Quantcast
Channel: Environment
Viewing all 2972 articles
Browse latest View live

Fixing the planet could cost younger generations $530 trillion if nothing is done about climate change

0
0

climate change

By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the "negative emissions" technologies required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

These are the main findings of new research published in Earth System Dynamics, conducted by an international team led by US climate scientist James Hansen, previously the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Paris Agreement in 2015 saw the international community agree to limit warming to within 2°C. The Hansen team argue that the much safer approach is to reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ from the current annual average of more than 400ppm (parts per million) back to 1980s levels of 350ppm. This is a moderately more ambitious goal than the aspiration announced in Paris to further attempt to limit warming to no more than 1.5°C. Many climate scientists and policymakers believe that either the 2°C or 1.5°C limits will only be possible with negative emissions because the international community will be unable to make the required reductions in time.

Putting carbon back in the ground

The most promising negative emissions technology is BECCS – bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration. It involves growing crops which are then burnt in power stations to generate electricity. The carbon dioxide produced is captured from the power station chimneys, compressed, and piped deep down into the Earth's crust where it will be stored for many thousands of years. This scheme would allow us to both generate electricity and reduce the amount of CO₂ in the Earth's atmosphere.

BECCS bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration

BECCS has important limits, such as the sheer amount of land, water and fertilizer required to satisfy our energy demand. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn't exist at anything like the scale required of it. Thus far only small pilot projects have demonstrated its feasibility. Other negative emissions approaches involve fertilizing the ocean to increase photosynthesis, or direct air capture which sucks CO₂ out of the air and converts it into plastics or other products.

ethanol production plant

The Hansen team estimate how much it will cost to extract excess CO₂ with BECCS. They conclude that it would be possible to move back to 350ppm mainly with reforestation and improving soils, leaving around 50 billion tonnes of CO₂ to be mopped up with negative emissions technologies (the plants grown for BECCS take in the CO₂, which is then sequestered when burned).

But that's only if we make significant reductions in rates of emissions right now. If we delay, then future generations would need to extract over ten times more CO₂ beyond the end of this century.

Scenarios for future carbon dioxide emissions and extraction.

They estimate costs between US$150-350 for each tonne of carbon removed via negative emissions technologies. If global emissions are reduced by 6% each year – a very challenging but not impossible scenario – then bringing CO₂ concentrations back to 350ppm would cost US$8-18.5 trillion, spread over 80 years at US$100-230 billion a year.

If emissions remain flat or increase at 2% a year, then total cost balloons to at least US$89 trillion and potentially as much as US$535 trillion. That's US$1.1 to US$6.7 trillion every year for eight decades.

To give these numbers some context, the entire US federal budget is about US$4 trillion, while spending by all countries on military and defence was US$1.7 trillion.

A climate balancing act

Humans have pumped over 1.5 trillion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere since 1750. It is not just the amount, but the rate at which this CO₂ has been added. The oceans can absorb extra CO₂ but not fast enough to remove all human inputs and so it has been progressively building up in the atmosphere. This extra CO₂ traps more heat than would otherwise escape out into space. More energy is therefore entering the climate system than leaving it.

Over decades and centuries the climate will move back into balance with the same amount of energy leaving as entering. But this will be at a higher temperature with among other things less ice, higher sea levels, more heatwaves, and more floods. The last time the Earth's climate experienced such an energy imbalance was the Eemian interglacial period some 115,000 years ago. At that time global sea levels were six to nine metres higher than today.

The Hansen team argues that even maintaining the current energy imbalance risks locking in several metres of sea level rise. That is because slow processes such as melting ice sheets still haven't "caught up". The longer the climate is held out of balance, the greater their effect will be.

Glacier

One argument against making drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions is that it will harm economies as our industries are still largely fossil fueled. Responding to climate change needs to balance the desire to continue to grow economies today with avoiding disastrous climate change or prohibitively expensive remedies tomorrow.

Whatever assumptions you make about economic growth, or however much you discount future costs, it's unimaginable that US$535 trillion could be afforded. While these costs will be spread over 80 years, this will also be a period in which the global population will increase from seven billion to perhaps 11 billion and beyond. Humanity will need to grow enough crops to feed these billions while fueling BECCS schemes at a time when climate change will already be impacting food production. There are also no guarantees that BECCS or any other negative emission technologies will actually work. If they fail then large amounts of CO₂ could be released very rapidly with disastrous consequences.

By delaying significant carbon emission reductions we risk handing both an impossible financial and technological burden to future generations. Our children and grandchildren may be unable to understand how we negotiated such an arrangement on their behalf.

James Dyke, Lecturer in Sustainability Science, University of Southampton

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: Scientists say we're witnessing the planet's sixth mass extinction — and 'biological annihilation' is the latest sign

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists overlooked a major problem with going to Mars — and they fear it could be a suicide mission


Scientists say the Delaware-size iceberg that broke off Antarctica could have happened without global warming

0
0

giant tabular iceberg cliff ocean shutterstock_549616561

  • Iceberg A-68, which recently calved from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, is the third-largest iceberg on record.
  • Some scientists have described the iceberg's calving as a "natural" event that can't yet be tied to human activity.
  • Other scientists, however, have said an immediate lack of information about A-68 isn't reason to dismiss the realities of climate change.

An iceberg with about six times as much mass as Mount Everest — the third-largest ever recorded — is drifting away from Antarctica.

Blowing winds, ocean currents, and Earth's rotation are all slowly pushing the Delaware-size block, dubbed A-68 by the US National Ice Center, into the Southern Ocean.

antarctica larsen c iceberg a68 broken pieces adrian luckman twitterIt's already beginning to fracture into smaller pieces, and it will gradually melt and vanish forever, perhaps within the next two to three years.

Iceberg A-68 made up 12% of the area of Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, and there's a small yet significant chance that the loss could destabilize the rest of the shelf. (A similar collapse occurred with the nearby Larsen B ice shelf in 2002.)

Yet as researchers look into the causes of the rift that created the iceberg, a few have reached something of an impasse about the degree to which human activity contributed to this particular event — or whether it did at all.

The 'all natural' and 'wait and see' camps

One group that has closely studied the Antarctic Peninsula, where Larsen C is located, is Project Midas, led by Adrian Luckman, a glaciologist at Swansea University.

Starting around 2014, Project Midas began tracking a growing rift in the shelf's ice. By 2016, it was growing at a faster pace, and Luckman said in a blog post in January that a calving was imminent and would "fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula."

larsen c ice shelf diagram antarctica

However, Luckman and his colleagues declined to pin any blame for the calving event on global warming — at least not definitively.

"Despite the media and public fascination, the Larsen C rift and iceberg 'calving' is not a warning of imminent sea-level rise," Luckman wrote in a July 12 opinion piece for The Conversation. "This event has also been widely but oversimplistically linked to climate change."

But Luckman acknowledged that as the planet continues to warm because of greenhouse-gas emissions, "ice shelves are of particular scientific interest because they are susceptible both to atmospheric warming from above and ocean warming from below."

He also said his team had highlighted similarities between the collapses of the nearby Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002 — both of which weretied to global warming.

Luckman said he wasn't surprised that people assumed human activity was responsible for the emergence of iceberg A-68. After all, he added, "notable changes in the Earth's glaciers and ice sheets are normally associated with rising environmental temperatures."

But he thinks that in this instance, "it is probably too early to blame this event directly on human-generated climate change."

For one, he said, there's not yet any direct evidence; second, Larsen C has thickened somewhat in recent years; and third, the warming air and ocean water take a long time to penetrate floating ice sheets, which can be more than 1,000 feet thick.

Iceberg slideshow_02_thicknessOther scientists, such as Helen Amanda Fricker, a glaciologist who studies Antarctic ice for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, have offered similar explanations.

"Large calving events such as this are normal processes of a healthy ice sheet, ones that have occurred for decades, centuries, millennia — on cycles that are much longer than a human or satellite lifetime," Fricker wrote in The Guardian before A-68's calving. "What looks like an enormous loss is just ordinary housekeeping for this part of Antarctica."

Martin O'Leary, a colleague of Luckman's at Swansea and Project Midas, took a similar position shortly after the iceberg broke off.

"Although this is a natural event, and we're not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position," he said in a statement. "This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history. We're going to be watching very carefully for signs that the rest of the shelf is becoming unstable."

Missing the big picture?

However, other glaciologists and climate researchers have been quick to push back against such statements.

Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, told the CNN columnist John Sutter that deeming an event like this "natural" because of a lack of direct evidence was akin to looking "through a microscope."

Put another way, focusing too much on one iceberg misses the bigger, inevitable, and more important picture: Earth today has quickly warming oceans, warming air, and a changing climate (among other effects) due primarily to human activity, and this begets melting, weakening ice and subsequent sea-level rise.

"To me, it's an unequivocal signature of the impact of climate change on Larsen C," Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told CNN. "This is not a natural cycle. This is the response of the system to a warmer climate from the top and from the bottom. Nothing else can cause this."

Sutter added, "Rignot said colleagues who say otherwise are burying their heads 'in the ice.'"

iceberg antarctica sunset illustration shutterstock_220203454

As Andrea Thompson wrote for Climate Central, many ice shelves have been shrinking at increasing rates. Most are being lapped away from below by warmer ocean water, since air temperatures haven't risen significantly enough to melt their surfaces.

"But on the Antarctic Peninsula — the arm that stretches northward from the continent toward South America — rising air temperatures are impacting the ice," she wrote. "The region is a global hotspot for warming, with temperatures that have risen by about 5°F in the past 50 years, while the globe as a whole has warmed by about 1.3°F."

Even Fricker warned in her Guardian column that people shouldn't be tempted into complacency about the effects of global warming.

"Antarctic ice shelves overall are seeing accelerated thinning, and the ice sheet is losing mass in key sectors of Antarctica," she wrote. "Continuing losses might soon lead to an irreversible decline."

