london

Green transit in London

August 7, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

TfL – Transport for London – the operator of the transportation system in Britain’s capital city, has signed a deal with EDF Renewables to purchase electricity from a huge solar array to be erected next year in Essex. TfL has the goal of powering 100% of its entire transit system – including its sprawling underground railway network – with renewable electricity by 2030.

The forthcoming 1,000-acre solar facility will also transform low-quality farmland by incorporating the planting of trees and hedgerows as well as setting aside some areas for natural regeneration, attracting a greater number of species of plants and animals, expanding biodiversity in the area. Looking after nature and protecting the environment are key elements in TfL’s contracts, in keeping with its wider goals to be greener, more sustainable, and well-adapted to climate change.

The solar facility will generate 80 gigawatt-hours annually for the transit authority, roughly enough electricity to power 29,000 homes, comprising about 20% of its total output. Powering the entire sprawling London underground railroad network is equivalent to powering 420,000 homes. Over the course of the 15-year contract with EDF, TfL expects to save over 30,000 tons of carbon from its operations.

TfL plans to secure 70% of its electricity use from power purchase agreements for renewable electricity from various sources with the remainder from green tariffs. The Mayor of London has set the goal for London to be a net zero carbon city by 2030.

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London Inches Closer to Running Transit System Entirely on Renewable Power

Photo, posted March 5, 2017, courtesy of Albert Koch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The UK is heating up

August 5, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

June and July have both seen multiple days with temperatures in the 90s in London, England. This is almost unheard of, but according to British scientists, record-breaking extreme weather has become the new norm in the UK.

Weather records show that the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago. The number of days with temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the average from 1961-1990 has doubled in the last 10 years. For days 14 degrees above average, the number has tripled, and for 18 degrees above average, it has quadrupled.

Apart from the higher temperatures, rain in the UK has become more intense. The number of months where counties receive at least double their average rainfall has risen by 50% in the past 20 years. Sea level around the UK is rising faster than the global average, worsening the impact of coastal flooding.

An estimated 600 people died as a result of the heatwave that hit England and Wales at the end of June. Scientists calculated that the extreme high temperatures were made 100 times more likely to have occurred as a result of climate warming.

The UK has some of the longest duration meteorological records in the world. Those records show that recent temperatures have far exceeded any in at least 300 years. The last three years were among the UK’s five hottest years on record.

Today’s record-breaking temperatures are likely to be average by 2050 and positively cool by 2100, according to scientists.

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‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK

Photo, posted February 4, 2018, courtesy of Hannes Flo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Investing in carbon capture

January 22, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The interests of billionaires seldom seem to coincide with our own. In fact, they often seem to be quite the opposite. But there are a number of billionaires who are trying to help the world combat climate change. Yes, they want to make money doing it, but doing it is nevertheless in everyone’s interest.

A group headed by Bill Gates that included some of the wealthiest people from around the world met last summer in London to evaluate companies working to mitigate the effects of climate change. These included companies developing carbon dioxide removal technologies. Stripping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is an obvious way to deal with the fact that we continue to dump too much of it into the atmosphere – obvious, but extremely difficult to do at any scale that makes a difference.

Companies working on carbon capture have raised more than $5 billion since 2018. There are hundreds of companies working on it and investors include billionaires, venture capitalists, private equity firms, and major corporations. Companies like Microsoft, Google, and United Airlines have committed billions of dollars to purchase removal credits: payments to companies for removing carbon dioxide.

There are only a few dozen carbon removal facilities operational today and together they only capture a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide humans release into the atmosphere. The hope is that such facilities will scale up in size and number so that they will make a real dent in the problem. But it will take many years at best, and the planet doesn’t have that much time. To make a difference, carbon emissions must be reduced as quickly as possible.

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The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky

Photo, posted April 19, 2020, courtesy of Greg Rubenstein via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The last coal plant in Britain

October 31, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Industrial Revolution, which basically got underway in the mid-19th century, was largely enabled by coal, which fueled iron manufacturing, railroads, steam engines, and more. Most of these things got their start in Britain, which inspired the rest of the world to follow suit.

