Earth’s climate in 2024 is “in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual,” a team of 14 climate scientists warned in “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth.” The report did not sugarcoat their view of the dangers humanity is facing.
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” the report begins. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”
The report is the latest such annual peer-reviewed paper published in the journal BioScience by an international team of scientists led by Oregon State ecologist William Ripple.
The authors found that 25 of 35 “planetary vital signs” reached record levels last year, including global temperatures, human climate pollution, fossil fuel subsidies, heat-related mortality rates, meat production, and loss of forest cover.
After decades of warnings from climate scientists and efforts by some policymakers and activists, “the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel-based system,” it says. “We are currently going in the wrong direction and our increasing fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe. We fear the danger of climate breakdown.”
They did note a few positive indicators like clean energy production.
“Of course, the situation is not hopeless,” wrote Harvard science historian and study co-author Naomi Oreskes via email. “What we want people to understand is that, while there has been progress – particularly in the price and deployment of renewables – it’s not nearly enough. And the atmosphere does not respond to our intentions. It responds to chemistry.”
The report calls for “rapidly phasing down fossil fuel use” by ratcheting up the carbon price in wealthy countries and using some of the proceeds to fund policies to stop climate change and adaptation programs to reduce damage from climate disasters. It also urges sharp reductions in emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, to “slow the near-term rate of global warming, helping to avoid tipping points and extreme climate impacts.”
Without a course correction, the report warned, “climate change could cause many millions of additional deaths by 2050.”
Sabin 33 #1 - Are electromagnetic fields from solar farms harmful to human health?
Posted on 5 November 2024 by BaerbelW
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Below is the blog post version of rebuttal #1 based on Sabin's report.
The electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated at a solar farm are similar in strength and frequency to those of toaster ovens and other household appliances—and harmless to humans. A detailed analysis from North Carolina State University concluded that there is “no conclusive and consistent evidence” of “negative health impact[s] from the EMF produced in a solar farm.”1
EMF exposure levels vary according to the EMF source, proximity to the source, and duration of the exposure. On a solar farm, EMFs are highest around electrical equipment such as inverters. However, even when standing next to the very largest inverter at a utility-scale solar farm, one’s exposure level (up to 1,050 milligauss, or mG) is less than one’s exposure level while operating an electric can opener (up to 1,500 mG), and well within accepted exposure limits (up to 2,000 mG)2. When standing just nine feet from a residential inverter, or 150 feet from a utility-scale inverter, one’s exposure drops to “very low levels of 0.5 mG or less, and in many cases . . . less than background levels (0.2 mG).” For comparison, a typical American’s average background exposure level is 1mG, reaching 6 mG when standing three feet from a refrigerator, and 50 mG when standing three feet from a microwave3.
The electromagnetic fields present on a solar farm constitute “non-ionizing radiation,” which, by definition, generates “enough energy to move atoms in a molecule around (experienced as heat), but not enough energy to remove electrons from an atom or molecule (ionize) or to damage DNA.” In addition, EMFs are extremely low in frequency, which means they contain “less energy than other commonly encountered types of non-ionizing radiation like radio waves, infrared radiation, and visible light.”
Volunteer activity: Evaluate automated climate misinformation debunkings
Posted on 4 November 2024 by John Cook
A new challenge and a new opportunity for research
AI-generated disinformation threatens to make debunking climate misinformation even more challenging, swamping already scanty capacity. We are exploring ways to counter this burgeoning flood of harm by employing the same tools now employed by malefactors as a force for good. We've already published research on detecting and categorising climate misinformation (and spoiler alert, we have new research coming out very soon on detecting logical fallacies). The next step is combining this research with recent developments in generative AI and large language models to automatically generate debunkings as we detect new misinformation. In other words, generative debunking.
We've reached the stage of the project where we are evaluating the output generated by our AI models. For that, we need people to help us evaluate our AI debunkings.
How may I help?
Generative LLMs are prone to failures best spotted by real people. Here, we need help with evaluating output from our newly developed chain of tools producing automated replies to climate bunk. This activity is especially suited to people having a fair degree of familiarity with climate disinformation and misinformation.
Activity details:
We estimate this assistance to require about 5 hours of contributed time. Helpers will be personally familiarized with the process by Dr. John Cook, founder of Skeptical Science and a leading climate disinformation researcher.
This activity is also a great way to get acquainted with Skeptical Science as a volunteer, leading to other opportunities to help fight Earth's climate crisis by fostering a better-informed public.
Interested?
We hope so. If you are, please let us know some contact details and we'll be in touch. Your contact information will not be shared with or used by anybody outside of Skeptical Science, Inc. and will only be used in connection with this activity.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
Posted on 3 November 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Topics covered this week
Repeating last week's experiment, we asked Google's Gemini again for help categorizing the articles we shared during the week. The result is the bullet list below and we'd like to know how useful that kind of generated summary is for you, so please let us know in the comments!
