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Coal Isn’t Even Cheap Anymore

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Coal has historically been very cheap compared with many other energy sources and the reason is that it is so plentiful.  The United States has especially abundant quantities of the stuff – perhaps a quarter of the world’s estimated recoverable reserves.  Estimates are that at the rate at which we are currently using coal here, the remaining reserves would last about 325 years. 

That would be great, of course, if the use of coal was not relentlessly destructive to the environment, hazardous to human health, and a major driver for global warming.  Despite all of that, the Trump administration is a big booster of coal.

But coal has little chance of holding on to its current status, much less having some kind of renaissance.  According to a new report from renewables analysis firm Energy Innovation, nearly 75% of coal-fired power plants in the United States generate electricity that is more expensive than local wind and solar resources.   Wind power, in particular, can at times provide electricity at half the cost of coal.

Wind and solar power are growing by leaps and bounds.  The Guardian reported that by 2025, enough wind and solar power will be generated at low enough prices in the U.S. that it could replace 86% of the entire U.S. coal fleet with lower-cost electricity.

It has been known for some time that there are places where the so-called coal crossover has already taken place.   But this is actually far more widespread than previously thought.  Substantial coal capacity is currently at risk in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Texas.  By 2025, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin will join their ranks.

The biggest threat to coal is not regulators or environmentalists; it is economics.

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Renewables Cheaper Than 75 Percent of U.S. Coal Fleet, Report Finds

Photo, posted May 1, 2011, courtesy of Alan Stark via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Building For Climate Change

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The manifestations of climate change are creating increasingly familiar images:  floodwaters rising up house windows, charred buildings in the wake of wildfires, and homes and businesses demolished by storm winds. As these sorts of calamities become ever more common, changes to how houses are built are going to be necessary.

How can homes become more resilient against severe and unpredictable weather?

Research at Carlton University’s Sprott School of Business looks at this issue.

As an example, houses can be framed and finished in certain ways that help protect them from wind and flooding.  But such methods are currently only happening in the custom-build fringes of the housing sector.  Widespread adoption will require, at the minimum, significant changes to building codes.

Revising building codes is not an easy matter.  The codes themselves are highly technical and complex, and beyond that, the process Is often politicized.

Even simple things like hurricane ties, which are small pieces of hardware that prevent a roof from lifting during a severe wind are not now included in building codes.  Insurance companies support their use as inexpensive protection for houses.  But even though the overall cost is relatively minor, the building industry pushes back at the additional expense.

The need to reduce carbon emissions has created a push for sustainable housing.  But the increasingly erratic weather means that houses also need resilience and adaptation.  These features will inevitably add costs and incorporating them into building codes requires producing convincing business cases.

The U.S. experienced 394 natural catastrophe events last year costing $225 billion in damage.  Finding ways to make homes and businesses more resilient is not just a good idea; it is essential.

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How to Start Weather-Proofing Homes for Unpredictable Weather

Photo, posted June 12, 2008, courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Deepwater Impacts Lingering

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On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the BP-owned Deepwater Horizon drilling rig released an estimated 210 million of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  Some of the oil was recovered, burned, or dispersed at sea, while some washed up onto coastal shorelines. 

Now, more than nine years later, a long-term study suggests the oil is still affecting the salt marshes of the Gulf Coast.  A multi-institutional research team began sampling in the region once the spill was contained and continue their work to this day.

The researchers found that heavily-oiled marsh areas remained less healthy than less polluted sites more than six years after the spill.  They fear that complete recovery of these oil-soaked regions will likely take more than a decade. 

But the researchers also discovered that salt marsh grasses play a key role in coastal wetland recovery.  Two plants dominate healthy salt marshes in the Gulf: smooth cordgrass and black needlerush.  Single-celled, plant-like organisms known as benthic microalgae also abound in healthy salt marshes, as do many small invertebrates. 

In heavily-oiled areas, the researchers found that nearly all the plants died, and benthic microalgae and small invertebrate populations declined significantly.  Importantly, however, they also found that it was only after smooth cordgrass started its comeback in these areas that invertebrate populations began to recover.  They noted that these salt marsh grasses provide habitat, bind soil, slow water, facilitate colonization, and fuel the food web. 

