In Process

Almost two decades ago, the atmosphere’s levels of methane — a dangerous greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term — started to climb. And climb. Then, in 2020, the growth rate nearly doubled.

Scientists were baffled — and concerned. … But now, a study sheds light on what’s driving record methane emissions. The culprits, scientists believe, are microbes — the tiny organisms that live in cows’ stomachs, agricultural fields and wetlands. And that could mean a dangerous feedback loop — in which these emissions cause warming that releases even more greenhouse gases — is already underway.

Note: This story is interesting mostly because it relied on a law passed last year that forced state-level judicial processes to move quickly.  The litigation was resolved in less than 6 months.

——
“California needs more water storage, and we have no time to waste — projects like the Sites Reservoir will capture rain and snow runoff to supply millions of homes with clean drinking water,” the governor said in a June 4 news release. “We’re approaching this work with urgency, everything from water storage to clean energy and transportation projects.”

In a desolate stretch of desert spanning West Texas and New Mexico, drillers are pumping more crude than Kuwait. The oil production is so frenzied that huge swaths of land are sinking and heaving. The land…

“There are tens of millions of dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists out there who just aren’t voting,” says Nathaniel Stinnett, founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project. “The climate movement doesn’t have a persuasion problem as much as we have a turnout problem.” 

From Rice University research: “We converted waste plastics ⎯ including mixed waste plastics that don’t have to be sorted by type or washed ⎯ into high-yield hydrogen gas and high-value graphene. If the produced graphene is sold at only 5% of current market value ⎯ a 95% off sale! ⎯ clean hydrogen could be produced for free.” WOW!

Bloomberg has a nice summary about global EV numbers.  Great charts.

Increasingly often, there’s a robust and rich discussion on Community.CitizensClimate.org that needs to be bookmarked for future reference.  This discussion is one — it summarizes a report from an interagency working group (IWG) from the…

Scientists working in one of the world’s fastest-warming places found that rapidly retreating glaciers are triggering the release into the atmosphere of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes global temperatures to rise.

The releases are triggered as glaciers across the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, rapidly retreat and leave behind newly exposed land […]

A particularly deadly “heat dome” phenomenon was linked to dozens of deaths across the Pacific Northwest back in 2021, lending fresh urgency to the problem of rising city temperatures.

Zoom in: Average temperature increases from 1970 to 2022 were highest in Reno, Nevada (+11.1°F); Boise, Idaho (+5.8°F); Las Vegas (+5.8°F); Salt Lake City (+5.5°F); and El Paso, Texas (+5.3°F).

Featured chapter: CCL Carson City

CCL’s Carson City, Nevada, chapter has tabling down to a science. For the third year in a row, they are participating as a vendor at the local Carson Farmers Market, tabling every other Saturday from June through September […]

(from NYTimes) Festival organizers are trying to block plans to build a clean energy plant in the Nevada desert, highlighting the struggle to combat climate change and the cost of clean power.   One of…