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The impact of climate change on agriculture

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Agriculture is a major part of the climate problem and remains one of the hardest human activities to decarbonize.  Agriculture is responsible for approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

On farms around the world, excess fertilizer gets broken down by microbes in the soil, releasing nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.  Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

According to a sweeping global research review recently published in the journal Science, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are now 18 times higher than they were in the 1960s. 

The research, which was co-written by professors at the University of Minnesota with more than 20 experts around the world, also reveals the likelihood of an emergent feedback loop between climate and agriculture.  As the changing climate puts more pressure on the global food supply, agriculture will, out of necessity, adopt practices that may exacerbate its environmental impact. Without changes in agriculture, this feedback loop could make it impossible to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

The research identifies several agricultural practices that could improve efficiency and stabilize our food supply in the decades to come, including precision farming, perennial crop integration, agrivoltaics, nitrogen fixation, and novel genome editing. 

Finding ways to reduce the warming impact of agriculture while maintaining high crop yields are essential to both mitigating climate change and protecting our food supply from its impacts.

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Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture Suggests Even Greater Challenges to the Environment, Global Food Supply and Public Health

Photo, posted October 16, 2010, courtesy of Timlewisnm via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Slow-moving landslides

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Landslides are mass movements of rock, earth, or debris down a slope.  They can be initiated by rainfall, snowmelt, changes in water level, erosion by streams, earthquakes, volcanic activity, or by various human activities.  Most landslides we hear about are sudden events that can cause all sorts of calamities.  But not all landslides are rapid occurrences.  There are also slow-moving landslides.

A new study by the University of Potsdam in Germany has found that as urban centers in mountainous regions grow, more people are building homes on steeper slopes prone to slow-moving landslides.  Slow-moving landslides can move as little as one millimeter a year and up to as much as three meters per year.  Locations with slow-moving landslides can seem safe to settle on; in some cases, the movement itself can be inconspicuous or even completely undetected.

Slow slides can gradually produce damage in houses and other infrastructure and there can also be sudden acceleration from heavy rain or other influences.

The study compiled a new database of nearly 8,000 slow-moving landslides with areas of at least 25 acres located in regions classified as “mountain risk.”  Of the landslides documented, 563 are inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people.  The densest settlements on slow-moving landslides are in northwestern South America and southeastern Africa. 

In all regions of the study, urban center expansion was associated with an increase in exposure to slow-moving landslides.  As cities expand in mountainous areas, people are moving into unsafe areas, but poorer populations may have few other options.

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Slow-moving landslides a growing, but ignored, threat to mountain communities

Photo, posted March 4, 2015, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

And the heat goes on

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August 2024 was the hottest August in the 175-years for which there are global records.  The last full month of summer also wrapped up the Northern Hemisphere‘s warmest summer on record.

The average global surface temperature in August was 62.39 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 2.29 degrees above the 20th century August average.  Furthermore, August was the 15th consecutive month of record-high global temperatures, which is a record in and of itself.

Regionally, Europe and Oceana had their warmest August on record.  Asia had its second-warmest August, and Africa and North America had their third-warmest August.

The summer in the Northern Hemisphere was a record-breaker with a temperature 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit above average.  Thinking about climate goals, this is 1.52 degrees Celsius above average, which is a troubling amount.  Meanwhile, in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was winter in the June-to-August period, it was also the warmest ever with a temperature 1.73 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

Globally, this year to date ranks as the warmest ever recorded with a temperature 2.3 degrees above the 20th-century average.  With a few months to go, the prediction is that there is a 97% chance that 2024 will rank as the world’s warmest year on record.

Other aspects of the global climate system were consistent with these record-breaking temperatures.  The global ocean surface temperature for June through August was the warmest on record. 

These monthly climate reports have an unfortunate similarity:  the heat goes on.

