The Biden administration restored protections to threatened species in the U.S. on March 29 — protections that had previously been rolled back in 2019 by the Trump administration.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) finalized three rules to protect threatened species and their habitats, the Department of Interior announced.

The rules fall under the Endangered Species Act, which has been aimed at protecting and restoring populations of threatened and endangered species since 1973. As Reuters reported, the act is often considered why populations of vulnerable species, like bald eagles and California condors, have not gone extinct.

One of the rules ensures that listing and delisting decisions or deciding on critical habitats will be based on science, rather than the costs to industries.

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“As species face new and daunting challenges, including climate change, degraded and fragmented habitat, invasive species, and wildlife disease, the Endangered Species Act is more important than ever to conserve and recover imperiled species now and for generations to come,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in a press release. “These revisions underscore our commitment to using all of the tools available to help halt declines and stabilize populations of the species most at-risk.” 

One of the new rules restores protections for newly classified threatened species, so these species will quickly receive protections, rather than waiting for official plans to be put together, The Associated Press reported.

In total, the three new rules are set to improve interagency consultation on threatened species and habitats, clarify classification standards, align the habitat designation process with the Endangered Species Act, make decisions based on science over economic costs, and restore the “blanket rule” protections for threatened species.

“Working with our partners, NOAA Fisheries is improving the process for managing species under the Endangered Species Act with a focus on mitigation of ongoing threats such as altered ecosystems due to climate change,” said Janet Coil, NOAA Fisheries assistant administrator. “By leveraging the best available science, we ensure the law remains robust as we work to conserve and recover endangered and threatened species and their habitats.” 

The rules, first proposed in June 2023, received about 468,000 submissions during the public comment periods. 

Industry stakeholders and Republican politicians have argued that these rules limit economic growth, The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, many environmentalists are satisfied to see these new rules established, but they are upset that it took so long. Some argue that the current administration has not gone far enough in reversing the former Trump administration’s rules that harm vulnerable species. 

The post Biden Administration Restores Protections for Threatened Species appeared first on EcoWatch.

Embracing the circular economy is vitally important for all industries, especially in the context of…

The post Guest Perspective: Embracing the Circular Economy Means Transforming Food Packaging for a Sustainable Future appeared first on Earth911.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

Georgia is enjoying an economic boom. Lured by tax breaks, high-tech data centers and manufacturers are flooding the state. It’s a trend state leaders are celebrating at every opportunity.

“We have seen over 171,000 new jobs come to our communities, we brought in over $74.5 billion of investment to the state,” Governor Brian Kemp told a gathering of lawmakers, business leaders, and other Georgia bigwigs earlier this year.  

But that growth has created a problem: all the new businesses need lots of electricity. 

The state’s largest electric utility, Georgia Power, now says it needs significantly more energy, significantly sooner than planned to meet the spike in demand. So the company is asking to buy and generate that electricity. Their plan calls for solar power coupled with battery storage, but it relies heavily on fossil fuels, including three brand new turbines to be powered with oil and natural gas.

Customers and clean energy advocates alike are decrying this plan. Large groups of students and medical professionals have dominated the public comment sections of hearings over Georgia Power’s request, pleading with the state’s Public Service Commission to reject it.

“Fossil fuels kill. They kill our ecosystems, they kill our people, and more importantly, fossil fuels will kill our future generations,” Emory University student Dakota Tauteeq told the commissioners.

A version of this is playing out all over the country, because for the first time in years, power demand is growing. Electricity-hungry data centers are popping up to serve everything from email and digital medical records to artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Federal policies that favor US-made versions of electric vehicles, solar panels, and other technology are bringing manufacturing back stateside. The fight against fossil fuels is driving people to electrify previously gas-powered cars and appliances.

All that is testing the heart of the Biden administration’s climate policy: making it cheaper and more attractive for utilities to use renewable energy instead of climate-warming fossil fuels.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, includes $125 billion in tax credits for electric companies that choose wind, solar, and battery storage. The idea is that incentive will tip the scales, so when a utility needs to make energy it will choose renewables over fossil fuels.

“It’s this great big pool of money, this game changing piece of legislation for them, with millions and millions of dollars that they can take advantage of,” said Sierra Club analyst Noah Ver Beek.

But it’s not clear that utilities are taking full advantage of that giant pool of money. Like Georgia Power, many utilities still want to expand fossil fuel plants, or build new ones. 