Plants are the foundation of and play a crucial role in salt marshes.  The researchers hope these findings will help shape the mitigation strategies of any future oil spills. 

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Continuing impacts of Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Photo, posted April 21, 2010, courtesy of Deepwater Horizon Response via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shipping And Invasive Species

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The increasing numbers of invasive species around the world are a major driver of biodiversity change and cause billions of dollars in economic damages annually.  Climate change is a major factor in the spread of invasive species, but a new study by McGill University suggests that global shipping growth will far outweigh climate change in the spread of non-indigenous pests to new environments in the coming decades.

One of the most significant ways in which the disparate regions of the world are interconnected is via transportation networks.   The global shipping network is the primary means by which materials and goods are moved worldwide, accounting for over 80% of world trade.  And for this reason, the global shipping network is responsible for much of the introduction of non-indigenous species across the planet.

Living organisms are often transported through ballast water, which is taken up to stabilize cargo vessels.  Other species are transported by biofouling, whereby they attach to the hulls of ships.  Taken together, these two pathways account for anywhere between 60 and 90% of marine bioinvasions.   (Terrestrial invaders are generally moved as a byproduct of shipping, for example by infesting wood packaging material).

The McGill study looked at trends in global shipping and how socioeconomic factors are driving change.  For example, China’s share of global container throughput has gone from 1.4% in 1990 to 20.1% in 2013.  So, the distribution and patterns of shipping have been changing dramatically and with it the spread of non-indigenous species.

Awareness of this issue is increasing.  For example, there have been policy initiatives such as the International Ballast Water Management Convention that is an effort to control bio-invasions through measures such as ballast exchange.  We need to take measures to limit the unintentional spread of species.

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Global forecasts of shipping traffic and biological invasions to 2050

Photo, posted December 3, 2009, courtesy of Roger W via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Rare Earths From Mining Waste

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The 17 rare earth elements have become important parts of much of modern technology.  Despite their name, most of these elements are relatively plentiful in the earth’s crust, but because of their geochemical properties they are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in minerals.  As a result, economically exploitable ore deposits are uncommon.  There are no significant sources in the U.S.

Rare earths play important roles in high-performance magnets, electric motors in vehicles, wind turbines, microphones and speakers, and in portable electronics like cell phones.  As these applications become ever larger, the need for additional sources of rare earths increases.

Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory and Rutgers University have studied a method for extracting rare-earth elements from mining waste that could greatly increase the world’s supply of these valuable materials.

It turns out that large amounts of rare earths exist in phosphogypsum, a waste product from producing phosphoric acid from phosphate rock.  The U.S. alone mined 28 million tons of phosphate rock in 2017.  (Phosphoric acid is used in the production of fertilizers and other products).

The researchers estimate that more than a billion tons of phosphogypsum waste sits in piles at storage sites across the U.S. alone.   World-wide, about 100,000 tons of rare earth elements per year end up in phosphogypsum waste.  This compares to the total current world-wide production of rare earth oxides of 126,000 tons.

The researchers studied methods for extracting the elements from the waste. A method utilizing a common environmental bacterium showed great promise.

There are concerns about residual radioactivity and other environmental issues in dealing with the waste material, but the world’s supply of rare earth elements might become much greater based on this research.

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Critical Materials: Researchers Eye Huge Supply of Rare-Earth Elements from Mining Waste

Photo, posted June 19, 2015, courtesy of David Stanley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

How Much CO2 Can The Oceans Hold?

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The carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere doesn’t necessarily stay there.  As part of the natural carbon cycle, much of it goes into plants, soil and, very significantly, the ocean.  In fact, the world’s oceans are a sink for human-generated carbon dioxide without which the extent of global climate change would be far worse.

Oceans takes up CO2 in two steps: first the CO2 dissolves in the surface water.  Then, the ocean’s overturning circulation distributes it.  Currents and mixing processes transport the dissolved CO2 from the surface deep into the ocean’s interior, where it accumulates over time.

A long-standing priority for climate researchers is to determine how much of the CO2 we produce is being absorbed by the oceans and, ultimately, how much can they hold?