SEE ALSO: Antarctica's colossal new iceberg is doomed — here's what will happen to it next

DON'T MISS: I've studied Antarctica's giant iceberg for years, and it's not a simple story of climate change

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A 1.1-trillion-ton iceberg has broken off Antarctica, and scientists say it's one of the largest ever recorded

Wildfires are forcing thousands of Californians to evacuate

0
0

Detwiler Fire Wildfire Mariposa California

MARIPOSA, Calif. (Reuters) - A 25,000-acre wildfire in central California, one of three dozen major blazes burning across the U.S. West, threatened hundreds of homes and businesses on Wednesday after forcing the evacuation of about 5,000 residents.

There were 46 active large fires spread across 12 states, with 11 new blazes reported on Tuesday alone, according to National Interagency Fire Center website.

Around 4.4 million acres have been burnt since the start of 2017, compared to 2.7 million acres in the same period last year, it said.

Dry and windy conditions have fueled the wildfire season and thousands of people have been evacuated, including in Oregon and Nevada.

Firefighters managed to contain 5 percent of the Detwiler Fire, which threatened 1,500 structures in tiny foothill communities in the Sierra Nevada mountains, authorities said. Around 2,000 residents were ordered to flee Mariposa, California on Tuesday.

"Going to bed unsure whether Mariposa, my sweet hometown, will exist when I wake up," Jennifer Paquette said on Twitter late on Tuesday.

A total of 5,000 residents were forced to evacuate several small communities southwest of Yosemite National Park since the fire began on Sunday, the California Interagency Incident Management Team said in a tweet.

No injuries were reported as of Tuesday night, according to Cal Fire.

Photographs and videos posted on social media showed empty downtown streets in Mariposa and ash falling from the sky as an orange and pink glow hovered on the horizon during dusk on Tuesday evening.

"It has been terrifying to be honest. I have been crying a lot today," resident Tarah Eastwood told a CBS affiliate on Tuesday.

At least two of the five area Red Cross evacuation centers were at capacity late on Tuesday, according to social media posts.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Tuesday as the fire was approaching. The proclamation sends resources to the area.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Join the conversation about this story »

This mud volcano has been erupting for more than a decade — and scientists are still puzzled about the cause

0
0

RTR1NG4D

The world’s most destructive mud volcano was born near the town of Sidoarjo, on the island of Java, Indonesia, just over 11 years ago – and to this day it has not stopped erupting. The mud volcano known as Lusi started on May 29, 2006, and at its peak disgorged a staggering 180,000 cubic metres of mud every day, burying villages in mud up to 40 metres thick. The worst event of its kind in recorded history, the eruption took 13 lives and destroyed the homes of 60,000 people. But although the mud is still flowing more than a decade later, scientists are not yet agreed on its cause.

The debate is whether the eruption of Lusi was due to an earthquake several days previously, or down to a catastrophic failure of the Banjar Panji 1 gas exploration well that was being drilled nearby at the time. Given the huge impact of the volcano on the communities nearby and the fields that were their livelihoods, why are we still unsure of the cause?

Mud volcanoes are extremely common on Earth, with thousands of examples known worldwide. They come in many shapes and sizes and behave a little like their molten-rock counterparts, going through long periods of inactivity with periodic violent eruptions. Mud volcanoes, however, spew out not molten hot lava from the Earth’s mantle, but usually a cold mixture of gas, water and solids.

Some of the most spectacular examples of mud volcanoes are in Azerbaijan where they can range from a few metres across to the size of a small mountain. They are commonly found at tectonic plate boundaries, and also underwater at river deltas where sediment is buried rapidly, causing unusually high pressures to build up underground. The muddy mix is also pushed to the surface by the buoyant gas it contains. Usually mud volcanoes grow slowly, through layer upon layer of mud. What happened in Sidoarjo in 2006 is unique, with Lusi by far the fastest growing mud volcano we know of, having drowned surrounding houses, factories, places of worship and schools in a foul-smelling, emulsion-like mud.

mud volcano

Drilling or earthquake?

The journal Marine and Petroleum Geology is publishing a special issue that examines the ways this amazing phenomena is developing. It includes one paper by geoscientists Stephen Miller and Adriano Mazzini (“[More than ten years of Lusi: A review of facts, coincidences, and past and future studies”) that exhumes the debate of what caused the eruption, offering strong support for the earthquake as the trigger and dismissing the idea the borehole was responsible.

The explanation implicating the drilling is that water from surrounding bedrock entered the 2,834 metre-deep Banjar Panji 1 well, which for its lowest 1,743 metres was unprotected by steel and cement casing. The pressure the water exerted was enough to fracture surrounding rock or pre-existing faults. Mixing with underground mud from the Kalibeng Formation, which makes up part of Java’s geology, this pressurized water and mud rushed to the surface through a fault, forming the Lusi mud volcano just 200 metres from the drilling site.

The alternative explanation is that despite its proximity the drilling well was coincidental, and that the 6.3 magnitude Yogyakarta earthquake on May 27, 260km away had sent vibrations into the Kalibeng Formation’s mud layer, causing it to liquefy and rise to the surface under pressure.

RTR1ILQJ

That earthquakes can trigger eruptions has been documented as far back as Pliny’s Encyclopedia in the first century. It’s also the case that the eruption started as a series of small eruptions, all aligned along a geological fault, so the role of the earthquake certainly deserves full consideration. But in comparison with other eruptions triggered by earthquakes such as in Azerbaijan, Pakistan and California, the Yogyakarta earthquake was very far away given its size. More compelling still is that there have been bigger and closer earthquakes that have not triggered eruptions, while other earthquakes have caused greater shaking and vibrations right at the site of Lusi, yet nothing happened on those occasions. If the earthquake caused liquefaction we would expect to see the widespread release of gas from the liquefied layer – but a study by Mark Tingay and colleagues in 2015 showed this did not happen.

The well was drilled by the Indonesian company PT Lapindo Brantas, which blamed the earthquake. Information on the borehole was passed to us at the time, which showed there was an influx of water that we estimated was sufficient to cause the rocks around the uncased borehole to crack. So the new paper by Miller and Mazzini doesn’t bring any new information or reasoning to the debate, which will now probably remained mired unless new data from the borehole or from the critical period at the end of May 2006 comes to light, and this is unlikely.

Distinguishing between two hypotheses for a unique event can be a challenge. We cannot go back in time and collect the ideal set of data and samples to test the hypotheses, nor can we make direct comparisons with other similar phenomena for which we know the cause. There are other major disasters that we still cannot be certain had a man-made cause, such as earthquakes potentially triggered by filling dams with water.

In the case of Lusi, we very strongly favour the argument that the drilling was responsible, but neither of us were at the site of the incident almost two kilometers underground at the time to witness it, and more than ten years on it’s clear the data and reasoning behind our argument have yet to convince everyone.

SEE ALSO: See how geologists scoop molten-hot lava into a bucket for testing

Join the conversation about this story »

California lawmakers passed a landmark climate change bill — and environmental groups aren't happy about it

0
0
  • jerry brownCalifornia passed a bill Monday extending its successful "cap-and-trade" program to limit greenhouse gases.
  • Environmental groups are divided over the bill that Governor Jerry Brown touts as a climate change victory.
  • Business Insider spoke with environmental groups about their concerns before Brown signs it into law.

California's landmark climate change bill, passed Monday night, isn't popular with the state's environmentalists.

The cap-and-trade bill limits carbon emissions ("cap"), and requires greenhouse gas emissions permits for polluters. Some permits are given away ("trade"), while others are auctioned, generating money for the state. Democratic Governor Jerry Brown hailed the bill — which would extend the state's cap-and-trade program until 2030 — as a victory.

But over 50 of California's leading environmental groups have come out against the bill in the run-up to its passing, according to a tally from Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group that also opposes it.

California created its cap-and-trade program in 2013, and quickly turned the state into the second largest carbon market after the European Union. The program has successfully helped California reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, far surpassing the rest of the country.

While environmental groups largely support cap-and-trade programs as a way to fight climate change, many have issues with this bill because they say it increases industry hand-outs, was heavily influenced by oil lobbyists, and doesn't ratchet up efforts to stop global warming fast enough.

Giving polluters 'loopholes'

The Sierra Club was one of only a few national environmental organizations to oppose the bill, because it allocates much of the money made from the cap-and-trade program for practices that aren't good for the planet.

"The point of the cap-and-trade money has been to go out and invest in things that will get you reductions as soon as possible, that's what we believe," Kathryn Phillips, director of the California branch of the Sierra Club, told Business Insider. "We're in a situation where time is not on our side — we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible. Using this money for other things doesn't help the environment."

california wildfireThe bill allows energy producers to claim a tax break. But it's vaguely worded, so energy producers that the Sierra Club doesn't consider "clean," like biomass, could be included.

The bill also gets rid of a "fire fee" that funded fire prevention in mostly rural areas, which many Republicans and people living in those areas opposed.

Widening the tax cut plus getting rid of the fire fee could cost the state up to $350 million a year over the decade, totaling up to $3.5 billion. The bill leaves open the possibility of using greenhouse gas reduction funds to pay for that, which is what the Sierra Club objects to.

Food and Water Watch commented on the tax breaks too, stating in a press release that "this bill gives polluters loopholes and tax breaks that could result in increased emissions."

While the bill extended California's cap-and-trade program, it actually "increases industry hand-outs,"according to Amy Vanderwarker, co-director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA). Vanderwarker said the oil industry allowances "hinder our ability to achieve on-the-ground greenhouse gas emission reductions."

Vanderwarker and CEJA sent Business Insider their analysis of certain sections of the bill text, shown below:

The Sierra Club is also concerned that the money could be used to harm the environment. For example, if manufacturing tax breaks are used to encourage biomass incineration where the source is trees, the company could start unsustainably harvesting live trees once they run out of dead ones.

Finally, the group was concerned with language in the bill that restricted the ability of local air districts to control carbon dioxide levels in their communities, a sentiment other environmental organizations shared. According to Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a CEJA member, the new cap-and-trade bill "purposefully undermines the authority of local and state agencies" to regulate clean air and water.