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Earth had its hottest August in 175-year record

Photo, posted June 22, 2021, courtesy of Vicky Brock via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solar energy on federal land

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Officials at the federal Bureau of Land Management announced late in August that they had finalized a plan to add Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming to the Western Solar Plan, which started during the Obama era.   The plan, created in 2012, provides permitting for solar projects on federal land.  The original plan included Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

The Western Solar Plan is a major expansion for clean energy production in the Bureau of Land Management’s land leasing portfolio.  For decades, the BLM has leased tens of millions of acres of federal land to fossil fuel companies for oil, coal, and natural gas exploration and production.

The new addition includes 1.1 million acres of land in Oregon, an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island.  The land selected is deemed to be of low risk for any adverse environmental effects from solar installation, and the plots of land are all within 15 miles of existing or planned electrical transmission lines.  A little over 50% of Oregon’s land is owned by the federal government and is managed primarily by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The publication of the finalized plan at the end of August initiated a 30-day period for any participants in the initial planning to voice objections.  The governors of the 5 new states are reviewing the plan.  Final approval and adoption are expected later this year.

Western states need to expand solar and other clean energy production to meet their climate goals and federal lands will have to play an important role.

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Plan would make 1 million acres of federal land in Oregon available for solar energy projects

Photo, posted May 20, 2024, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Canadian wildfires and global emissions

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The wildfires that burned vast amounts of Canada’s boreal forests in 2023 produced enormous amounts of smoke that found its way into American cities, working its way down the eastern seaboard and even producing unsafe air in Florida.

Researchers at Cal Tech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory analyzed the carbon emissions associated with these fires last year and found that they were greater than those of all but three countries:  China, the US, and India.

Boreal forests have historically been a natural defense against climate change by storing carbon in trees rather than adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  The fires in Canada, fueled by hot and dry weather, were extraordinary when compared with historical records.  But such fires are likely to be increasingly common as the climate continues to warm.

However, the hot and dry weather that fueled the 2023 fires was exceptional in many ways, involving early snow melt and so-called flash droughts.  This year’s fires in Canada are still bigger than average, but so far have not been as destructive as last year’s. 

Canada has been warming at about twice the global rate.  The extreme temperatures last summer were a major factor in the fueling of the fires, which burned an area almost the size of Florida.

Forests absorb about a quarter of global carbon emissions, but the increasing frequency and intensity of fires are calling into question their ability to continue to do so.  Parts of the Canadian forests are not regrowing after fires as they have in the past, partly because blazes burn trees so frequently and intensely.

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Canada’s Wildfires Were a Top Global Emitter Last Year, Study Says

Photo, posted June 8, 2023, courtesy of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Tourism and climate action

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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the foremost natural wonders of the world and is a major tourist attraction.  It is well-known that the changing climate is threatening the survival of the Great Barrier Reef as well as other coral reefs around the world.  A recent study by researchers at the University of Queensland looked at the reactions of tourists to being informed about the impact of the changing climate on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef faces many challenges.  Unprecedented marine heatwaves have triggered repeated mass coral bleaching events over the past decade. These climate driven disturbances are compounding the cumulative effects of chronic problems such as unsustainable fishing, pollution, and sedimentation as well as acute disturbances such as tropical cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.

Operators of five reef tourism boats assisted in the study.  As part of their boat trips, tourists were given climate information via a marine biology presentation and there were also posters around the vessel as well as regular mentions of climate change impacts and actions throughout the trip.

The tourism industry often has the idea that providing information on climate change might be detrimental to people’s enjoyment – basically a buzzkill.  But based on surveys conducted at the end of the trips, the researchers found that informing tourists about climate impact didn’t negatively affect their experience.  In fact, most tourists actually wanted more information, particularly about how they can take meaningful actions of their own.

The researchers believe that their study provides further opportunity to improve climate communication and effectively promote climate change engagement among tourists.

