Latest Posts by envirographs - Page 2

Protecting Global Biodiversity Hotspots

Map 1: Biodiversity hotspot regions. Biodiversity hotspots are defined as areas "[h]aving at least 1500 endemic plant species and having lost at least 70 per cent of their original habitat extent".

Map 2: Conservation targets. The Convention on Biological Diversity is a multilateral treaty seeking to safeguard global biodiversity. One target calls for protected areas, formal designations of land protected for conservation, so cover 17% of earth’s land area. This Map highlights biodiversity hotspot regions where at least 17% of land area is formally protected (blue-green), and biodiversity hotspot regions where less than 17% is formally protected (red-orange).

Map 3: Protected areas. Formal protected areas are shaded green. Dark green areas are protected areas that allow for use of natural resources (i.e. protected forests where sustainable logging is permitted, or protected grasslands where livestock grazing is permitted). Light green are strict protected areas (i.e. nature reserves, national parks and monuments, wilderness areas). Areas shaded red are biodiversity hotspot regions.

Source: ATLAS for the END of the WORLD

Global human habitation. 

Source: ATLAS for the END of the WORLD

From Bloomberg:

Coal, the most polluting fuel that was once the world’s fastest growing energy source, has been a target of countries and companies alike as the world begins to work toward the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Consumption is falling as the world’s biggest energy companies promote cleaner-burning natural gas, China’s economy evolves to focus more on services than heavy manufacturing and renewable energy like wind and solar becomes cheaper.

Global consumption dropped 1.7 percent last year compared with an average 1.9 percent yearly increase from 2005 to 2015, according to BP. China, which accounted for about half of the coal burned in the world, used 1.6 percent less of the fuel, compared with an average 3.7 percent annual expansion in the 11 preceding years.

As Trump casts himself as a savior for the coal industry, the red states that voted for him are adding most of the nation’s clean energy,

From JUSTIN GILLIS and NADJA POPOVICH in the New York Times:

The five states that get the largest percentage of their power from wind turbines — Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma and North Dakota — all voted for Mr. Trump. So did Texas, which produces the most wind power in absolute terms. In fact, 69 percent of the wind power produced in the country comes from states that Mr. Trump carried in November... These red states are not motivated by a sudden desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions... their leaders see tapping the wind, and to a lesser degree the sun, as an economic strategy. The clean energy push allows their utilities to lock in low power prices for decades, creates manufacturing jobs, puts steady money in the hands of farmers who host wind turbines, and lures big employers who want renewable power.

Red areas in this map represent large projected increases in the frequency of floods following 10 centimeters (four inches) of additional sea-level rise.

According to a study, stark increases in instances of flooding are projected for Pacific islands, parts of Southeast Asia, and coastlines along India, Africa, and South America in the years and decades ahead — before spreading to engulf nearly the entire tropical region.

Unlike vulnerable cities and towns along the East Coast of the U.S., where frequent storms and big waves lead to large variations in day-to-day water levels, tropical coastlines tend to be surrounded by waters with depths that vary less. That means many tropical coastlines were not built to withstand the kinds of routine flooding that will be caused by rising seas.

- Upton, J. (2017, May18). Rising seas are lapping at the shores of the world’s poorest countries. Grist. 

As the Trump administration rolls back Obama’s Clean Cars program, meant to increase the fuel efficiency of American cars and light trucks, demand for electric vehicles [EV] - both battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV) - is soaring globally. 

But as Brad Plumer points out, a good deal of this growth is the result of policy meant to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles and build up EV infrastructure.

As a result, electric vehicles now make up more than 1 percent of sales in China, France, Denmark, and Sweden. They make up 9.7 percent of sales in the Netherlands, and 23 percent of sales in Norway, which offers some of the most generous tax incentives around, worth about $13,500 per car.

As the Trump administration announces they will rollback Obama’s regulations to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas pollution from cars, a reminder that, as Vox’s Brad Plumer reported back in June:

For the first time since 1979, America’s cars, trucks, and airplanes emit more carbon dioxide than its power plants do... The story here is that the United States has made remarkable progress in greening its electricity sector since 2005. Whenever you see exciting headlines about renewable energy growth or the plunge in US emissions, those articles are usually talking about electricity.But power plants are only one-third of America’s CO2 emissions. Transportation, another third (and now the biggest source), remains tougher to address. In fact, since 2013, transport emissions have been creeping upward again.