The world’s first coal-burning power plant began producing electricity at the Holborn Viaduct in London in 1882. This September, Britain – the birthplace of coal power – shut down its last coal-burning power station when the 2,000-megawatt Ratcliffe-on-Soar facility ceased operations. Uniper, the company that operated the plant, will be converting the 750-acre site to a low-carbon energy hub.

Shutting down coal plants is not a simple matter, as they are the lifeblood of entire towns and regions where they are located. Finding fair transitions for workers is an uphill battle that has to take place in many locations.

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, producing more greenhouse gas than others, but historically was the cheapest and most abundant source of power in many countries. In recent decades, it has been replaced by gas, nuclear power, and most recently, renewables like wind and solar.

The coal era has ended in much of the world. The United States still gets 16% of its electricity from coal, but that number keeps getting smaller. Unfortunately, the great majority of coal use is in the world’s two most populous countries: India and China. Both are adding renewable energy sources, but both have rapidly climbing energy demand. China’s coal consumption is expected to peak this year and flatten out. But there is still work to be done to bring an end to coal power.

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Britain Shuts Down Last Coal Plant, ‘Turning Its Back on Coal Forever’

Photo, posted March 13, 2016, courtesy of Arran Bee via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Cooling cities

September 2, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As the climate warms, city dwellers tend to suffer from extreme heat more than people in rural areas because of the urban heat island effect. Extensive surfaces of man-made materials like concrete, asphalt, and brick absorb the sun’s energy and lead to temperatures well above those in the surrounding countryside.

Cities can take countermeasures that include creating urban green spaces full of plants that cool the surrounding air and the use of cool roofs that reflect the sun’s energy back into space. Local governments in many cities provide incentives for planting more trees. But more could be accomplished by encouraging the use of cool roofs.

The heat island effect has been well-known for a long time, but scientists are only recently learning what interventions are most effective. A recent study modeled two days of extreme heat in London in 2018 and compared the potential effects of cool roofs, green roofs, roof-top solar panels, and ground level vegetation. They found that cool roofs are the most effective way to lower temperatures and would have reduced London temperatures by 2 degrees on average and as much as 3.6 degrees in some places.

Cool roofs are created by swapping out dark, heat-absorbing roofing materials with reflective materials or simply by painting roofs white. Los Angeles is the first major city to require that all new residential construction includes a cool roof.

Apart from the effectiveness of passive cooling techniques, using them also reduces the reliance upon air conditioning to protect people from heat. Air conditioners themselves contribute considerable amounts of heat to urban environments.

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The surprisingly simple way cities could save people from extreme heat

Photo, posted February 21, 2024, courtesy of Warren LeMay via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Plastics In The Air | Earth Wise

October 25, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Plastic pollution is a big deal. There are plastics clogging up landfills and waterways and accumulating in the oceans, choking turtles and seabirds. Annual production of plastics has grown from 2 million tons a year in 1950 to more than 450 million tons today.

As if plastic problems weren’t already big enough, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are growing amounts of microplastic particles in the air. Bits of plastic are lofted into the sky from seafoam bubbles and from spinning tires on highways. The particles are so light that they can travel for thousands of miles, far from where they originate.

Studies in recent years documented the presence of plastic particles even in places like the Pyrenees in Europe and in federally protected areas of the US. Other studies have measured the quantity of plastic in the air of various locations and have looked at the origins of the particles.

In the western US, over 80% of microplastics came from roads where vehicles kick up particles from tires and brakes. In remote areas of the Pacific, there is less than a single particle of plastic per cubic meter of air. In cities like London and Beijing, on the other hand, there can be several thousand particles per cubic meter.

Microplastics can act as airborne aerosols, like dust, salt, soot, volcanic ash, and other particles. Aerosols play an important role in the formation of clouds and in temperature regulation on the earth. At low concentrations, such as exist in most places, microplastic aerosols don’t have much of an effect. But there are more in the atmosphere all the time and, at this point, scientists don’t really know what effect they will have.

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Microplastics Are Filling the Skies. Will They Affect the Climate?

