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On getting rid of legacy emissions, groundwater, and geoengineering
Current conditions: A large wildfire is burning out of control in northwestern Turkey • Intense storms killed at least 11 people in South Africa • It will be 109 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix today, and tomorrow will be hotter.
A team of international researchers this week published a new report on the state of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as it relates to global climate goals. The top-line takeaway is that CDR must quadruple if we want to stay in line with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. While stopping new greenhouse gas emissions is the top priority in curbing global warming, experts agree CDR will be needed to address legacy emissions, which can remain in the atmosphere for decades.
Current CDR efforts – from reforestation to direct air capture technology – remove about 2 billion metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year. That’s far short of the 7-9 billion metric tons that will need to be removed annually by 2050. But the report’s authors say there are signs that CDR development is slowing down. They call for more investment to support the “high ambitions” of CDR companies, and want countries to weave CDR policies into their national climate action plans to spark demand and help CDR scale. Currently just 1.1% of investment in climate-tech startups goes toward CDR. In April, a report found that the U.S. will need to spend $100 billion per year by 2050 to make CDR a viable climate solution.
One really interesting insight from the report is that grant money is flowing steadily toward CDR research and development, especially in the U.S. and Canada: There were fewer than 50 third-party research grants for CDR in the year 2000, compared to 1,160 in 2022.
Somewhat relatedly, Swiss carbon removal company Climeworks yesterday unveiled new “generation 3” technology that it said can suck up twice as much carbon from the atmosphere using half the amount of energy as its previous designs.
A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience finds that the Earth’s groundwater is warming up due to climate change. For the study, researchers created a model to estimate changes in groundwater temperatures in varying global warming scenarios. Their model shows that by the end of the century, groundwater could be between 2.1 and 3.5 degrees Celsius (or between 3.8 and 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer on average than it is today. This would be bad news for ecosystems that rely on groundwater, as well as for humans: “As groundwater warms, there is increased risk of pathogen growth which impacts drinking water quality – potentially affecting the lives of many people,” said co-author Dr. Gabriel Rau of the University of Newcastle. The warming will vary by region, but parts of North America will see some of the most intense warming rates.
The world’s largest solar farm just came online. The 5-gigawatt, 200,000-acre farm is located in China’s Xinjiang region, and was officially connected to China’s grid on Monday. It’s one piece of China’s larger “megabase” initiative to install 455 GW of wind and solar. The new farm will generate about 6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year, making it “powerful enough to meet the electricity demands of a country the size of Luxembourg or Papua New Guinea,” as Anthony Cuthbertson at the Independent put it. The second- and third-largest solar farms (by capacity) are also located in China. A recent report from the International Energy Agency called China the world’s “renewable powerhouse” because it accounts for nearly 60% of the world’s new renewable capacity that will become operational by 2028.
Southern Germany has been absolutely hammered by torrential rain in recent days, resulting in overflowing rivers and deadly floods. Five people have died in the disaster. To give you a sense of how bad the situation is, more than a month’s worth of rain fell in the region between Friday and Monday, and water levels in the city of Passau rose by 32 feet. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reminded everyone that this kind of weather is not normal, saying that “we must not neglect the task of halting man-made climate change.”
Cleanup begins in a flooded town in Germany.Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images
The rain is easing up now and some towns are starting their cleanup efforts, but all that water has to go somewhere, and BBC reports it’s headed down the Danube River into Austria, Hungary, and possibly Slovakia. Already the river burst its banks in the Austrian city of Linz, and Austria has halted all shipping activity in the river.
A first-of-its-kind geoengineering research project in California has been officially canceled. The research, conducted by a team from the University of Washington, involved spraying sea salt aerosol particles into the air using an instrument situated on a decommissioned aircraft carrier in Alameda, California. This process has been pitched as a way to brighten clouds and reflect the sun’s rays to cool the planet. Because studies on manipulating the climate are so controversial, the researchers kept the project on the downlow until it was up and running, and this lack of transparency – rather than any safety concerns – seems to have really rubbed city officials the wrong way. The Alameda City Council voted this morning to reject the experiment. “You didn’t start out on the right foot,” Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft told the researchers.
The dispute may be a little preview of things to come. “There’s a fair number of people who think there shouldn’t be research [on geoengineering], and these early experiments have become a proxy battleground for this larger question about how to think about the development of these technologies,” David Keith, director of the Climate Systems Engineering Initiative at the University of Chicago, toldThe Washington Post.
The Thomas Edison Birthplace Museum in Ohio is now powered by rooftop solar.
