These are what I found the last few days. I don’t collect stories that are behind pay walls. This is an open thread.
Wednesday’s post will be at 3:00 pm et. I’m planning on joining a group called ClimateBrief, I’m hoping we can find enough Climate News to make this a daily Climate News Open Thread at 3:00 pm et.
Germany’s Greens cautious over linking floods to climate crisis
It was a slogan that cut to the chase: “Everybody is talking about Germany. We talk about the weather.”
The provocative message – itself an inversion of the title of an essay by Red Army Faction terror group founder Ulrike Meinhof (“Everybody talks about the weather. We don’t”) – was at the heart of the West German Green party’s 1990 election campaign, but has rarely felt more relevant than today as catastrophic floods in western Germany have brought extreme weather events to the centre of the national debate little more than two months before federal elections.
And yet the German Greens in July 2021 are noticeably cautious of drawing an explicit link between the climate emergency and weather that has devastated towns across the country and claimed the lives of at least 164 people.
Annalena Baerbock, the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, cut short her summer holiday to visit the affected area last week but declined to take TV camera crews with her. Her co-leader, Robert Habeck, sent a video message from northern Germany: “Now is the time of rescue helpers and not politicians like me, who would only stand in their way”, he said.
Hurricane season spurs hog waste worries in North Carolina
As North Carolina heads into another hurricane season, some residents and organizations fear the stormy season will again flood communities with hog waste.
The state's hog waste management works by funneling feces, urine, and blood from hog farms into massive open waste lagoons, which let off foul odors and methane gas. When the lagoons become full, the waste water is often sprayed onto fields as nutrients for crops. The waste, which contains harmful bacteria like E. coli or salmonella, can wash off into local waterways and cause groundwater contamination and fish kills.
Hurricanes hasten this pollution. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd swept through the region, causing significant damage to swine operations and flooding waste lagoons.
In 2018, Hurricane Florence hit, leading to damage or flooding in at least 110 lagoons and putting the problem of hog waste on full display once again.
"There is nothing outdated about the lagoon and sprayfield system," said CEO of the North Carolina Pork Producers Council, Roy Lee Lindsey in a statement to EHN. "It remains the most sustainable manner for us to manage our farms."
Sea snot choking Turkey's waters could be a warning to the world
Turkey's Marmara Sea is dying. Globs of feathery goo are literally choking the life out of the water. Scientists say rising sea temperatures and untreated wastewater being dumped into the sea combined to create the perfect conditions for phytoplankton to thrive. Now it's thriving at the expense of everything else.
At normal levels, the microscopic plant is essential for providing marine life with oxygen. But when it grows at the extreme levels seen in the Marmara now, it collects in a thick layer of slime known as mucilage, or, more descriptively, sea snot.
The snot is suffocating everything else right down to the coral, which it covers and slowly chokes to death.
Scientists have been frightened by the rapid increase in extreme weather\
Until recently, climate change was talked about as a kind of future threat, says CNN. But in the last month, developed countries have faced this problem live.
Over the past four weeks, floods in Germany have swept the streets and swallowed houses that have stood for more than a century in the quiet village of Schuld. Known for its cool mountain air, the Canadian town of only 250 people was burned to the ground by a wildfire that followed the unprecedented heat.
And in the western United States, just weeks after the historic heat wave, about 20,000 firefighters and rescue workers were deployed to extinguish 80 major fires that spanned over 1 million acres (4,047 square kilometers).
Climatologists have warned for decades that the climate crisis will lead to even more extreme weather conditions. They said it would be deadly and more frequent. But many are surprised to see heat and rain records hitting such a big lead.
Bootleg Fire is burning up carbon offsets
Oregon's largest wildfire so far this season, the Bootleg Fire, has burned nearly 400,000 acres spreading approximately four square miles a day across the southern parts of the state. At the time of this report, the flames spread through one fifth of forests set aside for carbon offsets in the immediate area. The trees in these forests were meant to survive one hundred years. As persistent drought and wildfire conditions threaten carbon offsets, the question is whether these offsets matter at all if their stored carbon goes up in smoke in a warming climate.
