Can Electric Vehicles Be 'Environmental Villains'?

Researchers from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) found in a new study assessing the life cycle air quality impacts on human health of 10 alternatives to conventional gasoline vehicles “that electric vehicles (EVs) powered by electricity from natural gas or wind, water, or solar power are best for improving air quality, whereas vehicles powered by corn ethanol and EVs powered by coal are the worst.”  This study entitled Life cycle air quality impacts of conventional and alternative light-duty transportation in the United States and published in the renowned scientific journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ (PNAS) constitutes an important contribution to the debate over “environmental impacts of conventional versus alternative transportation options.”  Importantly, the authors – Christopher W. Tessum, Jason D. Hill, and Julian D. Marshall – emphasizethat their “results reinforce previous findings that air quality-related health damages from transportation are generally comparable to or larger than climate change-related damages.”

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Record Numbers Evacuated in Malaysia's Worst Floods in Decades

More than 100,000 people have been evacuated from their homes by authorities in five northern states of Malaysia hit by the Southeast Asian' nation's worst monsoon floods in decades.

Extremely high levels of floodwater and bad weather have made relocating victims and the transport of food supplies by helicopters difficult, Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement.

A total of 103,412 people have been displaced in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak and Perlis, state news agency Bernama said, surpassing the previous record of 100,000 people evacuated during floods in 2008.

Northeastern peninsular Malaysia, which is worst affected, is regularly hit by flooding during the annual Northeast Monsoon, but this year's rains have been particularly bad.

Read more at Record Numbers Evacuated in Malaysia's Worst Floods in Decades

Thursday, December 25

Irreversible but Not Unstoppable: the Ghost of Climate Change Yet to Come

Unlike Scrooge, we don’t get a spirit to show us what the future holds if we don’t change our ways.

That’s what we have science for.  In recent years, observations have confirmed the key projections climate scientists have been making for decades.  But some of the most important impacts have been occurring much faster than scientists expected, including sea level rise.  As recently as a decade ago, scientists did not expect that the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica would melt enough this century to contribute much to total sea level rise.  Now, observations suggest they will be a primary if not the primary driver of sea level rise.

Recently, we’ve had many of the world’s leading scientists and scientific bodies warning us of what is to come.

Yes, it seems unlikely that we will adopt the aggressive but near-zero-net-cost policies needed to stabilize at 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, and then quickly come back to 350 ppm, thanks in large part to the deniers, along with their political pals and media enablers.  But the two biggest carbon polluters (China and U.S.) have struck a game-changing deal that could ultimately avoid some of the worst impacts — if other key countries join in and then all countries pursue even stronger emissions cuts in the coming decades.
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The question of whether it’s “too late,” doesn’t have one purely scientific answer.  It does seem clear that the most dangerous carbon-cycle feedback — the defrosting permafrost — hasn’t kicked in yet but likely will within two decades, adding 0.4°F – 1.5°F to total global warming by 2100.  On the other hand, part of the West Antarctic ice sheet now does appear close to if not past the point of irreversible collapse.  That said, the worst case of sea level rise can still be avoided, as can many other of the most serious impacts.

If humanity gets truly serious about emissions reduction — and by serious I mean “World War II serious” in both scale and urgency — we could go to near-zero global emissions in, say, two decades and then quickly go carbon negative.  It wouldn’t be easy, far from it in fact.  But it would be vastly cheaper and preferable to the alternative.  A few years ago, scientists found the “net present value of climate change impacts” to be an astronomical $1240 trillion on our current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must.
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“Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

Action now will save trillions and trillions of dollars.

Read more at Irreversible but Not Unstoppable:  the Ghost of Climate Change Yet to Come

Rapid Increase in Arctic Temperature Is Spreading South

Climate scientists are confident that the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as any other part of the planet, but now comes evidence from researchers in Finland that the rising temperatures are being felt further south than the polar regions.
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The marked rise is reported in a study by researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, published in the journal Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment.  They say their study “exhibits a statistically significant trend, which is consistent with human-induced global warming”.

Trees affected
Records show that, over the past 166 years, the average temperature in Finland has risen by more than two degrees Celsius.  The average increase observed was 0.14°C per decade, which is nearly twice the global average.  Since the 1960s, the temperature has risen faster than ever before, with the rise varying between 0.2 and 0.4°C per decade.
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One consequence of the rising temperature is that Finnish lakes now freeze over later in the year than they used to, while the ice cover melts earlier each spring.  Some of Finland’s trees are also beginning to blossom earlier than before.