'There are going to be compromises'

biomass wood power plantSome environmental groups have come out in support of the bill, however, including the Environmental Defense Fund.

"With any proposal of this complexity, there are going to be compromises involved," Fund attorney Erica Morehouse told Inside Climate News. "But it's important to keep an eye on the whole package — and this is a strong package that will maintain California's climate leadership and improve air quality."

The National Resources Defense Council also supported the bill. When Business Insider reached out to them to comment on some of the concerns other groups had, David Pettit, a senior attorney with NRDC's Southern California air team, said while it was true local air districts couldn't regulate a refinery under the cap-and-trade law, local air districts could regulate the facility's emissions of certain pollutants, which he thinks is more significant.

"Only a small fraction of allowances will be free," Noah Long, legal director of Western Energy at NRDC, told Business Insider, referring to the industry allowances CEJA was concerned about. "The state will bring in billions in allowance revenue from polluters."

Anne Notthoff, director of California advocacy at NRDC, commented that "biomass faces multiple obstacles to expansion in California" already.

Oil industry input

Los Angeles

Phillips, from the Sierra Club, was also concerned that an "artificial deadline" had been set up in the bill's creation process, and that negotiations weren't open to environmental or environmental justice groups. The bill did not go through the usual committee process that would have allowed more negotiation, and from the beginning, she argues, it was heavily influenced by fossil fuel industry groups.

While the oil industry didn't officially take a position on the bill, Phillips said "they had a lot of lobbyists working to get the bill passed. State Assemblyman Mark Stone — one of few Democrats to vote against the bill — did so for that reason.

"It is telling that oil companies, utilities, and polluting manufacturers no longer have problems with the measure, but environmentalists and anti-poverty groups remain opposed,"Stone said in a statement.

Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva also voted against the bill because it didn't go far enough to protect citizens from pollution.

The bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and did so with a bipartisan effort. It now heads to Governor Brown's desk. A source at the capitol told Business Insider that Brown and legislators are still working out the time and place, so a signing date hasn't been yet, but Brown is expected to sign it into law.

SEE ALSO: The governor of California and Michael Bloomberg launched a new plan to fight climate change — with or without Trump

DON'T MISS: Just don't call it 'climate change': What Republicans in Dallas can teach us about saving the planet

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists overlooked a major problem with going to Mars — and they fear it could be a suicide mission

A last-resort ‘planet-hacking’ plan could make Earth habitable for longer — but scientists warn it could have dramatic consequences

0
0

 A passenger plane flies through aircraft contrails in the skies near Heathrow Airport in London, Britain, April 12, 2015. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

One way to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising into a city-drowning, hurricane-strengthening, heat-stroke–triggering danger zone is to immediately switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

At the moment, that transition seems unlikely. So scientists and tech innovators are also investigating various forms of geoengineering — an approach that involves transforming the Earth's clouds and skies in ways that help cool the planet or suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

That idea, however, is extremely controversial. Some researchers believe such work could be a necessary part of the fight against climate change, but others argue that meddling with the planet exposes the world to a host of new risks. Plus, there's a growing fear that a rogue actor trying to achieve something "good" could attempt one of these globe-altering projects and spark a devastating international conflict.

Two new papers published July 20 in the journal Science investigate two of the most well-studied geoengineering strategies: cirrus cloud modification and injecting sulfur into the atmosphere.

The authors of the papers make clear that these approaches are very risky and far from viability — so much so, in fact, that most researchers hope they never become necessary. But the papers also lay out the reasons why these strategies might work and are worth studying.  

Recreating a volcanic eruption

If we delay aggressively cutting greenhouse gas emissions until 2040, authors Ulrike Niemeier and Simone Tilmes write in Science, the global temperature is projected to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That is an increase that most scientists agree would create dramatic, irreversible consequences for human civilization and the planet.

The authors pick that as the point at which drastic intervention might be needed in order to stave off disaster. One option in that case would be to mimic a volcanic eruption.

When a volcano erupts, it spews forth lava, gas, and smoke, filling the skies with sulfur. Those clouds of sulfur reflect more of the sun's solar radiation back into space and away from Earth, which has a cooling effect on the planet. 

volcano_thumb_3

Researchers are investigating how this effect could be artificially recreated. The leading proposal involves planes that would inject sulfur into the atmosphere. 

Niemeier and Tilmes reviewed the math, and said that in order to counteract the temperature rise at that point, we'd have to inject the atmosphere with the amount of sulfur that was created by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo every year for 160 years. (For context, the Pinatubo eruption was the second largest of the 20th century.)

This effort, they write, would require 6,700 sulfur-injection flights per day — at a cost of about $20 billion a year.

The authors also note that the technology required for this aerosol modification in the stratosphere doesn't exist yet, and that their timeline assumes that global carbon emissions would reach zero before 2100.

We're still far from understanding all the risks involved with injecting sulfur into our atmosphere; however, a major one is the destruction of ozone, the layer that helps keep dangerous ultraviolet radiation from reaching Earth. The sulfur approach would also cool land more than oceans, which would continue to change and acidify. And it would transform tropical monsoons, reducing rainfall and potentially causing droughts in places like India.

Transforming the clouds in the sky

Another drastic approach to cooling our planet would be to alter a certain type of heat-trapping cloud.

One of the most confounding variables in climate models is the effect of clouds in sky, climate scientist Kate Marvel explained at TED 2017. Clouds can send solar radiation back into space, thereby helping to cool the planet. But they can also trap heat on Earth, playing a similar role to greenhouse gases like CO2.

cirrus clouds

All climate projections show a warming trend, but the role of clouds, Marvel says, is why "some of them project catastrophe — more than five times the warming we've seen already — and others are literally more chill."

Cirrus clouds, the thin, wispy ones that look like streaks in the sky, don't reflect much radiation and can trap a good amount of heat.

So authors Ulrike Lohmann and Blaz Gasparini write in Science that researchers are investigating ways to thin such clouds and let more heat escape, as the diagram below shows. This would be done by planting tiny particles (like chemicals, desert dust, or pollen) into cirrus clouds to break them apart — a process known as seeding.

cirrus cloud seeding

 

This approach also comes with a list of risks, the authors write.

According to the paper, if the seeding process goes too far, or scientists didn't get the location perfectly right, new cirrus clouds could form in places where they didn't exist before, "creating additional warming rather than the intended cooling."

Plus, just like the sulfur injections, cirrus thinning wouldn't decrease the levels of CO2 already in the air or lower the amount we're still releasing to the atmosphere. And ocean acidification would continue.

"In theory it could be done," Alan Robock, an environmental science professor at Rutgers who was not involved with the new papers, told Business Insider. But no one has ever tried it, and "it's still relatively early days in terms of knowing whether it would work."

But there's another major risk involved with developing technology that allows us to tinker with the planet's climate systems: Human conflict. 

Permission to transform the world

Once geoengineering technology and methods are developed, a situation could arise in which one country or rich individual decides to try it out on their own.

In an editorial published alongside the new papers in Science, authors from the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Initiative pointed out that the world's governments don't have a framework yet for deciding whether or not "the potential global benefit of geoengineering is worth the risks to certain regions."

In an absolute worst case scenario, one rogue actor claiming they were trying to do good could attempt some kind of geoengineering project that winds up triggering environmental disaster, like massive droughts, in another country. That could lead to a destabilizing global conflict.

This may sound extreme, but Robock said he once participated in a discussion at a geoengineering conference in which the question of worst possible outcomes was raised. One answer was particularly sobering, he said: global nuclear war.

The easier solution

At TED 2017, Marvel likened geoengineering to "going to a doctor who says 'You have a fever, I know exactly why you have a fever, and we're not going to treat that. We're going to give you ibuprofen, and also your nose is going to fall off.'"

In other words, it's like using a very risky band-aid without ever solving the original problem: greenhouse gas emissions.

Even if these geoengineering strategies were to work as planned, trying to change the planet's natural systems without stopping emissions in the first place would be stupid, because we wouldn't eradicate the primary factor causing warming.

The Carnegie Council scholars wrote in their editorial that embarking on a geoengineering project without cutting emissions might mean that we need to continue modifying our stratosphere for centuries with unknown side effects. And even if we did that, we'd still need to develop ways to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and store that carbon safely.

Researchers are making progress in that area — one recent study found a way to accelerate a chemical reaction that could help safely store carbon in the ocean. But there's still much to be done and that science is still in very early stages.

Robock points out an obvious truth in regards to all of these radical possibilities: It would be safer for people to simply come together now and figure out how to stop fossil fuel emissions.

To keep the planet at a stable temperature, even the Paris Agreement goals would need to be made significantly more aggressive. Given Trump's vow to pull the US out of the international accord, that might seem unlikely right now, but Robock thinks it's possible.

"With charismatic leadership, things can change very quickly," he said. "I'm optimistic the world will do that and we won't need to use geoengineering."

Hopefully, Robock's optimism proves to be justified.

SEE ALSO: Bioterrorism experts are worried that drug-resistant plague could be used as a weapon

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I tried the 7-minute workout for a month — here's what happened

Trump's new communications director once compared the consensus on climate change to the belief that the world was flat

0
0

Anthony Scaramucci CNN interview

In a December 2016 interview on CNN, Anthony Scaramucci — the new White House communications director — compared the consensus on climate change to the belief that the world was flat, Slate reported at the time.

"I know that the current president believes that the human beings are affecting the climate. There are scientists that believe that that's not happening," Scaramucci said.

When CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pointed that the "overwhelming consensus in the scientific community" is that humans are driving climate change, Scaramucci said people also once accepted the idea that the Earth was flat.

"Chris, there was an overwhelming science that the Earth was flat and there was an overwhelming science that we were the center of the world. One hundred percent. We get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community," Scaramucci said. 

Cuomo talked over him: "It's called ignorance," he said. "You learn over time." 

Scaramucci responded: "I'm not suggesting we’re not affecting the change, I honestly don't know. I'm not a scientist. If you're asking for my opinion."

"I’m not," Cuomo said.