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Reef tourism encourages climate action

Photo, posted October 7, 2008, courtesy of eGuide Travel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Predicting major earthquakes

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Natural disasters continue to be major threats for people, just as they always have been.  But modern technology has greatly improved our ability to prepare for and, in many cases, escape from the worst effects of these events.  A good example is hurricane forecasting.  Nowadays, there is plenty of warning when a major hurricane is headed toward a populous area.  It is still up to people to get away from the danger zone, but at least there is the opportunity to do so.

Major earthquakes are a different story.  There is generally little or no warning when one will strike.  But scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany have developed a technique that may provide days or even months of warning about an impending major earthquake.

The detection method is based on machine learning and is described in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.  The researchers wrote a computer algorithm that looks for abnormal seismic activity.  Advanced statistical techniques found that approximately three months of abnormal low-magnitude regional seismicity occurred in the regions where two major earthquakes took place.  One was the magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake in 2018 and the other was a similar-sized quake in Ridgecrest, California in 2019.

Considerably more testing – particularly in real-time rather than looking at historical data – is needed.  But accurate earthquake forecasting has the potential to save lives and reduce economic losses.  However, there are ethical and practical questions to answer.  False alarms could lead to unnecessary panic, economic disruption, and loss of public trust.  On the other hand, missed predictions can have catastrophic consequences.

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UAF scientist’s method could give months’ warning of major earthquakes

Photo, posted January 22, 2012, courtesy of the Climate and Ecosystems Change Adaptation Research University Network via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The doomsday glacier

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The Thwaites Glacier is an enormous Antarctic Glacier.  Its area is larger than that of Florida – in fact, larger than 30 other U.S. states – and it is melting.  It has been retreating for 80 years but has accelerated its pace in the past 30.  Its shedding of ice into the ocean already contributes 4% of global sea level rise.  If it collapsed entirely, it would raise sea levels by more than 2 feet.  For this reason, it has been dubbed the Doomsday Glacier.

A team of scientists has been studying it since 2018 in order to better understand what is happening within the glacier. They sent a torpedo-shaped robot to the glacier’s grounding line, which is the point at which the ice rises up from the seabed and starts to float.  The underside of Thwaites is insulated by a thin layer of cold water.  However, at the grounding line, tidal action is pumping warmer sea water at high pressure as far as six miles under the ice.  This is disrupting the insulating layer and is speeding up the retreat of the glacier.

The potential collapse of the glacier is not even the only massive risk it poses.  It also acts like a cork, holding back the vast Antarctic ice sheet.  If that ice sheet were ever to collapse, sea levels could rise 10 feet.

A critical unanswered question is whether the ultimate collapse of Thwaites Glacier is already irreversible.  There are regular heavy snowfalls that occur in the Antarctic which help replenish ice loss.  Whether nations’ progress in slowing climate change can change the balance between ice accumulation and ice loss on the glacier remains to be seen.

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‘Doomsday’ glacier set to melt faster and swell seas as world heats up, say scientists

Photo, posted January 3, 2022, courtesy of Felton Davis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Trends in rooftop solar

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Rooftop solar power in the United States has increased by a factor of ten over the past decade and the majority of that growth has been in the past six or seven years.  At this point, about 7% of American homes have solar panels on their roofs – about 5 million in total. 

Rooftop solar really began experiencing widespread use about 20 years ago.  Over that time period, the amount of electricity that panels are able to produce has grown substantially and the cost of solar power systems has dropped dramatically.

Twenty years ago, the median sized residential solar system generated 2.4 kilowatts of power.  In 2023, the median size was 7.4 kilowatts.  Roofs haven’t gotten bigger; solar panels have gotten better.

More importantly, 20 years ago, the average cost of installing solar power was $12 a watt. In 2023, the cost was $4.20 a watt.

Americans in fact pay considerably more for solar power than citizens in many other countries.  The reason is not the price of the equipment; it is so-called soft costs.  These include labor, financing, and permitting. Driving down soft costs is complicated and difficult. For one thing, it is important for solar industry jobs to have high pay and good benefits.