An international team of scientists has recently provided some answers.  As reported in Science, the researchers have determined that the oceans have taken up from the atmosphere as much as 37 billion tons of human-made carbon between 1994 and 2007.  This figure corresponds to nearly a third of all the anthropogenic CO2 emitted during that time.

Furthermore, they found that the percentage of CO2 taken up by the oceans has remained relatively stable compared to the preceding 200 years even as the absolute quantity has increased.  So, evidently, the oceans’ capacity for carbon dioxide has not yet been saturated.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that putting all that CO2 into the oceans has a steep price:  the dissolved CO2 acidifies the water.  The consequences for a wide range of marine life including coral reefs are serious and getting worse.  We need to drastically reduce carbon emissions.

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Ocean sink for human-made carbon dioxide measured

Photo, posted November 5, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Affordable Electric Cars

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The main reasons that electric cars haven’t taken over are that they didn’t drive far enough on a charge, it took too long to charge them, and, most of all, they cost too much.

In recent years, the problem with driving range has steadily been disappearing as electric cars that can go over two hundred and even over three hundred miles on a charge have entered the market.  Charging time has also become less of a problem.  Tesla’s network of Superchargers can provide 200 miles worth of charge in half an hour and their next generation of chargers, which are just starting to appear, can cut that time much further.

As for cost, a new report by transportation analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that electric vehicles will be cost-competitive with combustion-engine cars by 2022.

The main reason is that the cost of EV batteries has been plummeting.  In 2015, batteries made up 57% of the total cost of an electric vehicle.  Today, that number is down to 33% and is expected to drop to 20% by 2025.  In addition, the cost of electric powertrain systems is also dropping.  The Bloomberg report predicts that over the next decade, costs for motors, inverters, and power electronics could be 25 to 30% cheaper than today.

The cost of electric vehicles has been dropping faster than predicted.  Bloomberg’s report on the subject in 2017 predicted cost parity in 2026.  Last year, they changed it to 2024.  And now, they are saying 2022.

Given that electric cars are much cheaper to drive than gasoline cars, finding reasons not to drive them is getting harder to do.

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Electric Cars Could Be As Affordable as Conventional Vehicles In Just Three Years

Photo, posted November 17, 2018, courtesy of Jakob Harter via Flickr.

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High-Tide Flooding And Pollution

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Global sea levels are steadily rising.  They are up 8 inches in the past century and now increasing at an average of 1.3 inches per decade.  As a result, the incidence of high-tide “sunny day” flooding is on the rise, especially along the U.S. East Coast.

Norfolk Virginia experienced fewer than 2 days of high-tide flooding a year in the 1960s; it had 14 in 2017.  Up and down the East Coast, flood days have increased by factors of 5 and more.

This has led to a form of pollution that hasn’t gathered much attention in the past:  when these floodwaters recede, they can carry debris, toxic pollutants and excess nutrients into rivers, bays, and oceans.

In the aftermath of high-tide flooding in Norfolk, Chesapeake Bay was littered with tipped-over garbage cans, tossed-away hamburgers, oil, dirty diapers, pet waste and all manner of other things.  Water that comes up on the landscape takes everything back into the river or ocean with it.

Analysis of tidal flooding along the Lafayette River in Norfolk indicated that just one morning of tidal flooding poured nearly the entire EPA annual allocation of nitrogen runoff for the river – nearly 2,000 pounds – into Chesapeake Bay.  The effects of excess nitrogen in the water are well-known and responsible for the toxic algal blooms that endanger aquatic life as well as human health.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, high-tide flooding frequency along the southeastern coast of the U.S. rose 160% since 2000.  With the expected continuing rises in sea level, NOAA projects that as many as 85 days of high-tide flooding will occur along the coast by the year 2050.  It’s a big problem.

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As High-Tide Flooding Worsens, More Pollution Is Washing to the Sea

Photo, posted September 20, 2018, courtesy of SC National Guard via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lots Of Renewable Energy In Germany

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As the contributions to the electrical grid from renewable sources continue to rise, people have expressed concerns about what might happen as sources like wind and solar energy become dominant.  Not many years ago, there was a common concern that if wind and solar contributed more than about a quarter of the energy mix, the grid might become unstable or unreliable.  Theoretical models looked at this situation but there hadn’t been much real-world data to look at.

