A big challenge for anyone trying to take on climate change is finding solutions that don’t create new problems. Climate scientists, for instance, agree that the world needs more solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission lines. But building all that infrastructure takes up a lot of land, and that land could be a critical habitat for endangered animals, teeming with wildflowers and birds and insects, or a great place for Indigenous peoples to forage for traditional foods. 

According to a recent study in the journal Nature Communications, areas around the world that are well suited for wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy overlap with some 10 percent of the land that’s important for biodiversity and other human needs like clean water and wood for fuel. The United States alone would need tens of millions of acres of sunny plateaus for solar arrays and windy ridges for wind mills to stop burning oil, gas, and coal. The potential for conflict between conservation and developing renewables is even higher than it is between conservation and farming, mining, or drilling for fossil fuels, the study found. 

That finding was the “biggest surprise” for Rachel Neugarten, a researcher at Cornell University and one of the paper’s authors. “Renewable energy is absolutely critical for climate goals,” she said. “However, if it’s located in the wrong places it could have negative impacts.” 

Neugarten’s team mapped the entire world for biodiversity, pressure from farming, mining, and other forms of development, and 10 of “nature’s contributions to people” — from crop pollination to recreation. The researchers found that only 18 percent of the land that humans need is currently protected from urban expansion and resource extraction, more than one-third of which is highly suitable for agriculture, mining, oil and gas drilling, or clean energy projects. In Ireland, for example, 60 percent of the land is well suited for renewables, agriculture, or mining while also important for grazing, storing nutrients like nitrogen, and recreation, the authors wrote.  

“One of the key takeaways from this study is that it is possible to achieve conservation, climate, and development goals, but that this will require careful planning,” Neugarten said. “We need to think carefully about how decisions in one sector, such as renewable energy development, might undermine goals in other sectors, such as habitat for pollinators or biodiversity conservation.” 

The authors suggest that a way around this problem would be to build wind or solar farms on land that’s already been cleared or degraded. That could mean installing solar panels on abandoned industrial sites or above parking lots, Neugarten said. But she also recommended coupling renewables with agriculture. As two examples, she pointed to an 18-acre solar array in Minnesota that’s nestled among pollinator-friendly flowers and bee hives, which can power more than 100,000 homes, as well as a wind farm on a cattle ranch in Arizona. 

The paper doesn’t address whether there’s actually enough land to fit all the solar and wind farms that the world needs without threatening biodiversity and causing other ecological damage. That’s still an open question, Neugarten said. The United States would need a swath of earth about the size of five South Dakotas to generate enough clean power to run a carbon-free economy by 2050, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News and Princeton University. And you can’t just stick wind turbines and solar panels anywhere: A solar farm needs to be on flat, sunny terrain, close enough to the electrical grid to keep transmission costs from skyrocketing. 

Still, some research indicates that there doesn’t have to be a dramatic tradeoff between conservation and clean energy. The Nature Conservancy, which helped fund Neugarten’s study, released a report last year showing that the U.S. could deploy a lot of wind and solar without significant damage to the environment. The report outlined three courses of action: combining solar and wind on the same land, installing solar panels on farmland, and using solar panels that tilt to absorb more sunlight and produce more energy. 

Where and how renewable energy projects get built affects biodiversity more than the amount of clean energy produced globally does, according to Ryan McManamay, an ecologist at Baylor University who wasn’t involved in Neugarten’s study. “It’s quite possible to meet more needs of the population and have a lower biodiversity impact based on thoughtful considerations of how things are developed,” he said.

Scientists also say the environmental consequences of building a lot of wind turbines and solar panels likely won’t be as dire as continuing to burn gargantuan amounts of fossil fuels. Climate change itself poses a major risk to biodiversity. 

“There has been some rhetoric about green versus green, which is setting up renewable energy in conflict with biodiversity conservation,” Neugarten said. “I really do think it’s feasible to do both if we put our minds to it.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How to build renewables without threatening biodiversity? Carefully. on Jan 17, 2024.