Climate Change Impacts
- Extreme Weather Events:
- Hurricanes and Floods (The Guardian, Inside Climate News, CNN, Yale Climate Connections)
- Heatwaves and Drought (The Guardian, Yale Climate Connections, CNN)
- Rising Sea Levels and Coastal Erosion (The Guardian, CNN)
- Global Warming and Temperature Rise:
- Record-breaking temperatures (The Guardian, Yale Climate Connections, Inside Climate News)
- Melting glaciers and permafrost (NASA, The Guardian)
- Ocean acidification and marine life
- Climate Migration and Displacement:
- Forced displacement due to climate-related disasters (The Guardian)
Climate Action and Policy
- Climate Policies and Regulations:
- US Climate Policies (Inside Climate News, New York Times, The Guardian)
- International Climate Agreements (Inside Climate News, The Guardian)
- Renewable Energy and Clean Technology:
- Electric vehicles (Inside Climate News, New York Times)
- Solar and wind energy (Skeptical Science)
- Climate Activism and Public Opinion:
- Youth climate activism (Inside Climate News)
- Public opinion on climate change (The Guardian, Grist)
Climate Science and Research
- Climate Modeling and Projections:
- Future climate scenarios (Yale Climate Connections, Inside Climate News)
- Climate History and Paleoclimatology:
- Past climate changes
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before October 27
- French PM presents report preparing for dramatic climate warming scenario, AFP/Le Monde, Staff. "Temperatures in mainland France are on track to increase by 4°C by 2100 due to global warming, the government warned Friday, urging coping strategies for a much hotter country."
- Climate change breaks heat records across Canada this summer, Climate & Environment, CTV News , Jerry Hull.
- Climate Extremes - At the Abyss?, Youtube, OoS Pictures.
- Lifting the Veil on Tens of Billions in Oil Company Payments to Governments, Fossil Fuels, Inside Climate News, Nicholas Kusnetz. "New reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal payments around the globe. One takeaway? The U.S. government might be getting a bad deal."
- The Depths of Their Discontent: Young Americans Are Distraught Over Climate Change, Justice & Health. Inside Climate News, Nina Dietz. "A new study of 16,000 young people aged 16 to 25 found clear majorities across all regions and political affiliations deeply concerned about the impacts of a warming planet."
- October is aiming to smoke U.S. records for dryness and warmth, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson. "Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Nashville may get their first-ever calendar month without a single raindrop or snowflake."
- Climate change reshapes cities, both environmentally and financially, Future America Series, The Hll, Oct, Saul nBein.
Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?
Posted on 2 November 2024 by Guest Author
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Are most glaciers growing?
The vast majority of glaciers have continued to shrink worldwide.
To maintain stability, snowfall must equal ice loss from processes like surface melt, wind erosion, and avalanches.
In most of the world, glaciers are shrinking due to warming and snowfall changes. By 1990, glaciers worldwide had lost 7% to 28% of their 1901 mass.
Glacier research dates back to the 1890s, while specific “reference glaciers” have been continuously tracked since 1950. 2010-2019 saw the highest loss since observations began. 2023 was the 36th year in a row that reference glaciers lost, rather than gained, ice.
A few have grown where precipitation exceeds melt, attributable to unusual weather due to climate change. However, studies indicate other glaciers that once exhibited growth succumbing to warming; another 2023 paper suggested the weakening stability of presently-growing glaciers.
Glaciers provide freshwater vital to entire ecosystems—their loss would spell serious consequences for humanity and nature.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
NOAA Climate Change: Mountain glaciers
HAL Open Science Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century
World Glacier Monitoring Service ‘reference glaciers’ for mass balance
Global and Planetary Change Norwegian mountain glaciers in the past, present and future
NSIDC What is the Karakoram Anomaly?
Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles thanks to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Posted on 1 November 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom
Earlier this year our volunteer editor Marc Kodack spotted an impressive answer to climate change solutions denial, "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles," which he included in our weekly climate research survey. Written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, this was obviously a very useful and timely resource. So, we also shared it widely on social media— where we soon noticed a theme in comments: "Neat report - but it being a single PDF makes it impossible to link to each of the rebuttals directly."
We had - not so long ago - explicitly added "solutions denial" to our overall mission statement, but we didn't yet have many rebuttals in that category, mostly due to a lack of "inhouse" subject matter experts who could actually create and maintain these kinds of rebuttals. Sabin's report was therefore too good an opportunity to ignore, so we touched base with them in order to find out if we could create 33 individual rebuttals on Skeptical Science based on their report. We are very happy to report that the author team at Sabin quickly gave us the go-ahead for this adaptation of their work, so we set out to do just that.
As is rather common with projects and tasks like this, they tend to take somewhat longer than initially planned and hoped for, but we were eventually able to create 33 new rebuttals at the intermediate level, all linked to the "It's too hard" category in our taxonomy.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44 2024
Posted on 31 October 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Communicating the most accurate and reliable science on climate change to society: A survey of editors from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Molina & Abadal Abadal, Geoscience Communication:
This study focuses on the perspectives of scientists involved in the IPCC AR5 and AR6 synthesis reports, examining their views on the communication of climate change knowledge and its dissemination to the public. The objectives include understanding scientists' opinions on the state of climate change knowledge, the effectiveness of current communication strategies, and recommendations for improving public engagement. A survey was conducted among 72 IPCC scientists, assessing their perceptions on various aspects of climate communication, including the use of media, educational integration, and challenges like misinformation. Results show that scientists generally rate the scientific community as well-informed, policymakers as moderately informed, and the public as only acceptably informed about climate change. Many respondents suggested improvements in the clarity and accessibility of IPCC reports, emphasizing the role of media, social networks, and education in better informing the public. The study concludes that trust in information sources is vital for effective climate communication and that a more tailored, empathetic, and solutions-based approach is necessary to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and public understanding.