One place where there is now real-world data on a large scale is Germany.  Germany has been aggressively deploying both wind and solar energy for years as part of a national initiative called the Energiewende or energy transition.  Germany recently increased its renewable energy goal from 55% to 65% by the year 2030.   The increased share of renewables takes into account the decommissioning of aging nuclear and coal power plants.

A demonstration of the feasibility of such a goal occurred in the first week of March when renewable sources actually supplied nearly 65% of Germany’s electricity.  Wind power alone provided nearly half of the country’s power.  As a result, fossil fuel plants ran at a minimum output and nuclear facilities were shut down at night.

Germany has a very large domestic coal industry and indeed lignite coal generated an average of 24% of the country’s power last year.   However, recently that share was down to just 12%.  During that first week of March, solar power contributed more than 5% of Germany’s electricity, biomass 7.6%, and hydropower 3.5%.

While the week with 65% renewable set a record, the ongoing trend is very positive as well.  In 2018, renewable energy generated an average of more than 40% of Germany’s electricity.

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Renewables Generated a Record 65 Percent of Germany’s Electricity Last Week

Photo, posted April 28, 2012, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Antarctic Warming

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East Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth.  It makes up two-thirds of the continent, is home to the South Pole, and has vast ice sheets that have been around for tens of millions of years and are nearly three miles thick in places.  Temperatures there hover around 67 degrees below zero.  In 2010, a few spots on East Antarctica’s polar plateau reached a record-breaking 144 degrees below zero.

But almost unbelievably, parts of the East Antarctic seem to be melting.

Scientists are seeing worrying signs of ice loss in the East Antarctic.  Glaciers are starting to move more quickly and are dumping their ice into the Southern Ocean.  Satellite images show the fast-moving ice.  The biggest glacier – the Totten Glacier – alone contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by over 12 feet.

The Antarctic as a whole contains about 90% of the planet’s ice.  In theory, if it all melted, it would raise global sea levels by an average of 200 feet.

The growing concerns about eastern Antarctica are not that its interior plateau will soon start to melt.  It is still extremely cold there and should stay that way for a long time.  But its edges, which are in contact with warming ocean waters, are the real worry.  As the region’s ice shelves, which float atop the Southern Ocean, erode, the vast glaciers behind them could rapidly accelerate their slide into the sea.

Today, satellites show huge glaciers moving rapidly toward the coast, with wide rivers of ice sometimes moving several miles a year.  In the face of rapid change and limited data, it is difficult to predict what the Antarctic will do in the future.  But it doesn’t look good.

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Polar Warning: Even Antarctica’s Coldest Region Is Starting to Melt

Photo, posted January 3, 2013, courtesy of Christopher Michel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Earth Day

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Today is Earth Day.  On April 22, 1970, millions of Americas took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform.  Since that first time, Earth Day has now become a global event each year.  Estimates are that as many as a billion people in 192 countries take part in Earth Day events.

This year, the theme for Earth Day is “Protect our Species.”  The focus is on the fact that the world is facing the greatest rate of extinction since the demise of the dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago.

But unlike the extinctions from that time that were linked to so-called acts of god like asteroid collisions, the rapid extinction of species in our world today is mostly the result of human activity.

The global destruction and rapid reduction of plant and wildlife populations are directly linked to climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, trafficking and poaching, unsustainable agriculture, pollution, and pesticides.

In order to stem the tide of destruction, the Earth Day Network is asking people to help raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.  We need to push for the creation of policies that protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats.  There needs to be a global movement that embraces nature and its values. And we need to eat less meat and curtail the use of pesticides and herbicides.

We share the planet with many species, and we need them to be here in order to sustain our own species.  Something to remember on Earth Day 2019.

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Earth Day Network

Photo, posted January 24, 2012, courtesy of Jonas Bengtsson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Making Coal To Fight Climate Change

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Coal is the most harmful fossil fuel for the environment and, furthermore, for human health.  Its use has stubbornly persisted because it is so plentiful and, therefore, cheap.  As a result, a big part of efforts to fight climate change is finding a way to remove the carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere by the combustion of coal.

Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia have developed a remarkable technology that in effect reverses the process that has led to soaring CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  They have found a way to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into coal, after which it can be stored cheaply and safely underground.