Ver Beek and his colleagues studied the energy plans of 50 utilities that have been submitted or updated since the law passed. They found that about a third failed to include the new clean energy provisions in their models at all, while many that did failed to account for the full potential of the incentives. For instance, many didn’t consider the bonuses that the IRA offers for locating projects in communities affected by the fossil fuel industry, offering competitive wages, or using U.S.-made technology.

“That, for one, is just a lack of ambition on the utilities,” Ver Beek said. “If you can get an extra 10 percent off the cost of your project, that’s a lot of money that is being left on the table.”

Even when utilities pursue tax credits for their clean energy projects, as Georgia Power said it will, many are still turning to fossil fuels as well.

That’s because the tax credits are running up against the nationwide jump in energy demand. Faced with so much demand, Bank of America utilities analyst Julian Dumoulin Smith said that utilities are falling back on their old standby: fossil fuels.

“What we’re seeing is a growing trend to go back to gas plants, mostly to effectively backstop the grid,” he said.

The idea, he said, is not to run new gas plants all the time, but to turn them on for limited periods when demand for energy is highest — think, when it’s very hot or very cold, so people start cranking their air conditioning or heaters.

This concept is known as a “peaker plant,” and it reflects how utilities plan. They base their plans not on the typical amount of power being used most of the time, but on those highest peak hours. That way, the utilities can guarantee they’ll have enough power without resorting to blackouts. Many utilities consider fossil fuel plants to be the only reliable way to meet demand peaks, because they can be turned on quickly to immediately meet the need. 

But that’s not true anymore, said Shelley Robbins, who works on the Phase Out Peakers project for the nonprofit Clean Energy Group.

“The good news is there are now alternatives,” she said.

Those other options are a bit more complicated than flipping the on/off switch at a power plant. They require utilities to run the grid more creatively, instead of solely making power and sending it out to meet demand.

Electric companies can reward people for using less energy during those hours of peak demand, an approach known as demand response. They can improve power lines so they can carry more electricity, called reconductoring. Utilities can even help a lot of homes and businesses install solar panels with battery backup, then draw on all those batteries when they need extra power, a concept known as a virtual power plant.

Various utilities around the country have tried all these methods and proven they can work. 

But, Robbins said, the regulators who approve utility plans and the lawmakers who set state energy policies, are used to turning to experts when they make decisions about complex issues like this — and the experts they trust are still in the fossil fuel industry.

“That voice is still there, that is still speaking to legislators and to utility regulators, and you know, whispering in their ear, that fossil is the only solution and it simply is not true,” she said.

Robbins says regulators, lawmakers, and utilities need education about these alternatives — and the fact that they’re now reliable solutions for climbing energy demand. The fate of U.S. climate policy and planet-warming emissions depends on making this shift.

Andy Posner, CEO of the climate-focused nonprofit Capital Good Fund, testified in the Georgia hearings:

“The commission should direct Georgia Power to develop and file a plan for expediting interconnection and witness testing of customer-sited solar energy and storage systems…”

That’s energy nerd speak for “more solar on homes and businesses, and batteries to go with it.” 

The idea here is that rooftop solar can be more than a way for an individual homeowner to save a little money and go green. It can also back up the energy grid. When demand for power peaks – say, on a hot day when everyone is maxing out their air conditioning – the utility could draw some power from a whole lot of individual customers’ batteries to cover any gaps.

That’s just one alternative to adding fossil fuels. Others have suggested beefing up transmission lines so they can carry more electricity at once, and incentive programs to lower the all-important energy demand peaks.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline With energy demand surging, utilities fall back on their old standby: Fossil fuels on Mar 29, 2024.

Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency this week as cases of dengue fever, a potentially deadly mosquito-borne infection, rise precipitously across the United States territory. In the emergency order, the commonwealth’s department of health said it had recorded 549 cases of the disease this year so far, a 140 percent increase over the same period a year ago. 

The numbers have “surpassed historical records,” health secretary Carlos Mellado López said. 

Puerto Rico’s health department is the latest government agency to mobilize its public health resources in service of controlling and treating large outbreaks of dengue. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka tried to tamp down unprecedented rates of dengue infections in the last year with varying degrees of success. Vast portions of Central and South America are battling months-long, record-breaking dengue crises. Some 5 million cases of the infection were reported worldwide in 2023, and the disease continues to spread. Already, an estimated 3.5 million cases of the infection and 1,000 deaths have been reported across the Americas in 2024 thus far — a rate of infection health officials predict will lead to a record-breaking number of dengue cases this year.