What started as a lightning strike on July 6, the Bootleg Fire has now grown to roughly twice the size of New York City with 2,250 personnel fighting these blazes spanning over 40 miles east to west. Now the fire is
generating its own weather with only 32% of the fire contained. A mountainous and forested region, Klamath county sits just north of the Oregon and California border and is home to US National Forest land.
The draw—and deadliness—of American denial
Climate change denial playbook
If you follow the science and politics of climate change closely you'll recognize the pattern of motivated reasoning. Against a flood of scientific evidence, deniers have released barrel after barrel of red herrings.
Here are but a few:
- Sunspots, not increasing CO2, are responsible for rising temperatures and extreme weather;
- Climate scientists are only in it for the money -- unending torrents of research grants, not to mention the gravy train of fame and glory;
- Activists have a tool to upend the world order — so do "leftist" politicians and governments.
Europe’s deadly floods leave scientists stunned
Four days before deadly floods swept through western Germany and parts of Belgium last week, Hannah Cloke saw a forecast of extreme rain on a Europe-wide flood alert system to which she belongs. Researchers “were stupidly congratulating ourselves that we were forecasting something so early. … The assumption was that would be really helpful,” says the hydrologist and flood forecaster at the University of Reading. Instead, she was stunned to see scenes of devastation and death despite the ample warnings. “We should not be seeing this number of people dying in 2021 from floods. It just should not be happening.”
As the magnitude of the destruction becomes clear, European scientists are wrestling with how such damage could happen in some of the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced countries, despite major investments in flood forecasting and preparation catalyzed by previous inundations. And they are examining whether climate change helped fuel the disaster—and what that might mean for the future.
Beginning on 13 July, intense storms dropped as much as 15 centimeters of rain in 24 hours, swelling streams that then washed away houses and cars and triggered massive landslides. At least 196 people had died as of 20 July—165 in Germany and 31 in Belgium—and the number is expected to rise. On 18 July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the stricken town of Adenau. The scene was “terrifying,” she said. “The German language can barely describe the devastation.” That same day more flash floods struck Bavaria, in southern Germany.
‘Reckless’: G20 states subsidized fossil fuels by $3tn since 2015, says report
The G20 countries have provided more than $3.3tn (£2.4tn) in subsidies for fossil fuels since the Paris climate agreement was sealed in 2015, a report shows, despite many committing to tackle the crisis.
This backing for coal, oil and gas is “reckless” in the face of the escalating climate emergency, according to the report’s authors, and urgent action is needed to phase out the support. The $3.3tn could have built solar plants equivalent to three times the US electricity grid, the report says.
The G20 countries account for nearly three-quarters of the global carbon emissions that drive global heating.
The report, by BloombergNEF and Bloomberg Philanthropies, focuses on three areas where immediate action is needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C: ending fossil fuel subsidies, putting a price on carbon emissions and making companies disclose the risks posed by climate change to their businesses.
To Flee, or to Stay Until the End and Be Swallowed by the Sea
The Rev. Roch Naquin grew up on this island along the Louisiana coast, trapping muskrats and mink in the marsh beyond his family’s home and cutting firewood from a stand of oak trees.
The trees and the marsh are gone now, submerged under rising sea levels that have nearly engulfed the island, which has been home to the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw for generations. As the island slowly disappears, so, too, does the tribe’s way of life.
Isle de Jean Charles, a narrow strip of land about 90 miles southwest of New Orleans in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, has lost 98 percent of its landmass to rising waters of the Gulf of Mexico since 1955, when tracking began. An island that once encompassed more than 22,000 acres, now is only 320 acres. Scientists predict the island will disappear in 50 years.
Plan to Save North Dakota Coal Plant Faces Intense Backlash from Minnesotans Who Would Help Pay for It
In the next week, the boards of electric cooperative utilities across Minnesota will vote on whether to approve a plan to sell, rather than close, a North Dakota coal-fired power plant that has provided them with electricity for decades.
