Former EPA leader discusses current issues at TechCrunch Disrupt

Apple’s Lisa Jackson criticizes Trump EPA for lack of transparency















Did Climate Change “Cause” Harvey? —




Nearly 25 trillion gallons of water pummeled southeast Texas and Louisiana over the course of a week, totaling more than 51 inches in some places. About 13 million residents came under some type of flood watch or warning, and the storm displaced as many as 30,000 people, many of whose homes and businesses were utterly destroyed. The injury and death totals won’t be settled for days, maybe even weeks. In trying to process the scope of this unprecedented natural disaster, people understandably want to know how and why it happened—and, of course, what we can do to keep it from happening again. So, in our grief and desperation, we ask: Was it climate change? Is that what caused Harvey?

And the climate scientists respond by saying: It’s more complicated than that.

Climate scientists are by nature and training a cautious bunch, and in their admirable caution they can frustrate those of us who clamor for the psychological comforts of a simple answer. We want them to identify a single, villainous entity that we can blame for a calamitous weather event like Harvey, in hopes that we can rally together against that which has been named, collectively staving off a repeat performance. In the face of such suffering, hearing that “it’s complicated” can feel like overcaution bordering on evasion. But it’s not.

In fact, the scientific community’s resistance to easy answers right now is a long-overdue teachable moment. We need to listen very closely to what scientists are telling us. And then, just as soon as we’ve addressed the humanitarian crisis at hand, we need to start talking seriously about the complicated nexus of atmospheric causes and effects, meteorological conditions, and other factors implicated in a disaster of this scale. To attribute Harvey to climate change, and then just leave it at that, would be incomplete and therefore incorrect. But to avoid talking about climate change—to ignore the role that it played in making Harvey much worse than it might have been otherwise—would be incomplete, incorrect, and immoral.

Here are two things that climate scientists agree on. Warmer air has a greater “carrying capacity” for moisture. That is, it can hold (and eventually deposit) a lot more water than cooler air can. At the same time, warmer ocean waters often bring more intense storms—and as it happens, waters in the Gulf of Mexico have been unusually warm lately. Put these two uncontroversial facts together and you arrive at an equally uncontroversial prediction: Rising air and ocean temperatures increase the risk that when hurricanes and tropical storms occur, they will bring with them a greater chance of extended rainfall and extensive flooding.

For a Harvey-like deluge to occur, though, a storm system needs to stay put over a given area instead of moving along at its normal rate of speed. This phenomenon, known as a block or a blocking pattern, occurs when a storm gets trapped between two high-pressure areas that end up pushing against it with roughly equal force—the storm gets stuck and hovers in place, possibly for days. We saw this in Colorado’s “superflood” in 2013, and we seem to be experiencing more and more of this pattern lately. Scientific unanimity hasn’t yet been reached in regard to what causes blocking patterns, but an increasing number of scientists believe the melting of Arctic ice may be involved.

Think of it this way: There have always been and always will be tropical storms, but global warming is making them wetter. Similarly, storms and hurricanes have always posed and will always pose a threat to coastal communities, but it’s very possible that global warming is encouraging these storms to stick around longer, and do more damage, before dissipating.

These statements were true before Harvey. What’s changed in the past week, of course, is that these truths have been made even more visible and palpable for Americans, bitterly and tragically so. In other parts of the world—where deadly flooding is just as terrible, but much more common—the connection between devastation and a warming planet has been firmly established in the public mind for years. In South Asia, flooding has killed more than 1,200 people this week in what experts and locals are calling the worst monsoon season in memory. On Tuesday alone, the city of Mumbai received nearly a month’s worth of rainfall in a single day.

It’s fine—and even appropriate—for scientists to balk when asked, point-blank, if climate change “caused” Harvey or some other disastrous weather event. Because it actually ismore complicated than that. But within that complexity is a compelling argument for acknowledging the role that a warmer atmosphere is playing in this ongoing pageant of human misery—and an equally compelling plea for us to do whatever we can to minimize damage and loss of life. We may not have the power to stop storms, hurricanes, or flooding events from taking place. But if it’s within our power to make them less devastating in the future, how can we, in good conscience, decline to act?



via Did Climate Change “Cause” Harvey? —

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via Helping Kids Understand the Importance of Being Environmentally-Friendly — Biofriendly Planet Magazine

Wake-Up Call for Climate Action from Houston to Mumbai —

Reuters – I45 with Houston skyline in background


Co-Authored by Henry Ruehl, NRDC Energy Fellow

Cities across the globe from Houston to Mumbai have been ravaged by catastrophic floods. In the United States and South Asia, this summer has combined record-breaking temperatures and heatwaves with unprecedented rainfall levels, and the human and economic toll has been severe. More worrisome still, climate change is increasing both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like extreme rains, which can result in flooding, and heatwaves. It’s likely that terrifying rains, flooding, and coastal storm damage like that seen in Hurricane Harvey and this year’s monsoon are set to become more common in the future. This summer, heatwaves and floods are a wake-up call for immediate action on climate and disaster preparedness to protect our communities and public health.

With dozens of lives lost, chemical and pathogen-laden floodwaters swamping much of the Houston area, and vast areas still likely to be uninhabitable for weeks or months, Harvey is estimated to be the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history. AccuWeather estimates the full economic cost of the hurricane to be $190 billion – as much as the cost of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy combined. The United States has lost 1% of its GDP, and its fourth-largest city has been devastated.