The cost of solar also varies significantly by state.  California is the leading state for solar power and its median solar cost is the $4.20 a watt, the same as the national average.  Nevada has the lowest cost at $3.40 a watt and Utah has the highest at $5.20 a watt.

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Bigger and Less Expensive: A Snapshot of U.S. Rooftop Solar Power and How It’s Changed

Photo, posted September 18, 2011, courtesy of Team Massachusetts 4D Home via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Weather extremes for most people

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Scientists from the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway along with researchers at the University of Reading in the UK have analyzed how global warming can combine with normal variations in the weather to produce decades-long periods of very rapid changes involving both extreme temperatures and extreme amounts of rainfall.

Many parts of the world have already been experiencing record temperatures and extreme rainfall events.  Previously, most analyses of the changing climate have focused on the global mean and not on the impact of extreme weather on specific countries.

The study made use of large climate model simulations to show that if global emissions continue on the path they have been on, large parts of the tropics and subtropics – which are home to 70% of the world’s population – are expected to experience strong rates of change in temperature and precipitation extremes over the next 20 years.  But even if there is strong emissions mitigation – meaning that emissions are reduced enough to reach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement – the expectation is that 20% of the world’s population will face extreme weather risks. 

These extreme events currently account for a disproportionate share of the realized impacts of climate change.  Heatwaves cause heat stress and excess mortality of both people and livestock.  Extreme precipitation leads to flooding, damage to settlements, infrastructure, crops, and ecosystems, as well as to reduced water quality. 

Society will be increasingly vulnerable to these extreme events, especially when multiple hazards occur at the same time.

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Extreme weather to strengthen rapidly over next two decades

Photo, posted May 20, 2024, courtesy of Dale Cruse via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Rainfall and sea turtles

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There are seven species of sea turtles that inhabit the world’s oceans. Six of the seven sea turtle species – all of them except the flatback – are present in U.S. waters, and are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. 

Sea turtles, which have been around for more than 100 million years, spend the majority of their lives in the ocean, but they do periodically come ashore to nest.  Female sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand and then return to the ocean.  Survival odds for sea turtle hatchlings are quite bleak.  In fact, only one out of every 1,000 makes it to adulthood. 

Research shows that both air and sand temperatures are critical for sea turtle hatchling development.  Cooler temperatures produce larger, heavier hatchlings with more males.  Hatchling size matters because larger hatchlings, which can move faster, are more likely to survive because they spend less time on risky beaches.  But rising temperatures might shorten incubation periods, and erratic rainfall can disrupt growth, potentially affecting survival.

A new international study by researchers from Florida Atlantic University and the University of Tübingen in Germany found that fluctuating rainfall patterns have a greater impact than changes in air temperature on sea turtle hatchling development. 

The results, which were recently published in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolution, reveal that the impact of rainfall varies between species.  As climate change shifts rainfall patterns, the impact on sea turtle nesting sites suggests that global conservation strategies for some species – like loggerhead and green sea turtles – likely need to be updated.

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Rain or Shine? How Rainfall Impacts Size of Sea Turtle Hatchlings

Sea Turtle

Photo, posted August 27, 2015, courtesy of USFWS/Orsulak via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Ecofriendly Glass

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Glass has been used for thousands of years to make everything from windows to bottles to microscope slides.  For all that time, most glass has been in the form of soda lime silicate glass, which is made by melting quartz sand with carbon-based ingredients – soda ash and limestone – at high melting temperatures of about 2600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The process results in substantial carbon emissions.  Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces over 86 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.  Most of that comes from burning fuel to reach the high temperatures needed to make the glass, but about a quarter of it comes from the decomposition of the carbon-based materials used.

Researchers at Penn State University have developed an entirely new type of glass that represents an alternative to soda lime glass.  The glass – that they call LionGlass – eliminates the use of carbonate batch materials and has a melting temperature 700 degrees lower than traditional glass.   The new material has the potential to cut the carbon footprint of glass manufacturing in half.  It is also 10 times more crack-resistant than ordinary glass, which would enable light weighting of glass products, lowering the emissions associated with transporting glass and glass products.

