Iceland Glacier Gone
Friday, August 16, 2019
Arctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU | World news | The Guardian
Plume from unprecedented blazes forecast to reach Alaska as fires rage for third month
A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month.
An aerial view of a wildfire in Boguchar, Russia. Photograph: Donat Sorokin/Tass
The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.
A spate of huge fires in northern Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada discharged 50 megatonnes of CO2 in June and 79 megatonnes in July, far exceeding the previous record for the Arctic.
The intensity of the blazes continues with 25 megatonnes in the first 11 days of August – extending the duration beyond even the most persistent fires in the 17-year dataset of Europe’s satellite monitoring system.
Mark Parrington, a scientist in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said the previous record was just a few weeks. “We haven’t seen this before,” he said. “The fire intensity is still well above average.”
Continue reading at: Arctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU | World news | The Guardian
A cloud of smoke and soot bigger than the European Union is billowing across Siberia as wildfires in the Arctic Circle rage into an unprecedented third month.
An aerial view of a wildfire in Boguchar, Russia. Photograph: Donat Sorokin/Tass
The normally frozen region, which is a crucial part of the planet’s cooling system, is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and worsening the manmade climate disruption that created the tinderbox conditions.
A spate of huge fires in northern Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada discharged 50 megatonnes of CO2 in June and 79 megatonnes in July, far exceeding the previous record for the Arctic.
The intensity of the blazes continues with 25 megatonnes in the first 11 days of August – extending the duration beyond even the most persistent fires in the 17-year dataset of Europe’s satellite monitoring system.
Mark Parrington, a scientist in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said the previous record was just a few weeks. “We haven’t seen this before,” he said. “The fire intensity is still well above average.”
Continue reading at: Arctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU | World news | The Guardian
Russia's devastating wildfires mapped - Unearthed
Groundbreaking analysis of satellite imagery reveals the human activity linked to vast majority of catastrophic Siberian forest fires
Wildfires that ravaged millions of hectares of land and forests in Russia last year may have been caused by so-called “prescribed burning” – a controversial practice intended to prevent the spread of forest fire.
The aftermath of a forest fire near Lake Baikal, Siberia, in September 2018. Photo: Greenpeace
That’s according to a new analysis of 2018’s Siberian wildfires carried out by GIS specialists at Greenpeace’s Global Mapping Hub, who found that the overwhelming majority of those fires started close to places where people travel, work or live, or to sites of deliberate ‘prescribed burnings’.
Across the four regions studied the proportion of fires fitting into this category ranged from 65% in Krasnoyarsk Krai to 99% in Amur Oblast.
Continue reading at: Russia's devastating wildfires mapped - Unearthed
Go to the map: https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/research/en/
Wildfires that ravaged millions of hectares of land and forests in Russia last year may have been caused by so-called “prescribed burning” – a controversial practice intended to prevent the spread of forest fire.
The aftermath of a forest fire near Lake Baikal, Siberia, in September 2018. Photo: Greenpeace
Across the four regions studied the proportion of fires fitting into this category ranged from 65% in Krasnoyarsk Krai to 99% in Amur Oblast.
Continue reading at: Russia's devastating wildfires mapped - Unearthed
Go to the map: https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/research/en/
Monday, August 12, 2019
The Kids Are Alright: The Youngster Climate Crusade
Taking a cue from young folk on climate activism
There are many reasons for climate change despair, summarized by scary headlines like “The Devastation of Human Life is In View.” But let’s talk about kids these days. If you have one, two or five—or are grandfather, aunt, friend or mentor to someone under 20—climate change is our greatest legacy to them and their adulthood. One would think that’d wake anyone from the immobilization of complacency or of praying someone else does something first. (In perhaps a sign from the climate change gods, my spellcheck tried to replace ‘immobilization,’ with ‘immolation’— which about says it all.) Yet while adults across the globe dither and delay, a whole bunch of young people have mobilized. And they want you and me to mobilize. (Hey, aren’t you and I the adults in their room?)
Continue reading at: The Kids Are Alright: The Youngster Climate Crusade
There are many reasons for climate change despair, summarized by scary headlines like “The Devastation of Human Life is In View.” But let’s talk about kids these days. If you have one, two or five—or are grandfather, aunt, friend or mentor to someone under 20—climate change is our greatest legacy to them and their adulthood. One would think that’d wake anyone from the immobilization of complacency or of praying someone else does something first. (In perhaps a sign from the climate change gods, my spellcheck tried to replace ‘immobilization,’ with ‘immolation’— which about says it all.) Yet while adults across the globe dither and delay, a whole bunch of young people have mobilized. And they want you and me to mobilize. (Hey, aren’t you and I the adults in their room?)
