Category: Energy/Environment

Scientists Optimistic That Great Barrier Reef Is Resilient to Global Warming

(p. A12) Among the threatened corals of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world that has been ravaged by global warming, researchers have found a reason for optimism — or at least a reason not to despair completely.
Coral reefs, which by some estimates support a quarter of all ocean life, are harmed by warming oceans. The effects can be seen in the loss of their vibrant colors, a phenomenon known as bleaching. But after ocean temperatures surged in 2016 around the Great Barrier Reef, causing severe damage, researchers found that the corals that survived were more resistant to another period of extreme warmth the following year.
“It’s one enormous natural selection event,” said Terry Hughes, an expert on coral reefs at James Cook University in Australia and the lead author of a study published Monday [December 7, 2018] in the journal Nature Climate Change. In effect, the 2016 heat wave killed off many of the most heat-sensitive corals and selected for the corals that could handle higher ocean temperatures.
“So when the heat returned in 2017, the susceptible corals had been substantially depleted,” Dr. Hughes said. “The new coral assemblage, if you like, at the beginning of the second heat waves, was made up predominantly of the more heat-tolerant species, the more robust ones.”
. . .
The study provides a measure of hope that coral reefs may be able to survive as oceans warm over the coming decades.

For the full story, see:

Kendra Pierre-Louis. “What Doesn’t Kill Reefs May Make Them Stronger.” The New York Times (Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018): A12.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 10, 2018, and has the title “Scientists Find Some Hope for Coral Reefs: The Strong May Survive.”)

The official citation to the print version of the article mentioned above, is:
Hughes, Terry P., James T. Kerry, Sean R. Connolly, Andrew H. Baird, C. Mark Eakin, Scott F. Heron, Andrew S. Hoey, Mia O. Hoogenboom, Mizue Jacobson, Gang Liu, Morgan S. Pratchett, William Skirving, and Gergely Torda. “Ecological Memory Modifies the Cumulative Impact of Recurrent Climate Extremes.” Nature Climate Change 9, no. 1 (Jan. 2019): 40-43.

Entrepreneurial Alfalfa Farmers Increase Profits by Recreating Alkali Bee Habitat

(p. C3) Remedies for bee decline can be as simple as planting flowers and reducing pesticide use, but the results are often transformational. With the right mix of flowers and nesting habitat, nearly any patch of ground can be turned into a bee garden and provide everything small bees need to forage, nest and reproduce over the course of a season. For larger, farther-ranging bee species, such gardens are important flower and nectar resources, like pit-stops scattered across the landscape.
For a glimpse of what is possible on a larger scale, bee campaigners everywhere look to a small community in rural Washington state. For three generations, alfalfa farmers in the Touchet Valley have been raising more than a valuable seed crop. Scattered across their blooming fields are wide, barren plots of salted earth, specially tended and irrigated to mimic the nesting habitat of a tiny burrowing bee. Honeybees don’t like alfalfa, but the native alkali bees thrive on it, and with the farmers’ help their numbers have skyrocketed. As the local saying goes, “You get more flowers, you get more bees.” And every bee brings increased yields and profits.

For the full essay, see:
Thor Hanson. “‘The Plight of the Humble Bee.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, June 30, 2018): C3.
(Note: the online version of the essay has the date June 29, 2018.)

Hanson’s essay is closely related to his book:
Hanson, Thor. Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

U.S. Population Growth Rate Is Slowest in 80 Years

(p. A13) The population of the United States grew at its slowest pace in more than eight decades, the Census Bureau said Wednesday [December 19, 2018], as the number of deaths increased and the number of births declined.
Not since 1937, when the country was in the grips of the Great Depression and birthrates were down substantially, has it grown so slowly, with just a 0.62 percent gain between July 2017 and July 2018. With Americans getting older, fewer babies are being born and more people are dying, demographers said.
The past year saw a particularly high number of deaths — 2.81 million — and relatively few births, 3.86 million.

For the full story, see:
Sabrina Tavernise. “Growth Rate In Population Is at Lowest Since 1937.” The New York Times (Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018): A13.
(Note: bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 19, 2018, and has the title “Fewer Births, More Deaths Result in Lowest U.S. Growth Rate in Generations.”)