Changes in Global Heatwave Risk and Its Drivers Over One Century, Wang et al., Earth's Future:
Heatwaves represent a significant and growing threat to natural ecosystems and socio-economic structures, making heatwave risk mitigation and prevention an important area of research. In exploring heatwave frequency and intensity from 1901 to 2020, the present study finds a sharp increase in both. The study also finds that the spatial distribution of heatwaves is unequal, the volatility of intensity characteristics has become more prominent over time, and the Gini coefficients of four key heatwave indictors have become larger due to increasing dryness. Although heatwaves occur more frequently in drylands, there is greater cumulative heat in humid areas, resulting in a higher heatwave risk in those areas. The global heatwave risk over the past three decades (1991–2020) has increased nearly five-fold compared to the early 20th century (1901–1930).
Climate justice and a fair allocation of national greenhouse gas emissions, Azar & Johansson, Climate Policy:
Rajamani et al. have presented estimates for a fair and equitable allocation of the remaining global greenhouse gas emissions that are compatible with meeting the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement. In this paper, we find that their approach yields a high emission allowance per capita to currently high-emitting countries such as Australia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and China. In fact, Rajamani et al. propose that these countries should get two to three times more allowances (emission space on a per capita basis) than for instance India and Ghana and they refer to this as a ‘fair’ allocation despite the fact that the latter countries have significantly lower per capita emissions, per capita income, and historical emissions. Furthermore, the allocation to several Western European countries, e.g. the UK and Sweden, is strongly negative. Hence, their approach tends to reward countries with high emissions and discriminate against countries with low emissions per capita despite the fact that Rajamani et al. argue that grandfathering cannot be seen as a fair principle for allocating emissions allowances.
Seeing the limits of voluntary corporate climate action in food and technology sustainability reports, Christiansen & Lund, Energy Research & Social Science:
Corporate climate action is booming with companies across all sectors pledging to contribute towards climate mitigation. Yet, how do companies represent their climate impacts and the possibility for them to act on these? In this study, we explore these questions by analysing the sustainability reports of fourteen of the world's largest food and technology companies. We do this through Carol Bacchi's ‘What's the Problem Represented to be’-approach. As such, we examine how companies' suggested climate solutions constitute and delimit the problems that corporate climate action can and should address. We show that companies' climate solutions emphasise efficiency gains in resource and energy use and substitution of carbon-intensive inputs in production processes, whereas solutions aimed at transforming or reducing consumption and production patterns are largely absent. Rather, companies in the food and technology sectors emphasise why the products and services they provide remain socially necessary in the future.
Towards BitCO2, an individual consumption-based carbon emission reduction mechanism, Golinucci et al., Energy Policy:
Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for electricity generation, heating, and transport, are the primary drivers of a large amount of greenhouse gases emission. The individual consumers, able to influence the supply-chains behind the commodities their chose to fulfil their needs is the driver behind production and, consequently, its impacts. Thus, the active and willing participation of citizens in combatting climate change may be pivotal to address this issue. The present work is aimed at presenting and modelling a novel market-based carbon emission reduction mechanism, called BitCO2, designed to incentivize individual consumption choices toward lower carbon footprints. This mechanism is tested for the Italian private transportation sector thanks to an ad hoc developed System Dynamics model. The Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) adoption, if compared with the Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV) one, cause less CO2 emissions per km travelled. After a certain number of travelled km, a BitCO2 token is assigned to BEV owners for each ton of avoided CO2. This token can be exchanged in a dedicated market and used to get a discount on insurance services.
From this week's government/NGO section:
The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Based on Global Observations through 2023, Crotwell et al., World Meteorological Organization
The bulletin is the latest analysis of observations from the WMO GAW Programme. It shows globally averaged surface mole fractions for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) and compares them with the mole fractions during the previous year and with the preindustrial levels. It also provides insights into the change in radiative forcing by long-lived GHGs and the contribution of individual gases to this increase. From 2022 to 2023, the annual mean CO2 in the global surface atmosphere increased by 2.3 ppm. This increase marked the twelfth consecutive year with an increase greater than 2 ppm, continuing an already significant trend. CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence. The current atmospheric CO2 level is already 51% above that of the pre-industrial (before 1750) era.
Keeping the Promise, United Nations Environment Programme
Last year was one of broken records and broken promises. There were new highs of greenhouse gas emissions, temperature records tumbling and climate impacts arriving stronger and faster. The finance to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change isn’t being delivered. At the same time, most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are off track at the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The upside is that the global response to the triple planetary crisis intensified. Efforts to combat pollution and waste received a shot in the arm with the agreement of the Global Framework on Chemicals and progress on the global instrument on plastic pollution, which should be ready by 2024. Nations adopted a treaty to protect biodiversity in the ocean beyond national borders, while key guidelines to help the private sector reduce its impact on nature were released. Finally, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, delivered a clear call on countries to transition away from fossil fuels.
Emissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! With a massive gap between rhetoric and reality, countries draft new climate commitments, Olhoff et al., United Nations Environment Programme
The authors look at how much nations must promise to cut off greenhouse gases and deliver, in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due for submission in early 2025 ahead of COP30. Cuts of 42 percent are needed by 2030 and 57 percent by 2035 to get on track for 1.5°C. A failure to increase ambition in these new NDCs and start delivering immediately would put the world on course for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C over this century. This would bring debilitating impacts to people, the planet, and economies.
