For baby boomers, the Volkswagen bus was the iconic vehicle of the 1960s counterculture. It was introduced in 1950, was popular among Gen Xers coming of age in the 1980s, and lasted in one form or another until 2013, when the last one was built in Brazil.
Diesel cars have never been very popular in the US and in the aftermath of the so-called Dieselgate scandal at Volkswagen, they are even less so. Less than a dozen diesel car models are available for purchase in the US and only one of those is from a German automaker: BMW.
The global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at 400 parts per million for the first time in recorded history in May of 2013. It was a brief event at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii at the time. Within the next couple of years, however, readings of at least 400 ppm became standard.
The total amount of solar power capacity installed in the world reached 100 gigawatts in 2012. Getting to that amount took decades. But things have changed in dramatic fashion in recent years.
Neonicotinoids (or ‘neonics’ for short) are a class of insecticides chemically related to nicotine. In fact, the name ‘neonicotinoid’ literally means “new nicotine-like insecticide.” And like nicotine, neonics act on certain kinds of receptors in the nerve synapse. Most corn, soy, and wheat seeds planted today are coated with neonics, which is reportedly 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT.
If we want to avoid drastic global warming this century, we need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time. For the previous three years, emissions had been holding steady, but last year, global emissions from the use of coal, oil and natural gas increased by 1.4%. According to the International Energy Agency, this unfortunate new data should serve as a strong warning that we need to increase our efforts to combat climate change.
The United States has now added the capacity to store a billion watts of power for one hour and it may double that total by the end of this year. According to the firm GTM Research, the energy storage industry – previously nearly invisible – is undergoing rapid growth. Much of the growth has been in homes with products like the Tesla Powerwall but has also been on the scale of the electric grid, where power companies can use storage to control when to deploy excess electricity generated from renewable sources such as solar power.
Pollution particles emitted by diesel cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants, factories, primitive cook stoves, and the burning of forests are major contributors to the pervasive air pollution that plagues many cities and regions of the world. In India and China, such pollution leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. And countries around the world are working hard to reduce pollution.
For years, China has been struggling with some of the worst air pollution in the world. According to the European Union, only 1% of the country’s half a billion city dwellers were considered safe because almost all of its major cities were covered with what was described as a toxic grey cloud.
The Arctic has been experiencing record warm temperatures and record low sea ice levels. During February, there were nine days in a row with temperatures averaging 27 degrees above normal and often above freezing. Over the previous 20 years, there were only two previous readings above freezing in February – once in 2011 and once last year.
Earth system scientists say that there are four major human-caused forces that threaten to cause irreversible and abrupt environmental upheaval: climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and excess nitrogen.
Cities are responsible for 70% of the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions and it appears that they are taking responsibility for reducing them. Over 7,000 mayors around the world have signed up to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, thereby pledging to act on climate change.
Water is life. It’s a fundamental need for every human being on the planet. Each person requires more than five gallons of clean and safe water a day for drinking, cooking, and keeping clean. Dirty water, on the other hand, can be deadly. An estimated 1.8 million people die every year as a result of diarrheal diseases like cholera. And tens of millions of people are seriously sickened by water-related maladies.
Air pollution in cities is a global problem that has reached crisis proportions in places like China and India. In our country, since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, there has been a great deal of effort exerted in controlling pollution from vehicles. A combination of pollution-limiting changes to engines, fuels, and pollution control systems has significantly reduced the amount of air pollution associated with the transportation sector.
Near-shore fish farms have created many environmental problems. Raising large numbers of fish creates concentrations of fish waste and sea lice, which can adversely impact near-shore ecosystems.
Last year was the first year in which more electricity in Europe was generated from the combination of wind, sun, and biomass than from coal. The combination of all clean energy sources (which adds hydropower to the mix) surpassed coal several years ago.
There’s no argument to be made about whether 2017 was hot or not. The only uncertainty is whether it was the second or third warmest year ever recorded.
Every day, Americans throw away 500 hundred million plastic straws. That’s enough to circle the Earth twice. Each one of us uses more than 35,000 of them in a lifetime. And these estimates are probably low.
After many years of false starts and delays, the offshore wind industry in the U.S. finally seems to be gaining momentum. According to the Department of Energy, more than 25 offshore wind projects with a generating capacity of 24 gigawatts are now being planned. Most of these are off of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts.
There is big money going into renewable energy and energy-smart technologies and half of that is going into solar power. In 2017, global investments in green energy reached $334 billion and $161 billion of that was in solar.
