Tag: Pollution

‘Red sea plume’ algae can slash cow manure emissions by almost 50%

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Newswise — Approximately a third of all anthropogenic methane is emitted by ruminant livestock. These animals get nutrients through fermenting food in four-chambered stomachs found in cows, sheep, and goats. They produce methane in two ways: through belching and from the decomposition of their manure under certain conditions.

Now, researchers in Sweden have examined if adding the tropical alga Asparagopsis taxiformis (AT), also known as red sea plume, to cow feces impacts greenhouse gas emissions from the manure of dairy cows. They have published their results in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

“We showed that adding AT to the feces of dairy cows significantly reduced methane production from the feces by 44% compared to feces without AT,” said Dr Mohammad Ramin, an animal science researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “It also turned out that methane production from feces of cows that had been supplemented with AT in their diet was not lower than from the feces of cows that had not been fed the alga.”

Red sea plume fighting green(house) gas

AT is a red algae species, with cosmopolitan distribution in tropical to warm waters. Its main compound is bromoform, which mitigates methane by blocking the process through which the gas is generated. To date it is the most promising natural methane inhibitor.

“There have been many studies using AT in dairy cows’ diets to reduce enteric methane production. However, no studies have reported on the decrease of methane emissions from manure,” Ramin pointed out.

Adding AT to cows’ feed, however, is not entirely without side effects since AT contains high levels of iodine. Research has shown that if cow feed is supplemented with AT, iodine levels in milk, which is also consumed by humans, increase. Iodine is an essential nutrient but can be toxic in high concentrations. Heightened iodine levels can cause health issues such as thyroid problems. Researchers are currently working on growing AT containing less iodine in labs.

However, AT can also be used to reduce methane emissions from manure, not only from cows’ enteric fermentation. This is the approach which Ramin et al. took.

Naturally less methane

The contribution of manure to greenhouse gas emissions depends on several factors, including storage conditions. Manure stored in the cool-temperate European climate is estimated to be responsible for approximately 12% of total methane emissions from the dairy system.

“Manure methane production does contribute to global greenhouse gas emission and needs to be reduced,” Ramin said. “Our study showed a potential way how methane inhibitors could be utilized to do that.”

Despite their promising results the researchers pointed out that they did a pilot study in which they used feces form just four cows. They recommended that future studies should increase the number of cows from which manure is collected. Further, more studies are necessary to investigate the interactions between the halogenated compounds of the alga and the fecal microbiome, they said.

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July 13, 2023
Climate change is making our oceans change color, new research finds | CNN

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CNN
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The color of the ocean has changed significantly over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible, according to a new study.

More than 56% of the world’s oceans have changed color to an extent that cannot be explained by natural variability, said a team of researchers, led by scientists from the National Oceanography Center in the UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, in a statement.

Tropical oceans close to the equator in particular have become greener in the past two decades, reflecting changes in their ecosystems, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The color of the ocean is derived from the materials found in its upper layers. For example, a deep blue sea will have very little life in it, whereas a green color means there are ecosystems there, based on phytoplankton, plant-like microbes which contain chlorophyll. The phytoplankton form the basis of a food web which supports larger organisms such as krill, fish, seabirds and marine mammals.

It’s not clear exactly how these ecosystems are changing, said study co-author Stephanie Dutkiewicz, senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the Center for Global Change Science. While some areas are likely to have less phytoplankton, others will have more – and it’s likely all parts of the ocean will see changes in the types of phytoplankton present.

Ocean ecosystems are finely balanced and any change in the phytoplankton will send ripples across the food chain. “All changes are causing an imbalance in the natural organization of ecosystems. Such imbalance will only get worse over time if our oceans keep heating,” she told CNN.

It will also affect the ocean’s ability to act as a store of carbon, Dutkiewicz said, as different plankton absorb different amounts of carbon.

While the researchers are still working to unpick exactly what the changes mean, what is clear, they said, is that the changes are being driven by human-induced climate change.

The researchers monitored changes in ocean color from space by tracking how much green or blue light is reflected from the surface of the sea.

They used data from the Aqua satellite which has been monitoring ocean color changes for more than two decades and is able to pick out differences that are not visible to the human eye.

They analyzed color variation data from 2002 to 2022 and then used climate change models to simulate what would happen to the oceans both with additional planet-heating pollution and without.

The color changes matched almost exactly what Dutkiewicz predicted would happen if greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere – that around 50% of our oceans would change color.

Dutkiewicz, who has been running simulations that showed the oceans were going to change color for years, said she is not surprised at this finding.

“But still I found the results very sobering; yet another wake-up call that human induced climate change [has] significantly impacted the earth system,” she told CNN via email.

Dutkiewicz told CNN it was difficult to say whether color changes could become visible to humans if the process continues.

“If a big tipping point was reached in some places: maybe. Though you’d have to study the colors for a while to be able to pick up on the changes,” said Dutkiewicz.

Next up, Dutkiewicz will try to better understand the color changes in different ocean regions, as well as looking into what might be causing them, she said.

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July 12, 2023
Possible? Climate-neutral air travel

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Newswise — Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have performed calculations to work out how air traffic could become climate-neutral by 2050. They conclude that simply replacing fossil aviation fuel with sustainable synthetic fuels will not be enough. Air traffic would also have to be reduced. The researchers are publishing their results today in the journal Nature Communications.

The European Union aims to be climate neutral by 2050, a target that was set by the European Parliament in 2021. Switzerland is pursuing the same goal. The aviation sector, which is responsible for 3.5 percent of global warming, is expected to contribute its fair share – especially since the greenhouse gas emissions of aircraft are two to three times higher per passenger or freight kilometre than in other transport sectors. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and many airlines have therefore announced their intention to reduce CO₂ emissions to zero by 2050 or to become climate neutral.

