#Climate change greenhouse gases

[sustecsol]

Marine Environmental Impact Evaluation: Protecting Ocean Ecosystems

People are doing more and more things that affect the marine world, significantly affecting ocean communities. A marine environmental impact assessment (MEIA) is essential for figuring out how planned projects might affect marine ecosystems and species. An MEIA helps people decide how to protect the ocean's health by finding, predicting, and controlling the environmental effects.

What Is a Marine Environmental Impact Evaluation?

A MEIA is a planned study of how human actions affect the environment, mainly in coastal and offshore areas. It includes examining things like the state of the water, the places where marine species live, and possible sources of pollution. The MEIA's results help shape laws and ensure that growth projects follow environmentally friendly methods. It also helps protect materials in the ocean.

The Role of ESG Certification in Marine Projects

Companies that want to show they care about environmental, social, and government issues need to get ESG certification. This certification ensures that marine project creators and owners use environmentally friendly methods, helping them leave less of an impact on the environment. ESG guidelines address a wide range of topics, such as reducing pollution, protecting resources, and having an effect on the community. Certification not only shows that a company is responsible, but it also builds trust among partners, investors, and the public.

Addressing Climate Change with a Focus on Greenhouse Gases

Climate change greenhouse gases released by human activity, significantly threatens the marine environment. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane keep heat in the atmosphere, warming the world. Some of the problems that climate change causes are rising sea temperatures, more acidic oceans, and changes in where marine species live. To protect coastal environments, we need to stop releasing greenhouse gases. Healthy seas are significant for keeping the climate stable because they take in a lot of carbon dioxide.

Ensuring a Sustainable Future for Marine Environments

More people are becoming aware of problems with the sea environment, which shows how important it is to do MEIAs, get ESG certification, and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. These steps all help to handle ocean resources sustainably. They want to protect sea life for people who come after them. By investing in good practices, businesses and governments can help the marine environment be healthy and more resilient.

Conclusion Protecting marine ecosystems requires action against climate change greenhouse gases. Cutting down on pollution helps keep the seas from getting too warm and acidic, which protects biodiversity and keeps marine life alive. Industries can help make the marine environment more secure by using MEIAs. They can help reach global warming goals and ensure our oceans' bright futures. We are here to help you negotiate the complexity of sustainability if you are seeking thorough sustainability solutions to enable your company to have a positive environmental effect.

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

A recent report by Indigenous Environmental Network, or IEN, and Oil Change International, or OCI, found that Indigenous-led resistance to 21 fossil fuel projects in the U.S. and Canada over the past decade has stopped or delayed an amount of greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions. 

[without-ado]

A lesson on the greenhouse effect; Dr. Carl Sagan testified before Congress in 1985 on climate change l carlsagandotcom/full vid

[wachinyeya]

Britain’s reliance on coal-fired power set to end after 140 years

Closure of final plant at the end of September marks a critical step in decarbonising electricity by 2030

[mycatsalone]

Im begging people to start composting.

Landfills count for ONE THIRD of all methane emissions in the united states. By composting food we can reduce methane emissions by up to EIGHTY FOUR PERCENT!!!

Currently only 5% of the country composts. IMAGINE if we collectively started and reduced that!! EVEN if we got that up to 30%! The methane reduction would be incredible!

Theres so much doom around climate change. If youre looking for a way to make a difference this is a simple way to do that.

[learnwithmearticles]

Harris and Climate Change

Storms in recent decades have escalated in frequency and severity, causing billions of dollars in damage and leaving people homeless and vulnerable. We can expect this trend to continue if we do not globally mitigate climate change.

This is an examination of Kamala Harris’ environmental policies.

Continuation, Doubling Down

We can expect many policies introduced during Biden’s presidency to continue during Harris’. For example, Biden re-committed the U.S.A. to the Paris Agreement, a treaty that binds nations together in efforts to keep the global temperature increase under 2°C. This entails vast decreases in greenhouse gas emissions, and thus turning to more energy efficient products as well as clean energy alternatives.