But the utilities have done little to disclose that the votes are taking place or to solicit the views of customers, who, in the cooperative model, are also shareholders.
“This is supposed to be a democratic organization,” said Veda Kanitz of Lakeville, Minnesota, a customer of Dakota Electric and a climate activist. She said that the cooperatives are trying to rush through the sale to avoid scrutiny and that selling the plant, which would extend its life, “makes no sense at all.”
Herne Bay Pier powered by solar roof panels
Herne Bay Pier in Kent was once three-quarters of a mile (1.2km) long, until a storm destroyed the already weakened middle section in 1978.
Only the section closest to land remains in use today, featuring fairground rides and shops.
A new roof has now been fitted, with solar panels that can power the pier's attractions.
David Browne, the director of Convert Engergy -- the Canterbury company that fitted the panels, said: "Where the existing structure was starting to leak, originally they started out looking at waterproofing it and then thought, 'what about involving solar panels?'
Five months into the Biden Administration: A whirlwind of federal action on offshore wind
In late March, President Joe Biden announced an offshore wind goal of 30 GW by 2030 in a manner that protects environmental assets and creates employment. Through a coordinated multi-agency approach, Biden plans to fast track the deployment of utility scale offshore wind. The focus will be on the creation of well-paying jobs, infrastructure investment, and R&D activities.
To date, the Biden Administration has taken a variety of actions to accelerate offshore wind development. Federal agencies have identified new wind energy areas, facilitated environmental review for projects, and supported additional research. Activities abound on the east, west, and gulf coasts. Below is a summary of recent federal action on offshore wind.
Climate change: Hebden Bridge boy, 11, starts 200 mile walk
Jude, from Hebden Bridge, said he wanted to lobby ministers about the need for a carbon tax when he arrives in London.
A petition, urging a parliamentary debate on a carbon tax, was launched in February by the Zero Carbon Campaign.
The government said it was committed to cutting emissions by 78% by 2035.
Jude was inspired after reading the book Dire Predictions, which he said offered solutions to climate change including a carbon tax.
He then read about the Zero Carbon Campaign's petition.
"I am hoping to get this petition to 100,000 signatures so it can get debated in parliament," he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-24/world-s-food-supplies-get-slammed-by-drought-floods-and-frost
Extreme weather is slamming crops across the globe, bringing with it the threat of further food inflation at a time costs are already hovering near the highest in a decade and hunger is on the rise.
Brazil’s worst frost in two decades brought a deadly blow to young coffee trees in the world’s biggest grower. Flooding in China’s key pork region inundated farms and raised the threat of animal disease. Scorching heat and drought crushed crops on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. And in Europe, torrential rains sparked the risk of fungal diseases for grains and stalled tractors in soaked fields.
Coffee’s the biggest recent mover, with prices surging 17% this week week and topping $2 a pound for the first time since 2014. But the recent frost in Brazil is just the latest example of woes that have struck farmers there this year. Brazil’s also experiencing a crippling drought that depleted reservoirs needed for irrigation.
The cost of cooling: how air conditioning is heating up the world
The widespread reliance on air conditioning in the US is explored in Eric Dean Wilson’s book After Cooling: on Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. The book explores how air conditioning has become one of the most effective ways to cool off – and explains how harmful chemicals that make our lives comfortable also contribute to the climate crisis.
The modern refrigerant – gas in fridges, freezers and air conditioners – was first introduced in 1930s in the form of a chemical called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known as Freon. This chemical escaped into the air over time, ripping a hole in the ozone layer. In 1987, a global agreement was reached to ban the production of CFCs – although every year an ozone hole reappears over Antarctica in October.
HFCs, the chemicals that replaced the banned refrigerant, while not ozone-depleting, their global warming potential can be hundreds to thousands of times that of carbon dioxide. Today, the most commonly used refrigerant in air conditioners and cars is HCFC, which has much smaller ozone-depleting potential.