Photo, posted August 28, 2014, courtesy of Alan Levine via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Sea Level Rise And Global Security | Earth Wise

March 22, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Recently, United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres addressed the U.N. Security Council on the issue of the security threats created by rising sea levels. In the past, some members of the Security Council – notably Brazil, China, Russia, and at times, India – have argued that the U.N.’s climate program should address such issues and that the Security Council doesn’t have a mandate or the expertise to consider the issue. The underlying problem is that by addressing the security issues created by rising seas, other sensitive geopolitical issues might come to the forefront.

Guterres’ speech focused on the real possibility that rising seas could disrupt and destabilize global societies unless there is an organized international effort to get ahead of the problem. Major cities facing serious impacts from rising seas include Cairo, Lagos, Bangkok, Jakarta, Mumbai, Shanghai, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Buenos Aires, among others.

In all, Guterres said that the danger is most acute for about 900 million people living in low-lying coastal areas. Some countries, particularly small island developing countries, could disappear entirely.

The world is already facing refugee crises related to politics, warfare, and extreme weather. The flood of refugees created by rising seas could be biblical in magnitude.

The confluence of climate change and global security is growing steadily. As the global body primarily responsible for maintaining international peace and security, the U.N. Security Council cannot duck this issue much longer. It has a critical role to play in building the political will required to address the security challenges looming from rising seas.

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Sea Level Rise Could Drive 1 in 10 People from Their Homes, with Dangerous Implications for International Peace, UN Secretary General Warns

Photo, posted July 19, 2021, courtesy of Face of the World via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Food Waste And The Environment | Earth Wise

November 25, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is tragic that 31% of the world’s food production goes uneaten. About 14% isn’t distributed after it is harvested. Another 17% ends up wasted in retail or by consumers. Worldwide, the amount of food that is wasted is enough to feed more than a billion people while at least 828 million people continue to be affected by hunger. To make matters worse, food waste accounts for 8 to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is at least double that of aviation. Food waste, rotting away in landfills, produces methane gas, a major source of global warming.

Around the world, there are efforts being launched to try to improve the situation. California now has a law that requires grocery stores to donate edible food that would otherwise be disposed of or they face fines. The state’s cities and counties are required to reduce the amount of organic waste going into landfills by 75% by 2025 and compost it instead.

In London, grocers no longer put date labels on fruits and vegetables because the labels were leading people to trash perfectly good food. France now requires supermarkets and large caterers to donate food that is still safe to eat.

South Korea has little space for landfills. So, the country has been campaigning against throwing away food for 20 years. Nearly all organic waste in the country is turned into animal feed, compost, or biogas. Koreans even have to pay for throwing out food waste. There are now trash bins equipped with electronic sensors that weigh food waste.

All of these things can help. There is no single magic bullet for reducing food waste, but it is essential to do for so many reasons.

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Inside the Global Effort to Keep Perfectly Good Food Out of the Dump

Photo, posted November 30, 2020, courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Nanoplastics In The Air | Earth Wise

December 17, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The world is awash in plastic. Discarded plastic litters our roadways, woodlands, and beaches. It piles up in landfills. Plastic enters the oceans by the millions of tons. And plastic is finding its way even to remote and supposedly pristine parts of the world.

A team of researchers has found nanoplastics at the isolated high-altitude Sonnblick Observatory in the Austrian Alps. This is the first time the particles were found in the area. The researchers were looking for certain organic particles and only found the nanoplastics by chance.

The detected plastic particles were less than 200 nanometers in size, about one hundredth the width of a human hair. It is highly unlikely that such particles originated in remote Alpine areas.

The researchers were looking for organic particles by taking samples of snow or ice, evaporating them, and then burning the residue to detect and analyze the vapors. They described the detection method as essentially like a mechanical nose. In this case, the nose smelled burning plastics in the form of polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate.

Looking into the issue, the researchers found a strong correlation between high concentrations of nanoplastics and winds coming from the direction of major European cities – especially Frankfurt and the industrial Ruhr area of Germany, but also the Netherlands, Paris, and even London.

Modeling supports the idea that nanoplastics are transported by air from distant urban places. This is particularly worrisome because it means that there are likely hotspots of nanoplastics in our cities and in the air that we are breathing. Plastics appear to be everywhere.