In 2022, Biden’s administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act. This climate bill, among the biggest in history, provided billions of dollars to pull us away from the fossil fuel-dependant economy.

In addition to perpetuating these policies, Kamala Harris will be able to push further towards clean energy. 

During her campaign, Harris has brought up the environmental justice unit she created to hold polluters accountable, implying that she would continue to enforce ramifications for pollution-heavy companies.

In 2023, Harris announced the work she had been doing with EPA administrator Michael Regan. In this speech, she acknowledged the need to invest in communities to help those who don’t have the means themselves to move towards clean energy. She also acknowledged that we need to make up for lost time in these initiatives, sticking to the intent to meet the nation’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Intersectionality

Harris has specifically acknowledged the fact that climate change disproportionately affects certain communities, such as lower-income and communities of color. She stated her intention to make sure pollution effects are addressed with attention to equity and equality. Her work with the EPA administrator was an example of putting these ideas into action, by funding communities who need help.

Before and throughout Biden’s presidency, Kamala Harris has spoken about and followed through with efforts to address current environmental crises. She has pushed to hold companies accountable for their pollution and advocated for policies that reduce the U.S.A.’s emissions and increase renewable energy.

Despite these previous statements, climate change has not been a popular focus of Harris’ 2024 campaign. The Washington Post believes that this is an effort to alienate as few voters as possible while focusing on other major issues. Specifically, Pennsylvania as a swing state depends strongly on a natural gas economy, and domestic oil production has decreased gas prices. Discussing any certain intentions of affecting those areas might discourage undecided voters.

We can see in these tactics and in Harris’ pull back from a full-on fracking ban that she does listen to the public. She pays attention to these concerns and is able to adapt in order to do what seems best for the nation. While many, including myself, do not completely agree with all of her policies, she is a candidate who will make a difference in the environmental sector.

Additional Resources

1. The Paris Agreement

2. Inflation Reduction Act

3. Harris not discussing Climate Change

4. 2023 Speech

5. Intersectionality

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Umair Irfan at Vox:

It’s gearing up to be another scorching year.

Countries like Brazil, Thailand, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Australia, and Spain already experienced record warm temperatures this year, and in the past few days, heat has killed dozens in India and Mexico. Now states like California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas are getting ready to roast as a massive heat wave settles in. It’s likely to push temperatures well into triple digits. And summer hasn't even officially started yet. It’s an alarming echo of 2023, which was the hottest year on record, but this year could be hotter still. Though the Pacific Ocean is shifting into its La Niña phase, which typically brings cooler global weather, the extraordinary warmth over the past year is still baked in. Scientists say these record highs align with their expectations for climate change, and warn that more scorchers are coming. There’s more to heat waves like this than high temperatures, though. The forces behind them are complex and changing. They’re a public health threat that can exacerbate inequality, cause infrastructure to collapse, and amplify other problems stemming from warming. But with global average temperatures continuing to rise, more records will fall.

Heat waves, explained

Extreme heat might not seem as dramatic as hurricanes or floods, but the National Weather Service has deemed it the deadliest weather phenomenon in the US over the past 30 years, on average. What counts as a heat wave is typically defined relative to local weather conditions, with sustained temperatures in the 90th to 95th percentile of the average in a given area. So the threshold for a heat wave in Tucson is higher than the threshold in Seattle. During the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the northern half of the planet is tilted toward the sun, which increases daylight hours and warms the hemisphere. The impact of this additional exposure to solar radiation is cumulative, which is why temperatures generally peak weeks after the longest day of the year. Amid the increase in temperatures in the summer, meteorology can push those numbers to extremes.

