Month: August 2023

UPDATE:

As Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change a “hoax,” our independent dial participants’ attitudes dropped across the board, particularly among women. #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/hV8vysdXbc

— Navigator Research (@NavigatorSurvey) August 24, 2023

https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1694532365211803925?s=20

New York Times:

It was an unusual litmus test for a Republican primary debate, one that quickly descended into personal attacks and obfuscation: The candidates were asked whether humans had contributed to climate change.

There is no scientific dispute that the answer is yes, but hardly any of the Republican candidates gave a straight answer.

Before they could raise their hands, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida broke in.

“Look, we’re not schoolchildren,” he said, rejecting the idea of a show-of-hands response. “Let’s have the debate.”

The line of questioning from the moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, was about the devastating wildfires in Maui and a recent tropical storm that caused flooding in Southern California. They mentioned rising ocean temperatures and played a clip from a young conservative, who asked how the Republicans running for president could assuage young people’s concerns about climate change.

Mr. DeSantis, a distant second in the polls to former President Donald J. Trump, who skipped the debate, deflected and criticized President Biden’s response to the wildfires in Hawaii.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the millionaire entrepreneur whose campaign has dabbled in conspiracy theories, seized on the moment to deny the scientific consensus on climate change.

“Let us be honest as Republicans — I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this — that climate change is a hoax,” he said.

Mr. Ramaswamy added, “And so the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, admonished Mr. Ramaswamy, whom he sparred with frequently throughout the night.

“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” Mr. Christie said, referring to the artificial intelligence chatbot.

He then compared Mr. Ramaswamy’s frequent mentions of his skinny frame and his “odd” last name to the rhetoric former President Barack Obama used when he first vaulted onto the national political stage.

“And I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur,” he said.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, sought to reset the conversation.

“Is climate change real?” she said. “Yes, it is. But if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.”

Continue reading “Climate Blows Up Like Stink Bomb on Republican Stage”

Authoritarians hate Science, because Science shows that physics and biology don’t bow to tin-pot Dictators.

El Pais:

After his victory in Argentina’s primary elections on August 13, far-right candidate Javier Milei made the rounds on television to build momentum for the October 22 general elections. In several recent interviews, Milei took aim at the scientific community and said if elected, he would eliminate the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and privatize the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), the government agency that directs most of the scientific and technical research done in universities and institutes. Argentina’s scientific community quickly struck back and called Milei’s proposal “ridiculous” and “ignorant.”

“It [scientific research] should be done by the private sector. They [scientists] can earn a living by serving others,” Milei said in one TV interview. He then presented an organization chart of the government and began crossing out the ministries he intends to eliminate — Health, Education, Social Development and Science. “What do they do anyway?” he asked rhetorically. Later on, Milei sharpened his attack. “CONICET has 35,000 people, while NASA[the U.S. space agency] has only 17,000. To me, it feels like it doesn’t quite match up with what NASA does… As it is right now, we have to shut it down.”

In response, the scientific community stepped up to defend CONICET, an independent agency under the Ministry of Science, which has 11,800 researchers, 11,800 fellows, 2,900 technicians, and 1,500 administrative staff. They roundly criticized Milei’s position, and called it a “provocation,” quoting Bernardo Houssay, Argentina’s first Nobel laureate and CONICET’s first president in 1958: “Science is not expensive — ignorance is expensive.” A protest march is scheduled for August 18.

In the 21st century, it is absurd not to support science and technology, according to CONICET director Ana Franchi. “CONICET plays a crucial role in training human resources, not only within organizations and universities but also in companies engaged in significant technological advancements. For instance, we have successfully developed drought-resistant seeds, leading to the listing of Bioceres on the New York Stock Exchange. And the anti-viral facemasks we developed during the pandemic are now being exported and bring in vital foreign exchange,” Franchi said in a recent radio interview.

Break up that lawn with native plants. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just begin.