As Slate's Phil Plait pointed out, Scaramucci was actually wrong about there being a 100% consensus that the Earth was flat.

"The ancient Greeks knew we lived on a sphere more than 2,000 years ago," Plait wrote.

In the same interview, Scaramucci also brought up another controversial idea: how old the Earth is.

"You're saying the scientific community knows, and I'm saying people have gotten things wrong throughout the 5,500-year history of our planet," he said, then later corrected himself to clarify that he meant human history, not Earth's entire history. 

Modern humans have actually been around for roughly 200,000 years, however.

You can watch the exchange below, though the embedded video cuts off before Scaramucci corrects himself. 

 

SEE ALSO: 'We rough each other up a little': Scaramucci tries to move past friction with Reince Priebus

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This Yale biologist has a fascinating theory of how women changed human evolution

Baby Boomers could irreversibly ruin the planet for Millennials — and the clock is ticking

0
0

apollo 8 earth blue marble nasa

Twenty-nine years ago, James Hansen, the director of NASA's Institute for Space Studies, told the US Senate that the question of the day — whether climate change was happening — was no longer in doubt.

"It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here," Hansen told reporters at the time.

Hansen's testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 23, 1988 — coincidentally the hottest June 23 in the District of Columbia's recorded history— is frequently considered the most important climate change hearing in history.

The greenhouse effect that Hansen described — in which the widespread combustion of fossil fuels causes a heat-trapping buildup of gases like carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere — has since become almost common knowledge. For more than 400,000 years, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 fluctuated between just under 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm). Levels are now over 400 ppm and climbing.

The most alarming consequences of that change, like an uninhabitable planet, are still far off. But the near-term effects of climate change, things people alive today will see, include rising sea levels, exaggerated temperature extremes, and stronger hurricanes and typhoons.

The question Hanson's testimony raised was what would be done about that threat. Leading scientists had spoken; political leaders had the information; and even ExxonMobil researchers had privately concluded that "major reductions in fossil fuel combustion" would be needed to prevent "potentially catastrophic events," according to prizewinning investigative reporting.

But the answer to that question, nearly 30 years later, is pretty much nothing.

The more time passes, the more difficult and expensive fixing the climate problem will get. Hansen is still sounding alarms — in a study published this week, he calculated that future generations could be forced to spend more than $530 trillion cleaning C02 out of the atmosphere (something we don't yet know how to do). For context, the entire US budget is about $4 trillion annually.

That's quite a burden to leave the children of the future.

The leaders that got us here

People's Climate March (3 of 20)After Hansen's testimony, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works sent a letter to Lee Thomas, the EPA administrator, asking for an examination of policy options that would help stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

"It was shelved,"Mary Wood, head of the University of Oregon School of Law's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center, told Business Insider.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush, who would take the presidential oath the following January, vowed to"fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect."

That didn't happen. In fact, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Bush famously declared that "the American way of life is not up for negotiation."

The members of the 101st Congress in 1989 hailed mostly from the Silent Generation (the average age was about 53) and to be fair, they were stuck with a problem created by past generations, too. But by the time those leaders were in power, they had access to knowledge about the scale of the problem that previous generations' representatives did not.

hottest yearOf course, behavioral psychologists and economists know that humans aren't good at coming together to deal with problems whose consequences seem far off.

"On any issue, it takes an enormous amount of effort to overcome the status quo," environmentalist and author Bill McKibben told Business Insider. "In the case of climate change, it's doubly hard, since you have to deal with the entire world. In a certain way, we shouldn't be too surprised about how difficult it's all been."

But the biggest barrier to action hasn't been cooperation, nor a lack of information.

"It turned out that we were not engaged in an argument for which more evidence and data was the cure — we'd won the argument long ago," McKibben said. "It was a fight, and it was about money and power … And that one we were losing."

The power of money and misinformation

Energy company executives have long known the scientific consensus on global warming. Exxon leaders were informed by company scientists that there was general scientific agreement on the topic in the 1970s. Oil giant Shell created a film in 1991 explaining the future threats of extreme weather, flood, famine, and climate-related conflict.

But they also knew that a serious fight against climate change would hurt their businesses, and lobbied against regulation.

In the early 2000s, groups connected to energy billionaires like the Koch brothers also started funding efforts to discredit climate science. As Jane Mayer explained in her book "Dark Money," political consultant Frank Luntz showed these groups how to persuade voters that the science wasn't clear.

"On cue, organizations funded and directed by the Kochs tore into global warming science and the experts behind it," Mayer wrote. From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs spent almost $25 million funding anti-climate groups, according to the book.

Such groups poured money into political campaigns, directed at candidates (often Republicans) who voiced doubts about the established science. According to a 2013 study, organizations connected to fossil fuel companies have spent almost half a billion dollars on "a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate."

And lo and behold, political inaction continued. In 2001, George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which would have gone into effect and required emissions cuts by 2008. (Bill Clinton initially signed it.)

In the most recent presidential election, Republican candidates had already been given a total of more than $100 million from fossil fuel barons by March 2016. President Trump's administration is now full of officials who don't accept the scientific consensus on climate change.

"A government decision maker that has taken money from the fossil fuel industry cannot simply turn around and take action on the climate the next day," Wood said. "They've been compromised, they've breached the duty of loyalty."

The influence that fossil fuels companies now have in politics, Wood added, has created a conflict of interest between government officials and citizens that's "the size of the Gulf of Mexico." Ironically, the Gulf is particularly at risk of being destroyed by the thousands of oil spills that happen there every year.

Gulf of Mexico oil

A straightforward solution

Those in office during Hansen's initial testimony may have been part of the Silent Generation, but by the 111th Congress in 2011, the average age of leaders in the House and Senate marked them as Baby Boomers. And their generation has failed to confront the problem, too.

Of course, it's wrong to blame two full generations for our climate crisis (as tempting as that may be for Millennials, Gen Z and the generations to come). Many members of those generations have spent their lives pushing for solutions, and it's unfair to villainize the average layperson for the actions of politicians or the 100 companies that are responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions since 1988.

However, the window in which action can still avert the most devastating consequences of climate change is rapidly shrinking. Hansen recently told reporters that his new study suggests putting the problem off for even a few more years could create a situation where "the costs of trying to maintain a livable planet may be too high to bear."

That means that the Baby Boomers currently running our country and energy companies are in a unique position. They may be our last line of defense, our final chance to fix the situation.

"It's a historic moment, because we're at the last possible moment of opportunity to avert irrevocable catastrophe," Wood said.

The solution is simple.

china solar panels"The irony of all this is that it's been entirely clear from the beginning what we need to do," McKibben said. "It has to look like the very rapid conversion to 100% renewable energy."

Eventually, the world will run out of fossil fuels and be forced to make that switch — though if we burn through all oil, gas, and coal before we do so, the planet will be drastically different. Many researchers believe the right policies can facilitate a much faster transition.

"We undertake enormous expenditures to do things that we think are in the long term interest, national security expenses for example, undertaken with a view that they protect us against future threats,"Larry Karp, an economist at UC Berkeley, told Business Insider.

Wood also likens the threat of climate change — and necessary action — to military efforts.

"There was certainly a consensus in World War II when everyone stepped up to the threat. Car manufacturers made military equipment, toy manufacturers made gun bets — that kind of war effort was incredible then and that's exactly what's needed now," said Wood. "It takes a real leader to meet that threat."

There are substantial bipartisan arguments in favor of switching to renewable energy: It's the only way for the US to achieve energy independence, and the falling price of renewables has already created a market trend towards cleaner energy.

Plus, the cost of such a transition would be far cheaper than the alternative. A 2014 report by the International Energy Agency estimated that transitioning away from fossil fuels by 2050 would cost the world $44 trillion. But by cutting fuel use, the report estimates, we'd avoid $115 trillion in fuel costs, which would more pay for the switch.

Rising activism around the world

As older leaders continue to stall, millions of individuals in younger generations are now pushing for policies and investments that could avert the worst effects of climate change.

"It became clear, we've got to organize for some power of our own," said McKibben — a Boomer who's devoted his career to this cause.

Competing with oil and gas interests isn't viable on a financial level. But political mobilization is.

McKibben's organization 350.org, is filled with young activists leading initiatives to fight projects like the Keystone Pipeline and other new oil, coal, and gas developments.

Climate-related lawsuits are on the rise around the world as well. In the US, a group of 21 kids, aged 9 to 21, are currently suing the federal government. They argue that by engaging in actions that contribute to climate change despite long-held knowledge of its dangerous consequences, the government has violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.

youth climate lawsuit our children's trust

Hansen's granddaughter Sophie Kivlehan is one of those kids. And if their lawsuit succeeds, they'd establish a fundamental right to a stable climate and compel agencies to pursue that goal.

Advocacy like this has contributed to the emergence of a stronger global consensus about the need to curb emissions.

"Paris was a success, though you have to squint a little bit to see it — at least everyone agreed there was a problem," McKibben said.

Although President Trump has said he will pull the US out of the agreement, cities and states around the country are vowing to meet its emissions reductions goals anyway. Other countries, including China and the EU, have said they plan to stick to their pledges no matter what.

The question, however, is whether any of these efforts can yield results quickly enough.

"In order to catch up with the physics of climate change we have to go at an exponential rate," McKibben said. "It's not as if this was a static problem. If we don't get to it very soon, we'll never get to it."

The looming cliff

himalayan glacier getty

More Gen Xers and Millennials are assuming positions of authority every day. But the threat of climate change is quickly getting harder to deal with.

I am a Millennial — I was born five years before Hansen's testimony — and I'm also a new father. I wonder every day if we will solve this in time for my son to avoid the most disastrous versions of climate model projections.

"He's going to look back and think, 'what the hell were you all thinking,'" McKibben said of my son. "And the answer will be that we weren't thinking enough."

"Huge swaths of the world will be living in places that by the end of the century will have heat waves so deep that people won't be able to deal with them, you have sea level rising dramatically, to the point that most of the world's cities are drowning, the ocean turning into a hot, sour, breathless soup as it acidifies and warms," McKibben said.