Environmentalists Seek to Reduce Cow Burps and Ethanol

(p. A8) . . . a sweeping new study issued Wednesday [December 5, 2018] by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group . . . warns that the world’s agricultural system will need drastic changes in the next few decades in order to feed billions more people without triggering a climate catastrophe.
. . .
. . . the authors are not counting on a major worldwide shift to vegetarianism.
“We wanted to avoid relying on magic asterisks,” said Timothy D. Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University and the World Resources Institute and lead author of the report.
. . .
The authors . . . pointed to possible techniques to reduce the climate impact of existing farms. For instance, new chemical compounds could help prevent nitrogen fertilizers from producing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. And scientists are exploring feed additives that get cows to burp up less methane, another big contributor to global warming.
. . .
But, Mr. Searchinger said, many of the recommendations in the report, such as breeding new, higher-yielding crop varieties or preventing soil erosion, could also help farmers adapt to climate change.
. . .
. . . , the report’s authors call for a limit on the use of bioenergy crops, such as corn grown for ethanol in cars, that compete with food crops for land.

For the full story, see:
Brad Plumer. “Can We Grow More Food On Less Land? We Must.” The New York Times (Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018): A8.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 5, 2018, and has the title “Can We Grow More Food on Less Land? We’ll Have To, a New Study Finds.”)

The report summarized above, is:
Searchinger, Tim, Richard Waite, Craig Hanson, Janet Ranganathan, Patrice Dumas, and Emily Matthews. “Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050.” World Resources Institute, 2018.

Environmentalists Support Logging to Reduce Infernos

(p. A3) FRENCH MEADOWS RESERVOIR, Calif.–Obscured amid the chaos of California’s latest wildfire outbreak is a striking sign of change that may help curtail future devastating infernos. After decades of butting heads, some environmentalists and logging supporters have largely come to agreement that forests need to be logged to be saved.
. . .
The Camp Fire and the 98,400-acre Woolsey Fire in Southern California were fueled by fierce winds in unusually dry weather, which turned much of the state into a tinderbox.
Another dangerous factor, land-management experts say, is that forests have become overgrown with trees and underbrush due to a mix of human influences, including a past federal policy of putting out fires, rather than letting them burn. Washington has also sharply reduced logging under pressure from environmentalists.
Now, the unlikely coalition is pushing new programs to thin out forests and clear underbrush. In 2017, California joined with the U.S. Forest Service and other groups in creating the Tahoe-Central Sierra Initiative, which aims to thin millions of trees from about 2.4 million acres of forest–believed to be the largest such state-federal project in the country.

For the full story, see:
Jim Carlton. “Deadly Fires Shift View of Logging.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018): A3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the same date and has the title “Facing Deadlier Fires, California Tries Something New: More Logging.” The last quoted sentence is the slightly shorter version that appeared in the print version.)

Rising Sea Not Due to Global Warming

(p. A17) It is generally thought that sea-level rise accelerates mainly by thermal expansion of sea water, the so-called steric component. But by studying a very short time interval, it is possible to sidestep most of the complications, like “isostatic adjustment” of the shoreline (as continents rise after the overlying ice has melted) and “subsidence” of the shoreline (as ground water and minerals are extracted).
I chose to assess the sea-level trend from 1915-45, when a genuine, independently confirmed warming of approximately 0.5 degree Celsius occurred. I note particularly that sea-level rise is not affected by the warming; it continues at the same rate, 1.8 millimeters a year, according to a 1990 review by Andrew S. Trupin and John Wahr. I therefore conclude–contrary to the general wisdom–that the temperature of sea water has no direct effect on sea-level rise. That means neither does the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide.
This conclusion is worth highlighting: It shows that sea-level rise does not depend on the use of fossil fuels. The evidence should allay fear that the release of additional CO2 will increase sea-level rise.
But there is also good data showing sea levels are in fact rising at a constant rate. The trend has been measured by a network of tidal gauges, many of which have been collecting data for over a century.
The cause of the trend is a puzzle. Physics demands that water expand as its temperature increases. But to keep the rate of rise constant, as observed, expansion of sea water evidently must be offset by something else. What could that be? I conclude that it must be ice accumulation, through evaporation of ocean water, and subsequent precipitation turning into ice. Evidence suggests that accumulation of ice on the Antarctic continent has been offsetting the steric effect for at least several centuries.

For the full commentary, see:
Fred Singer. “The Sea Is Rising, but Not Because of Climate Change; There is nothing we can do about it, except to build dikes and sea walls a little bit higher.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, May 16, 2018): A17.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 15, 2018.)