The larger the share of overall energy jobs that are solar and wind jobs, the more likely a state was to support the Democratic candidate in 2016. This has an important lesson for Trump as his administration crafts energy policy.

Per Axios: 

...for the most part, states that Trump narrowly won have a higher percentage of energy jobs that are renewable-energy jobs than safe Republican states.

Thus, an energy policy that shuns renewables in favor or jobs in fossil fuels could bolster his support in solid red states, while jeopardizing his support in the swing states he narrowly won to give him the presidency. Trump would be wise to continue Obama’s investment in renewables.

Carbon dioxide emissions in the UK are falling. CO2 emission fell 5.8% in 2016 from the previous year. Current emissions represent a 36% reduction from 1990 levels, and are at their lowest level since 1894 (outside the 1920s general strikes).

Why? The decline of coal. Coal use in the UK has declined steadily from its peak in 1956, and has experienced a dramatic decline since 2012. Coal use in 2016 dropped 52% from 2015.

The reduction in coal use is a result of multiple factors. The biggest is the expanded use of natural gas and renewables displacing coal. Other factors include an overall reduction in energy demand, the closing of Redcar Steelworks in 2015, and the UK’s carbon tax.

Source

The United States-Mexico border (solid black line); observed range of adult male jaguar ‘Macho B’ from May 2006 to April 2007 (white oval); important cross-border corridors for jaguars and other wildlife (heavy white double-arrows); 4- to 5-m-tall steel border fences existing or under construction as of 2007 (solid white lines); increased border security [vehicle barriers, chain-link fences, virtual fencing, surveillance towers,agent patrols] (white dashed lines); funneled undocumented immigrant and resulting law enforcement traffic (black arrows).

Given the current administration’s promise to build a border wall along the entire US-Mexico border, worth considering this 2008 study on the potential impacts of a border fence on Jaguars in the borderlands. 

Jaguars (Panthera onca) are typically associated with the rain forests of Central and South America; however, the species historically ranged into the arid southwestern United States... as global climate trends change toward hotter, drier environments, Jaguars living in the borderlands may become even more important to the survival of the species. Effective conservation of jaguars will require maintaining sufficient core and connective habitats to avoid population fragmentation and thus reduce the probability of extinction. 

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated the United States Department of Homeland Security to physically separate Mexico from the southwestern United States with steel fences 3–4 m high across 1,280 km of the United States–Mexico border, including ∼70% of the Arizona border... The border fence may effectively partition the already small, northernmost population of jaguars and isolate jaguars in the United States from the larger source population in northwestern Mexico.

Emil B. McCain, Jack L. Childs; Evidence of Resident Jaguars (Panthera onca) in the Southwestern United States and the Implications for Conservation. J Mammal 2008; 89 (1): 1-10. doi: 10.1644/07-MAMM-F-268.1

“[Electric vehicle] sales have been soaring worldwide. By 2025, more than 37 million fully electric vehicles are expected to be on the road globally, according to Navigant Research, and those EVs will be ‘cost competitive’ without subsidies.” - ThinkProgress

“[T]he frequency of coal retirements highlights the speed at which the nation’s utilities are changing the energy mix by replacing coal with natural gas and renewables, particularly wind. Few new coal plants are in the works to replace those that are being shut down...As a result of a confluence of factors, the coal industry’s decline has been a long time coming. The story of coal’s decline goes far beyond the false narrative that Trump and his EPA pick Scott Pruitt are advancing that points to EPA regulations as the sole reason for coal plant retirements.” - Devashree Saha and Sifan Liu

Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula in 1984, 1995, 2006, and 2016.

Over the last three decades, with the logging industry on the decline, once-logged areas on the peninsula are seeing forest regrowth. Note the return of forests along the western and southern boundaries of the Olympic Mountains.