Recently, Penn state has entered into a partnership with the Italian company Bormioli, one of the world’s leading glass manufacturers that specializes in high-end packaging for fragrances, cosmetics, and tableware.  By focusing on a smaller, high-end market, the focus can be on fine-tuning the glass and determining the feasibility of scaling it up further for other uses.

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Ecofriendly glass invented at Penn State secures partner for product development

Photo, posted December 26, 2005, courtesy of Lachlan Hardy via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Food, timber, and climate change

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The sights of coffee plantations in California and vineyards in Britain are becoming more common as the climate changes. But behind what sounds like a success story is a sobering one: climate change is shifting the regions suitable for growing food all around the world. 

According to a new study by researchers from the University of Cambridge, as crop growing shifts northwards, a squeeze will be put on the land needed to produce timber.  The timber these trees produce is used to make everything from paper and cardboard to furniture and buildings.

According to the study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, more than 25% of existing forestry land – an area equivalent in size to India – will become more suitable for agriculture by the end of the century if climate change continues unabated.  Approximately 90% of this current forestry land is located in Canada, China, Russia, and the United States.    

Global timber production is worth more than $1.5 trillion every year.  Recent heat waves and wildfires have caused huge losses of timber forests around the world. 

According to the World Bank, the value of the global food system is estimated to be roughly $8 trillion annually.  Scientists expect climate change to cause some areas to become too hot for growing food, particularly in the tropics and southern Europe. 

With the global demand for food and the global demand for wood both projected to double by 2050, the increasing climate change-driven competition between the two is set to be an emerging issue in the coming decades. 

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Global timber supply threatened as climate change pushes cropland northwards

Do the costs of the global food system outweigh its monetary value?

Photo, posted October 24, 2018, courtesy of Bill Smith via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solar farms and pollinators

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Two important environmental challenges are finding some literal common ground:  the need to reduce carbon emissions and the fight to stave off global biodiversity collapse.  Both issues can be addressed at solar farms.

Solar energy is an important weapon in the battle against climate change.  But utility-scale solar farms take up large amounts of land.  Large-scale solar farms already take up nearly a thousand square miles of land in the US and will take up much more in the coming decades.

In the meantime, the biodiversity collapse is being driven in large part by habitat loss.

Given all this, solar farm operators, biologists, and environmentalists are teaming up to grow pollinator-friendly plants in and around solar farms. The plantings attract insects, birds and even mammals. The more plant diversity in the solar farms, the more environmental benefits can be achieved. 

There are costs associated with creating pollinator-friendly solar farms. Ideally, solar panels need to be installed at greater height than otherwise in order to permit growing many of the plants that attract bees and butterflies.  But there are economic benefits associated with attracting and sustaining pollinators.  On a cautionary note, there have already been cases of greenwashing, where solar operators claim environmental benefits far in excess of the scope of the actual efforts they have made. 

There are both governmental and non-governmental agencies seeking to assess and certify pollinator-friendly solar farms.  There is considerable variability in the ecological value of existing farms.  Pollinator-friendly solar farms are in their early days, but they have a lot to offer as a win-win strategy for the environment.

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Solar Farms Have a Superpower Beyond Clean Energy

Photo, posted December 4, 2014, courtesy of Juwi Renewable Energies Limited via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Revolution Wind installs first turbine

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Revolution Wind is an offshore wind farm being built by Rhode Island and Connecticut and is the first multi-state offshore wind farm in the United States.  Once completed, it will deliver 400 MW of power to Rhode Island and 304 MW of power to Connecticut.