Hurricane Costs Rise Mainly Due to Rising Coastal Population

(p. A6) Counties along the U.S. shoreline that endured hurricane-strength winds from Florence in September experienced a surge in population from 1980 to 2017, with an increase of 95 people per square mile–more than double the density. Overall, Gulf and East Coast shoreline counties, those vulnerable to hurricane strikes, increased by 160 people per square mile, compared with 26 people per square mile in the rest of the mainland, over the same period.
“Coastal population and exposure growth is certainly the predominant driver of increased damage costs associated with hurricanes,” says Steve Bowen, director and meteorologist at consulting firm Aon ‘s Risk Solutions division.

For the full story, see:
Kara Dapena. “‘When Videogames Can Help.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018): A6.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 29, 2018, and has the title “The Rising Costs of Hurricanes.” Unlike the print version, the online version was much longer, sometimes had different wording, and listed an author. Where wording differed in the passages quoted above, the online version was used.)

New York City Wrongly Believes Destroying Ivory Saves Elephants

As I explain to my micro principles students each semester, if New York wants to save elephants, they would keep ivory on the market, increasing its supply and reducing its price, thereby reducing the incentive for poachers to kill elephants. [I first saw this argument made in the Baumol and Blinder text that I used many of years ago in my micro principles classes.]

(p. A19) A loud rumble and giant billows of dust interrupted an otherwise serene day in Central Park on Thursday as hundreds of cream-colored carvings of dragons, Buddhas and horses awaited their public execution.

Onlookers waved paper fans reading “Protect their home.” They cheered as sculptures and jewelry made from elephant tusks were carried on a conveyor belt and dropped in a pulverizer.
Brian Hackett, an animal-welfare activist from New Jersey, patiently awaited his turn to choose a carving from a table to be destroyed. For him, the mood was solemn.
“Every piece, no matter how polished, represents a beautiful animal that was slaughtered,” Mr. Hackett said.
The carvings were confiscated in recent ivory busts in New York. They once belonged on the faces of a least 100 slaughtered elephants. Nearly two tons of ivory worth about $8 million was destroyed at the “Ivory Crush” event, which was timed to precede World Elephant Day on Aug. 12 [2017].
. . .
Rachel Karr, 48, the owner of Hyde Park Antiques on the Lower East Side, who specializes in 18th-century antiques, said the ivory-crushing events upset her and other antique collectors because some of the ivory found in bona fide antiques could be 300 to 400 years old and could have religious and historic value. For example, in teapots from the 18th century, the handles were carved from ivory to protect hands from burns, because ivory does not conduct heat.
“Even with my love of nature, I simply cannot understand what good it does to destroy things that were worked on 300, 400 years ago before conservation was part of daily language,” Ms. Karr said.
“Face it, we’re the original recyclers, antique dealers,” she said. “We have no interest in using new ivory at all. We are willing to say we aren’t willing to use it to repair old ivory.”
Sam Wasser, a professor at the University of Washington who has performed forensic analysis on seized ivory for the last 13 years and analyzed the ivory that was crushed, said it was unlikely the destroyed carvings were more than 100 years old. The results are pending.
Iris Ho, who is the wildlife campaigns manager at Humane Society International, said the existing law does enough to protect antiques. The law provides exceptions for antiques that are determined to be at least 100 years old with only a small amount of ivory.

For the full story, see:
Hannah Alani. “Ivory Is Destroyed to Save Elephants.” The New York Times (Friday, Aug. 4, 2017): A19.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 3, 2017, and has the title “About $8 Million of Elephant Ivory Destroyed in Central Park.” The online version says that the article appeared on p. A21 of the New York edition. It appeared on p. A19 of my copy of the National Edition.)

“Plants Remove a Quarter of the Carbon Dioxide We Put in the Atmosphere”

(p. D5) “Global greening” sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
Plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and we are now emitting 40 billion tons of it into the atmosphere each year. A number of small studies have suggested that humans actually are contributing to an increase in photosynthesis across the globe.
Elliott Campbell, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues last year published a study that put a number to it. Their conclusion: plants are now converting 31 percent more carbon dioxide into organic matter than they were before the Industrial Revolution.
. . .
It’s not just strawberries and other crops that are taking in extra carbon dioxide. So are the forests, grasslands and other wild ecosystems of the world.
When scientists take into account both extra photosynthesis and respiration, they estimate that plants remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere.
“That’s on par with what China emits,” said Dr. Campbell. “And China is the biggest global polluter.”
Even more remarkably, the plants have been scrubbing the same fraction of carbon dioxide out of the air even as our emissions explode.
“Every year we build more power plants, and every year the plants take out more CO2,” Dr. Campbell said.