The legislators currently in power could not, of course, be held responsible for that stark future. And they're not to blame for a problem that started at the beginning of the industrial era. But by virtue of their position at this moment, they're the ones with the power to finally do something.

"They're sitting in a historic moment that is cast upon them by nature itself," Wood said. "Everybody in the future will know that we sat in this one fleeting moment of time. Everybody will know who stood up and who stood on the sidelines."

SEE ALSO: A last-resort ‘planet-hacking’ plan could make Earth habitable for longer — but scientists warn it could have dramatic consequences

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you get bitten by a black widow spider


Why cleaning up toxic sites isn’t always good for the community

0
0

6218566886_768d9b33d9_b

San Francisco has embarked on a project to transform its industrial southeast waterfront into a bike-friendly destination called the Blue Greenway. When completed, the Blue Greenway will be a 13-mile network of parks, bike lanes, and trails along the southeastern edge of the city.

Among its many benefits, the project creates green space and waterfront access in the low-income Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. The Blue Greenway is part of a larger transformation of Bayview Hunters Point. This older, neglected neighborhood is still full of vacant lots and a large, abandoned naval base, but it is becoming a landscape of hip townhomes and new coffee shops. Its transformation includes the complicated cleanup of many toxic waste sites — most notoriously, a military radiation lab on the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

The Blue Greenway project cleans up toxic land along its route with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program, which supports the cleanup and reuse of contaminated sites. Brownfield redevelopment projects like the Blue Greenway are intended to bring environmental and economic benefits to run-down urban areas. And yet, as I have found in my own research, they can also contribute to gentrification and economic displacement.

san fran

Recycling land

Brownfields are contaminated sites such as old gas stations, dry cleaning facilities, former factories, and power plants. In the case of the Blue Greenway, they are small, vacant lots in old industrial areas and median strips along the road.

Brownfields are less heavily contaminated than sites on the EPA’s Superfund list, which can take decades to clean up. The brownfields program is designed to move more quickly and make contaminated sites available for reuse. Ideally, returning these sites to use stimulates the economy and revitalizes neighborhoods. The program is widely popular with people who live near brownfield sites, as well as with city politicians and the private sector, which profits from the business of cleanup and redevelopment.

Even EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a forceful advocate of cutting back federal environmental protection, has voiced support of the brownfields program, calling it “absolutely essential.” When the agency released $56 million in brownfield grants in May, Pruitt lauded the program for “improving local economies and creating an environment where jobs can grow.”

The EPA’s brownfield program was developed in the mid-1990s to provide incentives for states and companies to voluntarily clean up toxic spills and vacant industrial sites. At that point, Superfund was the only federal program that managed toxic cleanups. Superfund cleanups are federally mandated, top-down projects in which the EPA has significant enforcement authority — notably, to make polluters pay for the cleanup.

In contrast, the brownfields program is more market-friendly. It decentralizes authority to states and offers incentives for voluntary cleanups, such as grants, tax breaks, and other subsidies.

The brownfields program emerged at a moment when many U.S. cities sought to redevelop their postindustrial areas. In contrast to Superfund, which at that time had little to say about land reuse, brownfields projects aimed not just to clean up industrial sites, but to redevelop and reuse them. The word “brownfield” itself is a real estate term: Brownfields are the opposite of “greenfields,” or undeveloped land.

In this way, brownfields redevelopment projects are often framed as environmental solutions to urban de-industrialization. As the U.S. Conference of Mayors stated in a 1999 report, the brownfields program helps “recycle America’s land.”

Fruitvale

Preventing ‘green gentrification’

However, these projects also raise questions about environmental justice. Many brownfield sites are concentrated in low-income communities of color. This spatial concentration of toxic sites is, in part, an effect of redlining — the practice of denying loans to racial minorities based on color-coded neighborhood maps of financial risk. It is also an effect of 20th-century patterns of inner-city disinvestment and discriminatory zoning policies, which allowed for the siting of hazardous industries in low-income neighborhoods. Together, these and other factors have produced well-documented geographical entanglements of race and toxic waste.

At its best, brownfield redevelopment can transform vacant lots into parks and bring other amenities to neglected neighborhoods. It is most successful when local communities are meaningfully involved in the planning process, and when it is combined with other policies aimed to reduce social and economic inequalities.

One successful example is Fruitvale Transit Village in East Oakland, California, where a nonprofit called The Unity Council led the transformation of an old rail parking lot into a mixed-use development. The complex includes a senior center, a library, a health clinic, and a mix of market-rate and affordable housing.

But these projects can also contribute to green gentrification by increasing land values and rents and displacing low-income residents. One example is New York City’s High Line, an old elevated rail line that was “recycled” into a destination by converting it into a walkable pathway, lined by native plants. Today the High Line is an enormously popular attraction. It also has spurred development that has priced many small businesses and less wealthy households out of the neighborhood.

RTX3B1DQ

Fewer cleanups

Ideally, the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice could help to address some of the inequalities produced by brownfields cleanups. However, President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget for the EPA eliminates this office. It also cuts funding for the brownfield program by 30 percent, from $48 million to $33 million, along with large cuts to Superfund cleanups and emergency response capabilities and other hazardous waste management programs.

These cutbacks threaten the lives and livelihoods of all U.S. residents, and are unpopular among both Democrats and Republicans. Yet, because of the legacies of race and industrial zoning patterns, their effects will fall hardest on already marginalized communities.

What can be done?

One way to protect communities from both toxic waste and green gentrification would be to increase funding for the EPA’s Brownfield Job Training Program, assuming that it survives the Trump administration. Many brownfield communities struggle with unemployment, and residents are easily priced out of neighborhoods as they become more expensive to live in. The Brownfield Job Training Program creates jobs for low-income residents, which can help them reap some of the benefits of brownfield redevelopment.

State support for affordable housing and community land trusts also can complement brownfield cleanups. Successful community land trusts are managed by nonprofits that buy land and build affordable homes. The homes are sold to local residents, while the nonprofit retains ownership of the land. This strategy can protect low-income neighborhoods from commercial developers.

More broadly, our notions of “sustainability” and “urban greening” ought to include values of justice and equity. Otherwise, important projects like the Blue Greenway will build sustainable waterfronts for the urban elite, rather than spreading the environmental benefits of toxic cleanup to the many.

SEE ALSO: There's only one way for the US to reach energy independence

Join the conversation about this story »

A billionaire is building a huge wind farm in Wyoming, and lawmakers want to raise the tax on wind

0
0

11070849496_e6c1161a77_k

There’s the Wyoming you see on postcards — the snow-dusted mountains and caramel-colored prairies where movie stars build their second homes.

But there’s another Wyoming — the one that powers America’s homes and businesses.

The Cowboy State churns out more coal than all of Appalachia, and it’s home to some of the strongest winds on the continent.

The Rocky Mountains funnel air across flat, open prairies, producing winds that rival the most powerful ocean gales.

In Carbon County, Wyoming — so named for its abundant reserves of coal — conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz is building the country’s largest wind farm.

Its 1,000 turbines could generate enough electricity to power every home in Los Angeles and San Francisco — electricity that will be shipped to California by way of a brand new 700-mile transmission line.

1 o9PA7ROPlCvuxFtdyyM_iwAnschutz, who owns the conservative news outlets The Weekly Standard and The Washington Examiner, has given millions to Republican politicians. But, despite his political leanings, and the promise of hundreds of construction jobs in Carbon County, his project — and others like it — have faced persistent headwinds in the Republican-dominated state legislature.

Earlier this year, legislators tried to prevent Wyoming utilities from selling wind power. The bill went nowhere, but it points to an undercurrent of hostility toward wind. Wyoming is currently the only state to tax wind power, and legislators have pushed to raise the wind tax from $1 per megawatt hour to $3 or $5. Anschutz’s business fought both proposed tax hikes, which died in committee.

Republican legislator Mike Madden, who championed these measures, made his feelings clear. “These wind guys,” he said, “they feel that they are just too good to be taxed.”

1 tH_bBh6XwjcDBLhYJcSZPQMadden, like his colleagues, is trying to fill a hole in the state budget. Wyoming has no income tax. Oil, gas and coal royalties supply most of the state’s revenue. Now, coal is in decline. Consumption is waning, and workers are losing their jobs. This has produced a budget shortfall for which there is no easy fix.

Under the current system, Wyoming effectively imports its tax revenue. Most coal is shipped to power plants out of state, meaning ratepayers in Texas, California and elsewhere pay the tax on coal. If you buy electricity from a power plant anywhere in the United States that burns Wyoming coal, you are helping to put Wyoming teachers in Wyoming schools and lay Wyoming asphalt on Wyoming roads.

In recent years, falling demand for coal has starved the state of essential revenue. Legislators need to fill the budget gap, but there is little interest in imposing an income tax. So they are slashing expenditures and looking to other sources of revenue.

Together, Wyoming’s powerful winds and budget woes have produced a peculiar cast of characters — in Anschutz, a conservative media magnate pushing for renewable energy, and in Madden, a pugnacious libertarian furiously trying to raise taxes.

Madden says he harbors no ill feelings toward wind. His motives are ideological. Asked if he felt a responsibility to protect coal jobs — which are fleeing the state in droves — he said, “I’m not interested in picking one of our resources and protecting it. That obviously is not my philosophy at all. I want the free market to pick it, not to have government politicians pick it.”

1 8Ys PuWTiZCkmPsFafMOtAMadden is nothing if not consistent, and his approach to tax policy would strike many as reasonable. But experts warn against raising the wind tax at a time when the state is trying to attract developers and create new jobs.

“Wyoming is perceived by many wind developers to be kind of anti-wind,” said University of Wyoming economist Robert Godby. “Suddenly the state is suggesting that we might raise the tax by four or five times? That’s not conducive to economic development. Tax uncertainty is almost as bad as having high taxes.”