Air pollution emissions in the United States have decreased considerably since the Clean Air Act of 1970 was enacted, but the benefits have not always been equally felt.

According to a new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the amount of the improvements is largely dependent on demographics, with socioeconomic and racial/ethnic inequalities in air pollution reductions felt especially in the energy and industry sectors, a press release from the Columbia Mailman School said.

The study was an examination of changes in emissions from air pollution in the U.S. over the past four decades. Previous studies have looked mostly at imbalances in concentrations of pollutants at a given point in time, rather than at emissions.

In looking into the socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities regarding changes in air pollution emissions, the research focused on data from counties in the contiguous U.S. during the period 1970 to 2010.

“The analyses provide insight on the socio-demographic characteristics of counties that have experienced disproportionate decreases in air pollution emissions over the last forty years,” said lead author of the study Yanelli Nunez, who is an environmental health scientist in the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, in the press release.

By focusing on air pollution emissions, Nunez and colleagues were able to pinpoint sectors that are potentially contributing to disparities in exposure.

The researchers used Global Burden of Disease Major Air Pollution Sources data in analyzing emissions from six air pollution source sectors, including energy (nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide), road transportation (nitrogen oxides), industry (sulfur dioxide), agriculture (ammonia); residential (organic carbon particles) and commercial (nitrogen oxides).

Average air pollution emissions in the U.S. have decreased markedly during the 40-year study period from every source sector except residential organic carbon particles — mostly from solid biofuels used for indoor heating — and agricultural ammonia emissions.

The biggest emissions decreases were for sulfur dioxide from energy generation and the industrial sectors. Nitrogen oxide emitted by energy generation, commercial activities and transportation showed moderate decreases.

Although emissions from most pollutants had gone down, the research team discovered that certain populations had increases in emissions or relatively smaller reductions. One example is that an increase in the average Indian American or Hispanic population percentage in a county was associated with a relative increase in nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and ammonia emissions from energy generation, industry and the agricultural sectors, respectively.

“Air pollution emissions do not perfectly capture population air pollution exposure, and we also know that neighborhood-level air pollution inequities are common, which we were not able to analyze in this study given the data at hand,” said Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, senior author of the study and a Columbia Mailman School associate professor of environmental health sciences, in the press release.

An increase in the amount of emissions reductions was also associated with an increase in the median family income in a county in all pollution source sectors examined by the researchers except agriculture.

“In this study, we provide information about potential racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in air pollution reductions nationwide from major air pollution sources, which can inform regulators and complement local-level analysis,” Kioumourtzoglou added.

The findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.

“Policies specifically targeting reductions in overburdened populations could support more just reductions in air pollution and reduce disparities in air pollution exposure,” Nunez explained. “This is an important lesson gained from 53 years of Clean Air Act implementation, which is particularly relevant as we develop policies to transition to renewable energy sources, which will have a collateral impact on air quality and, as a result, on public health.”

The post U.S. Air Pollution Rates Down, but Vary by Demographics appeared first on EcoWatch.

Last year was the hottest year on record by a wide margin, and 2024 has a one-in-three shot at being even hotter, according to the Annual 2023 Global Climate Report by the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists from the European Union found that Earth’s average temperature last year was 1.35 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average, bringing it close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius marker, reported Reuters.

NOAA said ocean surface temperatures also reached record warmth last year.

Last week, a newsletter by James Hansen, former NASA scientist who first warned of the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said temperatures could increase by up to 1.7 degrees Celsius by May of next year, Time reported.

“We are now in the process of moving into the 1.5°C world,” Hansen told the Guardian. “You can bet $100 to a donut on this.”

Last year’s scorching record heat was the result of global heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans burning fossil fuels, coupled with the El Niño climate pattern appearing halfway through the year.

