Envirographs - EnviroGraphs

The advance of cane toads in Australia

Everglades (and south Florida, including Miami) with 5ft of sea level rise

Climate change is hitting Georgia’s peach industry, where an unusually warm winter this year let to a dramatically reduced peach harvest.

From FiveThirtyEight:

For trees that fruit each year (such as peaches, cherries, blueberries, almonds and other fruits and nuts), cool weather is as important as warm. Cold air and less sunlight trigger the release of chemicals that halt trees’ growth, prepare them to withstand freezing temperatures and enable them to resume growing the following spring. When a tree enters this dormant state, it sets a kind of internal seasonal alarm clock that goes off once the tree has spent enough time in chilly temperatures. This countdown is measured in so-called chill hours — the amount of time the temperature is between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. When crops don’t get the chill hours they expect, they can’t properly reset. Buds are delayed, and instead of ripening into juicy, delicious fruit, they remain small and underdeveloped.

This last winter, middle Georgia got about 400 chill hours during what Chavez described as the usual dormancy period for peaches (roughly Oct. 1 to Feb. 10). The winter before, while still on the low side, had closer to 600 chill hours. But that 200-hour difference meant several peach varieties that had produced fruit in 2016 never bloomed this year.

As shown in the last image, this reduction in chill hours is not unique to Georgia, and will impact farmers growing fruit and nut trees.

Biodiversity hotspots around the world

The environmental blog Mongabay.com created a series of graphs from the IUCN Red List, which evaluates the conservation status of plant and animal species and lists those that are under threat. I'll be posting a series of them from different groups.

The first is the conservation status of herps, or reptiles and amphibians.

Oyster reefs are in rough shape over much of the world, threatened by over-harvesting in combination with pressures from exotic species (including disease) and pollution. This means those coastal areas are losing the valuable ecosystem services, such as water filtration and protection from storm surges, oyster reefs provide.

Source:

Beck, M. W., Brumbaugh, R. D., Airoldi, L., Carranza, A., Coen, L. D., Crawford,

C.,…Guo, X. (2011). Oyster reefs at risk and recommendations for conservation,

restoration, and management. BioScience, 61(2), 107-116. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2011.61.2.5

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap and trade program involving nine northeastern states:  Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. New Jersey was a part of the program but Gov. Christie pulled the state out of the agreement in 2011. The purpose of the program is to lower emissions from power plants in the northeast. On its face, carbon emissions have declined from 188 million tons of carbon-dioxide in 2005 to 91 million tons in 2012. However, much of that is due to the recession and cheap natural gas replacing dirty coal. At present, power plants emit less carbon than the current cap. This gives little incentive for them to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In an effort to further drive investment in efficiency and renewables, the RGGI released a proposal to progressively lower the emissions cap through 2020. The 2020 cap will be 14% below the current level of emissions.

Brad Plumer of the Washington Posts notes that "Between now and 2020, the new RGGI scheme is hoping to cut annual emissions by about 13 million tons. That’s about 0.06 of all power plant emissions in the United States last year. A rounding error. Ultimately, RGGI might best be thought of less as a solution to climate change and more of a revenue-raiser for the Northeast. It’s also an experiment of sorts — a way for policymakers to figure out what works and what doesn’t in climate policy." 

Acid rain (wet sulfate deposition = sulfuric acid rain) before (89-91) and after (07-09) the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which used a cap & trade program to limit sulfur dioxide emissions. For anyone who has any doubt that environmental regulations can work...

Glass recycling rates in Europe