Wind is a multi-billion dollar opportunity for Wyoming. Anschutz’s wind farm and transmission line come with an $8 billion price tag. Renewable energy developer Viridis Eolia is building a $3 billion wind project. And Rocky Mountain Power is spending $3 billion in Wyoming on another wind farm and transmission line.

Godby fears the state’s perceived hostility toward wind could ward off future projects: “Imagine you’re in the board room of a major wind developer, and you’re suggesting a billion-dollar investment, and you say I’m going to put it in New Mexico or Nevada or Wyoming. The board might say, ‘Well, we’re not putting it in Wyoming.’”

Notably, Wyoming’s attitudes toward wind are about more than just money. Many in the Cowboy State see turbines as a blight on the landscape. Wyoming is defined by its jagged mountains and open prairies. Wind farms threaten to mar its most treasured vistas.

“You can be camping on the plains, maybe a sleeping bag rolled out on the ground, not even a tent over your head, and you can feel like you are on the same plains that Native Americans have experienced for millennia,” said Godby. “But then you turn around and look behind you, and the entire horizon might be red blinking lights from the wind turbines, and those really kind of infuriate people.”

1 naDExa ryoo8brnce5lzAwA wind developer, who asked to remain anonymous, recalled a trip to the state capital: “One legislator in particular said, ‘We don’t want more wind. We want you to burn more coal.’ They say, ‘I hate wind. I hate seeing those turbines. They’re killing our landscape, and I just don’t like it.’”

Of course, attitudes may change. Wind turbines, now regarded as an eyesore, may come to represent industry, security and prosperity. To that end, Godby said legislators should leverage tax policy to attract more wind jobs.

“We could say, ‘Hey, If you build a wind facility, and the manufacturing of some of those components occurs in Wyoming, we will give you a tax break,’” he explained. This would draw new wind projects and manufacturing outfits, delivering a wealth of jobs and tax revenue. Wind energy, said Godby, “is the biggest opportunity presenting itself to the state.”

Wyoming finds itself in an unusual place. Nationwide, the shift to clean energy will likely create millions of jobs, but there will be winners and losers. Wind-rich Iowa will cash in on demand for cheap, low-carbon power, while coal-dependent West Virginia stands to lose more jobs than it gains. Wyoming straddles both sides of the energy divide.

Coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin is among the cheapest and purest around. Decades from now, when the final shipment of American coal heads to the last remaining coal-fired power plant, it will depart from a Wyoming mine. Along the way, that train will pass some of the most productive wind farms in the country.

How fast will the future come? It’s hard to say. Reflecting on the fate of wind in Wyoming, Rep. Madden conceded, “It’s a resource in a like manner to coal and natural gas and so on.” He then paused for a moment before returning to his favorite talking point: “I just think that it’s fair not to pick a favorite.”

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says it's possible to power the US entirely with solar

Join the conversation about this story »

Over a cold beer in Vienna, I decided to stop flying so much — here's why

0
0

Airport beer

Over a cold beer at a conference in Vienna, I decided to stop flying so much.

I was talking to Charlie, a friend with wild hair and even wilder ideas.

He was describing his adventurous 15-hour train trip from his home northeast of London.

I confessed I’d taken a boring flight from Copenhagen in under 2 hours.

“How do you make your life work without flying?” I asked.

“I decided to stop flying within Europe. It’s doable,” he replied.

Something clicked. I could do that too.

As a climate change scientist, I knew full well that each time I took a long plane trip, I was unleashing the equivalent of up to three tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

I knew that this was more than I should be emitting in a whole year by 2050 if I want to do my share to meet global climate targets and avoid the worst impacts of dangerous climate change.

So I knew I was contributing to a ticking carbon bomb in the atmosphere that will change life as we know it. If humans don’t immediately start bending the emissions curve towards zero, my own research, for example, shows that climate change could devastate wheat yields in Australia and stress the wine industry in my home state of California.  

Leaning on the brass bar talking to Charlie, I felt it was time to face some uncomfortable truths about my personal contribution to this global problem.  

And I know I’m not alone. About half of global emissions from household consumption come from just 10 percent of the population, mostly in the developed world- a category that included me, and at least half of the residents of countries like Germany, the UK, and the US.

For years, friends and colleagues, students and cocktail-party acquaintances have asked me what they could do about climate change. Which personal choices would make the biggest difference?

I struggled to answer, overwhelmed by analysis paralysis and caveats.

sa2But my colleague Seth Wynes and I have just published a study in Environmental Research Letters that provides some answers, focused on the power of personal actions that can make the biggest difference for the climate. We compiled 39 sources and put them in terms of their full life-cycle climate impact each year.

We found that individuals living in developed countries can take four fundamental steps that can significantly shrink their personal contribution to climate change. They are:

Step 1: Consider a plant-based diet

We found that switching to a meat-free diet for a year would cut the equivalent of 0.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2e)—about four times more effective for the climate than comprehensively recycling for a year.

That savings is thanks to cutting methane emissions from livestock, as well as the greater efficiency of eating plants directly, rather than first feeding plants to animals. And because producing meat (especially beef) requires so much land, water, and other resources, eating plants is an enormous win for the environment overall. Research shows it’s also a win for health, reducing the incidence of Type II diabetes and some cancers.

Step 2: Travel overland

Finding ways to fly less can deliver a big win for the climate. Our study shows that skipping one transatlantic flight (say, a round trip from London to New York) saves an average of 1.6 tons of CO2e (and avoiding one long-haul plane trip, like London to Tokyo, can save nearly twice that).

Consider that most people on Earth have never flown in an airplane, and most Americans probably didn’t fly in the last year. For frequent flyers, flying less is the first place to look to save tons of carbon.

Step 3: Live car-free

Finding a way to live car-free also produced big climate benefits in our analysis. Each year without a car saves 2.4 tons of CO2e—11 times more than recycling. Electric cars running on electricity grids today still produce about half the climate pollution of a gasoline car, and still require parking lots and highways. Going car-free is also a big benefit to your wallet, and can reduce obesity.

sa1

Step 4: Consider the next generation

Having a child is an enormous decision in every respect—personally, professionally, financially. Our research shows it is also by far the most crucial choice we make in terms of the climate. When accounting for the cumulative impact of future descendants at current emission rates, each additional child in a developed country represents a carbon legacy of  a stunning 58.6 tons per year.

Put simply, in countries with high emissions rates, adding more people adds a lot more carbon to the atmosphere—and their children will add more still. This means that decarbonizing society overall could hugely reduce the climate impact of an additional child—making it up to 17 times less.

sa4

Enabling kids to grow up in a safe climate is a huge incentive to reduce overall national emissions to sustainable levels, and has motivated some parents to reduce their household emissions as well. Meanwhile, recognizing that family size affects the climate can be one factor informing a complex and highly personal decision.

In my own life, I’m trying to take these findings to heart—and so far, the choices I’ve made have improved my quality of life.

After a long and confusing flirtation with eating less meat, four years ago I accepted a friend’s challenge to go vegan for a month. We cooked meals together and swapped recipes. It was surprisingly easy and fun. After that month, I returned to including cheese and eggs in my diet, but I haven’t missed the meat. I’ve seen benefits to both my health and grocery bills.

I’ve moved to the center of my small city and sold both (!) my cars, saving me thousands of dollars each year. Now, instead of hectic days where I would spend up to four hours commuting by car, often eating two meals behind the wheel, I bike to work and have time to cook tasty dinners at home with my fiancé (and we have romantic overland trips for holidays).

Since that beer with Charlie, I’ve let my elite air miles card expire, and reduced my flights by 80 percent. I now do the vast majority of my work travel by rail. Reducing my number of trips and focusing on quality instead of quantity has made me reconsider the value of my time and given me greater work-life balance.

I save most of my flights to visit my family on the other side of the world, and even then, I’ve looked for ways to fly less, including incorporating a beautiful train trip across a snowy North America as part of a Christmas visit home.

Finally, my fiancé and I are still discussing what feels right for us on the question of starting a family. Obviously there are so many more factors at play beyond carbon in this huge life decision. But since we care so much about climate change, it’s one more reason we’re considering very carefully.

For me, turning my scientific knowledge into action was a little like falling in love. It was a switch that got flipped, and everything that has happened since has felt like puzzle pieces falling into place. It took setting a bold goal, over a beer, with a friend, to set me on the path. I still have further to go. But the journey has been a reminder that each one of us can contribute to tackling the climate challenge—and now we know where to start.

Kimberly Nicholas previously wrote Climate Change Will Alter the Taste of Wine for Scientific American.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

SEE ALSO: 5 easy ways to reduce waste and save money

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: See how geologists scoop molten-hot lava into a bucket for testing

Britain will ban all new petrol and diesel cars from 2040

0
0

Traffic chokes up the M5 motorway in Somerset.

New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2040 as part of a government effort to reduce pollution.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove confirmed on Wednesday morning that vehicles powered solely by fossil fuels will no longer be allowed to be sold after the deadline.

The measure was one of several planned by ministers in response to a legal ruling by the High Court, which demanded they take further action to improve the country's air quality.

In an interview on the BBC's "Today" programme, Gove confirmed the commitment, which was briefed overnight to newspapers.

He said: "The Conservatives had a manifesto promise to ensure that by 2050 there would be no diesel or petrol vehicles on our road. Today we're confirming that should mean no new diesel or petrol vehicles by 2040."

He said the ruling will put Britain in "a position of global leadership", alongside the government of France, which announced a similar policy— also with a 2040 deadline — at the beginning of the month.

More details on the policy — and other measures, including partial bans and charges on driving existing diesel vehicles — are expected to be included in a plan published by the Department for Rural Affairs and the Environment on Wednesday.

The government was forced into making its plans public after it lost a legal battle with environmental campaigners in the High Court in November 2016.

The court demanded that ministers publish full plans by July 31. Draft measures published in May will be superseded by the final plan on Wednesday.

SEE ALSO: Ford beats on second-quarter earnings

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tried Tesla’s 'Autopark' feature that parallel parks for you

Dramatic photos show how huge wildfires are ravaging France, forcing 10,000 people from their homes

0
0

France wildfire

Southern areas of France have been ravaged by wildfire over the past few days, as several enormous areas of countryside caught fire at once.