The damage and death tolls in South Asia have been even more staggering. Communities in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh are suffering from the worst monsoon in decades. Over 1,200 people have died with numbers rising, and the economic damage is commensurately severe. Mumbai’s largest hospital was knee-deep in water. One third of Bangladesh is underwater, for example, and nearly 1.5 million acres of farmland in the country have been damaged or washed away outright. All told, over 41 million people have been affected by the flooding. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged $78 million in relief for victims, but the cost for replacing millions of homes, businesses, and other buildings will likely be many times greater.

These calamities demonstrate that cities worldwide are desperately in need of stronger disaster preparedness and climate resilience strategies. Hurricane Harvey has been estimated to be a 1,000-year- storm – in other words, a storm of Harvey’s magnitude could hit the western Gulf only once, on average, every thousand years. Yet it follows just twelve years after Hurricane Katrina, which itself was a 400 to 500-year storm. Rising global temperatures are increasing the amount of rain that drenches us in the heaviest storms, and making heat waves more frequent and intense.

As climate change continues to fuel these types of extreme weather, it is critical that communities take steps to strengthen climate resilience and disaster preparedness. Heatwaves and floods call for programs like early warning systems, improved infrastructure, inter-agency coordination, more funding for emergency personnel and supplies, and raising public awareness, which are all crucial to increasing resilience to extreme weather events. Unregulated urban growth that paves over and develops flood-prone areas can compound flooding when deluges strike. Zoning codes and urban planning can make the most of natural flood protections and avoid developing flood-prone areas. This is especially critical for coastal cities, because rising sea levels can heighten storm surge and flood larger inland areas.

For heatwaves, simple, cost effective measures, such as providing more shade, drinking water, and cooling centers, are proven solutions to limit the impact of extreme heat on communities. Thankfully, many communities have already been working to improve climate resilience and disaster preparedness programs. For example, over 30 cities and 11 states in India are working on early warning systems for extreme heat, Heat Action Plans, developed in partnership with NRDC.

As storms, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events become more frequent, communities must adapt and plan for them. This year’s monsoon will not be the last, nor will Harvey be the last hurricane. Climate resilience strategies and disaster preparedness mechanisms can help us to limit the damage that extreme storms wreak, and are essential to saving lives.

via Wake-Up Call for Climate Action from Houston to Mumbai —

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A practical and philosophical guide to neutralizing your carbon footprint.












Plastic Garbage Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in Pacific – NatGeo

This recent video from Taiwan shows how the global ocean plastic pollution problem has become ubiquitous.



Moore, who was the first one to discover the famed North Pacific garbage patch in 1997, estimates this zone of plastic pollution could be upwards of a million square miles in size. (Read: A Whopping 91% of Plastic Isn’t Recycled.)

The team is currently processing the data and weighing the plastic so they can get a handle on exactly how much garbage they’ve discovered in this area off the coast of Chile and Peru.

The term “patch” referring to the plastic pollution in oceanic gyres can be misleading. The pieces of plastic are not necessarily floating bottles, bags, and buoys, but teeny-tiny pieces of plastic resembling confetti, making them almost impossible to clean up.

These microplastic particles may not be visible floating on the surface, but in this case, they were detected after collecting water samples on Moore’s recent six-month expeditionto the remote area that had only been explored for plastic once before. (See a map of plastic in the ocean.)

On the first transect of the South Pacific gyre in 2011, Marcus Eriksen, marine plastic expert and research director at the 5 Gyres Institute, did not spot much plastic. In only six years, according to the new data collected by Moore, things have changed drastically.

Henderson Island, located in this South Pacific region, was recently crowned the most plastic-polluted island on Earth, as researchers discovered it is covered in roughly 38 million pieces of trash.


France May Say ‘Au Revoir’ to Fossil-Fueled Vehicles

Paris Traffic(Nelson Minar – Flickr/Creative Commons)

French motorists are known for their laissez-faire driving and scenic roads. But in 20 years or so, driving in France will lack something that’s all too familiar: fossil fuels. As Jack Ewing reports for the New York Times, France plans to stop selling gas and diesel vehicles by 2040.

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The French environment minister announced the plan as part of a strategy to tackle global warming, reports Ewing—and the country will also stop allowing oil and gas exploration and phase out coal-powered electricity production. As The Guardian’s Angelique Chrisafis and Adam Vaughan report, all three moves are expected to dramatically reduce France’s carbon output.

France has been vocal about the need to stem climate change, partnering with nations like India to develop new solar energy options and even pledging research dollars to American scientists willing to emigrate to work on climate projects. But it’s far from the first country to announce it’s ditching gas-powered vehicles. Norway plans to phase out fossil-fueled vehicles by 2025, and India will do the same by 2030. Meanwhile, Volvo recently announced that all of its new car models will be at least partially electric beginning in 2019.

France has recently made many moves in the name of the environment. The country recently nixed plastic tableware and has implemented strict regulations on how stores deal with food waste. Many such regulations have had a measurable impact: For example, when Paris held its first car-free day, banning cars in 30 percent of the city, it cut exhaust emissions by 40 percent.

There’s good reason to say non to gas-burning automobiles. Burning fossil fuels like gas and diesel emits carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Cars, trucks and other vehicles also emit black carbon and ozone-producing gases—pollutants that create smog, drive poor air quality and contribute to acid rain. According to the World Health Organization, nine in ten people worldwide breathe dangerous air daily, and that dirty air can fuel chronic illnesses and impact lung health.

Even when France does phase out gas and diesel cars, existing ones are expected to stay on the roads for years. But every vehicle counts—and by saying au revoir to fossil fuels, France might just show the rest of the world it’s possible.