Heat waves typically begin with a high-pressure system (also known as an anticyclone), where atmospheric pressure above an area builds up. That creates a sinking column of air that compresses, heats up, and oftentimes dries out. The sinking air can act as a cap or heat dome, trapping the latent heat already absorbed by the landscape. The high-pressure system also pushes out cooler, fast-moving air currents and squeezes clouds away, which gives the sun an unobstructed line of sight to the ground. The ground — soil, sand, concrete, and asphalt — then bakes in the sunlight, and in the long days and short nights of summer, heat energy quickly accumulates and temperatures rise. Heat waves are especially common in areas that are already arid, like the desert Southwest, and at high altitudes where high-pressure systems readily form. Moisture in the ground can blunt the effects of heat, the way evaporating sweat can cool the body. But when there’s little water in the ground, in waterways, and in vegetation, there isn’t as much to soak up the heat besides the air itself.

[...] But extreme heat can also build up in places that have a lot of moisture. In fact, for every degree Celsius the air warms (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), it can absorb about 7 percent more water, which can create a dangerous combination of heat and humidity (more on that below).

Urban areas further exacerbate this warming. As roads, parking lots, and buildings cover natural landscapes, cities like Los Angeles and Dallas end up absorbing more heat than their surroundings and can become as much as 20°F warmer. This is a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. Heat waves typically last around five days but can linger longer if the high-pressure system is locked in place. “In some cases, you actually can get these kinds of patterns getting stuck, and that can lead to heat waves lasting much longer,” said Karen McKinnon, an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University of California Los Angeles. Eventually, the high-pressure system will start to weaken, allowing in cooler air and precipitation that can bring the heat wave to an end. However, as the warm season continues, more high-pressure systems can settle in and restart the heating process.

[...] Climate change caused by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is poised to make heat waves longer, more intense, and more frequent. It takes time for the dust to settle on the heat waves of a given moment, to allow scientists to evaluate just how much humans have contributed to the problem.

[...] That heat isn’t distributed evenly, however. Nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures. “In general, since records began in 1895, summer overnight low temperatures are warming at a rate nearly twice as fast as afternoon high temperatures for the U.S. and the 10 warmest summer minimum temperatures have all occurred since 2002,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This can seriously impair how people cope with high heat. The effects of warming can vary by latitude, too. Polar regions are warming up to three times as fast as the planetary average, fueling heat waves in the Arctic. In fact, cooler parts of the planet are heating up faster than places closer to the equator, so people living in temperate climates may experience some of the biggest increases in extreme heat events. Already hot parts of the world also get hotter, pushing them beyond the realm of habitability at certain times of the year. And as human-generated greenhouse gas emissions continue to flood the atmosphere — atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations recently peaked at 420 parts per million — heat waves are projected to become more frequent and more extreme.

[...]

The timing of heat waves is changing: Periods of extreme heat that occur early in the season tend to have greater public health impacts. That’s because people are less acclimated to heat in the spring and early summer. Cooling infrastructure may not be in place, and people may not be taking heat precautions like staying hydrated and avoiding the sun. That’s why early-season heat waves in the US, as we have seen across the country this year, are so troubling. As climate change makes heat waves more common, it also increases the frequency of early- and late-season extreme temperatures, lengthening the hot season. The worst effects of heat aren’t always in the hottest places: While absolute temperatures may rise higher in already warm areas like the southwestern US, heat waves can have their deadliest impacts in cooler regions, where high temperatures are less common. Warmer areas often already have air conditioning in homes and offices, while regions that usually don’t get as warm have less cooling infrastructure and fewer places to find relief. The people in these regions are also less acclimated to high temperatures and may not recognize warning signs of heat-induced health problems.

Some people are far more vulnerable to extreme heat: Elderly people and very young children face some of the highest risks from extreme heat. People with certain health conditions, like high blood pressure and breathing difficulties, also face greater harm. But even otherwise healthy people can suffer from heat waves if they are exposed for long durations, such as those working outdoors in agriculture and construction. Heat waves exacerbate structural inequalities: While cities can warm up faster than their surroundings, poorer neighborhoods — which are disproportionately home to people of color — tend to get hotter. These neighborhoods often have less tree cover and green spaces, and more paved surfaces that soak up heat. At the same time, lower-income residents may have a harder time affording crucial cooling. The pattern of heat inequality plays out on an international scale, too, with lower-income countries already facing higher health and economic costs from heat waves.