Guardian:

The benefits of urban greening initiatives are increasingly well documented: they can help mitigate the effects of urban heating, and improve physical health and mental wellbeing. And even small greening actions in cities can significantly improve local biodiversity, new research suggests.

Increasing the diversity of native plants in a single urban green space resulted in a sevenfold increase in the number of insect species after three years, Australian researchers have found.

According to the study’s authors, there had previously been “little empirical evidence of how specific greening actions may mitigate the detrimental effects of urbanisation”.

Existing research largely involved observational studies where urban greening had already taken place and “scientists come after the fact to see what’s happened”, said the study’s lead author, Dr Luis Mata of the University of Melbourne and a lead research scientist at Cesar Australia.

The greening initiative was conducted on a small 195 sq m plot of land in Melbourne, on a site adjacent to a major road.

“It was conducted in a very densely urbanised area, completely surrounded by streets and relatively tall buildings, and with limited access to surrounding green space,” Mata said.

Even so, the team found “substantial ecological changes”, he said. “I think we found a really strong signal given the disadvantages of the site itself.”

Researchers measured baseline insect numbers the year before greening began, when 12 indigenous plant species were introduced to the space, and subsequently conducted insect surveys for the following three years.

They identified 94 insect species in total, 91 indigenous to the Australian state of Victoria. The researchers estimated that by the final year of the study there were about 7.3 times more insect species than originally present, even though only nine plant species remained.

The team also found substantial increases in the number of predator and parasitoid insect species, which help to regulate populations of pest insects.

“These are two key groups that provide a really good ecological signal that the trophic network and all the proper interactions are happening at the site,” Mata said.

Continue reading “Even Small Insect-Friendly Environments Have Big Impact”

Fossil fuels, man. Can’t move away from these fast enough.

Yahoo:

Experts from universities around the world are in agreement about some bad news for bugs.

Air pollution is wreaking havoc on their ability to find food and mate, and the repercussions from disrupting things for the most diverse species group on the planet could be severe for us humans.

What’s happening? 

Particulate matter — a mix of solid particles and small drops of liquid — in air pollution from vehicles, industry, and other sources, is messing up the natural survival ability of industrious insects. Many of them play crucial pollination roles.

ScienceDaily documented the research from the University of Melbourne, Beijing Forestry University, and the University of California Davis, all of which are noticing the same troubling problem: Insect antennas are getting contaminated with air pollution particulates.

The researchers studied how air pollution impacts houseflies and found particulates from coal, oil, wood fires, and other pollution collecting on antennas. The experts also found that wildfire smoke was impacting bees, wasps, and other species.

“While we know that particulate matter exposure can affect the health of organisms, including insects, our research shows that it also reduces insects’ crucial ability to detect [odors] for finding food and mates,” University of Melbourne Professor Mark Elgar said in the ScienceDirect report.

The Florida Museum of Natural History reports that there are 5.5 millionspecies of insects, and they comprise about 80% of animal life on the planet.

The vast majority get a bad rap as annoying creatures that bite, sting, and buzz, but museum associate professor and curator Dr. Akito Y. Kawahara said in a video clip that there’s much more to this vast species group.

They pollinate our food crops, serve as a food source in parts of the world, are used to make silk, and even help to develop drone innovations.

Continue reading “Smoke, Particulates, Major Threat to Insects”

New York Times (paywall):

As of this writing, 5,881 wildfires have consumed 15.3 million hectares, about 59,000 square miles, dwarfing the 10-year average of 2.6 million hectares per summer. That’s like all New York State incinerated, and the fires are burning still. One environmentalist told me that “unprecedented” has been used so often that it has lost any meaning against the uniqueness and horror of what is happening.

With the melting Arctic to their north and the immensity of their northern wilderness, Canadians are not strangers to climate anxiety. But as The Globe and Mail reported, “Canada’s summer of fire and smoke” has still come as a profound shock to the nation, “materially and psychologically, as people across the country report a sense of dread about the disaster unfolding just out of sight, and what it portends for the future.”

