways that are removed from automobile traffic and dedicated to bicycles.

Author and activist Terry Tempest Williams bid on an oil and gas lease for 800 acres of BLM land in Utah in an effort to call attention to fossil fuel extraction on public lands.  N
early 100 protesters were escorted peacefully out of the auction when they refused to stop singing​ “I hear the voice of my great granddaughters saying, keep it in the ground.”​Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of the protest may be to drive the BLM to hold auctions on-line.​

Want to plant a tree each time you do an on-line search?  Well, this search engine will help you do that.  Katie Valentine at Climate Progress describes it for you.

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.

Last week I mentioned that the CAAV Steering Committee had read What We Think about When We Try Not to Think about Global Warming by Per Epsen Stoknes as part of our retreat.  Amelia Urry has an excellent summary on Grist based on an interview with the author.  In addition, Transition United States has a video that goes over the most important information in the first two parts of the book.

The big news this week is that on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court blocked implementation of EPA’s Clean Power Plan while the D.C. Circuit Court considers the merits of a challenge by more than two dozen states to its legality.  Martha Roberts, writing on the Environmental Defense Fund blog, makes the case for the Clean Power Plan.  As might be expected, some states have decided to hold off on the CPP, but others are continuing to develop their compliance plans and major utility companies are continuing with their plans to diversify their energy sources.

​Republican ​p​residential candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush​ agreed last week to meet with a group of 15 South Florida mayors concerned about climate change’s impact on their state and on the country as a whole.​  And two Congressmen — Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R) and Rep. Theodore Deutch (D), both of Florida, filed paperwork ​last​ week to create the Climate Solutions Caucus.​  For an interesting and inspiring blog detailing much of the behind-the-scenes work​ that helped make the Caucus a reality, go here.

​It was no surprise last week when President Obama proposed a $10 a barrel tax on oil that Republicans in Congress were opposed to it.  It might be a surprise, however, that many economists are in favor of such a tax.​

​​A committee of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency, agreed on Monday to the first emissions-reduction standards for aircraft​.  ​The agreement, which took six years to negotiate and must still be approved by ICAO’s governing council, was the subject of significant criticism by environmental groups.  In addition, two members of the faculty of the University of Western Australia don’t think much of the agreement.

Investors and industry analysts say that renewable energy will buck the trend of falling investment in oil and gas because it can offer long-term returns sheltered from political risk.  Consequently some long-term investors say the smart money is shifting away from oil and gas.  For example, Allianz and Bank of America​ are making their first investments in on-shore wind farms in the United States, with investments in two wind parks in New Mexico with a combined capacity of around 300 MW.​
​
​According to a comment published Wednesday in the journal Nature: “those who manage other people’s money have a duty to control for ‘material risks’. In finance, that means risks that might trigger a 5% or more loss in investment value. Climate damage in the future is expected to be one such risk.”  Therefore, “clients and beneficiaries of investment firms might have a legal case to bring against their investors who stand idly by as emissions erode the value of their stock.”​

California added 20,000 new solar energy jobs in 2015, more than half the total positions added nationwide.  Furthermore, last year the solar industry added workers at a rate nearly 12 times faster than the overall economy.​  ​So why are companies like SolarCity experiencing dropping stock prices?  Also, what will happen as incentive programs expire?​

In its annual energy outlook, BP indicated larger growth in renewables than it had in the past, but continued to project strong use of oil and natural gas.  Others, however, thought their analysis did not change as much as it should have in light of the Paris agreement.

According to Jim Pierobon writing on The Energy Fix, data centers run by Amazon, Apple, and Google don’t get as much of their electricity from renewable sources as they claim.

Ivy Main had a blog post on The Energy Collective that summarizes the bills before the Virginia Legislature that deal with energy issues.  Unfortunately, most of them met delaying tactics, as described in her Power for the People VA blog.

Two papers just published on-line in Nature Climate Change focus on melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica and their long-term impacts on sea level rise.  Robert McSweeney of Carbon Brief provides a summary of the articles while Damian Carrington of The Guardian provides a deeper discussion of the implications of the work.  In addition, Chris Mooney at The Washington Post explains the paper focusing on the Antarctic ice shelves and their roles as gate-keepers controlling the advance of the glaciers.  Andrew Freedman, writing on Mashable, considers the implications of the paper that looks far into the future.

Surprisingly, changes in rainfall and evaporation patterns since 2002 have caused more water to be stored on land, reducing sea level rise by around 20%, according to a new study published in Science.

​​Warming temperatures are causing about half of the world’s plants and animals to move location, an international conference in Australia heard Wednesday, with every major type of species affected.​

​Recent estimates suggest ​that ​as much as a third of ​greenhouse gas emissions could be offset by stopping deforestation and restoring forest land — and that this solution could be achieved much faster than cuts to fossil fuel​ use.​

Research published in this week’s Science indicates that the majority of middle- and high-school teachers teaching about climate change are unaware of the scientific consensus that it is caused primarily by human activities and teach climate change as an ongoing debate in the scientific community.​

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.