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Nanoplastics found in the Alps, transported by air from Frankfurt, Paris and London

Photo, posted July 1, 2013, courtesy of Robert J. Heath via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Giant Breakaway Iceberg | Earth Wise

April 7, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Scientists have been closely monitoring multiple cracks and chasms that have formed in the 500-foot-thick Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica over the past few years. In late 2019, a new crack was spotted in a portion of the shelf north of an area known as the McDonald Ice Rumples. The rift was monitored by satellite imaging and was seen by February as moving about 15 feet a day.

In the early hours of February 26th, the crack widened rapidly before finally breaking free from the rest of the floating ice shelf. News reports around the world have described the massive 500-square-mile iceberg by comparing it to the size of well-known cities: 1.5 times the size of greater Paris, 10 times the size of San Francisco, twice the size of Chicago, nearly the size of Greater London, and so on.

Antarctica is known for churning out some enormous bergs. The new iceberg, which has been named A-74, is huge, but doesn’t compare to the iceberg A-68 that calved from the Larson C Ice Shelf in 2017. That one was almost five times larger.

The calving of A-74 does not pose a threat to the presently unmanned British Antarctic Survey’s Halley VI Research Station, which was repositioned in 2017 to a more secure location after the ice shelf was deemed to be unsafe. The section where the station now sits is still holding on, but when it eventually breaks, it will likely create a berg nearly 700 square miles in size.

It remains to be seen what will become of the new iceberg. Most likely, it will eventually get caught up in the Weddell Gyre, a clockwise-rotating ocean flow in the Southern Ocean that covers an area more than half the size of the US.

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Breakup at Brunt

Photo, posted October 27, 2016, courtesy of NASA/Nathan Kurtz via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Aircraft Emissions And Climate Change | Earth Wise

March 1, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The aviation industry accounts for about 2.4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. If the aviation industry was a country, it would place sixth in emissions, between Japan and Germany.

According to scientists at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, aviation industry emissions could be reduced by simply better surfing the wind. The researchers found that commercial flights between New York and London could have used up to 16% less fuel if they had made better use of the fast-moving winds at altitude.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analyzed approximately 35,000 flights in both directions between New York and London last winter. The researchers compared how much fuel was burned during these flights to how much less fuel would have been burned by flying into or around the eastward jet stream air currents.

They found that taking better advantage of the winds would have saved about 125 miles worth of fuel per flight on average. The fuel saving per flight was 1.7% when flying west to New York, and 2.5% when flying east to London.

New satellites will soon allow transatlantic flights to be tracked more accurately. This should afford aircraft more flexibility in their flight paths, allowing them to better follow tailwinds and avoid headwinds.

Upgrading aircraft or switching to greener fuels are two other ways that the aviation industry can reduce emissions, but those things are costly and take time to implement. Optimizing flight paths is cheaper and offers immediate benefits.

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Aircraft could cut emissions by better surfing the wind

Photo, posted May 16, 2011, courtesy of Cory W. Watts via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Solar-Powered Airport

August 12, 2019 By EarthWise 1 Comment

The Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in Tennessee has become the first airport in the United States to run entirely on solar power. The small airport operates over 60,000 flights a year and has recently completed work on a 12-acre, 2.64-megawatt solar farm that generates enough clean electricity to account for the airport’s total energy needs.

The project was funded largely by the Federal Aviation Administration, cost $10 million, and took nine years to complete. The facility uses onsite batteries to help power operations at night. The installation is expected to last 30 to 40 years.

The solar farm is in the southwest corner of the airfield on land that is unusable for aviation purposes. It is visible from the two runways at the airport.

Officials from nearly 50 airports around the world have visited or contacted the Chattanooga airfield in recent years to learn about its solar operations. Several major airports, including San Diego and London’s Gatwick, have also installed solar panels that provide a portion of their power needs. The world’s busiest airport – Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson – is looking into constructing renewable energy microgrids to power part of its operations. Airports generally have plenty of vacant land that can be used for solar panels that can lower their power bills.

The largest airport solar installation is actually Cochin International in Kerala, India, which became 100% solar powered in 2015. It is the 7^th largest airport in India. Its solar array has nearly 30 megawatts of capacity. Airport managers there were fed up with huge electric bills and invested about $9 million to install the solar array. It is expected to have paid for itself in the next couple of years.

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