The tools used to cope with heat are also stressed by it: Power plants, which provide electricity for everything from fridges to air conditioners, themselves need to be cooled, and they become less efficient as the weather warms. Power lines have lower capacities under extreme heat, and hardware like transformers experience more failures. If enough stress builds up, the power grid can collapse just when people need cooling the most. Power disruptions then ripple through other infrastructure, like water sanitation, fuel pumps, and public transit. We’re running out of time to act: All this means that heat waves are going to become an increasingly impactful and costly fact of life across the world — from the direct impacts on health to stresses on infrastructure. But since humans share a significant portion of the blame for extreme heat waves, there are also actions people can take to mitigate them. Increasing energy efficiency can relieve stress on the power grid, and adding power sources that don’t require active cooling like wind and solar can boost capacity without adding greenhouse gas emissions.

Vox has a good article on why we are seeing longer and more severe heat waves around the world: climate change effects are part of the reason for the increased duration and severity of heat waves globally.

[hylianengineer]

Have you ever wondered how scientists know what earth's climate was like in the past? Thousands of years ago, long before humans started to measure and record these things?

It's a really fascinating question with a VERY cool answer! Ice cores! Basically, they go to someplace cold, like the Arctic or Antarctic, and drill really deep into the ice to take a vertical section of it.

[ID:A cylinder of ice, about an inch in diameter and perhaps a little over a foot long (that's around 2.5 centimeters in diameter and over 30cm long, for those of you sensibly using the metric system), held in thickly-gloved hands. End ID.]

Here's what they look like. Kind of - they're a lot bigger when they come out of a glacier, but they get broken down into smaller pieces for transportation and study.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a cool article on it here, but I'll go over the basics because tumblr science communication has a uniquely fun dialect, and I much prefer to learn things that way. I'm also putting it under a read-more because it got long.

If you've ever taken a geology class, you probably know that rock gets deposited vertically over time, with the newest at the top and the oldest at the bottom. In places where ice stays frozen for a long time, it's basically the same principle - year after year of snow and ice layered on top of each other. Ice cores can include stuff that's been frozen for perhaps thousands of years - including air bubbles, dust, sea salt, volcanic ash, etc. Both those and the ancient ice itself can tell us things about what earth's climate was like when they were first frozen.

The water in the ice cores contains, just like water from today, varying ratios of oxygen isotopes: oxygen-16 and oxygen-18. Remember, the difference between isotopes is the number of neutrons in each atom - oxygen-16, with 16 neutrons, is the 'normal' one, which makes up over 99% of oxygen atoms. It's also lighter than oxygen-18, which has two extra neutrons, and that means that it's slightly more difficult to get out of the atmosphere via precipitation - and this is easier at colder temperatures. So, as global climate gets cooler, the ratio of oxygen-16 to 18 increases, and as global climate cools, it decreases. We can measure those ratios in ice cores to figure out what Earth's climate was like in the past - as far back as we can find ice. How far is that? Up to 800,000 years. Yeah, that's some fucking old ice.

That's a lot of ice, I can hear you thinking. You're right - the deepest ice core ever collected was 3769m - 3.7 kilometers of ice (for my fellow Americans, that's over 2 and a quarter miles). That is a stupidly long piece of ice. Now you know why they have to break it up to analyze it.

Also, remember those air bubbles I mentioned? We can measure the concentrations of gases in those to learn about the composition of Earth's atmosphere a long fucking time ago, including the concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. (How do you get air bubbles out of ancient ice you ask? NOAA has the answer: crush it under a vacuum hood. That means there's no other gases around to contaminate your sample while you put it in an airtight vial.)

How do we know how old the ice is? Same way we date other ancient stuff - there's two main methods.

Radioactivity and radioisotopes! Mostly naturally occurring, although for recent ice, radioactivity from nuclear testing can also be used. Carbon dioxide can be radiocarbon dated, volcanic material can be argon/argon dated, etc.

