'Biden-mobile’ or the future of transportation? How EVs got polarized.:
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| 'Biden-mobile’ or the future of transportation? How EVs got polarized. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment |
May 6 · Democrats say they are way more likely than Republicans to buy electric cars. Could that change?
Electric cars have taken off across the United States. Even amid news of slowing sales, the country sold almost 1.2 million fully electric vehicles in 2023, more than quadruple the number in 2019. Grocery stores and rest stops are installing charging stations across the country; electric cars have moved beyond niche status and are being produced by Ford, GM, Hyundai and many others. Read more ...
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Are Flight Offsets Worth It?:
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| Are Flight Offsets Worth It? - New York Times - Climate Section |
May 6 · A lot of them don’t work and some might even be harmful. But there are things you can do if you really have to fly.
Credit...Naomi Anderson-Subryan
In recent years, many airlines have phased out the little box encouraging you to “offset your flight’s emissions!” on their checkout pages. Perhaps because so few customers took advantage of them, or perhaps because research has shown that many offset projects are ineffective or worse.
But last we checked, people are still flying. A lot. And the planet is still warming. A lot. So you may still be wondering: Should I offset my air travel? If so, how?
A carbon offset is a credit that you can buy to make up for your ... | By Susan Shain Read more ...
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Brazil mounts frantic rescue effort as flooding kills at least 78:
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| Brazil mounts frantic rescue effort as flooding kills at least 78 - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 6 · Authorities in southern Brazil scrambled Sunday to rescue people from raging floods and mudslides in what has become the region's largest ever climate catastrophe, with at least 78 dead and 115,000 forced from their homes.
Entire cities were underwater, with thousands of people cut off from the world by the floodwater, brought by days of torrential rains.
In Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, residents stood on rooftops hoping to be rescued as others in canoes or small boats navigated streets that have become rivers.
After what one climatologist called "a disastrous cocktail" of climate change and the El Niño effect, more than 3,000 soldiers, ... Read more ...
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Cyclone bears down on flood-hit Kenya, Tanzania:
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| Cyclone bears down on flood-hit Kenya, Tanzania - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 5 · Beaches were deserted and many shops closed on Saturday as heavy rains and winds from a tropical cyclone buffeted coastal areas of Tanzania and Kenya.
Both countries have gone on alert for Tropical Cyclone Hidaya, after weeks of torrential rains and floods that have wreaked havoc in many parts of East Africa and claimed more than 400 lives.
But there were no reports of casualties or damage as of Saturday afternoon as the cyclone rolled in from the Indian Ocean and made landfall in Tanzania.
"It's so strange today to see only few people at the beach. We are used to seeing crowds, especially during the weekend," said Yusuf Hassan, a resident of Tanzania's main city ... Read more ...
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Extreme heat drives Chile wildfires leaving at least 51 dead:
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| Extreme heat drives Chile wildfires leaving at least 51 dead - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 5 · Chileans Sunday feared a rise in the death toll from wildfires blazing across the South American country that have already killed at least 51 people, leaving bodies in the street and homes gutted.
Authorities warned Sunday of "complicated" conditions as they battled fires in the coastal tourist region of Valparaiso amid an intense summer heat wave, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend.
Dense gray smoke blanketed the city of Vina del Mar on the country's central coast Saturday, forcing residents to flee.
Rosana Avendano, a 63-year-old kitchen assistant, was away from home when the fire began to sweep through the ... Read more ...
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Floods in southern Brazil kill 55, force 70,000 from homes:
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| Floods in southern Brazil kill 55, force 70,000 from homes - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 5 · Raging floods and mudslides have killed at least 55 people in southern Brazil and forced nearly 70,000 to flee their homes, the country's civil defense agency said on Saturday.
At least 74 people were injured and another 67 missing from the catastrophic flooding, civil defense said.
The toll did not include two people who died in an explosion at a flooded gas station in Porto Alegre, witnessed by an AFP journalist, where rescue crews were attempting to refuel.
Fast-rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and particularly threatening economically important Porto Alegre, a city of 1.4 million.
The Guaiba River, which flows ... Read more ...
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Heating cities with sand and water:
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| Heating cities with sand and water - Just Have A Think |
May 5 · The Green Energy Transition is starting to tease out some very smart solutions to ditching fossil fuels. Our friends in the North are leading the way in the decarbonisation of buildings and industry. Here's a couple of perfect examples.\n\nHelp support this channels independence at \nhttp://www.patreon.com/justhaveathink \n\nOr with a donation via Paypal by clicking here\nhttps://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick\u0026hosted_button_id=GWR73EHXGJMAE\u0026source=url \n\nYou can also help keep my brain ticking over during the long hours of research and editing via the nice folks at BuyMeACoffee.com \n\nhttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/justhaveathink\n\nVideo Transcripts available at ... | By Just Have a Think Read more ...
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Ikea is guiding its customers toward sustainable consumption. Here’s how:
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| Ikea is guiding its customers toward sustainable consumption. Here’s how - Greenbiz |
May 6 · The giant furniture retailer is using its procurement clout and in-store promotions to nudge millions of customers toward lower-emissions products.