346 articles in 69 journals by 2215 contributing authors
[This week's listing is unsually large, not due to a surge in publishing but because we cleared a bug that was temporarily halting the display of articles with certain formatting tags embedded in titles as submitted to the DOI system. Every paper deserves its day, so the resulting pile-up is included in this week's collection.]
Physical science of climate change, effects
In silico modelling of radiative efficiencies of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, Alvarado-Jiménez & Tasinato, Atmospheric Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120839
Accelerated North Atlantic surface warming reshapes the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability, Zanchettin & Rubino, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01804-x
The hidden health toll of hurricanes
Posted on 30 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha Pathak
Disasters can disrupt medical care both during and long after the event. (Photo credit: U.S. Air National Guard / Sgt. Jorge Intriago)
Weeks after Hurricanes Milton and Helene tore paths of destruction across the Southeast, pictures of communities left in ruins continue to emerge.
We can easily see damage from the threats we commonly connect with hurricanes and tropical storms: winds, waves, and floodwaters.
But the lingering health problems these storms leave in their wake are mostly invisible, damaging well-being and increasing the risk of disease in insidious and silent waves. From immediate risks from disruptions of medical care to a slow worsening of preexisting chronic conditions, these events can have devastating health impacts – and official death tolls only scratch the surface. More than 7,000 deaths can be linked to a given major hurricane up to 15 years after the storm waves have receded, according to new research.
But the good news is that recognizing the full range of health threats can help families, communities, and health care systems prepare and recover long after landfall.
Immediate health risks: direct injury and contamination
When hurricanes strike, the immediate risk of physical injuries often dominates our attention.
Debris mobilized by winds or water can cause anything from minor cuts to serious trauma. Drownings from floodwater can occur, and downed power lines and floodwaters surging into homes can cause electrocution.
Less visibly, floodwater can mix with dangerous contaminants: Industrial chemicals, fossil fuels, and sewage can turn these waters into toxic stew. Contact with contaminated water can lead to skin injuries and infections, particularly in anyone with an open wound. Exposure to floodwater contaminated by human or animal waste can also increase the risk of gastrointestinal illnesses.
Using data from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 in Texas, researchers compared the rate of emergency department visits in places with low, medium, and high impact from the hurricane based on the amount of flooding. They found that on the day of the hurricane, emergency department visits decreased. This is not surprising as many people may be unable to leave their homes during hurricane conditions and many others may have evacuated from their communities.
But during the immediate aftermath, they saw higher rates of visits for carbon monoxide poisoning in high flood areas, possibly linked to faulty or damaged equipment from flooding or exposure from running generators. They also found higher rates of drownings and hypothermia.
Climate Adam: Is climate change fuelling mega hurricanes?
Posted on 29 October 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
From hurricanes like Helene and Milton, to typhoons like Gaemi, vast storms are causing devastation: destroying cities and tearing up lives. So what's actually behind these tropical cyclones? Are they just natural disasters, or caused by burning fossil fuels? The links between climate change and these storms are crucial, but they're also complex. So let's talk about how global warming is turning up the heat on hurricanes, and what we can do to shelter from the storm.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
Posted on 28 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk
(Illustration credit: Samantha Harrington)
Clean energy jobs grew more than twice the rate of the overall economy in 2023 – and every state has its own piece of the story to tell.
By the end of 2023, there were over half a million jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage in the United States, according to the Department of Energy’s 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Jobs Report. Jobs within these sectors include design, manufacturing, trade, construction, and operation of energy systems.
Just two states hold one-third of the jobs in clean electricity generation: California and Texas. The rest of the jobs were distributed across the rest of the country in unequal and sometimes unexpected ways.
Get a high-level look at the latest clean energy jobs data in our interactive map below. Each state is ranked by the total number of jobs in solar, wind, and energy storage. Hover over or tap on any state to see the data broken down by sector as well as per capita.
Read on for key takeaways from the new data, including state standouts and lackluster performances.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43
Posted on 27 October 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
As an experiment, we asked Google's Gemini for help categorizing the articles we shared during the week. The result is the bullet list below and we'd like to know how useful that kind of generated summary is for you, so please let us know in the comments!
Here are the main topics extracted from the articles, along with their publishing outlets:
Climate Change and its Impacts:
- Global warming and its effects on weather patterns, ecosystems, and human health (The Guardian, New York Times, Vox, Yale Climate Connections, MIT News, The Independent (UK), CNN)
- Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires (The Guardian, New York Times, Vox, Yale Climate Connections, MIT News, The Independent (UK), CNN)
- Ocean acidification and marine ecosystem degradation (The Guardian, CNN)
- Impact on human activities, including agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure (The Guardian, MIT News)
Climate Policy and Politics:
- Climate change denial and misinformation (The Guardian, USA Today, Skeptical Science)
- International climate agreements and negotiations (Inside Climate News, The Guardian)
- Climate policies and regulations in different countries (Washington Post, Inside Climate News, Grist)
- The role of political leaders and public opinion in addressing climate change (The Guardian, Grist)
Climate Solutions and Adaptation:
- Renewable energy and clean technologies (Inside Climate News)
- Carbon capture and storage (Inside Climate News)
- Climate adaptation strategies (Yale Climate Connections)
- Public awareness and education (Yale Climate Connections, The Guardian)
- Individual actions to reduce carbon footprint (The Guardian)
Scientific Research and Reporting:
- Latest climate science findings and research (The Guardian, New York Times, Vox, Yale Climate Connections, MIT News, The Independent (UK), CNN, Skeptical Science)
- Climate modeling and projections (The Guardian, MIT News)
- Data analysis and visualization (Skeptical Science)
- Media coverage of climate change (The Guardian, USA Today, Vox, Yale Climate Connections, MIT News, The Independent (UK), CNN)
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before October 20
- Trump has vowed to gut climate rules. Oil lobbyists have a plan ready., Business, Washington Post, Evan Halper & Josh Dawsey. "As companies fall short on methane emission reductions, a top trade group has crafted a road map for dismantling key Biden administration rules."