Layering! Especially looking for distinctive stuff like volcanic ash from significant geological events. This can be used to synchronize ice cores from different places, or for relative ages (i.e. this section is older than this one).

These are far from the only things ice cores can teach us, but this post is already very long so I'll leave it here. Check out the NOAA article for more details, and a fun anecdote about how no fieldwork project ever goes entirely according to plan - especially when there's polar bears.

Sources: 1, 2

[allthecanadianpolitics]

An Ontario judge harshly criticized the province's climate plan Tuesday, saying it "falls severely short" of what the science on climate change requires, even as she dismissed a landmark lawsuit brought by a group of young people who say the government's actions threaten their future. Superior court judge Marie-Andrée Vermette agreed with the youth applicants on several key points, including that young and Indigenous people are disproportionately impacted by climate change and that the province is risking the lives of Ontarians by not going further on its climate plan. "By not taking steps to reduce GHG (greenhouse gases) in the province further, Ontario is contributing to an increase in the risk of death and in the risks faced by the Applicants and others," Vermette wrote in the decision.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[familythings]

Forests Are Losing Their Ability to Absorb Carbon!

The UN is giving us a serious heads-up: our global efforts to fight climate change just aren’t cutting it. New data shows greenhouse gases are piling up quicker than ever before in our history. The plans from countries to keep carbon emissions in check are barely making a dent. Research shows we’ll hardly see any real drop in pollution by 2030. The Alarming Data A recent report shows that…

[feckcops]

Hot air: five climate myths pushed by the US beef industry

“While fossil fuel consumption has done the most to put us on our dangerous path to climate catastrophe, a widely cited 2020 study in the journal Science argued that we can no longer avoid the worst of the climate crisis by cutting fossil fuels alone. Staying below the average global temperature rise of 2C – a threshold that scientists say will lead to systems collapse, mass extinctions, fatal heat waves, drought and famine, water shortages and flooded cities – will require ‘rapid and ambitious’ changes to food systems.

“The single most impactful food-related change we can make, according to their findings, is not increasing yields, ramping up agricultural efficiency or cutting food waste, though those approaches all would help. It’s adopting a plant-rich diet.

“While building out energy infrastructure can take years, changing our diet is something we can work toward today.”

[teachersource]

Eunice Newton Foote was born on July 17, 1819. An American scientist, inventor, and women's rights campaigner, she was the first scientist known to have examined the warming effect of sunlight on different gases and to have suggested that an increase in the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would change its temperature and have an effect on climate. A 1856 paper of hers was the first known publication in physics by a woman. She went on to patent several inventions. Foote died in 1888 and for almost a hundred years her contributions were lost, before being rediscovered by women academics in the twentieth century.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

According to one 2021 study, meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from global food production. Not only do livestock produce methane, but raising animals requires an enormous amount of land and resources. Another recent report found that three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock.

Accordingly, the potential environmental benefits of reducing our reliance on meat are promising. One 2022 study found that reducing global beef consumption by 20% could halve deforestation in the next 30 years.

[...]

A 2021 Oxford study that looked at the environmental impact of 57,000 different foods in the UK found that fruits and vegetables have a significantly smaller impact on the planet than meats and cheeses. In this case, experts recommend protein-rich foods like beans, lentils and other legumes.

Tofu or any other soy-based product also makes for a great vegetarian protein option, Petitpain says. “Soy provides the body with all those essential amino acids in every bite,” she explains.

Even if you don’t want to totally eliminate meat from your diet, it might still be worth increasing your intake of plant-based protein sources. Although most Americans get adequate protein overall thanks to high meat intake, according to the US dietary guidelines, they tend to under-consume specific protein subgroups. For instance, half do not consume the recommended amounts of nuts, seeds and soy products.

[witches-come]

Fox theory: In the 100ish years of studying transsexuals and God knows how long of the existence of people who existed outside of the cisnormative gender binary, a study comes out that people with gender dysphoria need to just be cis harder. And every single person just accepts this within the few years and every trans person stops.