Continue reading at: The Kids Are Alright: The Youngster Climate Crusade
Consumers Energy settlement could lead to hundreds of megawatts of solar power
A proposed settlement between Consumers Energy and independent power producers could lead to hundreds of megawatts of solar power being built within the next four years.
On Thursday, the utility filed the proposed settlement with the Michigan Public Service Commission hoping to resolve a more than year-long dispute with solar developers looking to sell power to Consumers.
Multiple developers have challenged the amount Consumers is required to pay them under the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act, or PURPA. Under the 1978 policy, utilities are required to purchase power from independent producers at the “avoided cost,” reflecting the amount it would cost the utility to build itself. Critics have claimed Consumers Energy proposed avoided costs rates that made their projects uneconomic to build.
The settlement is supported by the Solar Energy Industries Association as well as Cypress Creek Renewables, a national solar developer that has been an ongoing critic of Consumers Energy’s PURPA position. The groups had withheld support of Consumers’ proposed Clean Energy Plan calling for 6,000 megawatts of solar to be added to its system by 2040.
Thursday’s agreement says Consumers will use “commercially reasonable efforts” to interconnect 584 MW of solar by Sept. 1, 2023, which developers are ready to build. The utility aims to connect 150 MW of third-party power a year.
Continue reading at: Consumers Energy settlement could lead to hundreds of megawatts of solar power
On Thursday, the utility filed the proposed settlement with the Michigan Public Service Commission hoping to resolve a more than year-long dispute with solar developers looking to sell power to Consumers.
Multiple developers have challenged the amount Consumers is required to pay them under the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act, or PURPA. Under the 1978 policy, utilities are required to purchase power from independent producers at the “avoided cost,” reflecting the amount it would cost the utility to build itself. Critics have claimed Consumers Energy proposed avoided costs rates that made their projects uneconomic to build.
The settlement is supported by the Solar Energy Industries Association as well as Cypress Creek Renewables, a national solar developer that has been an ongoing critic of Consumers Energy’s PURPA position. The groups had withheld support of Consumers’ proposed Clean Energy Plan calling for 6,000 megawatts of solar to be added to its system by 2040.
Thursday’s agreement says Consumers will use “commercially reasonable efforts” to interconnect 584 MW of solar by Sept. 1, 2023, which developers are ready to build. The utility aims to connect 150 MW of third-party power a year.
Continue reading at: Consumers Energy settlement could lead to hundreds of megawatts of solar power
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Climate change could raise the risk of deadly fungal infections in humans
Outbreaks of Candida auris have recently erupted around the world
FUNGAL THREAT An emerging fungus called Candida auris (illustrated) can cause deadly infections in people’s blood and organs. Dr_Microbe/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Continue reading at: Climate change could raise the risk of deadly fungal infections in humans
While fungal diseases have devastated many animal and plant species, humans and other mammals have mostly been spared. That’s probably because mammals have body temperatures too warm for most fungi to replicate as well as powerful immune systems. But climate change may be challenging those defenses, bringing new fungal threats to human health, a microbiologist warns.
From 2012 to 2015, pathogenic versions of the fungus Candida auris arose independently in Africa, Asia and South America. The versions are from the same species, yet they are genetically distinct, so the spread across continents couldn’t have been caused by infected travelers, says Arturo Casadevall of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
FUNGAL THREAT An emerging fungus called Candida auris (illustrated) can cause deadly infections in people’s blood and organs. Dr_Microbe/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Continue reading at: Climate change could raise the risk of deadly fungal infections in humans
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides
Bees, butterflies, and other insects are under attack by the very plants they feed on as U.S. agriculture continues to use chemicals known to kill.
America’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to honeybees, and likely other insects, than it was 25 years ago, almost entirely due to widespread use of so-called neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS One.
This enormous rise in toxicity matches the sharp declines in bees, butterflies, and other pollinators as well as birds, says co-author Kendra Klein, senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth US.
“This is the second Silent Spring. Neonics are like a new DDT, except they are a thousand times more toxic to bees than DDT was,” Klein says in an interview.
Picture credit: The New York Times
Continue reading at: Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides
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