Most previous carbon capture and storage technologies have focused on compressing carbon dioxide gas into a liquid form and then pumping it into rock formations.  Such techniques are rather expensive, require lots of energy, and pose risks that the liquid CO2 could escape from its underground storage sites.  More recently, research on solid metal catalysts has led to the possibility of turning CO2 into solid carbon, but most of these reactions require very high temperatures and use a lot of energy.

The new technique developed at RMIT uses a new class of catalysts based on metal alloys.  With a small jolt of electricity applied at room temperature, CO2 can be converted into solid carbon – basically, coal.

If this technique can be industrialized economically, it would be like turning back the clock by taking carbon dioxide that entered the atmosphere by the combustion of coal and turning it back into coal and putting it back underground.  It seems like excellent environmental justice.

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Scientists Turn Atmospheric CO2 Into Coal

Photo, posted March 16, 2015, courtesy of Will Fisher via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Price of Chocolate

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The Ivory Coast has lost more than 80% of its forests in the last 50 years, mainly as a result of cocoa production.

The Ivory Coast is a West African country the size of New Mexico and it produces more than a third of the world’s cocoa.  But around 40% of the country’s cocoa crop – supplying more than a tenth of the world’s chocolate bars – is grown illegally in the country’s national parks and 230 supposedly protected government-owned forests. 

Over the decades, as many as one million landless people from drought-stricken places like Mali and Burkina Faso moved into national parks and protected forests and started farming cocoa.  The Marahoue National Park alone has 30,000 illegal inhabitants.

Most cocoa is grown in monocultures of what is known as the full-sun system, which requires the removal of all surrounding trees.  As a result, many allegedly protected areas have been completely converted into farms.  Most of the cocoa in the Ivory Coast is grown on small farms, typically plots of 7 to 10 acres.  The farmers are caught in an exploitative and corrupt system of cocoa trading and land appropriation, and most earn less than a dollar a day.  Meanwhile, government agencies charged with protecting the forests are more interested in collecting bribes than safeguarding woodlands.

The Ivory Coast government is unveiling a plan to actually remove protection from most of its remaining forests and hand them over to the world’s chocolate traders.    The claim is that this will protect other forests by improving cocoa productivity in already deforested areas.  Needless to say, conservation groups are dubious that the new plan will positively impact an already terrible situation.

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The Real Price of a Chocolate Bar: West Africa’s Rainforests

Photo, posted April 17, 2015, courtesy of Tom Coady via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Trees And The Future Of Cities

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The shade of a single tree is a welcome source of relief on a hot summer day.  But even a relatively small patch of woods can have a profound cooling effect.  A new study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison looks at the role trees play in keeping towns and cities cool.

According to the study, the right amount of tree cover can lower daytime temperatures in the summer by as much as 10 degrees.  The effects are noticeable from neighborhood to neighborhood and even on a block-by-block basis.

Cities are well-known to be hot spots due to the urban heat islanding effect.  Using trees to keep temperatures more comfortable in cities can make a big difference for the people who live and work there.

The man-made structures of cities – roads, sidewalks, and buildings – absorb heat from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night.  Trees, on the other hand, not only shade those structures from the sun, but they also transpire -or release water in the air through their leaves – which helps to cool things down.

According to the study, to get maximum cooling benefits, tree canopies must exceed forty percent, meaning that city blocks need to be nearly halfway covered by tree branches and leaves.  To get the biggest bang for the buck, cities should start planting more trees in areas that are already near the forty percent threshold.  But

trees can’t just be in parks.  They need to be in places where people are active.

If we want the places where we live to be more comfortable and resilient in a warming world, we need to plant more trees.

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Study suggests trees are crucial to the future of our cities

Photo, posted May 26, 2012, courtesy of Mislav Marohnic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Drugs In The Water

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According to a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, concentrations of pharmaceuticals in rivers and lakes have dramatically increased across the globe over the past 20 years.

Traces of medicines get passed into waterways through the excretion of active drugs in human waste, the disposal of unused medicines down drains, and runoff from livestock farms.

The study looked in detail at two specific drugs:   carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug, and ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic.   The study found that the risk of ecological damage from the residue from these two drugs was 10 to 20 times higher in 2015 than in 1995.

