The total amount of solar power capacity installed in the world reached 100 gigawatts in 2012. Getting to that amount took decades. But things have changed in dramatic fashion in recent years.
If we want to avoid drastic global warming this century, we need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time. For the previous three years, emissions had been holding steady, but last year, global emissions from the use of coal, oil and natural gas increased by 1.4%. According to the International Energy Agency, this unfortunate new data should serve as a strong warning that we need to increase our efforts to combat climate change.
Pollution particles emitted by diesel cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants, factories, primitive cook stoves, and the burning of forests are major contributors to the pervasive air pollution that plagues many cities and regions of the world. In India and China, such pollution leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. And countries around the world are working hard to reduce pollution.
For years, China has been struggling with some of the worst air pollution in the world. According to the European Union, only 1% of the country’s half a billion city dwellers were considered safe because almost all of its major cities were covered with what was described as a toxic grey cloud.
Some of the world’s biggest lakes are drying up as a consequence of the warming climate, persistent drought, and overuse by people draining crucial water sources.
Air pollution in cities is a global problem that has reached crisis proportions in places like China and India. In our country, since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, there has been a great deal of effort exerted in controlling pollution from vehicles. A combination of pollution-limiting changes to engines, fuels, and pollution control systems has significantly reduced the amount of air pollution associated with the transportation sector.
The northeastern part of China, wedged between North Korea to the south and Russia to the northeast, is home to two highly endangered big cats: the Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard. Siberian tigers, which can weigh over 600 pounds and grow to more than 10 feet in length, now number only about 500 in the wild, mostly in Russia. Amur leopards, weighing more than 100 pounds and growing to more than four feet in length, number only about 80 in the wild. While both species are right on the edge of extinction, both are slowly rebounding.
There is big money going into renewable energy and energy-smart technologies and half of that is going into solar power. In 2017, global investments in green energy reached $334 billion and $161 billion of that was in solar.
Since the 1980s, China has been the largest importer of foreign trash. In 2012, up to 56% of global exported plastic waste wound up in China. The trash has been both a valuable resource for the country’s booming manufacturing sector as well as an enormous source of environmental and health problems.
Clean power gathered unprecedented momentum in 2017. With climate problems on the rise, national and local governments are pushing for more renewable energy and the end of fossil-fueled cars. Corporations around the globe are making major commitments to green technology. Despite the Trump Administration’s open hostility toward clean power and its rejection of climate science, American states, municipalities and private companies are all getting with the program.
While American politicians were voting on eliminating tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles, auto executives from around the world were gathering to make ambitious plans to sell more electric cars in China.
For the third year in a row, global emissions of carbon dioxide have remained unchanged. This indicates that efforts to reduce emissions have had an effect, but that there is much more to be done. It is essential to reduce emissions, not just cap them.
There is deservedly a great deal of focus on the effects that carbon pollution is having upon the climate and most countries around the world are working to reduce their emissions. However, even if climate effects were not a serious threat to humanity, pollution is a deadly menace to human health.
The giant panda, a national icon of China, has been the focus of an intensive, high-profile conservation campaign since the 1970s. In an update to the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species last year, the giant panda had its designation changed from “endangered” to “vulnerable” following a nationwide census that revealed its population was improving. But it appears as though this conservation success may be short-lived.
Globally, an estimated 4.5 billion people are exposed to particulate air pollution levels that are at least twice that of what the World Health Organization considers safe. But the impact that sustained exposure to air pollution has on a person’s life expectancy has remained a frustratingly unanswered question. That is until now.
In a study published in the journal Science, researchers from institutions in the United States, South Korea, and China described the development of “twistron” yarns, which are essentially pieces of yarn that produce electricity when they are twisted or stretched.
The world’s rivers carry billions of cubic yards of sediment – sand, silt and other material – and transport it to wetlands and coastal areas. Until fairly recently, this was viewed as a negative thing. But that has changed.
Global consumption of coal dropped by 1.7% last year. This is a major change considering that it had increased by an average of 1.9% per year from 2005 to 2015. China, which accounts for about half of the coal burned in the world, used 1.6% less in 2016, as compared to an increase of 3.7% per year over the previous 11 years.
We are well-aware of the negative effects of air pollution on human health and on the environment, but a recent study at Duke University has revealed that global solar energy production is taking a major hit due to air pollution and dust.