Epidemiologists and climate change researchers warn that warmer temperatures, intensifying storms, and more erratic and frequent rainfall events are contributing to outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses around the world. Research shows that over the past two decades, the environment in many regions of the world has become more hospitable to the Aedes genus of mosquito, the insect whose bite spreads dengue to humans. Warmer winters, hotter summers, and particularly milder springs and falls are allowing these mosquitoes to move into new areas and higher elevations that have historically been too harsh for their survival. 

“It’s a complex problem, but climate change, and most importantly consistently increasing temperatures, even in higher elevations,” said Manisha Bhinge, vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation’s health initiative, create “fertile ground for an outbreak.” 

Climate change is not solely responsible for the millions of dengue cases that have occurred since the beginning of 2023. The natural weather phenomenon El Niño, which produces warmer-than-average global temperatures and erratic changes in rainfall patterns across Latin America and other parts of the world, may play a role. Decaying and broken infrastructure, deforestation and urban sprawl, and underinvestment in sewage, water, and sanitation systems all contribute to disease surge by exposing more people to mosquitoes and creating pockets of standing water for the insects to breed in.

Warmer temperatures and extreme weather layered on top of these existing issues compound and exacerbate community vulnerability to dengue and other diseases spread by blood-sucking bugs.

Three in 4 people who get dengue — also known as breakbone fever — exhibit no symptoms, which means the true extent of the viral infection in Puerto Rico and other places is likely much higher than official reports indicate. Those who develop symptoms often report fevers of 104 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, muscle aches, and vomiting. Severe symptoms, such as intense stomach pain; bloody vomit, stool, or gums; and extreme fatigue, typically develop after the fever has passed. Individuals who contract the illness twice, from two different strains, are at a much higher risk of developing severe dengue or dying. The disease cannot be passed directly between people, but a person with dengue in their blood can pass the infection on to a mosquito, which can infect other people. 

Some 340 people have been hospitalized so far this year in Puerto Rico with severe dengue symptoms. More than half of the island’s dengue cases have occurred in San Juan, the territory’s capital, and surrounding municipalities. The Puerto Rican government did not restrict travel into or out of the island, but the department of health said the infection had reached epidemic levels. The emergency order, which will remain in effect for three months, allows the department of health to tap government resources more quickly as it works to detect and control mosquitoes.

Last year, a small but unusual number of locally acquired cases of dengue popped up in California, Texas, and Florida. The risk to people living in the contiguous United States still largely comes from travel to countries where rates of the illness are much higher, though that could change in years to come as temperatures continue to rise.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently advising Americans to take precautions against dengue when traveling to many countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. In Brazil, which has registered 1.5 million cases of dengue so far this year and recently became the first country in the world to launch a public vaccination campaign against the viral infection, 17 cities declared emergencies. 

There is no one solution to controlling mass outbreaks of dengue. Governments are trying out a multifaceted response that includes public education and vaccine campaigns, spraying mosquito-killing insecticides, draining swamps and puddles of standing water, and deploying new technologies. Brazil, for example, has had some success releasing mosquitoes that have been infected with bacteria that prevents them from carrying dengue in Rio de Janeiro and a handful of other urban centers across the country. Still, the best line of defense for people in affected areas is reducing exposure to mosquitoes by spending time indoors when possible, sleeping in mosquito netting, and frequently applying bug spray. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Puerto Rico declares an emergency as cases of dengue fever spike on Mar 29, 2024.

Sales of secondhand clothing are on their way to making up 10 percent of the fashion market worldwide, as environmental concerns and high prices inspire consumers to shop for pre-loved items, according to a 2024 Resale Report by online thrift and consignment shop ThredUp.

The 12th annual study, conducted by analytics firm GlobalData, includes projections through 2033. Its findings are based on a survey of 3,654 consumers in the United States, as well as a survey of 50 of the country’s top fashion brands and retailers, a press release from ThredUp said.