“Unlike the previous two years (2021 and 2022), which were squarely entrenched in a cold phase El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) episode, also known as La Niña, 2023 quickly moved into ENSO neutral territory, transitioning to a warm phase episode, El Niño, by June. ENSO not only affects global weather patterns, but it also affects global temperatures,” NASA said. “Despite 2021 and 2022 not ranking among the five warmest years on record, the global annual temperature increased at an average rate of 0.06°C (0.11°F) per decade since 1850 and more than three times that rate (0.20°C / 0.36°F) since 1982.”

NOAA said not only is there a one-in-three chance this year will be warmer than last year, there is a 99 percent likelihood 2024 will be among the top five warmest years on record.

“The interesting and depressing question is what will happen in 2024? Will it be warmer than 2023? We don’t know yet,” said Christopher Hewitt, head of International Climate Services at the World Meteorological Organization, as reported by Reuters. “It’s highly likely (El Niño) will persist until April, possibly May, and then beyond that we’re not sure — it becomes less certain.”

El Niño’s effects usually peak during winter in the Northern Hemisphere before changing to a La Niña phase or a neutral pattern.

El Niño will peak in the Southern Hemisphere summer, so authorities are on the lookout for drought, extreme heat and wildfires.

Extreme heat warnings were issued for Western Australia by the country’s meteorology bureau this week.

Southern Africa was facing the “high likelihood” of below-average rainfall, according to Lark Walters, a Famine Early Warning System Network decision support adviser.

“We’re estimating over 20 million will be in need of emergency food assistance,” Walters said, as Reuters reported.

In North America last year, the average temperature was the warmest ever recorded — 2.01 degrees Celsius higher than the average from 1910 to 2000. Ten months were above average, with December 4.88 degrees Celsius warmer than normal — blowing away the 1939 record by 1.39 degrees Celsius.

“North America’s yearly temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14°C (0.23°F) per decade since 1910; however, the average rate of increase is more than double the rate (0.34°C/0.61°F) since 1982,” the NOAA climate report said.

The post NOAA: 1-in-3 Chance 2024 Could Be Even Hotter Than 2023 appeared first on EcoWatch.

The planet had its hottest year ever recorded last year due to human-caused climate change from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

According to a new report from nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), YouTube is making millions annually from advertisements on channels that put forth inaccurate climate change information, reported Reuters.

Content creators on some of its channels are using strategies that elude the platform’s misinformation policies.

“In this report, for the first time, researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate have quantified the startling and important rise over the past five years in what we call ‘New Denial’ — the departure from rejection of anthropogenic climate change, to attacks on climate science and scientists, and rhetoric seeking to undermine confidence in solutions to climate change,” CCDH founder Imran Ahmed wrote in The New Climate Denial report. “‘New Denial’ claims now constitute 70% of all climate denial claims made on YouTube, up from 35% six years ago.”

CCDH looked at 12,058 video transcripts on nearly 100 YouTube channels from the last six years using artificial intelligence, Reuters said.

According to the report, the content promoted by the channels undercut the scientific consensus that human actions are contributing to lasting changes in weather patterns and temperatures. This is a shift from previous claims denying the existence of global heating or that greenhouse gas emissions from humans burning fossil fuels are not the cause.

Google’s climate change policy prohibits videos supporting climate denial claims from making advertising profits.

The CCDH study suggests climate deniers have shifted the focus of their argument because denouncing climate change is not as plausible anymore, NBC News reported

“A new front has opened up in this battle,” Ahmed said, as reported by NBC News. “They’ve gone from saying climate change isn’t happening to now saying: ‘Hey, climate change is happening, but there is no hope. There are no solutions.’”

CCDH said advertisements on the YouTube channels examined in the report are potentially making as much as $13.4 million annually for the platform, Reuters reported.

The AI tool used by CCDH in its analysis, CARDS — Computer-Assisted Recognition of climate change Denial and Skepticism — can differentiate between inaccurate information and “reasonable skepticism,” Reuters said.

YouTube defended its policy in a statement.

“Our climate change policy prohibits ads from running on content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. Debate or discussions of climate change topics, including around public policy or research, is allowed,” a spokesperson from YouTube said, as reported by The Guardian. “However, when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we stop showing ads on those videos. We also display information panels under relevant videos to provide additional information on climate change and context from third parties.”