And as the summer unfolded, it became evident that it’s not just smoke, and not just Canada. This has been the summer from climate hell all across Earth, when it ceased being possible to escape or deny what we have done to our planet and ourselves. “Even I am surprised by this year,” said Michael Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, who has been studying the interaction of fire and climate for over 35 years. “Temperatures are rising at the rate we thought they would, but the effects are more severe, more frequent, more critical. It’s crazy and getting crazier.”

Continue reading “Graphs of the Week: Canadian Fires – Area Burned, Carbon Emissions Off the Scale”

Scientific American (subscription):

A battery boom is helping to stabilize the Texas power grid, offering a template for utilities that want to cut their greenhouse gases even as air conditioners hum wildly during heat waves.

The growth of batteries was evident last week when energy storage facilities injected a record amount of power into Texas’ electric system. It was badly needed on an evening when the state’s primary grid operator had called on consumers to conserve energy.

“I think it’s a really big deal. I think it’s underappreciated and under-talked about at this point,” said Doug Lewin, an Austin, Texas-based energy consultant who authors the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter. Without batteries, he said, “I think it’s likely that on Thursday night, we would have been in the emergency conditions.”

Texas has been at the center of a national debate over how to green the grid without jeopardizing reliability. The region has been battered in recent years by extreme weather events as the state’s power sector has undergone large changes, with coal generation falling rapidly and renewable production climbing quickly. Solar, in particular, has helped Texas navigate a prolonged heat wave this summer.

Batteries represent the next chapter in Texas’ evolution because they stabilize the grid in the evening, when energy demand is high and solar generation plummets. Texas has installed 2.5 gigawatts of battery capacity over the last five years — about a quarter of total U.S. battery capacity. Only California has installed more.

A scorching summer has put Texas’ new battery fleet to the test. The Austin area has recorded 44 consecutive days of temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Dallas is in the middle of a 19-day streak of temperatures above 105 F.

The searing heating has sent Texans rushing for relief. The use of air conditioners, coupled with population growth, has shattered records for power demand. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the power grid serving 90 percent of the state, said Sunday it has broken its record for power demand 10 times this summer.

Grid conditions got particularly tight Thursday, when ERCOT urged residents to conserve electricity between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. due to high temperatures, elevated power demand and weak wind energy generation, which often picks up in the evening. Power prices surged to $5,000 per kilowatt-hour, the maximum amount allowed by ERCOT.

Continue reading “In Texas, Batteries Bolster Grid, Buffer Heatwave, Beef Bottom Lines”

CBS’s David Parkinson has been doing great work showing climate context for the events that we are all seeing.

He illustrates the area of ocean that is currently warm enough to support hurricane development, and it’s sobering.

Keep sharing these explainers as people are seeing impacts up close.

A lot of talk this summer about the status of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the headlines erroneously referred to the “Gulf Stream”) – which seems to be weakening.

PBS’s excellent “Terra” program has a good piece on this, interviewing Stefan Rahmstorf, who knows as much about this as nearly anyone, as well as Jennifer Francis of Woods Hole Research Center, and others.
Terra does a good job explaining not just the effect of reduced heat flow to Northern Europe, but also some other knock-on effects, like accelerated sea level rise on the eastern shores of North America, and reduced carbon absorption by the North Atlantic, a critical carbon sink.
In addition, there’s another important caveat – see below.

Followers of this blog, of course, should be well versed on this topic, as I spoke to Michael Mann about it some years ago, in a piece that’s gotten a lot of views.

The most important new (to me) wrinkle here is that some recent research posits the existence of the “cold spot” without necessarily invoking a collapsing AMOC.

Continue reading “PBS Terra on North Atlantic Circulation – Key Things to Know”

Trae Crowder, aka the Liberal Redneck, has a good primer about what it will take to bring coal country along in the Green Transition.