“The global secondhand apparel market continues to burgeon — a testament to the intrinsic value shoppers find in the secondhand experience and proof of the seismic shift towards a more circular fashion ecosystem,” said ThredUp co-founder and CEO James Reinhart in the press release. “As we celebrate this progress, we also recognize the powerful role the government can play in accelerating the transition to a more sustainable future for fashion. Now in its 12th year, the Resale Report shows some of the most promising signals of what that future could look like with increased levels of support. Until fashion is no longer one of the most damaging sectors of the global economy, we will continue to advocate for the government to help drive adoption and behavior change in fashion.”

The global secondhand clothing market is outpacing the overall retail sector and is predicted to increase at a 12 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $350 billion by 2028.

The used apparel market in the U.S. outpaced the overall retail clothing market by seven times last year. By 2028, it is projected to reach $73 billion.

Within five years, the report expects to see online resale clothing more than double to $40 billion at a CAGR of 17 percent.

“Shoppers gravitate towards buying secondhand apparel online. For the first time ever, younger generations prefer buying online versus in a brick-and-mortar store,” ThredUp said.

In fact, 45 percent of younger people prefer buying secondhand clothing online, as compared to 38 percent who would rather visit a brick-and-mortar retailer.

“With more than half of all consumers shopping for secondhand apparel last year, it’s evident that resale is now firmly embedded in the fashion landscape. Secondhand buying transcends generations, with the role of resale changing throughout consumers’ lives. Younger shoppers turn to secondhand for self-expression and to help create their personal style; parents rely on secondhand to outfit their families in a cost-effective and eco-conscious way; and older generations turn to secondhand to snag affordable, higher-end brands and for the thrill of the hunt,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in the press release. “Secondhand’s flexibility in meeting such varied needs is a key reason it’s become so popular and has such a promising growth trajectory.”

Nearly two out of three consumers who bought secondhand last year made at least one online purchase — a 17 point increase from the year before.

“Nearly 3 in 4 consumers say when it comes to apparel spend, value is king,” the press release said. While “60% of consumers say shopping secondhand apparel gives them the most bang for their buck” and “55% of consumers say they’ll spend more on secondhand apparel if the economy doesn’t improve.”

ThredUp’s Recommerce 100 said the 163 brands that now offer resale shops — including J. Crew and American Eagle — represent a 31 percent increase from 2022.

Where resale is offered, it will generate a minimum of 10 percent of a company’s overall revenue within five years, according to almost two out of three retail executives, the report said.

Most retail executives — 87 percent — who offer resale said it has furthered their sustainability goals.

More than a third of consumers said they purchase second hand to be able to afford higher-end brands — an increase of 11 points from 2022.

Voters expressed their support of candidates who support a circular fashion economy, with 42 percent of consumers saying the government needs to take legislative action to promote sustainable fashion.

Reinhart said upcoming legislation designed to curb fast fashion globally was inspiring brands to take action, reported The Guardian.

“It is hard not to believe that there will be some activity in that space in the next three to five years given how much of apparel ends up in landfill,” Reinhart said, as The Guardian reported.

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The United States Department of the Interior has announced a final rule to curb methane emissions from natural gas waste during oil and gas production on the country’s federal and Tribal lands.

The updated regulation modernizes rules that are more than four decades old. It will require oil and gas companies to stop wasteful practices, find and fix leaks and compensate Tribal mineral owners and taxpayers through the payment of royalties, a press release from the Interior Department said.

“This final rule, which updates 40-year-old regulations, furthers the Biden-Harris administration’s goals to prevent waste, protect our environment, and ensure a fair return to American taxpayers,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in the press release. “By leveraging modern technology and best practices to reduce natural gas waste, we are taking long-overdue steps that will increase accountability for oil and gas operators and benefit energy communities now and for generations to come.”

It is expected that the final rule will generate additional royalty payments of more than $50 million annually from natural gas. At the same time, an enormous amount of gas — billions of cubic feet — that might have been flared, leaked or vented during oil and gas operations will be conserved. The conserved gas can then be used to power homes and industries across the country.

“This rule represents a common sense, fair, and equitable solution to preventing waste that provides a level playing field for all of our energy-producing communities,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) director, in the press release. “The BLM worked extensively with a wide range of stakeholders to modernize our decades-old regulations and help protect communities across the country.”

The development of oil and gas on public lands has expanded quickly since the 1980s. This growth has led to double the percentage of gas lost to venting and the burning of vented gas through flaring.