- What happens to the world if forests stop absorbing carbon? Ask Finland, The Age of Extinction, Environment, The Guardian, Patrick Greenfield. "Natural sinks of forests and peat were key to Finland’s ambitious target to be carbon neutral by 2035. But now, the land has started emitting more greenhouse gases than it stores"
- Election Throws Uncertainty Onto Biden’s Signature Climate Law, Clean Energy, Inside Climate News, Nicholas Kusnetz. "The Inflation Reduction Act was enacted in a hyper-partisan environment, but it has gained support among Republicans. Will its emissions-cutting programs endure?"
- Kamala Harris urged to flesh out climate plan amid warnings about Trump, US News, The Guardian, Dharna Noor & Oliver Milman. "Democratic presidential nominee has raised alarm about Trump’s plans but has not said much about her own"
- Overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about climate crisis, Environment, The Guardian, Jessica Glenza. "Survey of young people aged 16-25 from all US states shows concerns across political spectrum"
- Trump's campaign leans on climate change denial: Six misleading claims debunked, USA Today, Kate S. Petersen.
- An Alarming Glimpse Into a Future of Historic Droughts, World, New York Times, Julie Turkewitz, Ana Ionova & José María León Cabrera. "Record dry conditions in South America have led to wildfires, power cuts and water rationing. The world’s largest river system, the Amazon, which sustains some 30 million people across eight countries, is drying up."
- Is climate change really making hurricanes worse?, Climate, Vox, Umair Irfan. "What we know — and don’t know — about how global warming influences tropical storms."
- Atmospheric Scientist Tackles Climate Change Misinformation On LinkedIn, ATM News, Grant Hawkins. Dr. Gunnar Schade and students in his class collaborated with misinformation researchers at Ripple Research for a deep dive into climate change misinformation circulating on LinkedIn, a realm where the extent and impact of misinformation, which is surprisingly thriving, is largely unexplored.
Fact brief - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
Posted on 26 October 2024 by Guest Author
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
Volcanoes release CO2, but the amount is minimal compared to human-caused emissions.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, volcanoes emit around 180-440 million tons of CO2 annually. In contrast, human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels, emitted 41.5 billion tons of CO2 in 2022—over 100 times more.
Volcanoes are part of the Earth’s slow carbon cycle, where carbon is gradually recycled between the Earth’s mantle and atmosphere over millions of years. Volcanic CO2 is eventually reabsorbed by the weathering of rocks and ocean absorption, keeping the carbon cycle in balance over long timeframes.
Human activity, however, is releasing carbon at a rate far beyond what the natural carbon cycle can handle, overwhelming the Earth’s ability to balance CO2 levels. While volcanic CO2 emissions have been stable for millions of years, human-caused emissions have rapidly accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, making human activity the dominant driver of rising atmospheric CO2.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
USGS Volcanic gases can be harmful to health, vegetation and infrastructure
Our World in Data CO2 emissions
NASA The Carbon Cycle
USGS Volcano Watch — Which produces more CO2, volcanic or human activity?
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2024
Posted on 24 October 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades, Hamlington et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
The rise in globally averaged sea level—or global mean sea level—is one of the most unambiguous indicators of climate change. Over the past three decades, satellites have provided continuous, accurate measurements of sea level on near-global scales. Here, we show that since satellites began observing sea surface heights in 1993 until the end of 2023, global mean sea level has risen by 111 mm. In addition, the rate of global mean sea level rise over those three decades has increased from ~2.1 mm/year in 1993 to ~4.5 mm/year in 2023. If this trajectory of sea level rise continues over the next three decades, sea levels will increase by an additional 169 mm globally, comparable to mid-range sea level projections from the IPCC AR6.
Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events, Lewandowski et al., The Lancet Planetary Health:
We evaluated survey responses from 15 793 individuals (weighted proportions: 80·5% aged 18–25 years and 19·5% aged 16–17 years; 48·8% female and 51·2% male). Overall, 85·0% of respondents endorsed being at least moderately worried, and 57·9% very or extremely worried, about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet. 42·8% indicated an impact of climate change on self-reported mental health, and 38·3% indicated that their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life. Respondents reported negative thoughts about the future due to climate change and actions planned in response, including being likely to vote for political candidates who support aggressive climate policy (72·8%). In regression models, self-reported exposure to more types of severe weather events was significantly associated with stronger endorsement of climate-related distress and desire and plans for action. Political party identification as Democrat or as Independent or Other (vs Republican) was also significantly associated with stronger endorsement of distress and desire and plans for action, although a majority of self-identified Republicans reported at least moderate distress.
