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Category: Climate Change

COVID-19 will slow the global shift to renewable energy, but can’t stop it

COVID-19 will slow the global shift to renewable energy, but can’t stop it

Shutdown in Seattle to slow the spread of coronavirus empties the streets, March 26, 2020. Less economic activity means less revenue for utilities. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren By Peter Fox-Penner, Boston University The renewable energy industry, which until recently was projected to enjoy rapid growth, has run into stiff headwinds as a result of three era-defining events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting global financial contraction and a collapse in oil prices. These are interrelated, mutually reinforcing events. It’s much too…

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Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution

Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution

The Guardian reports: The coronavirus pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world, satellite imagery from the European Space Agency shows. One expert said the sudden shift represented the “largest scale experiment ever” in terms of the reduction of industrial emissions. Readings from ESA’s Sentinel-5P satellite show that over the past six weeks, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over cities and industrial clusters in Asia and Europe were markedly lower than in the…

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If we’re bailing out corporations, they should bail out the planet

If we’re bailing out corporations, they should bail out the planet

Bill McKibben writes: One of the best chances to make some positive use of the coronavirus pandemic may be passing swiftly. As the economy craters, big corporations are in need of government assistance, and, on Capitol Hill, the sound of half a trillion dollars in relief money is bringing out the lobbyists. On Thursday afternoon, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, described the scene as a “trough” and mentioned a quote from a lobbyist in The Hill: “Everybody’s asking…

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The oil shock of 2020 appears to be here – and the pain could be wide and deep

The oil shock of 2020 appears to be here – and the pain could be wide and deep

Suffering from sanctions, Russia is trying produce more and gain market share. Yegor Aleyev via Getty Images By Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington The world is again undergoing an oil shock. Prices, already on a downward trend, have collapsed 30% in less than a week, bringing the total fall to nearly 50% since highs in early January. Consumers, of course, can expect gasoline prices to go down, but the story is far more complicated than that. Having researched energy…

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For nine years, multinationals like Shell and Bayer funded a prominent climate denier

For nine years, multinationals like Shell and Bayer funded a prominent climate denier

Follow the Money reports: Frits Böttcher would later refer to it as a ‘historic moment’. On December 21, 1989, the retired chemistry professor visited Shell’s headquarters in Amsterdam. That day, Shell supervisory director Jan Choufoer was going to introduce him to the head of the company: managing director Huub van Engelshoven. Böttcher was highly regarded in the Netherlands. He’d been teaching at Leiden University for decades, and he was on various supervisory boards: Pakhoed, Hoogovens, Elsevier Scientific publishers and 11…

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What can the coronavirus teach us?

What can the coronavirus teach us?

Bill McKibben writes: There’s nothing good about the novel coronavirus—it’s killing many people, and shutting millions more inside, with fear as their main companion. However, if we’re fated to go through this passage, we may as well learn something from it, and it does strike me that there are a few insights that are applicable to the climate crisis that shadows all of our lives. Some of these lessons are obvious: giant cruise ships are climate killers and, it turns…

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Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds

Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds

The Guardian reports: Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown. The Amazon could turn into a source of carbon in the atmosphere, instead of one of the biggest absorbers of the gas, as soon as the next decade, owing to the damage caused by loggers and farming interests and the impacts of the climate crisis, new research has found….

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Judge voids nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases, saying Trump policy undercut public input

Judge voids nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases, saying Trump policy undercut public input

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge in Idaho has voided nearly 1 million acres of oil and gas leases on federal lands in the West, saying that a Trump administration policy that limited public input on those leases was “arbitrary and capricious.” The ruling Thursday by U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush represented a win for environmentalists, who challenged the leasing policy as part of a broader effort to block drilling in habitat for the imperiled greater sage-grouse….

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Indigenous people may be the Amazon’s last hope

Indigenous people may be the Amazon’s last hope

Collecting firewood on the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state, Brazil, Oct. 13, 2017. A new bill could open Brazil’s Native lands to development. APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images By Robert T. Walker, University of Florida; Aline A. Carrara, University of Florida; Cynthia S. Simmons, University of Florida, and Maira I Irigaray, University of Florida Brazil’s divisive President Jair Bolsonaro has taken another step in his bold plans to develop the Amazon rainforest. A bill he is sponsoring, now before…

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Is the Amazon rainforest going to turn into dry scrubland?

Is the Amazon rainforest going to turn into dry scrubland?

Nature reports: Seen from a monitoring tower above the treetops near Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon, the rainforest canopy stretches to the horizon as an endless sea of green. It looks like a rich and healthy ecosystem, but appearances are deceiving. This rainforest — which holds 16,000 separate tree species — is slowly drying out. Over the past century, the average temperature in the forest has risen by 1–1.5 °C. In some parts, the dry season has expanded during the…

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How JPMorgan Chase became the Doomsday Bank

How JPMorgan Chase became the Doomsday Bank

Bill McKibben writes: Bankers like numbers. Numbers tell the story. No emotion gets in the way. So let’s look at the numbers: Over the past three years — that is, in the years after the world came together in Paris to try to slow climate change — JPMorgan Chase lent $196 billion to the fossil-fuel industry. Over the past three years, JPMorgan Chase lent more money to the fossil-fuel industry than any bank on Earth — 29 percent more. And…

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JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human race

JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human race

The Guardian reports: The world’s largest financier of fossil fuels has warned clients that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity and that the planet is on an unsustainable trajectory, according to a leaked document. The JP Morgan report on the economic risks of human-caused global heating said climate policy had to change or else the world faced irreversible consequences. The study implicitly condemns the US bank’s own investment strategy and highlights growing concerns among major Wall Street institutions…

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Ancient Antarctic ice melt caused extreme sea level rise 129,000 years ago – and it could happen again

Ancient Antarctic ice melt caused extreme sea level rise 129,000 years ago – and it could happen again

A blue ice area, part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Professor Chris Turney, Author provided By Chris Fogwill, Keele University; Chris Turney, UNSW, and Zoë Thomas, UNSW Rising global temperatures and warming ocean waters are causing one of the world’s coldest places to melt. While we know that human activity is causing climate change and driving rapid changes in Antarctica, the potential impacts that a warmer world would have on this region remain uncertain. Our new research might be…

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A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters

A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters

A soldier stands guard at the damaged entrance to Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida, Oct. 11, 2018, after Hurricane Michael. AP Photo/David Goldman By Michael Klare, Hampshire College As experts warn that the world is running out of time to head off severe climate change, discussions of what the U.S. should do about it are split into opposing camps. The scientific-environmental perspective says global warming will cause the planet severe harm without action to slow fossil fuel…

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Amazon’s Jeff Bezos launches $10-billion Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change — employees respond

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos launches $10-billion Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change — employees respond

USA Today reports: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Monday that he was committing $10 billion of his personal fortune to fight climate change with the creation of the Bezos Earth Fund. The announcement was made on Instagram. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share,” Bezos posted. No details…

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Planting trees won’t save the planet from climate change

Planting trees won’t save the planet from climate change

Erle C. Ellis, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis write: One trillion trees. At the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump drew applause when he announced the United States would join the forum’s initiative to plant one trillion trees to fight climate change. More applause for the decision followed at his State of the Union speech. The trillion-tree idea won wide attention last summer after a study published in the journal Science concluded that planting so many trees was “the…

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