Revolution Wind is a 50/50 partnership between Ørsted, the Danish multinational energy company, and Eversource, a major New England utility company.  The wind farm is located about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32 miles southeast of Connecticut.  It is fairly close to the recently completed South Fork Wind, the first completed utility-scale offshore windfarm in the U.S. and was built by the same partnership.

The first Revolution Wind turbine was installed at the end of August and construction continues with the installation of foundations for the 65 turbines that will comprise the project.  More than three-quarters of the units were in place by the beginning of September.  Ships have also arrived on scene for cable-laying operations for the wind farm.  Onshore construction continues in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, on the project’s transmission system.  The turbines for the project are being assembled by local union labor in New London, Connecticut. 

Commercial operations at Revolution Wind will not begin until 2026.  Construction of the electrical substation necessary to connect the project to the regional electric grid is taking place on the site of a decommissioned naval air station and it is a time-consuming project because of the presence of buried waste and soil contamination.  The construction of the offshore wind farm itself will be completed in 2025.

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Revolution Wind installs first offshore turbine

Photo courtesy of Kate Ciembronowicz / Orsted via Revolution Wind.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Removing nanoplastics from water

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Plastic pollution is a growing problem for people and for the environment in multiple ways.  When plastics break down over time, they can form small particles called microplastics – bits smaller than sesame seeds – and these, in turn, can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics.  They are too small to be seen with the naked eye and can enter the body’s cells and tissues.

Recent studies have shown that nanoplastics are increasingly showing up in bottled water.  In fact, measurements on several popular brands of bottled water found an average of nearly a quarter million tiny pieces of plastic in a single liter of bottled water.

The health effects of ingesting all of this plastic are not really known, but they are unlikely to be anything good.  Finding a way of avoiding this contamination of the beverages we drink is a pressing need.

Researchers at the University of Missouri have created a new liquid-based solution that eliminates more than 98% of microscopic plastic particles from water.  The method makes use of water-repelling solvents made from safe, non-toxic natural ingredients. A small amount of this designer solvent absorbs plastic particles from a large volume of water.

The solvent sits on the water’s surface.  When mixed with the water, it absorbs the plastic and eventually comes back to the surface carrying the plastic leaving behind clean, plastic -free water.

Ultimately, the hope is to scale up the process so it can be applied to increasingly large amounts of water – even lakes and, eventually, oceans.  There is work to be done, but it is a potential way to address an increasingly worrisome and pervasive form of pollution.

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Mizzou scientists achieve more than 98% efficiency removing nanoplastics from water

Photo, posted August 9, 2012, courtesy of Enid Martindale via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric cars: Boom or bust?

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Media coverage of electric cars in this country is pretty confusing.  Are electric cars taking over or has the EV bubble burst?

EVs currently represent about 8% of the US new car market.  But they continue to face some relatively unique headwinds in this country.  A very powerful and influential oil industry makes sure that anti-EV stories occupy center stage in the media.  Traditional car dealers don’t want to sell EVs because they don’t make much money from parts and service.  And EVs often find themselves tangled up in American politics.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world tells a very different story.  Globally, EVs constitute 20% of new car sales, but in some places, they are doing much better than that.

So far this year, almost 87% of new car sales in Norway are electric and in August, the figure was 94%.  Norway has some incentives in place for EV owners, but the fact that nearly all new cars on the road are electric is far more than the result of incentives.

One might argue that Norway, a country with only 5 million people, faces a much easier task of transitioning to EVs.   But how about China with its 1.4 billion people?  In July, plug-in vehicles in China were 51% of new auto sales.  And the numbers continue to rise.

There are plenty of articles out there explaining why electric cars just can’t meet people’s needs, have insurmountable problems, and how having too many of them would collapse electric grids and otherwise wreak havoc with society.  Apparently, the Norwegians and Chinese, among a growing number of other countries, haven’t gotten the memo.