Coordinating the energy transition: Electrifying transportation in California and Germany, Goedeking & Meckling, Energy Policy:
California and Germany share ambitious emission reduction targets. Yet California is ahead of Germany in electrifying transportation by several metrics, including the number of public charging stations. We show that variation in the politics of coordination in California and Germany explains the different outcomes. Transforming energy systems requires coordination across various complementary technologies and infrastructures—here between the supply of electric vehicles and the buildout of charging stations. In California, a strong electrification coalition emerged across automakers selling electric vehicles as well as utilities and third-party firms providing charging infrastructure. Power market rules made capital investments for charging infrastructure instantly profitable for California monopoly utilities. By contrast, in Germany's liberalized power market, investing in capital-intensive charging infrastructure was not profitable for electric utilities. As a result, utilities did not emerge as a political force in the electrification coalition. Instead, utilities and automakers were in gridlock, failing to coordinate electric vehicle rollout and public charging station buildout. Our findings highlight the limits of business-led coordination, raising the question which institutions help address coordination failures in clean energy transitions.
Over-reliance on land for carbon dioxide removal in net-zero climate pledges, Dooley et al., Nature Communications:
Achieving net-zero climate targets requires some level of carbon dioxide removal. Current assessments focus on tonnes of CO2 removed, without specifying what form these removals will take. Here, we show that countries’ climate pledges require approximately 1 (0.9–1.1) billion ha of land for removals. For over 40% of this area, the pledges envisage the conversion of existing land uses to forests, while the remaining area restores existing ecosystems and land uses. We analyse how this demand for land is distributed geographically and over time. The results are concerning, both in terms of the aggregate area of land, but also the rate and extent of land use change. Our findings demonstrate a gap between governments’ expected reliance on land and the role that land can realistically play in climate mitigation. This adds another layer to the observed shortcomings of national climate pledges and indicates a need for more transparency around the role of land in national climate mitigation plans.
Wildfire Emissions Offset More Permafrost Ecosystem Carbon Sink in the 21st Century, Zhu et al., Earth's Future:
Permafrost ecosystems in high-latitudes stock a large amount of carbon and are vulnerable to wildfires under climate warming. However, major knowledge gap remains in the effects of direct carbon loss from increasing wildfire biomass burning on permafrost ecosystem carbon sink. In this study, we used observation-derived data sets and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations to investigate how carbon emissions from wildfire biomass burning offset permafrost ecosystem carbon sink under climate warming in the 21st century. We show that the fraction of permafrost ecosystem carbon sink offset by wildfire emissions was 14%–25% during the past two decades. The fraction is projected to be 28%–45% at the end of this century under different warming scenarios. The weakening carbon sink is caused by greater increase in wildfire emissions than net ecosystem production in permafrost regions under climate warming. The increased fraction of ecosystem carbon sink offset by wildfire carbon loss is especially pronounced in continuous permafrost region during the past two decades.
Feedbacks From Young Permafrost Carbon Remobilization to the Deglacial Methane Rise, Sabino et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles:
Here, we investigate the large-scale permafrost remobilization at the Younger Dryas-Preboreal transition (ca. 11.6 ka BP) using the sedimentary record deposited at the Lena River paleo-outlet (Arctic Ocean) to reflect permafrost destabilization in this vast drainage basin. Terrestrial OC was isolated from sediments and characterized geochemically measuring δ13C, Δ14C, and lignin phenol molecular fossils. Results indicate massive remobilization of relatively young (about 2,600 years) permafrost OC from inland Siberia after abrupt warming triggered severe active layer deepening. Methane emissions from this young fraction of permafrost OC contributed to the deglacial CH4 rise. This study stresses that underestimating permafrost complexities may affect our comprehension of the deglacial permafrost OC-climate feedback and helps understand how modern permafrost systems may react to rapid warming events, including enhanced CH4 emissions that would amplify anthropogenic climate change.
From this week's government/NGO section:
Ukraine’s Energy and Climate Challenges, Special Editors, Susanne Nies and Olha Bondarenko, Ukraine Analytical Journal
This issue of the Ukraine Analytical Journal is devoted to Ukraine’s energy and climate challenges. How can the country deal with the paramount heat and power deficit expected for the coming winter? What solutions are at hand? And how can these short-term solutions be consistent with the needs of a more mid- and long-term clean energy transition?
Impact of Climate Change on Health and Drug Demand, Abir et al., RAND
The authors of this report estimated how the anticipated effects of climate change on the prevalence of a sample of four chronic conditions — cardiovascular disease (CVD), asthma, end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and Alzheimer's disease — will affect demand for the drugs needed to treat them (metoprolol, albuterol, heparin, and donepezil, respectively). To generate these estimates, the authors conducted an environmental scan of the peer-reviewed and gray literature and developed a medical condition–specific systems dynamics model. The model can help inform policies for ensuring drug supply under various climate scenarios.
Climate Change & Crime, Peter Schwartzstein, The Center for Climate and Security
Crime has received relatively little attention to date in the climate security literature. This brief paper is an attempt to begin redressing that shortfall. While crime, as a form of insecurity, might seem low stakes in comparison to terrorism and inter-state conflict, its sheer breadth ensures that many more people have likely suffered from it compared with more ‘macro’ forms of climate-related violence. From petty theft to not-so-petty assaults, climate change is leaving its mark on almost every category of crime.