From 2010 to 2020, an average of roughly 44.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas was lost each year to venting and flaring, reported Tribal and federal onshore lessees — enough to power more than 675,000 residences.

Several states — including New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado and Pennsylvania — as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — have implemented measures to limit oil and gas venting, flaring and leaks in order to improve air quality or prevent waste.

The modernized BLM rule is different from the EPA rule. It ensures that oil and gas operators are able to comply with state, federal or Tribal rules while also meeting commonsense requirements.

“It requires operators of federal and Indian oil and gas leases to take reasonable steps to avoid natural gas waste from the very beginning of operations, carry out leak detection and repair across ongoing operations, and cut down on wasteful gas venting and flaring. Consistent with the Inflation Reduction Act, the rule also sets new limits on ‘royalty-free’ flaring, so that public and Tribal mineral owners are properly compensated through royalty payments for avoidable losses of natural gas,” the press release said.

Thousands of comments were received by BLM — from environmental groups, academics, landowners, oil and gas producers, industry experts and other stakeholders — that helped inform the proposed rule changes.

Environmental groups expressed support for the new policy.

“Taking action to limit methane waste on public lands offers a win-win-win for taxpayers, producers and communities harmed by this waste and associated pollution,” said Jon Goldstein, Environmental Defense Fund’s regulatory and legislative affairs senior director, as reported by Reuters.

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Bamboo toilet paper has been touted as a more sustainable alternative to conventional toilet paper, which is linked to deforestation. But according to a new report, some brands of bamboo toilet paper available in the UK are actually made with woods like eucalyptus and acacia and contain very little bamboo.

A report by Which?, a nonprofit organization based in the UK, revealed three out of five tested bamboo toilet papers contained wood fibers, despite being made from “100% bamboo” or “bamboo only.” 

Bamboo is not a wood; it is technically a dense and hardy grass. According to composition testing of the toilet papers, two brands, Naked Sprout and Bumboo, contained 4% and 2.7% unidentified grass fibers, respectively. The brand Bazoo contained 26.10% bamboo.

“Given so many shoppers are taking steps to be more sustainable, it’s vital they can trust claims made by brands — particularly when they are paying more for a product they believe is better for the environment,” said Emily Seymour, sustainability editor for Which?, as reported by The Guardian. “Businesses must take responsibility for ensuring their products contain what they say on the packaging, so that shoppers who want to make sustainable choices can trust the information they are given.”

The researchers specifically identified acacia wood fibers in two brands, Bazoo and Bumboo, which raised concerns over deforestation, particularly in Indonesia. A separate study by Nusantara Atlas found that deforestation related to wood pulp demand reached a record high in some parts of Indonesia in 2023, and the amount of primary forests converted into plantations for pulpwood increased 15% compared to 2022.

Further, Which? found virgin hardwood fibers present in Naked Sprout, Bumboo and Bazoo brands’ toilet papers, yet all three brands feature Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifications or labeling. 

FSC told Which? that it will be conducting an investigation following the report.

Which? used TAPPI T 401 in an independent lab to conduct the composition testing, to which some of the brands highlighted in the report praised, while others criticized the results.

Bumboo told Which? that it found an issue in its supply chain and remedied the problem as well as contacted customers. It also called TAPPI T 401 the “gold standard” in fiber testing and announced plans to incorporate this type of testing to ensure 100% bamboo toilet paper moving forward.

Bazoo noted it is audited every six months by FSC and is currently investigating with FSC and its manufacturer following the report.

According to Which?, Naked Sprout said its materials are fully traceable and FSC-certified and that the TAPPI T 401 testing has limitations. As Which? reported, the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry responded that it “seems disingenuous” that the testing would work properly for four brands but not for one.

Not all of the brands were found to contain wood fibers, though. Who Gives a Crap and The Cheeky Panda, both of which claim to contain 100% bamboo in their toilet paper, did meet their claims, according to the tests.

Bamboo toilet paper is considered more sustainable because of bamboo’s fast regrowth rate, but Which? pointed out that while some environmental organizations have noted that bamboo toilet paper has a lower impact than toilet paper made from virgin wood fibers, recycled toilet paper may be an even better option.

“We should be working towards reducing our paper consumption in Europe as much as possible and using recycled paper where we can, which definitely includes toilet roll,” Johannes Zahnen, senior officer of forest policy at WWF Germany, told Which?.