Chronic exposure to carbamazepine, for example, has been shown to alter feeding behavior and reduce egg viability in zebrafish, as well as reduce reproductive success in crustaceans.  Antibiotics can alter major nutrient cycles and decrease the effectiveness of bacteria-based wastewater treatment systems.

The study, led by researchers from the Netherlands, created a new model estimating concentrations of the two drugs over a 20-year period in 449 aquatic systems around the globe.  The model predicts a relatively high environmental risk in densely populated and dry areas such as the Middle East. 

When the researchers compared the model’s results to samples from four river systems in various locations, they found that the actual drug concentrations were even higher than model results, in some cases by a factor of 10 to 100. 

The new model should act as a guide for a more thorough investigation into pharmaceutical residues in waterways, which pose significant environmental risks all over the world.

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Concentrations of Pharmaceuticals in Freshwater Increasingly Globally

Photo, posted March 22, 2012, courtesy of Rajeev Rajagopalan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Global Fisheries

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A Rutgers University-led study published in the journal Science has shown that climate change has taken a toll on many of the world’s fisheries and that over fishing has magnified the problem.

Seafood has become an increasingly important source of nourishment as the global population grows, especially in coastal, developing countries where it provides as much as half of the animal protein eaten.  More than 50 million people worldwide work in the fisheries industry or subsist on fisheries.

Scientists at Rutgers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studied the impact of ocean warming on 235 populations of 124 species in 38 ecological regions around the world.  Species included fish, crustaceans such as shrimp, and mollusks such as scallops.  They combined data on fisheries with ocean temperature maps to estimate temperature-driven changes in the sustainable catch over 8 decades.  The data covered about one-third of the global catch.

According to the study, ocean warming has led to an estimated 4.1% drop in sustainable catches, on average around the world, for many species of fish and shellfish from 1930 to 2010.  In five regions that include the East China Sea and the North Sea, the estimated decline was 15 to 35%.

The researchers recommend that fisheries managers eliminate over fishing, rebuild fisheries, and account for climate change in fisheries management decisions.  Over fishing provides a one-two punch to fisheries facing warming waters.   It not only makes fisheries more vulnerable to ocean warming but continued warming will also hinder efforts to rebuild over fished populations.

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Climate Change Shrinks Many Fisheries Globally, Rutgers-Led Study Finds

Photo, posted April 23, 2011, courtesy of Derek Keats via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

California Fires And Precipitation

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Two things we have heard a lot about in recent years have been the persistent drought in California and the terrible wildfires the state has experienced.  Along the way, the state has had some pretty wet and snowy winters.  This past winter, the California snow pack has seen incredible levels building up, which is great news for the state’s farmers.  But does that also mean that the next year should see some relief from severe wildfires?

The answer appears to be no.  A new study from an international team that includes the University of Arizona has comprehensively looked at the amount of winter precipitation in California and the severity of the subsequent wildfire season. 

The position of the North Pacific jetstream over California is strongly linked to the amount of winter precipitation.  This has been true for hundreds of years and continues to be the case.

From 1600 to 1903, the linkage between winter precipitation and wildfire severity was also very strong.  But after 1904, that connection weakened.  As a result, fire suppression policies were instituted.  When fires arose, they were put out as quickly as possible.  The result over time is fuel buildup, making larger fires far more likely.

According to the new study, after 1977, the connection between winter precipitation and wildfire severity disappeared entirely.  There no longer appears to be any relationship between jet stream dynamics and fire.  The warming climate and the results of fire suppression dominate the potential for wildfire.  California’s wet winter of 2016-2017 provides a good example.  That winter was followed by many large fires in 2017.

So, this very wet winter in California does not imply that this should be a year without severe wildfires.

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Wildfire Risk in California No Longer Coupled to Winter Precipitation

Photo, posted July 26, 2018, courtesy of Bureau of Land Management California via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Whopping Change

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Burger King, the global hamburger fast food giant, recently made a huge announcement:  Customers will soon have the option to select either a beef patty or a plant-based patty when ordering the iconic Whopper sandwich. 