122 articles in 57 journals by 816 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Dynamical Adjustment Approach to Estimating Forced and Internal Variability in the North Atlantic, Nedza & DelSole, Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0651.1
A Dynamical Interpretation of the Intensification of the Winter North Atlantic Jet Stream in Reanalysis, Hermoso et al., Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0757.1
Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
Posted on 23 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler
California prides itself on its climate leadership. And the state’s work on transportation – its largest source of emissions – is no exception; its electric vehicle policies have been adopted by other states across the country. Sacramento lawmakers have also taken ambitious steps to reduce car use altogether, developing regulations aimed at reshaping communities to encourage walking, biking, and taking public transportation.
But on-the-ground reality often doesn’t live up to this vision. In particular, communities throughout the state continue to invest heavily in highway expansion projects that undermine efforts to change how people get around. Because of a phenomenon known as induced travel, these projects lead Californians to spend more time, not less, behind the wheel.
Amy Lee, a postdoctoral scholar at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, has spent years studying induced travel and the politics of highway expansions in California. Yale Climate Connections spoke with her to learn more.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Yale Climate Connections: Can you give me a high-level overview of induced travel? How does it work?
Amy Lee: So the biggest factor that people consider when deciding how to get around is cost. That’s a matter of dollars, but also time – time is a really, really important factor in how we travel. When a particular roadway is congested, traveling on it can take a long time, or an unpredictable amount of time, which discourages people from using it.
Highway widening is kind of like putting travel on sale. It attempts to reduce congestion by expanding the amount of roadway supply, reducing the time cost of travel for travelers using it. So let’s say traffic kept me from going to a restaurant I really like that’s 20 miles away, but after the highway is widened, I can go there more frequently. Or I might choose a doctor in the next town over as opposed to the one in my neighborhood.
We rearrange our travel patterns because of highway expansions, and the new driving that results is what we call induced travel. And research has shown that because of induced travel, congestion returns to previous levels about five to 10 years after the highway is widened.
YCC: Is this something that’s been discovered recently, or have we known about it for a while?
Lee: We’ve measured this for a really long time. It’s been observed for at least 100 years, and it’s been measured with increasingly advanced statistical methods since the ’70s and ’80s.
YCC: So highway expansion clearly seems problematic from a transportation planning perspective. Can you say more about how it affects climate change?
Lee: There are several ways. One is that the materials involved in physically making highways and roadways – concrete, aggregate, asphalt – are incredibly carbon-intensive. Highway expansions emit a lot of carbon in their production.
Then, once highways have been built, we develop our communities around them, building further out along these highway corridors, which generates auto use, which leads to more emissions. Right now, automobiles run mostly on fossil fuels, and this seems like it will be the case for a long time.
Highway expansions can also make it more difficult to get around urban neighborhoods. I live in a city with the classic set of highways that were built right through downtown to bring suburban commuters into the metropolitan core, severing neighborhoods like mine from the city center. To get downtown from where I live, you have to cross under the highway two times. Researchers have been doing really cool work about how that impedes walking and biking. As roads are expanded, not only do your shopping mall or your doctor’s office go further down the highway, but it also becomes a lot harder to get around your own neighborhood without driving, even if you’re just going a short distance.
Climate Risk
Posted on 22 October 2024 by Ken Rice
This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics
I realise that I haven’t written anything for a while and am unlikely to become particularly prolific again anytime soon. However, there’s something I’ve been thinking about and thought that I would write a post. It relates to something Alex Trembath has written in an article about Climate Risk. Alex is the Deputy Director of the Breakthrough Institute or, as some call it, the Bad Take Institute.
Alex’s article is highlighting how people often get statistical relationships wrong, and he’s probably right. Properly interpreting statistics is difficult and it’s certainly not something I’d claim to never get wrong. The basic point he is making is that a small shift in a distribution can have a large effect on the extremes. For example, if we consider one side of a Guassian distribution, then events more extreme than 1σ, 2σ and 3σ happen 16%, 2%, and 0.1% of the time, respectively. If we then shift the distribution by 1σ, the same events will now happen 50%, 16%, and 2% of the time. Essentially, what was a 3σ event has now become about 20 times more likely.
The example Alex uses is people misunderstanding the wild swings in Nate Silver’s US election predictions. These don’t mean Silver’s model is horribly wrong. They’re happening because small shifts in the probability distribution can have a large effect on the expected outcome.
However, when it comes to extreme climate events, Alex seems to reverse the argument. For a particular event, climate change is assessed to have made that event 30 times more likely. However, the analysis also indicates that the same event would have been only a little bit less intense in a pre-industrial climate, which is what Alex seems to think is important. His point is that “[w]ith climate change, they instead tend to emphasize the statistical swings, and ignore the modesty of the shifts in the actual climate.”
I realise that how we interpret this information is somewhat subjective, so am not suggesting that Alex is wrong to highlight this. However, in my view there are some other factors to consider.
Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
Posted on 21 October 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler. This is part two of his series on air conditioning. Part one can be found here.
Let’s look at Houston’s summertime temperatures:
Wow, Houston has warmed a lot in the summer. In the 1970s, summers were about 3C (5F) cooler than they are today, enough to turn a 97F day into a 102F day, which is a huge difference.
I grew up in Houston in the 1970s and I can personally confirm that summertime Houston was always hot, but you were not a prisoner of air conditioning like you are now.
Given this warming, it was probably inevitable that personal cooling devices, designed to cool you and only you, would become more popular. Let’s go over some of this new technology.