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On executive orders, the Supreme Court, and a “particularly dangerous situation” in Los Angeles.
Current conditions:Nearly 10 million people are under alert today for fire weather conditions in southern California • The coastal waters off China hit their highest average temperature, 70.7 degrees Fahrenheit, since record-keeping began • A blast of cold air will bring freezing temperatures to an estimated 80% of Americans in the next week.
High winds returned to Los Angeles on Monday night and will peak on Tuesday, the “most dangerous” day of the week for the city still battling severe and deadly fires. In anticipation of the dry Santa Ana winds, the National Weather Service issued its highest fire weather warning, citing a “particularly dangerous situation” in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties for the first time since December 2020.
A new brush fire, the Auto Fire, ignited in Oxnard, Ventura County, on Monday evening. It spread 55 acres before firefighters stopped it. Meanwhile, investigators continue to look for the cause of the Palisades Fire, which ignited near a week-old burn scar, a popular partying spot, and damaged wooden utility poles, according to a New York Times analysis.
National Weather Service
Trump is planning an executive order banning offshore wind developments on the East Coast, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman reported Monday. The news came from New Jersey Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew, who said he’s working with Trump’s team to “to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
Van Drew’s press release also said that this order is “just the beginning,” and that it would be finalized “within the first few months of the administration,” a far cry from the Day One action Trump has promised. Van Drew had earlier told New Jersey reporters that the ban would last six months.
Meanwhile, in other executive order news, Biden issued an order on Tuesday directing the Energy and Defense departments to lease federal lands for “gigawatt-scale” data centers, according to E&E News, but only if they bring online enough clean energy to match their facilities’ needs.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit brought by Utah attempting to seize control of the “unappropriated” federal lands in the state. Opponents argued that the lawsuit, if successful, would have put public lands across the West on the path to privatization since Utah and other states likely couldn’t afford to manage them and would have had to sell off much of them. However, “while the Court’s decision denying original review of Utah’s claims is welcome news for our shared public lands, we fully expect Utah’s misguided attacks to continue,” Alison Flint, the senior legal director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
As I reported last month, the Utah lawsuit organizers “seem prepared to make an appeal to Congress or the Trump administration if the Supreme Court doesn’t make a move in their favor,” given that “funding for the messaging for Stand for Our Land, the publicity arm of the lawsuit, has reportedly outpaced the spending on lawyers.
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a fossil fuel industry argument to block states, municipalities, and other groups from seeking damages for the harms caused by climate change. The appeal by Sunoco, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and others stemmed from a high-profile lawsuit in Honolulu that seeks to hold energy companies accountable for causing “a substantial portion” of the effects of climate change. Had the Supreme Court taken up the case, similar lawsuits by California and others likely would have been paused during deliberations. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, responded to Monday’s decision by claiming activists will now “make themselves the nation’s energy regulators.”
A little over a week after the start of New York City’s congestion pricing, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released data showing significant decreases in the amount of time passengers spend in inbound traffic. On average, during the morning commute, traffic times have decreased by 30% to 40%; in some cases, such as during rush hour in the Holland Tunnel, travel time has been cut in half, going from over 11 minutes to under five. Due to the traffic reductions, some bus routes are up to 28% faster now than at the same time last year. “It has been a very good week here in New York,” MTA deputy chief Juliette Michaelson said in a news conference.
So far, the MTA has seen an average of 43,000 fewer drivers entering the congestion pricing zone, which begins below 60th St. and costs $9 during the day. While Gothamist notes that this is only a 7.3% reduction compared to last January, many New Yorkers say congestion pricing effects are visibly noticeable in the streets of lower Manhattan.
The Brooklyn Bridge as congestion pricing went into effect. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm is throwing a “swanky party” to celebrate the inauguration of Donald Trump, on whose campaign he spent more than $4.3 million, according to the research group Fieldnotes and The New York Times. Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum was among the invitees, although an advisor has said he does not plan to attend; one of the party’s several major oil and gas industry sponsors, Liberty Energy, was founded by Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary.
In May, Trump met with oil and gas executives at his Mar-a-Lago resort and promised industry-friendly tax and regulatory policies and an aggressive stance against wind energy if they helped fund his White House bid. The oil and gas industry ultimately invested some $75 million in efforts to help re-elect the former president and contributed millions to his legal defense.
25% — That’s the level of tariff Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Canada should prepare for after a meeting with incoming President Trump — and not expect exceptions for its crude oil exports to the U.S., per Bloomberg’s Javier Blas.
Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
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Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.