The post 60% of Bamboo Toilet Paper Brands in the UK Were Made With Other Woods, Testing Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

A landfill is a place of perpetual motion, where mountains of garbage can rise in days and crews race to contain the influx of ever more trash. Amid the commotion, an invisible gas often escapes unnoticed, warming the planet and harming our health: methane.

On Thursday, the climate-data sleuths at Carbon Mapper published a study in Science that shows U.S. landfills emit methane at levels at least 40 percent higher than previously reported to the Environmental Protection Agency. At more than half of the hundreds of garbage dumps surveyed — in the largest assessment yet of such emissions — most of the pollution flowed from leaks, creating concentrated plumes. The researchers found these super-emitting points can persist for months or even years, and account for almost 90 percent of all measured methane from the landfills. Tackling these hotspots could be a huge stride toward lowering emission rates, but blindspots in current monitoring protocols mean they often evade detection.

“It’s a very hard problem to get totally right without any leaks at any place,” said Daniel Cusworth, an atmospheric chemist and project scientist for Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that provides data to inform greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Sometimes Cusworth conducts aerial surveys of landfills and is relieved to find nothing. “And then other times, you know, I’ll see a massive billowing plume that’s three kilometers long.”

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas created by, among other things, decaying trash, and it often seeps through the soil and plastic covers meant to contain it. Although federal regulations require large facilities to use gas capture systems, landfills remain the third biggest source of these emissions in the United States, accounting for over 14 percent of the national total. Because methane is 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, scientists say reducing the amount of it floating around up there is the quickest way to curb global warming. Doing so also benefits communities: A disproportionate number of U.S. landfills are near marginalized neighborhoods, where gas exposure impacts health or poses an explosion risk.

Leaks that exceed the Clean Air Act’s limit of 500 parts per million are common, as shown by the hotspots Carbon Mapper identified. These areas typically appear after unanticipated events, such as cracks in landfill covers, valve failure in the vast gas collection systems, and other maintenance or construction issues. “They really dominated the total emissions for the landfill,” Cusworth said. The survey found that average release from the most surveyed sites was at least 1.4 times, and sometimes as much as 2.7 times, larger than those reported to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.

Although federal guidelines require these facilities to track emissions and provide that data to the EPA, current reporting and monitoring methods just aren’t up to snuff, according to the study. Most operators report an estimate, using EPA guidelines, calculated from the amount of trash they take in, not from measured data. Regulators also require facilities to perform walking ground surveys four times a year, but experts like Cusworth say these efforts aren’t frequent or precise enough. Hotspots can easily escape notice because many areas are too dangerous or inaccessible to walk on, and monitoring sensors react only to high concentrations on the ground and wouldn’t catch dispersed plumes. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” said Cusworth, adding that it’s a popular cliche in the air monitoring business. 

In the survey, the Carbon Mapper researchers flew over landfills with airplanes that captured infrared images, revealing the plumes. Similar remote sensing methods, such as drones and satellites, are among recent technological advances that could keep the pollutant in check, helping facilities find and address leaks quickly. Other innovations to methane capturing systems, such as self-calibrating caps on valves and sensors that can detect leaks, further reduce the risk of failures.

“In the waste sector, specifically, we know what technologies to implement – we’ve known for a number of years. They’re feasible, readily available, and a number of them are actually quite cost effective,” said Kait Siegel, waste sector manager on the methane pollution team at Clean Air Task Force. “We need to have regulations in place.” This upcoming August, the EPA is expected to update its landfill management policies as part of a required 8-year review cycle. 

Tom Frankiewicz, a waste sector methane scientist at RMI, which collaborated with Carbon Mapper on the study, said addressing outsized methane sources, like landfills, is urgent due to the short lifespan and extreme potency of the gas, compared to the longer-lasting carbon dioxide. The world won’t see the climate benefits of reducing CO2 emissions for a century, he said. That time frame drops to a decade when curbing methane. “We have to be working on both, and leaning in on methane because it buys us time.” And in the race to mitigate climate change, every moment counts.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Landfills bake the planet even more than we realized on Mar 28, 2024.

Building a small cold frame greenhouse from reclaimed wood is a enjoyable and sustainable weekend…

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Today’s inspiration is a quote from naturalist Ellen Meloy. In her book, Eating Stone: Imagination…

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