Tens of thousands of acres caught fire during the course of this week, as firefighters wage a running battle to keep the blazes under control.

The worst of the burning has been along France's Mediterranean coast, around the chic tourist resort of Saint-Tropez, and on the island of Corsica.

On Wednesday morning, French officials confirmed that 10,000 people had been evacuated in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of the country.

These dramatic news photographs show how the fires burned through the night, leaving little more than scorched earth behind:

SEE ALSO: A worrisome phenomenon suggests Earth might keep warming even as we pollute less — here's why

DON'T MISS: The US will be unrecognizable by the end of this century

Fires have scorched tens of thousands of acres of France since Monday.

This home in Biguglia, Corsica, was completely surrounded by fire and is now an isolated spot of colour in an otherwise blackened area. Many fires are still burning.



Firefighters have managed to defend populated areas, but lost huge swathes of countryside.

A second view of Biguglia shows how the flames came within a few metres of people's homes.



This map shows where the fires were still active on Wednesday morning.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

An expedition has launched to investigate a sunken lost continent near Australia

0
0

zealander lost continent

An expedition has been launched to help solve the mysteries of Zealandia, an underwater continent to the east of Australia.

The drill ship JOIDES Resolution is visiting Townsville today before a two-month expedition that is part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).

The expedition led by The Australian National University will also look at the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is a hotspot for volcanoes and earthquakes.

Professor Neville Exon from ANU says the expedition will help better understand the major changes in the global tectonic configuration that started about 53 million years ago as the Ring of Fire came into existence.

Zealandia, including today’s Lord Howe Rise, was largely part of Australia until 75 million years ago, when it started to break away and move to the northeast.

That movement halted 53 million years ago.

Zealandia covers 5 million square kilometers, and extends from south of New Zealand northward to New Caledonia and west to the Kenn Plateau off Rockhampton.drill ship anu

The drill ship will collect five kilometers of sediment to discover how a region hundreds of kilometers east of Australia has behaved during the past 53 million years.

“The continental crust of Zealandia was thinned by stretching before it separated from Australia so that it lies lower than Australia,” says New Zealand co-chief scientist, Professor Rupert Sutherland.

“Zealandia’s continental crust is thicker than the surrounding oceanic crust, and so it lies higher than that.”

The drill ship can gather more than a kilometer of continuous cores of sediment or rock. The ship is 143 metres long with a drill tower 61 metres high, and carries a crew of 50 in addition to 55 scientists and technicians.

The ship is due in Hobart at the end of September.

The Australian and New Zealand consortium is made up of 16 universities and four government agencies. Australia is funded by the Australian Research Council and 15 member research organizations.

SEE ALSO: A discovery about the movement of tectonic plates will have scientists rewriting textbooks

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists recorded this mysterious sound in the deepest place on Earth

5 easy green office hacks that could make your company more productive

0
0

the office dwight

It may sound crazy to give your employees control of their own thermostats, but it may just make them more productive.

Business Insider spoke with Emma Stewart, chief business development officer at Impact Infrastructure to find out what could be done around an office building to increase productivity. Impact Infrastructure runs simulations to find out how a company can alter its offices in a way that benefits both the environment and worker productivity.

Impact Infrastructure uses Autocase software to customize recommendations for each company, because not every company has the same building size or materials to work with. Some suggestions might work for certain companies, but not other companies, which is why customization is so important.

We asked Stewart to run a few simulations of changes companies can make to yield higher productivity, using an average office building in San Francisco as her example.

Here's what she came up with:

SEE ALSO: LinkedIn took over a 26-story San Francisco skyscraper, and it's unlike anything else we've seen

DON'T MISS: 16 cheap and creative ways to stay warm when your office is freezing

1. "Is it just me or is it cold in here?" says everyone at some point.

If you give 60% of your employees access to control their own thermal comfort, you could see a 3.7% increase in productivity and a 16.2% increase in health benefits, Autocase predicts.

Oftentimes buildings blast either the air conditioning or heat, to the point that offices are either freezing or boiling. This could be wasting an awful lot of energy for people who don't want that much heat or AC.



2. Let there be light!

Giving 100% of your employees control of the interior lighting around their workspaces could yield a 10.7% increase in productivity.

People prefer different levels of light, Stewart says, so companies might be wasting an awful lot of lighting for people who don't want it.



3. People like pretty views.

If you can manage to make 85% of views indoors and outdoors quality views, you could see a 3.9% increase in productivity, and a 20.2% increase in absenteeism benefits (fewer days off), the Autocase software found.

A 2015 study concluded that just looking at nature can improve focus and productivity. Green roofs work exceptionally well for this in cities, the Washington Post reportedBusiness Insider has also identified 11 health benefits of spending time in nature.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A surprise tropical storm has made landfall in Florida

0
0

Tropical Storm Emily

Tropical Storm Emily has made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast. 

The storm first hit land on Anna Maria Island near Tampa, according to the National Hurricane Center.

It's dumping rain across the southern part of Florida's peninsula, with the highest risks expected from flash flooding and heavy rain. Some areas could see up to eight inches of rain.

Emily, the fifth named storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, formed quickly off Florida's coast on Monday and was expected to weaken as it moves inland and soaks some parts of the state.

Tropical Storm Emily

Florida Governor Rick Scott, in a statement, urged residents to brace for heavy rainfall after the storm rapidly intensified overnight. Scott declared a state of emergency for 31 counties in the Tampa Bay area on Monday.

When the storm was situated about 45 miles (72 km) west southwest of Tampa Bay it carried winds of up to 45 miles per hour (72 km/h), the National Hurricane Center said.

It is expected to weaken to a tropical depression as it moves across the Florida peninsula on Monday night toward the Atlantic Ocean, potentially bringing up to 8 inches (20 cm)of rain in some areas.

A tropical storm warning has been issued for the west coast of Florida from Anclote River southward to Bonita Beach.

 

(Reuters reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru and Jonathan Allen in New York)

SEE ALSO: The most dangerous risks to your health this summer — and how to prevent them

Join the conversation about this story »

There's a 95% chance the world will warm beyond a crucial tipping point — here's what that means

0
0

uncharted territory jungle

  • There's only a 5% chance that the world won't warm more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a new study.
  • Two degrees is what's usually considered the threshold at which warming becomes catastrophic.
  • That gases we've already emitted guarantee close to 1.5 degrees of warming.

By 2100, the world will be different.

A newly published study estimates that there's a 95% chance global temperatures will rise more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. That's the level that's frequently considered the tipping point beyond which the consequences of climate change become catastrophic.

The goal of the Paris Agreement was to set emissions standards that could keep the world from hitting that point — ideally less than a 1.5-degree increase — though experts noted that global reductions would have to be even more aggressive to truly accomplish that aim.

But according to the authors of the new study, it's extremely unlikely that we'll be able to stay below the 2-degree threshold.

Even if we do take action on emissions, the authors suggest, we'll still probably see a median temperature rise of 3.2 degrees Celsius. That's based on their expectations for global population growth, rising GDP per capita, and the amount of carbon dioxide that can be expected to be emitted based on those GDP levels.

That's significantly higher than the temperature rise that many experts said would lead to drastic consequences.

'If not hell, then a place with a similar temperature'

"Huge swaths of the world will be living in places that by the end of the century will have heat waves so deep that people won't be able to deal with them, you have sea level rising dramatically, to the point that most of the world's cities are drowning, the ocean turning into a hot, sour, breathless soup as it acidifies and warms," environmentalist and author Bill McKibben recently told Business Insider.

McKibben's predictions for what that warm world would look like weren't pretty.

"If not hell, then a place with a similar temperature," he said. "We have in the Earth's geological record some sense of what happens when you run carbon levels up to the levels we’re running them now — it gets a lot hotter."

The gases we've put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels so far already guarantee that the world will continue to get warmer.

Another paper published July 31 argued that it's fairly likely we've already "committed to" around 1 degree C of warming — and that there's a 13% chance we've already guaranteed 1.5 degrees. Even if the world stopped emitting carbon dioxide today, that course might already be set.

"Our estimates are based on things that have already happened, things we can observe, and they point to the part of future warming that is already committed to by past emissions," Thorsten Mauritsen, lead author of that paper, said in a press release. "Future carbon dioxide emissions will then add extra warming on top of that commitment."

hottest year

Reasons for hope

It might be tempting to respond to these predictions by throwing up our hands, further condemning future generations to suffer the consequences. But that ignores the most important thing that these two new papers highlight: By the calculations of these researchers, it is still possible to make changes that could prevent us from hitting these levels of warming.

Despite decades of inaction on climate, there are movements now that offer some encouragement. Activists around the world are pushing countries to take steps that could prevent warming from getting too out of hand. In the US, cities and states have vowed to try to meet the country's Paris Agreement goals despite the fact that President Donald Trump plans to pull the US out of that accord.

There are also a growing number of lawsuits around the globe that argue governments are violating their citizens' constitutional rights by engaging in actions that contribute to climate change despite long-held knowledge of its dangerous consequences.

There are even natural economic trends towards clean energy and away from fossil fuels.

These efforts may not stop the world from warming 2 degrees. But they could — or might at least limit warming to 2.5 degrees instead of 4.

Some researchers, like climate scientist James Hansen, think we may need to develop "negative emissions" technologies that would allow us to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and store it away. There are even last-ditch geoengineering schemes that might offer ways to buy more time to deal with the problem (though many experts hope it never gets to that point).

But if we want to prevent the most dire effects of rising global temperatures, action needs to be taken sooner rather than later. These two new papers highlight just how urgent that threat is.

SEE ALSO: Baby Boomers could irreversibly ruin the planet for Millennials — and the clock is ticking

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 6 major US cities could be underwater within 80 years — here are the disturbing ‘after’ images

Archaeologists uncover 'little Pompeii' in southeast France

0
0

The city of Vienne -- famous for its Roman theatre and temple -- was an important hub on the route connecting northern Gaul with the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis in southern France

Sainte-Colombe (France) (AFP) - A "little Pompeii" is how French archaeologists are describing an entire ancient Roman neighborhood uncovered on the outskirts of the southeastern city of Vienne, featuring remarkably preserved remains of luxury homes and public buildings.