Close to 860 million people visited Ikea stores last year, helping it generate more than $50 billion in sales. The world’s largest furniture retailer is using that exposure to drive a unique net-zero goal: a pledge to cut the climate footprint from products Ikea customers use at home by 70 percent by 2030.
So far, Ikea has managed a 52 percent reduction to the baseline it set in 2016, according to Ikea’s sustainability report for 2023.
The retailer calculates that claim by looking at the material composition and energy ... | By Heather Clancy Read more ...
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Market-based schemes not reducing deforestation, poverty: Report:
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| Market-based schemes not reducing deforestation, poverty: Report - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 6 · Market-based approaches to forest conservation like carbon offsets and deforestation-free certification schemes have largely failed to protect trees or alleviate poverty, according to a major scientific review published on Monday.
The global study - the most comprehensive of its kind to date - found that trade and finance-driven initiatives had made "limited" progress halting deforestation and in some cases worsened economic inequality.
Drawn from years of academic and field work, the report compiled by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), a group of 15,000 scientists in 120 countries, will be presented at a high-level UN forum starting ... Read more ...
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Radio astronomers bypass disturbing Earth's atmosphere with new calibration technique:
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| Radio astronomers bypass disturbing Earth's atmosphere with new calibration technique - PHYS.ORG - Earth |
May 6 · The technique allowed astronomers to take clear radio images of the universe at frequencies between 16 and 30 MHz for the first time. This was thought to be impossible, because the ionosphere, at about 80 kilometers above the Earth, interferes with observations at these frequencies.
Thanks to the new images, it appears that the radio emission from these clusters is not evenly distributed across the entire cluster, but rather there is a spot pattern. "It's like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time and no longer seeing blurred," said research leader Christian Groeneveld of Leiden University.
The motivation for the research was that at high frequencies, around ... Read more ...
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Tailwinds build for sustainable aviation fuel:
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| Tailwinds build for sustainable aviation fuel - Greenbiz |
May 6 · As the aviation industry lobbies for sustainable jet fuel, new tax breaks could help lower the carbon footprint of business travel.
Illustration of a jet's shadow over a field sunflowers. Credit: Shutterstock/Scharfsinn
U.S. airlines use sustainable fuel in less than 0.1 percent of flights. Yet the government wants 10 percent of the industry to run on sustainable fuel by 2030, and to reach 100 percent by 2050.
The scale of the challenge is massive: United Airlines used 7 million gallons of sustainable fuel last year, according to company spokesman Sam Coleman. "That was a threefold increase from the year before, which is great, except that United Airlines burns ... | By Elsa Wenzel Read more ...
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The great corporate decarbonization derby is on:
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| The great corporate decarbonization derby is on - Greenbiz |
May 6 · Are any technologies capable of solving the climate crisis at scale?
To tackle big risks requires big imagination and big bucks. And, except for annihilation from global thermonuclear warfare, no set of risks loom larger than the continuing atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide. Earth is responding to this buildup through rising temperatures, melting glaciers, expanding seas, migrating species and disease vectors and a host of other impacts. Scientists and policymakers believe that the Paris accord goal of restraining warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2030 is or soon will be surpassed and that temperature increases of up to 7F ... | By Terry F. Yosie Read more ...
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Why India is key to heading off climate catastrophe:
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| Why India is key to heading off climate catastrophe - Skeptical Science |
May 6 · A farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI)
Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global efforts to head off the most catastrophic effects of climate change.
The country has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and its energy consumption is growing rapidly as a result — but it still relies largely on fossil fuels. India has a general election that will wrap up in June 2024, and both major parties say they support moving the country away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, a position backed by a ... Read more ...
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Why some corals are better off dead:
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| Why some corals are better off dead - Washington Post - Climate and Environment |
May 5 · As scientists rush to save ailing corals elsewhere, in Venezuela locals are trying to kill off this stinky variety.
VALLE SECO, Venezuela - Estrella Villamizar grabbed the soft red and white coral by its stem and hacked it off with a blow of her wooden knife before tossing it in a bucket with other pieces she’d already ripped out of the Caribbean waters lapping against this deserted beach.
On the sea bed, stretching for a distance as far as the eye could see, a blanket of the dark coral swayed in the warm current. Read more ...
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World Champion Sasha DiGiulian Talks Climate Advocacy & Equality in Sports | United Nations:
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| World Champion Sasha DiGiulian Talks Climate Advocacy & Equality in Sports | United Nations - Climate Change (United Nations - Playlist) |
May 5 · World Champion rock climber and Protect Our Winters (POW) Athletes Alliance member Sasha DiGiulian takes time from training to talk about her personal experiences with climate change that lead to her advocacy work.\n\nSasha DiGiulian joined other elite athletes and leaders in the sport industry to participate in the United Nations celebration of the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) and share insights into how athletes can make an impact on climate action, promote sustainability and gender equality, and foster industry partnerships. \n\nWatch the whole #SportDay event: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPlxx7p7zm4\u0026amp;t=6584s | By United Nations Read more ...
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