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Category: Climate Change

Understanding planetary intelligence

Understanding planetary intelligence

Adam Frank, Sara Walker, and David Grinspoon write: Almost a century ago, the revolutionary idea of the biosphere gained a foothold in science. Defined as the collective activity of all life on Earth—the tapestry of actions of every microbe, plant, and animal—the biosphere had profound implications for our understanding of planetary evolution. The concept posits that life acts as a potent force shaping how the planet changes over time, on par with other geological systems like the atmosphere, hydrosphere (water),…

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U.S. sea levels will rise rapidly in the next 30 years, new report shows

U.S. sea levels will rise rapidly in the next 30 years, new report shows

CNN reports: A new report provides an alarming forecast for the US: Sea level will rise as much in the next 30 years as it did in the past 100 — increasing the frequency of high-tide flooding, pushing storm surge to the extreme and inundating vulnerable coastal infrastructure with saltwater. The interagency report, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows how scientists are increasingly confident that US coasts will see another 10 to 12 inches of sea level…

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U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds

U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds

Reuters reports: Corn-based ethanol, which for years has been mixed in huge quantities into gasoline sold at U.S. pumps, is likely a much bigger contributor to global warming than straight gasoline, according to a study published Monday. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contradicts previous research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showing ethanol and other biofuels to be relatively green. President Joe Biden’s administration is reviewing policies on biofuels as part…

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West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years

West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years

The Associated Press reports: The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds. A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought past the previous record-holder for megadroughts in the late 1500s and shows no signs of…

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Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

Nature reports: Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per billion last year, nearly triple preindustrial levels, according to data released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientists says the grim milestone underscores the importance of a pledge made at last year’s COP26 climate summit to curb emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 28 times as potent as CO2. The growth of methane emissions slowed around the turn of the millennium,…

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Experiment demonstrates that nuclear fussion is no longer a pipedream solution for the climate crisis

Experiment demonstrates that nuclear fussion is no longer a pipedream solution for the climate crisis

CNN reports: There’s no silver bullet to the climate crisis, but nuclear fusion may be the closest thing to it. In the quest for a near-limitless, zero-carbon source of reliable power, scientists have generated fusion energy before, but they have struggled for decades to sustain it for very long. On Wednesday, however, scientists working in the United Kingdom announced that they more than doubled the previous record for generating and sustaining nuclear fusion, which is the same process that allows…

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Rightwing lobby group ALEC driving laws to blacklist companies that boycott the oil industry

Rightwing lobby group ALEC driving laws to blacklist companies that boycott the oil industry

The Guardian reports: The influential rightwing lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) is driving a surge in new state laws to block boycotts of the oil industry. The group’s strategy, which aims to protect large oil firms and other conservative-friendly industries, is modelled on legislation to punish divestment from Israel. Since the beginning of the year, state legislatures in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana have introduced a version of a law drafted by Alec, called the Energy Discrimination…

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What if the world phased out meat consumption over 15 years? The numbers are stunning — and instructive

What if the world phased out meat consumption over 15 years? The numbers are stunning — and instructive

Emma Bryce writes: The climate impact of livestock is so powerful, that if we phased out the consumption of meat over the next 15 years, we could start stabilising greenhouse gas emissions from 2030 onwards. This would require a difficult culinary sacrifice — but it would get us more than halfway to achieving the emissions reductions laid out by the Paris Climate Agreement. These bold findings come from a recent study published in PLOS Climate, which joins several recent papers…

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How fires across the world have grown weirder

How fires across the world have grown weirder

Daniel Immerwahr writes: The hundreds of bush fires that hit southern Australia on 7 February 2009 felt, according to witnesses, apocalyptic. It was already hellishly hot that day: 46.4C in Melbourne. As the fires erupted, day turned to night, flaming embers the size of pillows rained down, burning birds fell from the trees and the ash-filled air grew so hot that breathing it, one survivor said, was like “sucking on a hairdryer”. More than 2,000 homes burned down, and 173…

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Climate change enters the therapy room

Climate change enters the therapy room

The New York Times reports: It would hit Alina Black in the snack aisle at Trader Joe’s, a wave of guilt and shame that made her skin crawl. Something as simple as nuts. They came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving her house and traveling to a landfill, where it would remain through her lifetime and the lifetime of her children. She longed, really longed, to make less of a mark on the earth….

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How Big Oil used Facebook to push Joe Manchin to kill Build Back Better

How Big Oil used Facebook to push Joe Manchin to kill Build Back Better

Vice News reports: Last August, during the hottest summer in U.S. history, the Senate began debating the country’s most ambitious plan ever to fight the climate crisis: President Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better bill. The next day, Big Oil swung into action against it. The industry knew exactly who to target: the voters of Sen. Joe Manchin, the all-powerful Democrat who infamously refused to support Build Back Better, and this week, declared the plan “dead.” America’s top oil industry group,…

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One year later: The Texas freeze revealed a fragile energy system and inspired lasting misinformation

One year later: The Texas freeze revealed a fragile energy system and inspired lasting misinformation

Inside Climate News reports: Texas is recovering from this week’s winter storm, nearly a year after a much more severe set of storms led to a devastating failure of the electricity system and about 250 deaths. The February 2021 storms showed the fragility of the grid at a time when climate change is contributing to an increase in extreme weather. But the most enduring legacy of the 2021 blackouts may be the spread of a falsehood: the idea that the…

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Biden officials mount last-minute push for electric Postal Service trucks

Biden officials mount last-minute push for electric Postal Service trucks

Bloomberg reports: Biden administration officials are pushing the U.S. Postal Service to buy more electric vehicles instead of spending billions on gas-powered models as it replaces its aging fleet. The efforts, mounted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, follow separate warnings by activists that the Postal Service’s plan to buy mostly conventional delivery trucks downplayed the potential climate benefits of a shift to electric, non-emitting alternatives. The Postal Service’s plan “represents a crucial…

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Extreme heat in oceans ‘passed point of no return’ in 2014

Extreme heat in oceans ‘passed point of no return’ in 2014

The Guardian reports: Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research. Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014. In some hotspots, extreme temperatures occur 90% of the…

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The great Amazon land grab – how Brazil’s government is turning public land private, clearing the way for deforestation

The great Amazon land grab – how Brazil’s government is turning public land private, clearing the way for deforestation

A satellite captured large and small deforestation patches in Amazonas State in 2015. The forest loss has escalated since then. USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images By Gabriel Cardoso Carrero, University of Florida; Cynthia S. Simmons, University of Florida, and Robert T. Walker, University of Florida Imagine that several state legislators decide that Yellowstone National Park is too big. Also imagine that, working with federal politicians, they change the law to downsize the park by a million acres, which they…

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Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance

Kyrsten Sinema courted Republican fossil fuel donors with filibuster stance

The Guardian reports: With a crucial vote pending over filibuster rules that would have made strong voting rights legislation feasible, Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema flew into Houston, Texas, for a fundraiser that drew dozens of fossil fuel chieftains, including Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance. The event was held on 18 January at the upmarket River Oaks Country Club. One executive told the Guardian that Sinema spoke for about half an hour and informed a…

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