The study found that the temperature has risen in two phases − the first lasting from the start of the observation period in 1847 to the late 1930s, and the second from the late 1960s until now.  During the intervening 30 years or so, the temperature remained nearly steady.

Dr Santtu Mikkonen, the lead author, said: “The stop in the temperature rise can be explained by several factors, including long-term changes in solar activity and the post-World War II growth of human-derived aerosols in the atmosphere.  When looking at recent years’ observations, it seems that the temperature rise is not slowing down.”

He told the Climate News Network:  “Our study shows that the warming is taking place all over Finland.  In addition to the results shown in the paper, we made some tests with data only from southern Finland  and from individual stations in different parts of the country, and the trend was similar in all these analyses.  The area of higher warming is reaching further south than it has been recorded before.”

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With US Nuclear in Decline, Scientists and Analysts Urge Support for Next-Generation Technologies

The global nuclear industry is in steady decline. Since hitting a peak in 1996 at nearly 18 percent of global energy production, the industry's share has dropped down to less than 11 percent.

Even with countries like China and India looking to boost their low-carbon energy supplies with nuclear, project developers around the world have faced long delays, cost overruns, and strong competition from natural gas and distributed resources, as well as policies designed to phase nuclear out entirely.

America is facing its own imminent decline in nuclear generation.  With a wave of aging plants slated for closure in the coming years and almost no plans to replace them, some worry that the country will reverse the recent decline in emissions, potentially even hurting a long-term global deal to reduce carbon pollution.

Nuclear currently makes up 19 percent of the country's generation.  If enough plants end up retiring all at once, the government warns that emissions could climb by 4 percent per year. (The actual change will also depend on how many coal plants are retired, how much natural gas is consumed, and how quickly renewables ramp.)

Worried about how the deterioration of America's nuclear fleet will impact climate goals, a group of scientists and energy analysts this week urged a rethinking of U.S. nuclear policy.  The separate calls, all made within days of each other, came from a leading Washington-based think tank, 73 conservation scientists and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"There is a need...to develop and articulate a clear strategy for nuclear power, including a statement of how the federal government will provide long-term support," wrote IEA in its latest review of U.S. energy policy.

A comprehensive federal plan, says IEA, is the only way to keep the industry relevant. Low natural gas and wind prices are challenging the economics of nuclear plants in the U.S., forcing some plant operators to consider retiring older plants ahead of schedule. 

"The domestic nuclear industry is therefore at a critical juncture as a consequence of its declining economic competitiveness, and existing market mechanisms do not favor investment in high capital-intensive nuclear technology," concluded the IEA.

Read more at With US Nuclear in Decline, Scientists and Analysts Urge Support for Next-Generation Technologies

U.N. Disaster Chief Warns of More Natural Catastrophes to Come

Thailand’s Khao Lak coast 10 years ago was a wasteland of palm beaches littered with the detritus of destroyed hotels and corpses blackened by the tropical sun.

Margareta Wahlstrom, the United Nations’ top official on natural disasters, will be in Khao Lak on Friday for the anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with a message: “Expect events to happen that you have never seen before.  There will be no letup in the coming decades.”

Spurred partly by the tsunami, which the United Nations says killed more than 227,000 people, many countries have built early warning systems and other defenses against natural disasters, said Ms. Wahlstrom, the head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The perception among some developed countries that disasters mostly afflict poor countries has changed since Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012, earthquakes in Italy, repeated heavy flooding in Central Europe, and wildfires in the United States and Russia.  “Everywhere, things are going on that didn’t go on 10 years ago,” Ms. Wahlstrom said.

Between 1970 and 2012, nearly two million people died in 8,835 disasters, according to a “mortality atlas” the United Nations produced this year, estimating the economic losses at $2.4 trillion.  Although data is still imprecise, Ms. Wahlstrom said the United Nations and business accepted that natural disasters cost the global economy about $250 billion a year, probably much more.

Moreover, those estimates do not take into account the long-term and indirect costs of disasters in the form of ruined businesses, unemployment, homelessness and health costs.

Read more at U.N. Disaster Chief Warns of More Natural Catastrophes to Come - NYTimes.com