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Elbil Thinks Electric Car Sales In Norway Could Hit 100% By Next Year

Photo, posted July 27, 2024, courtesy of Amaury Laporte via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Cities and rainwater

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Cities across the country are grappling with the problem that bigger, more frequent rainstorms occurring as a result of climate change are overtaxing the systems put in place to handle stormwater.  Cities use a combination of so-called green infrastructure – such as rain gardens and porous pavements – and traditional gray infrastructure, such as pipes, tunnels, and pump stations.

In 2011, Philadelphia drew national attention for its Green City, Clean Waters program that was designed to manage the increasing amount of storm water using mostly green infrastructure.  Thirteen years later, the city is experiencing billions of gallons of polluted stormwater overflowing its sewage outfall pipes each year.  Green infrastructure is cheaper and faster to build, but it is not coping with increasing rainfall.

About 700 U.S. municipalities, mostly in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes, rely on these combined sewer systems.  Based on updated climate projections, many are having to greatly increase gray infrastructure projects that include concrete holding tanks, tunnels, and pipes that can divert and hold onto flows until the rain stops, and water treatment plants can recover.  These projects can take decades to implement and cost billions of dollars.

All across the country, cities are going to need to bite the bullet and make large-scale investments in conventional sewage infrastructure and repairs to stop billions of gallons of raw sewage from running into rivers.  The increased storms present a daunting challenge for America’s cities.

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Faced With Heavier Rains, Cities Scramble to Control Polluted Runoff

Photo, posted August 29, 2011, courtesy of Reggie via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Big Tech and emissions

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Most of the well-known largest technology companies have established ambitious clean energy goals.  They are on record for achieving net-zero emissions for all their operations and supply chains in many cases by 2030.  As a result, they have been investing heavily in renewable energy in various ways.  Despite these lofty goals and sincere efforts, many of them are struggling to reduce emissions.  The reason is simple:  big data.

A good example is Google, which started investing in renewable energy in 2010 and since 2017 has been purchasing renewable energy on an annual basis to match the electricity consumption of its global operations. However, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased nearly 48% since 2019.  This is primarily a result of data center energy consumption.

The expanding use of artificial intelligence technology is consuming large amounts of electricity.  For example, a single ChatGPT query uses nearly 10 times as much electrical energy as a traditional Google search.

Google is by no means unique in having this problem.  Microsoft’s carbon emissions have risen by nearly 30% since 2020.  Amazon is struggling to reach net-zero across its operations by 2040.

All of these companies are entering into large power agreements with renewable energy companies all across the country.  The AI arms race for more and more computational power is driving a race to install more and more large-scale renewable energy.   Power purchase agreements for solar power, wind power, and even geothermal power are becoming a major activity for most of the largest tech companies.

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Can Google gobble up enough renewables?

Photo, posted February 12, 2023, courtesy of Geoff Henson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Just say ‘climate change’

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In recent years, climate advocates have pushed for the use of more dramatic language to describe ‘climate change.’  The notion was that phrases like ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ better convey the urgency of the planet’s plight, while terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are too gentle and vague.  However, it turns out that the gentler approach may actually be more effective.

According to a new study led by researchers from the University of Southern California, the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are not only more familiar to people than some of their common synonyms, but they also generate more concern about the warming of the Earth.

In the study, which was recently published in the journal Climatic Change, the research team found that nearly 90% of respondents were familiar with the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming.’  However, familiarity dropped sharply for the other terms, including ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency.’  In fact, only 33% of respondents recognized the term ‘climate justice.’

The study, which surveyed more than 5,000 randomly selected U.S. residents, examined the degree to which each term generated concern, urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies, and willingness to eat less red meat. 

The research team found that the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ were most concerning and most urgent.  ‘Climate justice’ was the least, with ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ falling in between.  The support for climate policy and willingness to eat less red meat was roughly the same, regardless of what terms were used. 

The research team hopes its findings will help us communicate more effectively about climate change in the future.

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Just Say “Climate Change” – not “Climate Emergency”

Photo, posted July 1, 2023, courtesy of Sheila Sund via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

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