For the full story, see:
Zimmer, Carl. “MATTER; Why Global Greening Isn’t as Great as It Sounds.” The New York Times (Tuesday, July 31, 2018): D5.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 30, 2018, and has the title “MATTER; ‘Global Greening’ Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It’s Terrible.”)

“The Ultimate Resource” Is the Human Mind

(p. A13) Fifty years ago this month, Mr. Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb.” In it he portended global cataclysm–unless the world could be persuaded to stop producing so many . . . well . . . people. The book sketched out possible scenarios of the hell Mr. Ehrlich believed imminent: hundreds of millions dying from starvation, England disappearing by the year 2000, India doomed, the average American’s lifespan falling to 42 by 1980, and so on.
Mr. Ehrlich’s book sold three million copies, and his crabbed worldview became an unquestioned orthodoxy for the technocratic class that seems to welcome such scares as an opportunity to boss everyone else around.
. . .
Enter Julian Lincoln Simon.
Simon was a professor of business and economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1981, when this columnist first met him, Julian would smile and say the doom-and-gloomers had a false understanding of scarcity that led them to believe resources are fixed and limited.
. . .
In 1981 he put his findings together in a book called “The Ultimate Resource.” It took straight aim at Mr. Ehrlich. In contrast to the misanthropic tone of “The Population Bomb” (its opening sentence reads, “The battle to feed all humanity is over”), Julian was optimistic, recognizing that human beings are more than just mouths to be fed. They also come with minds.
. . .
. . . , human beings constantly find new and creative ways to take from the earth, increase the bounty for everyone and expand the number of seats at the table of plenty. Which is one reason Paul Ehrlich is himself better off today than he was when he wrote his awful book–notwithstanding all those hundreds of millions of babies born in places like China and India against his wishes.

For the full commentary, see:
William McGurn. “MAIN STREET; The Population Bomb Was a Dud; Paul Ehrlich got it wrong because he never understood human potential.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, May 1, 2018): A13.
(Note: ellipses in first quoted paragraph, in original; ellipses in rest of quotes, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 30, 2018.)

The Julian Simon book, mentioned above, is:
Simon, Julian L. The Ultimate Resource. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Portland Environmentalists Ashamed to Be Buying Air Conditioners

(p. A11) Here in Oregon’s largest city, it was sometimes hard to tell what was more startling: the record-setting heat or the fact that, on a planet getting used to higher temperatures, Portland was not entirely unprepared for it. In a region known for its enviously mild, low-humidity summers, people have increasingly and quietly embraced air-conditioning. Federal data suggests that about 70 percent of the Portland area’s occupied homes and apartments have at least some air-conditioning, up from 44 percent in 2002
. . .
Ms. Merlo’s home does not have air-conditioning, and she said she was considering sleeping in the basement. Although she cited environmental concerns as her primary reason for not installing a unit, she said more weeks like this one could shift her views.
“Talk to me five years from now, after another record-setting heat wave,” she said. “I might change my mind.”
Other people in the region already made the change. Kristan Moeckli, a Portland native who works in commercial real estate, said she had added a window unit to her apartment in Multnomah Village, just south of downtown. Pushed into the purchase by the coming heat, she bought the air-conditioner over the weekend, claiming one of the last units at the store.
“As we were looking at the 10-day forecast on our local news and they were projecting not just 80s — 80s, I can deal with — but 90s and above for a week, I was thinking about how we wouldn’t be able to cool down our apartment at night,” she said. “A part of me feels a little ashamed, as a native Oregonian, that I did cave and get the air-conditioning unit, but it’s kind of one those sorry, not sorry kind of things.”

For the full story, see:
Alan Blinder. “Region Proud of Roughing It, Without Air-Conditioning, Has Second Thoughts.” The New York Times (Friday, Aug. 4, 2017): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 3, 2017, and has the title “‘As the Northwest Boils, an Aversion to Air-Conditioners Wilts.”)