CCDH challenged YouTube to update its climate change policy.

“It is hypocritical for social media companies to claim to be green but then monetise and amplify lies about the climate,” Ahmed said, as The Guardian reported. “It is time for digital platforms to put their money where their mouth is. They should refuse to amplify or monetise cynical climate denial content that undermines faith in our collective capacity to solve humanity’s most pressing challenge.”

The post YouTube Profiting off ‘New’ Climate Denial, Report Says appeared first on EcoWatch.

Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark have created a new technology that may help boost garment recycling rates.

The technology can help remove the material elastane from nylon, a common fabric blend for clothing like leggings and other activewear, shapewear and swimwear. But elastane in particular can be difficult to separate out from other fabric materials.

The researchers published their findings in the journal Green Chemistry.

“The many links in the elastane chain are bound together by a small molecule called a diamine. By heating the clothes to 225 degrees Celsius and adding a specific alcohol, we have found a method to break down the bonds in elastane. When this happens, the chains fall apart and the materials separate,” explained Steffan Kvist Kristensen, an assistant processor at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University.

The process takes a little over four hours, according to Kristensen. So far, the research team has tested the method on up to two pairs of nylon stockings at a time, and they are still working to find ways to separate elastane from other materials, like cotton.

“We’re not quite there yet with cotton, because some of the cotton fibres are broken down in the process,” Kristensen said in a press release. “But we believe that, with some minor adjustments, we can solve this problem.”

Today, there are many challenges with clothing recycling, and only about 1% of old clothing textiles are recycled into new clothing items, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The numbers are slightly higher in Denmark, with 6% of garments being recycled, but still far lower than recycling rates for other materials, including plastic packaging, in the country.

Old garments may be recycled with the content tags removed or faded, making it more difficult to determine what fiber or fibers from which each item is made. Further, fiber blends in a piece of clothing are hard to separate out for proper recycling, The Sustainable Fashion Forum reported.

Increasing innovations in recycling, such as the method developed by researchers from Aarhus University, may make textile recycling easier and more common in the future. This will be important for reducing fashion waste and, ultimately, the industry’s emissions.

The fashion industry is the second-highest polluting industry on Earth, after oil and gas, according to a 2022 study. As reported by UN Climate Change, the fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions globally, which will have to change to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

The authors of the study noted that they’ve only tested the mixed-fiber recycling method at a small-scale and will need to work with facilities outside of Denmark that have the capacity to scale-up the process.

“The chemical industry in Denmark is small, but Germany has some of the largest plants in the world. They will most likely be able to use our method to recycle large amounts of fibres from elastane-containing clothes,” said Steffan Kvist Kristensen, an assistant processor at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University. “If we’re to succeed with this, we need to get the large chemical plants on board. But they must see a business model in buying recycled materials and using them in the production of new fibres. If they don’t, the technology will never take off.”

The post Researchers Develop Method to Make Mixed-Fiber Clothing Recycling Easier appeared first on EcoWatch.

A volcano in southwest Iceland erupted on Sunday morning, releasing lava flows that covered roads and reached an evacuated fishing village, where it set at least three homes on fire.

According to Iceland’s meteorological office, the eruption followed a series of earthquakes and caused 160-foot-high fountains of lava, inundating the town of Grindavík, reported The New York Times and The Washington Post.

President of Iceland Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson addressed the country regarding what he referred to as “tremendous forces of nature,” saying it had been half a century since lava had reached homes in the country.

“Lava is flowing into Grindavík, a thriving town where people have built their lives,” Johannesson said, as The Washington Post reported.

Grindavík is about 25 miles southwest of the country’s capital of Reykjavík.

Johannesson remarked on social media that, while the lava flows might pose a danger to infrastructures, they were not life-threatening, since the town had been evacuated. He also pointed out that there had been no flight interruptions.

Activity from the volcano has since eased, though the meteorological office said fresh fissures could appear with no warning, adding in a statement that it was “difficult to estimate how long this eruption will last,” reported Reuters.