"We're unbelievably lucky. This is undoubtedly the most exceptional excavation of a Roman site in 40 or 50 years," said Benjamin Clement, the archaeologist leading the dig on the banks of the Rhone river, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Lyon.

The city of Vienne -- famous for its Roman theatre and temple -- was an important hub on the route connecting northern Gaul with the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis in southern France.

The site unearthed on land awaiting construction of a housing complex covers an area of nearly 7,000 square metres (75,000 square feet) -- an unusually large discovery in an urban area that has been labeled an "exceptional find" by the French culture ministry.

The neighborhood, which contains homes dating to the 1st century AD, is believed to have been inhabited for around 300 years before being abandoned after a series of fires.

Many of the objects in place when the inhabitants fled were conserved, transforming the area into a "real little Pompeii in Vienne", according to Clement, referring to the Roman city-state that was largely preserved after being buried by volcanic ash.

Among the structures to have partly survived are an imposing home dubbed the Bacchanalian House after a tiled floor depicting a procession of maenads (female followers of the god of wine, known variably as Dionysus or Bacchus) and joyful half-man, half-goat creatures known as satyrs.

A blaze consumed the first floor, roof and balcony of the sumptuous home, which boasted balustrades, marble tiling, expansive gardens and a water supply system, but parts of the collapsed structure survived.

The archaeologists believe the house belonged to a wealthy merchant.

"We will be able to restore this house from the floor to the ceiling," Clement said.

- Philosophy school -

In another house, an exquisite mosaic depicts a bare-bottomed Thalia, muse and patron of comedy, being kidnapped by a lustful Pan, god of the satyrs.

The mosaics are being removed with infinite care and taken away to be restored, with a view to being exhibited in Vienne's museum of Gallo-Roman civilization in 2019.

Among the other finds are a large public building with a fountain adorned by a statue of Hercules, built at the site of a former market.

Clement believes it may have housed a philosophy school. 

The excavations, which began in April, had been due to end in mid-September but have been extended by the French state until the end of the year to allow time for more discoveries.

In the coming months Clement's 20-strong team will dig down to older parts of the site and explore an area containing workshops.

SEE ALSO: Archaeologists have uncovered ancient bones that may change American history

DON'T MISS: 300,000-year-old skulls that look shockingly like ours could rewrite the human origin story

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Archaeologists made a groundbreaking discovery that unveils the mysterious origins of real-life hobbits

Exploring agricultural drones: The future of farming is precision agriculture, mapping, and spraying

0
0

california farmWhat Are Agricultural or Farming Drones?

Agricultural drone technology has been improving in the last few years, and the benefits of drones in agriculture are becoming more apparent to farmers. Drone applications in agriculture range from mapping and surveying to cropdusting and spraying.

On the surface, agricultural drones are no different than other types of drones. The application of the UAV simply changes to fit the needs of the farmer. There are, however, several drones specifically made for agricultural use (more on that in a later section).

Agricultural Drone Technology

Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture refers to the way farmers manage crops to ensure efficiency of inputs such as water and fertilizer, and to maximize productivity, quality, and yield. The term also involves minimizing pests, unwanted flooding, and disease.

Drones allow farmers to constantly monitor crop and livestock conditions by air to quickly find problems that would not become apparent in ground-level spot checks. For example, a farmer might find through time-lapse drone photography that part of his or her crop is not being properly irrigated.

Mapping/Surveying

The process of using a drone to map or survey crops is a relatively straightforward one. Many newer agricultural drone models come equipped with flight planning software that allows the user to draw around the area he or she needs to cover. Then, the software makes an automated flight path and, in some cases, even prepares the camera shots.

As the drone flies, it automatically takes pictures using onboard sensors and the built-in camera, and uses GPS to determine when to take each shot. But if your drone does not have these automatic features, then one person needs to fly the drone while the other takes the photos.

Cropdusting/Spraying

In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration approved the Yamaha RMAX as the first drone weighing more than 55 pounds to carry tanks of fertilizers and pesticides in order to spray crops. Drones such as this are capable of spraying crops with far more precision than a traditional tractor. This helps reduce costs and potential pesticide exposure to workers who would have needed to spray those crops manually.

JD Drone

Future of Farm Drones

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, expects spending on the overall drone market to surpass $12 billion by 2021. But what about the agricultural drone market specifically?

Global Market Insights forecasts that the agricultural drone market size will exceed $1 billion and 200,000 units shipped by 2024. GMI attributes the growth through 2024 to increasing awareness of the pros and cons of drones in agriculture among farmers.

The company also claims that technological advancements in farming techniques will push demand during the forecast period. Increased automation stemming from a lack of skilled resources and a labor crisis will also bolster agricultural drone demand. Finally, GMI expects government programs in this sector to permit operations of various sizes to help make farming processes more efficient.

Agricultural Drones for Sale

There are numerous types of agricultural drones on the market, but a few have risen above the rest as the cream of the crop. (We also have a list of the best drones in other sectors here.)

  1. senseFly eBee SQ: The eBee series has been a popular choice for farmers, and the biggest selling point is the company's proprietary eMotion software, which makes designing a flight plan incredibly simple. The drone boasts the ability to capture 500 acres of footage in a single flight. Price: $10,490
  2. PrecisionHawk Lancaster 5: PrecisionHawk is another popular drone choice for farmers, and this latest model features a body more capable of enduring hard landings, a redesigned tail, longer wingspan for greater stability in flight, and an improved flight control. Price: $12,000
  3. Honeycomb AgDrone: This drone features a 55-minute flying time, with an additional 11 minutes of reserve time that activates as long as there is not too much wind. The wings are made of a durable Kevlar fiber composite. The drone also comes with dual cameras. Price: $10,000
  4. DJI Matrice 100: Dual batteries in this drone allow for a 40-minute flight time. It also packs the standard suite of DJI systems, such as GPS and flight controller. Price: $3,299

More to Learn

The agriculture drone market will grow in the next few years in pace with the overall drone market. But what other factors will push drones into the mainstream? BI Intelligence has answered that question in a report entitled The Drones Report: Market Forecasts, key players and use cases, and regulatory barriers to the proliferation of drones. 

To get the full report, subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

You can also purchase and download the full report from our research store.

Join the conversation about this story »

We've already exhausted the amount of resources that Earth can produce in 2017 — at the fastest pace ever

0
0

drought

The earliest-ever Earth Overshoot Day on August 2, 2017 means that humans are pushing the planet to its ecological limit at an accelerated pace.

Previously known as Ecological Debt Day, it’s when the global population’s demand exceeds the amount of resources that Earth can produce for the year. The date has slowly crept up from Dec. 21 in 1971.

“Most people think it’s relevant to know how much they earn and spend,” said Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, CEO of the Global Footprint Network and co-creator of the Ecological Footprint.

The Ecological Footprint, discovered in the 1990s, is the only metric that measures how much of nature's resources we use and how much we currently have.

“We can spend twice as much as we earn for some time, [but] even if your fortune is big, it’s going to go down,” Wackernagel told AccuWeather.

Research shows that humanity’s demand is about 70 percent faster than what Earth can renew, said Wackernagel.

Humans would need the equivalent of 1.7 Earths to accommodate our consumption level, according to the Global Footprint Network.

“We’re borrowing time, or we’re going into debt, to borrow resources from the future to sustain our way of living to fulfill what we are consuming,” said public speaker and blogger Kathryn Kellogg.

The overshoot date is calculated by comparing our Ecological Footprint with the planet’s biocapacity.

In other words, we look at our total annual consumption and Earth’s ability to produce useful biological materials and to absorb carbon dioxide emissions.

Ecological debt: How we got here

Right now, many countries are running on an ecological deficit, meaning that their ecological footprints exceed their biocapacities.

Countries maintain their deficits by overfishing and over-harvesting forests, emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ecosystems can absorb and importing more goods than are exported, according to the Global Footprint Network.

The United States’ Ecological Deficit Day fell on June 10.

Comprising only about 5 percent of the world's population, Americans use about 25 percent of the planet’s coal, 26 percent of its oil and 27 percent of its natural gas, according to the WorldWatch Institute.

“We’re going to start seeing things decline and seeing the price of those things shoot up because there’s not enough supply to meet our demand,” said Kellogg.

natural gas

Solutions for a sustainable future

“Having resources secured is fundamental for our ability to operate our economy,” said Wackernagel.

He added that there are four key factors that can impact a country’s opportunities to end overshoot: how cities are built and operated, how energy is provided, how we eat and how many people there are.

“In the long run, [population] is probably the most significant factor,” Wackernagel said. “If we’re looking at short-term gains, getting out of fossil fuel is the fastest way of reducing the surplus.”

According to the Global Footprint Network, cutting carbon emissions in half would give the planet about three additional months before reaching overshoot. They make up 60 percent of our ecological footprint.

Because personal transportation takes up 14 percent of the carbon footprint, the Global Footprint Network noted that reducing driving by 50 percent worldwidewould push the overshoot date back 10 days.

A number of politicians, universities and businesses have also committed to adopting the goals of the Paris Climate Accord, following President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement on June 1.

“The rest of corporate America is saying it doesn’t make much sense for us to live in a dystopian world,” said Jeffrey Gracer, principal of Sive, Paget and Riesel, which was the first environmental law firm in the U.S.

“We’re not going to be able to do business in a world where there’s no water, where it’s 130 degrees and we can’t fly airplanes; that’s simply not going to work,” said Gracer.

The Global Footprint Network stated that the ecological overspending is reversible.

By pushing the date back about five days each year, the population would return to using the resources of a single planet by 2050.

SEE ALSO: Baby Boomers could irreversibly ruin the planet for Millennials — and the clock is ticking

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Amazing time-lapses show how much America has changed

Viewing all 2972 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images