For example, here are neck fans:
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42
Posted on 20 October 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Here's another week of stories describing how our species has become a force of nature by creating a mighty industry now spewing unintended consequences, spanning from the upper atmosphere down to the rotational behavior of our entire planet Earth. In the middle: us and our fellow creatures, buffeted by violent weather, pestilence, starvation, dehydration and various other horrors, all made more dire by our big accident of changing our climate.
We've accidentally taken on god-like powers. But we're more like Greek gods; our efforts seemingly end in hubristic folly as much as they do acts of virtue. The Greeks wrote fables of gods as commentary on human nature and we remain obedient to this plot device— but at scale and type now uncomfortably close to the literal as opposed to metaphorical text of these ancient stories. Our human nature is now a seemingly inexorable force of nature; we don't seem to know how to control what we've become, what we've created.
If human nature rather than technological prowess is the root cause of our problem, it seems reasonable that better understanding of human nature rather than yet more engineering is key to threading our way out of our climate problem. This isn't a novel idea; social scientists have been working intensively on the psychological underpinnings of our climate problem for decades and we're beginning to get a solid grip on the common, basic fallibilities that lead us to commit and sustain titanic blunders such as randomly changing our planet's geophysics for the worse.
Perhaps more importantly, researchers are working specifically on why we'd continue to behave in ways that we know are causing ourselves harm. One such avenue leads to the concept of "energy transition justice," a term including workers in the fossil fuel industry.
Workers in the fossil fuel industry facing energy transition are a subject of intensive academic investigation, with a cursory check revealing over 13,000 publications for 2024 alone. Interest in this group includes not only matters of fairness and equity but also the possibility that as a matter of policy needing to be bracketed by operational politics, a large group of workers threatened with economic disenfranchisement can be a showstopper for for climate mitigation policy implementation. Again as a matter of human nature, people being governed by fear don't make good decisions, so understanding and discovering how to take away the cause for fright makes entirely good sense.
But it's rarely or never the case that people embedded in the fossil fuel industry are visited by researchers with a Margaret Mead level of commitment to sharing how these lives are lived, identifying connections of empathy to help provide us with the insight we need to ease fear and thus foster cooperation for the greater good.
To help us better understand people who have grown up in a multigenerational dependency on the economic feature called the fossil fuel industry and are quite naturally responding with fear, loathing and resistance to the end of their accustomed lifestyle— due to circumstances beyond their direct control— we could benefit from some embedded cultural anthropology. Thanks to Citizens Climate Lobby, we have news about what is essentially just such an effort, even if it's not flying the cultural anthropologist flag. Connecting about climate change with the most skeptical people in the USA is our Story of the Week, written by CCL intern author Kate Derbas and delving into Ben Stillerman's residence in Utah's coal-dependent Emery County. Stillerman lived in Emery County while filming interviews and conversations with people thoughtlessly included in the term "dirty energy."
Of course folks in Emery County are not dirty. They're not top industry executives engaged in concerted lying campaigns. But as a matter of human nature they're responding to being characterized in that way quite poorly. This in combination with what they see as an existential threat and what will certainly be a large upheaval in their lived experience combine to produce anger and fear, and neither of those emotions is conducive to cooperation or clear thinking.
Consider: if anybody has a good reason to believe the lies we're told about climate change by the fossil fuel industry, it's hands-on workers in the fossil fuel industry— with mortgages and hungry children— depending on sincere belief that one is living a good life, being good. This is a magnet for motivated reasoning, for naturally uncritical acceptance of comforting beliefs. They're victims, same as the rest of us.
It doesn't take an Einstein to understand that even if one doesn't give a toss about fairness, as a matter of pure pragmatism we need to treat these people well, treat them as we'd prefer for ourselves. Emery County is multiplied across the United States, and across the entire globe. This collective locus of hurt feelings and economic fright is already a drag on sorting out our climate problem. Left unaddressed, it will only become worse.
It's better— easier and more productive— to pay attention to fairness, to empathize. Stillerman's entire documentary series on Emery County titled True False Hot Cold is available on Youtube.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before October 13
- Hurricanes Amplify Insurance Crisis in Riskiest Areas, Business, New York Times, Emily Fitter. "After Helene and Milton, some small Florida companies risk bankruptcy. Larger ones will be in the hot seat with lawmakers and consumer groups."
- Atmospheric rivers are shifting poleward, reshaping global weather patterns, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Zhe Li.
- Hurricane Milton's downpour around Tampa Bay was a 1-in-1,000-year rain event St. Petersburg had 18.31 inches of rain — or more than 1.5 feet — in 24 hours., Science, NBC News, Denise Chow. "St. Petersburg had 18.31 inches of rain — or more than 1.5 feet — in 24 hours."
- Climate Change Made Hurricane Milton Stronger, With Heavier Rain, Scientists Conclude, Inside Climate News, Sean Sublette. A rapid analysis of rainfall trends and Gulf of Mexico temperatures shows many similarities to Hurricane Helene less than two weeks earlier.
- Why Disasters Like Hurricanes Milton and Helene Unleash So Much Misinformation, Scientific American, Ben Guarino. "Falsehoods spread when uncertainties—and emotions—are high after hurricanes"
- Hurricanes do little to move Republicans on climate, Climatewire, E&E News, Emma Dumain. "Recent storms have devastated numerous conservative districts. That doesn’t mean their lawmakers will change course."