The eruption began near another that happened last month. Authorities said one fissure from this eruption was at least 2,950 feet long, according to The Washington Post.

Kjartan Adolfsson, who is currently living in temporary housing in Reykjavík, commented that hopes of he and his neighbors returning home soon were fading.

“None of us knows what to think today,” Adolfsson said, as The New York Times reported.

Civil defense agency spokesperson Hjordis Gudmundsdottir said the eruption’s larger fissure sent a crack through Grindavík’s protective barriers.

Local officials said the barriers had saved the town from worse damage, reported The Washington Post.

“[T]he defense wall that was built is very successful,” Úlfar Lúðvíksson, police chief of Suðurnes, a region in South Iceland, told Iceland’s national broadcaster RUV on Monday.

The Red Cross has raised approximately $30,000 so far for residents of Grindavík, RUV said.

“We have seen an extremely strong response to the collection, better than we are used to seeing, so it is obvious that there are many people who want to help the residents now in these very difficult times,” said Red Cross press officer Oddur Freyr, as RUV reported.

The crack that had opened near Grindavík Sunday had calmed down by Monday, and lava coming from the larger fissure was slowing, Rikke Pedersen, daily manager of University of Iceland’s Nordic Volcanological Center, told Reuters.

The meteorological office said new cracks were possible in Grindavík in the coming days, as GPS measurements indicated that lava was still flowing underneath the town.

“Unfortunately (the lava) went a little bit more south than we had hoped for,” Vidir Reynisson, the country’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management head, said during a press conference on Sunday, as reported by Reuters.

Police warned of unstable ground and dangerous gases near the spewing lava and encouraged people not to approach it on foot, The Washington Post said.

The post Eruption of Iceland Volcano Shows ‘Tremendous Forces of Nature’ appeared first on EcoWatch.

When Eduardo Lugo hears trucks rumble by his home in southwestern Puerto Rico, there is a moment when he wonders if it’s the sound an earthquake makes just before it hits. An associate professor of psychology at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Lugo says this type of traumatic trigger is just one of the legacies of living through years of devastating hurricanes and earthquakes. 

When the power goes out, people often lose access to water, food spoils, Lugo says, “It’s like a domino effect for people. And it’s definitely affecting people’s mental health.”

The last several years have brought disasters to the island that have killed and displaced thousands of people, and highlighted fissures of inequality that did not heal when the power came back on. “Whenever some sort of natural disaster affects Puerto Rico,” Lugo says, “it seems to highlight a problem, and how inefficient the government was in attending those situations.” When Hurricane Maria struck in 2017, for example, cutting people off from medical care and crippling the electric grid for months, it worsened child poverty in Puerto Rico. 

In the aftermath of these catastrophes, researchers and residents are concerned many vulnerabilities have still not been addressed—raising urgent questions about how to best strengthen the island’s infrastructure. Building truly equitable and sustainable energy will require addressing complex issues like colonial legacies, poverty, and gentrification. But at the policy level, Lugo says, “conversations are fragmented between all these different spaces.” 

After Hurricane Maria, for example, Puerto Rico’s power grid was privatized into a joint venture called Luma Energy, run by Houston-based Quantas Services and the Canadian company ATCO. But Lugo says the majority of people who participated in a recent community survey were very dissatisfied with the lack of reliability and the cost of electricity now. “There’s no way that we can continue raising the prices of energy in Puerto Rico with the amount of poverty that people are facing,” Lugo says. 

Advocates say major policy decisions for the island’s infrastructure restoration need to be guided by the voices of community members who have lived through years of blackouts and hardship. Puerto Rico aims to have 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, but Lugo says implementing these decisions will require community feedback. “We cannot sacrifice the resiliency of one area for the resiliency of another,” he says. Well-intentioned policies for solar farms, for instance, can create competition for much-needed agricultural land. Access is also unevenly distributed: Lugo says community surveys found cost is a major barrier for households to install solar panels—but the recent promise of up to $440 million for rooftop solar from the Department of Energy could help thousands of families.