But as Douglas Scott notes, “While environmentalists will look at these images and beam with pride that the logging seems to have slowed, there is still work to be done. The collapse of the logging industry has caused economic issues around the Peninsula that have been ignored for decades. Logging was what you did if you lived out in Grays Harbor or on the Peninsula and today, there are few jobs outside of the service industry. While the trees have grown back, the badmouthing and down talking to logging communities has created a deep divide that needs to be healed.”

The advance of cane toads in Australia

Once just an alluring pet, the ravenous lionfish is now a predatory threat to reefs in the Atlantic. Learn more: to.pbs.org/2c3CjnU

Geographical distributions of penguin species

Glass recycling rates in Europe

The decline of arctic sea ice since 1980

Read more

Avg. daily precipitation in the U.S. over the course of a year

Source: MetricMaps

“thanks to oil and gas wastewater injected deep into the ground, parts of [Oklahoma] can now also claim the dubious distinction of being among the most likely places in the United States to experience a damaging earthquake in 2016... The [USGS] report suggests that seven million people in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas face increased risks from human-induced earthquakes in the next year.” - National Geographic

“Over the past year, seven of the estimated 80 remaining Texas ocelots were killed by vehicles. Six of these mortalities were adult males. Among ocelots, it is not easy to be a maturing male. In order to prevent competition for access to breeding females, older males often force the younger males to leave the area where they grew up, sending them out to find females and territory of their own. Once out of protected, dense brush habitat areas, these younger males encounter the human-developed world and all of its dangers, in particular roads and vehicles. In reaction to the large proportion of road mortalities being males, Dr. Hilary Swarts, a wildlife biologist who monitors ocelots in south Texas with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) said, ‘I can’t say it’s surprising that six of the seven deaths were males, since they have such a rough time of it once the older males start to see the younger males as competition for mates and territory.’” - See more at: http://blog.cincinnatizoo.org/#sthash.YjGoogOC.dpuf

Sea Level Rise

For thousands of years, sea level has remained relatively stable. But now, Earth’s seas are rising. Since the beginning of the 20th century, they have risen about eight inches, and more than two inches in the last 20 years alone!

As water warms, it expands and takes up more space. That means that when oceans warm, the sea level rises. This summer, we’ve been researching exactly how global warming has impacted Greenland’s ice sheet. Our ICESat-2 mission will use a laser to measure the height of the planet’s surface. Over time, we will be able to provide a record of elevation change, and estimate how much water has melted into the ocean from land ice change.

So how much ice are we actually losing? Great question, but the answer might shock you. In Greenland alone, 303 gigatons of ice was lost in 2014!

Since we know that ice is melting, we’re working to gain a better understanding of how much and how fast. We’re using everything from planes, probes and boats, to satellites and lasers to determine the impact of global warming on the Earth’s ice.

Follow along for updates and information: http://climate.nasa.gov/

“About 3 billion people around the world  — mostly in Africa and Asia, and mostly very poor — don't have access to modern energy and still cook and heat their homes by burning coal, charcoal, dung, wood, or plant residue indoors. These homes often have poor ventilation, and the smoke can cause a horrible array of respiratory diseases, including lung cancer... Indoor air pollution gets surprisingly little attention for such a lethal public health problem. It kills more people each year than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined, but few countries treat it as a crisis on the same level.” - Vox

Stanford scholar Mark Z. Jacobson lays out how the US could get to 100% renewable energy by 2050. David Roberts describes his ambitious blueprint and the challenges it would face here.

“Employment in the U.S. solar business grew 12 times faster than overall job creation... Fed by state initiatives to spur clean energy and innovative financing measures offered by companies such as SolarCity Corp., developers are adding workers at record rates to install rooftop panels. Oil and gas producers by contrast have slashed 351,410 jobs worldwide since prices began to slide in the middle of 2014, according to Houston-based Graves & Co.... This increase is being driven by declining renewable energy technology costs and enabling policy frameworks. We expect this to continue as the case for renewables strengthens and countries move to achieve climate targets... The group projects the workforce in clean energy will grow to 24 million by 2030 if United Nations targets are met on climate change and development.” - Bloomberg

Changes in US tree cover since 2000 (purple is gain, red is loss)

Biodiversity hotspots around the world

Growth of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Source: https://imgur.com/cK5xOR9

Preparedness for climate change (top) and coastal flooding (bottom), from States at Risk