Burger King’s plant-based patty will be made by Impossible Foods, a California startup founded in 2011 with the explicit goal of decreasing the world’s reliance on animal agriculture.  Impossible Foods signature product, the Impossible burger, has already debuted as a slider in White Castle’s 380 or so stores.  It’s also being added to the menu at all 570 Red Robin locations.  Other plant-based innovators, such as Beyond Meat, have also found some mainstream success.  But the Impossible Whopper and the planned national roll-out at Burger King’s 7,200 locations is the biggest deal to date.

Impossible Foods’ major innovation comes from its use of heme, which is an iron-rich protein that in essence is what makes meat taste like meat.  Impossible Foods cultivates heme directly from plants – soybean plant roots to be exact – and then mass produces it using yeast.  This is then mixed with other plant-based ingredients to achieve the nutty texture of ground beef.

Meat production is one of the biggest single contributors to climate change.  The Impossible burger represents a better choice for the environment.  It requires 87% less water, 96% less land, and produces 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions when compared with beef burgers.  At Burger King, the Impossible Whopper will have the same amount of protein as the regular Whopper, but 15% less fat and 90% less cholesterol. 

Meatless continues to push into the mainstream.

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Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’

Photo, posted November 27, 2018, courtesy of Sarah Stierch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reducing Polar Bear Attacks

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The increasing reduction of sea ice in the Arctic is changing the behavior of polar bears.  Because they are spending more time on land, they are interacting with people much more frequently, occasionally with deadly results.

A study, published in 2017, looked at 144 years’ worth of polar bear attacks on humans in the Arctic.  Between 1960 and 2009, there were a reported 47 attacks by polar bears on people – between 7 and 12 per decade.  Between 2010 and 2014, as sea ice reached record lows, there were 15 attacks, a record for a four-year period.  Since 2000, 88% of attacks have occurred between July and December, when sea ice is at its lowest level of the year.

Last July, a young male polar bear attacked and killed a man who was berry picking with his children.  A month later, a mother polar bear attacked and killed an Inuit hunter and injured two others.  This was the first known fatal attack by a mother polar bear.

As a result, Inuit communities in the Nunavut region are asking for higher legal polar bear harvest quotas, arguing that bear populations have increased to a dangerous level.

These recent human fatalities have also provided an impetus for developing new non-lethal conflict-resolution tools than can be used in northern communities before more people as well as bears are killed.

There are now polar bear patrol teams tasked with driving bears away from settlements.  There is a bear hotline and electric fencing around sled dog compounds.

The changing face of the Arctic is creating growing stress on the polar bear population and on the people who make their home in that region.

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Web Links

As Polar Bear Attacks Increase in Warming Arctic, a Search for Solutions

Photo, posted September 28, 2015, courtesy of Anita Ritenour via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Problem For Coral Reefs

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Coral reefs around the world have been suffering in recent years from warming ocean temperatures as well as from increasing ocean acidification.  Corals are very sensitive organisms that can only tolerate relatively slight changes in their environment.  Thus, the majority of reef-building corals are found in tropical and subtropical waters with favorable conditions.

New research has confirmed that drastic changes in ocean salinity from, for example, severe freshwater flooding, provoke similar stress responses in corals as the heating that has resulted in freshwater bleaching and, eventually, coral death.

The coast of northeast Queensland in Australia has experienced abnormal monsoon-related freshwater flooding that caused extreme and sudden changes in the ocean salt concentration.  In places, nearshore reefs were exposed to water with only half the normal ocean salinity.  The result has been a shock response in corals that prevents normal cell function.  Unlike their response to heat stress, corals exposed to reduced salinity experience a complete collapse of their internal cellular protein balance.

The central Great Barrier Reef has actually been relatively free from mass thermal bleaching events this Australian summer, but many coastal reefs instead have been battling dramatic changes in water conditions as a result of massive plumes of floodwater.

The wild weather in Australia is undoubtedly associated with the changing climate and this new research shows that it is leading to yet another threat to the world’s coral reefs.  With the frequency and severity of heavy rainfall and runoff events predicted to continue to increase over the next few decades, proactive measures to increase the resiliency of coral reefs are needed more than ever.

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Web Links

Reduced salinity of seawater wreaks havoc on coral chemistry

Photo, posted December 12, 2010, courtesy of Gareth Williams via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)