One of the researchers working with Lugo to develop a more comprehensive approach to climate justice in Puerto Rico is Laura Kuhl, an assistant professor at Northeastern University. After Hurricane Maria, Kuhl hoped to gain a better understanding of how existing social vulnerabilities influenced which communities regained access to energy—and how long repairs took to reach others. 

In some communities on the island’s southern coast, for instance, Kuhl says many people live with air and water pollution issues from a large coal-fired power plant. “Those were also some of the hardest hit communities, with some of the longest recovery times,” Kuhl says, “and that certainly is reflected in their historical vulnerabilities.” For some communities in mountainous areas, or far from electric transmission lines, the wait for the power to be restored stretched out for over a year.

After Hurricane Fiona struck in 2022, Lugo says people living in the mountains once again faced weeks-long delays, while urban areas saw more immediate attention. Workers doing the repairs often lacked the experience to operate in the challenging terrain. Both Kuhl and Lugo say these environmental and economic factors need to be incorporated into planning for a more resilient grid. “These communities are the ones that need to be strengthened first,” Lugo says, “if we’re actually thinking about saving lives, and energy consistency.”

In her research on climate finance and renewable energy transitions, Kuhl also focuses on how community perspectives are shaping conversations about energy—and who is being left out. “What’s the decision making process around climate funding? Where does it go? And who is able to get it? And what are the justice implications?” Kuhl asks. After the initial recovery following Hurricane Maria, Kuhl wanted to know how long-term infrastructure planning was taking shape. She wondered if policy priorities and funding would shift toward solar, or if the government would continue to rely on fossil fuels. 

Professor Maria Ivanova, who is the Director of the Policy School at Northeastern University, says understanding these kinds of existing dynamics are an essential piece of helping build sustainability. Kuhl’s research reflects the university’s goals “to transcend traditional academic boundaries,” says Ivanova. Northeastern emphasizes the responsibility of academic researchers to engage with communities and be advocates for equitable solutions at local and global levels. “We seek to produce real-world impact,” she says, including in her own work on addressing persistent issues like plastic pollution.

But six years after Hurricane Maria, Kuhl says the trajectory of Puerto Rico’s energy recovery is far from decided. “It’s still unfolding,” Kuhl says, “in large part, because there’s been enormous delays in the release of federal funding.” With the privatization of the electric grid, the answer so far has been more investment in natural gas.

Yet those same challenges are inspiring action at a community level. Lugo says schools and community centers with solar panels have provided essential services in the wake of disasters and power outages. People can access the Internet, have kitchens with refrigerators to cook and save food, and use outlets for medical devices. “There’s a lot of community empowerment and organization around issues of energy, water, food, and sustainability,” Lugo says. “People are actually taking the government out of the equation in a way, and organizing to provoke change within their communities.” 

Kuhl and Lugo are now collaborating on a photovoice project that aims to center these community voices—where young people in the community take photos and share stories exploring how energy impacts their lives, and how they want systems to change. The project is ongoing, but Kuhl says, “the photos that we’ve been receiving are really powerful, and tell the story of the differences and the challenges and visions of these communities in a much more compelling way than traditional academic research.” Kuhl and Lugo hope the project will empower more Puerto Ricans to express their hopes and visions for a more equitable and community driven approach to energy.

Transitioning to renewables like solar is about more than just keeping the lights on. “We need to start creating solutions that fit not only the physical needs of communities,” Lugo says, “but also support people’s mental health.”

Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs (Policy School) offers master’s degrees that dive into innovative, real-world explorations of our world’s most challenging climate, environmental, and sustainability issues. Through a combination of experiential learning, interdisciplinary research, and cutting-edge coursework, these programs prepare you for the next step in your career, using policy to address environmental and social justice in communities around the globe. Learn with us at our campuses in Boston, Arlington (Metro D.C.), and Oakland.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Shining light on energy inequity in Puerto Rico on Jan 16, 2024.

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