In a new study, researchers at PSI and ETH Zurich have now calculated whether this can be achieved, and how. “An important question is what exactly we mean by zero carbon or climate neutrality,” says Romain Sacchi of PSI’s Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, one of the study’s two lead authors. If this is only referring to the CO₂emitted by aircraft actually in the air, adds his co-author Viola Becattini from ETH Zurich, this does not go nearly far enough. Because assuming that air traffic continues to grow as it has in the past, the calculations predict that the CO₂emissions of aircraft will only account for about 20 percent of their total climate impact by 2050. In order to make aviation as a whole climate neutral, it is necessary to ensure that not only flying but also the production of fuel and the entire aviation infrastructure have no further impact on the climate.

However, the study concludes that this cannot be achieved by 2050 using the climate measures that are currently being pursued in flight operations. “New engines, climate-friendly fuels and filtering CO₂ out of the atmosphere in order to store it underground (carbon capture and storage, or CCS) will not get us there on their own,” says Marco Mazzotti, Professor of Process Engineering at ETH. “On top of this, we need to reduce air traffic.”

Non-CO₂ effects play a major role

In their study, Sacchi and Becattini looked at various different scenarios. These showed, on the one hand, that while the climate impact of the infrastructure, i.e. manufacturing aircraft and building and operating airports, does need to be taken into account, it is comparatively small overall for the period up until 2050 and beyond. The impact of flying itself on the climate, and of the emissions from producing the fuel are far greater. That in itself was nothing new.

What had been less clear before was the importance of so-called non-CO₂ effects, which occur in addition to CO₂ emissions. The bulk of the greenhouse effect caused by aviation is not due to the carbon released into the atmosphere by burning aviation fuel, but to the particulate matter (soot) and nitrogen oxides that are also released and that react in the air to form methane and ozone, water vapour and the condensation trails that lead to the formation of cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere. “Many analyses and ‘net zero’ pledges so far have ignored these factors,” says Romain Sacchi. “Or they have not been calculated correctly.”

It is customary to express emissions and effects like these in terms of CO₂ equivalents when calculating the overall balance. “But the methods and values used to date have proved to be inappropriate,” says Marco Mazzotti. “We therefore adopted a more precise approach.” The methods they used take into account one major difference between the various factors: non-CO₂ effects are much more short-lived than CO₂, which is why they are also called “short-lived climate forcers”, or SLCFs for short. While about half of the emitted carbon dioxide is absorbed by forests and oceans, the other half remains in the air for thousands of years, dispersing and acting as a greenhouse gas. Methane, on the other hand, has a much greater impact on the climate, but decomposes within a few years; contrails and the resulting clouds dissipate within hours. “The problem is that we are producing more and more SLCFs as air traffic increases, so these are adding up instead of disappearing quickly. As a result, they exert their enormous greenhouse impact over longer periods of time,” says Viola Becattini. It’s like a bathtub with both the drain and the tap open: as long as the tap lets in more water than can escape through the drain, the bathtub will keep getting fuller – until eventually it overflows.

Climate-friendly fuel alone does not achieve the goal – but it helps

“But this analogy also demonstrates that the crucial lever is under our control: the volume of air traffic,” Romain Sacchi points out. “By flying less instead of more often, in other words closing the tap instead of opening it, we can actually cool the atmosphere and push the greenhouse effect caused by aviation towards zero.” This is not to say that we must stop flying altogether. The calculations performed in the study show that for aviation to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, air traffic will need to be reduced by 0.8 percent every year – in conjunction with underground carbon dioxide storage – if we continue to use fossil fuels. This would bring it down to about 80 percent of today’s volume by 2050. If we manage to switch to more climate-friendly fuels based on electricity from renewables, 0.4 percent per year will be sufficient.

The study also took a closer look at these new fuels. Researchers around the world are working to replace conventional petroleum-based engines. As in road transport, this could be achieved by using electric batteries, fuel cells or the direct combustion of hydrogen. However, the available energy density is only sufficient for small aircraft on short routes, or in the case of hydrogen also for medium-size planes on medium-haul flights. Yet large aircraft on long-haul flights of more than 4000 kilometres account for the majority of global air traffic and greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

Synthetic aviation fuel has pros and cons

In addition, propulsion technologies for the aviation industry based on electricity or hydrogen are far from being ready for a widespread roll-out. So-called Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is therefore viewed as the industry’s great hope. This man-made aviation fuel could replace petroleum-based aviation fuel more or less one-to-one, without the need to redesign turbines and aircraft.

SAF can be produced from CO₂ and water via a production cascade. The CO₂ is extracted from the air using a process known as air capture, and hydrogen can be obtained from water by electrolysis. “If the necessary processes are carried out entirely using renewable energy, SAF is virtually climate-neutral,” says Christian Bauer from the PSI Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, who was involved in the study. “This makes us less dependent on fossil fuels.” Another advantage of SAF is that it produces fewer SLCFs, which would have to be offset by capturing equivalent amounts of CO₂ from the air and storing them underground. This is significant because CO₂ storage capacity is limited and not reserved exclusively for the aviation industry.

Air tickets three times more expensive

SAF also has certain disadvantages though, in that it takes far more energy to produce than conventional aviation fuel. This is mainly because producing hydrogen via electrolysis takes a lot of electricity. In addition, energy is lost at every step in the production process – air capture, electrolysis and synthesisation. Using large amounts of electrical power, in turn, means expending more resources such as water and land. SAF is also expensive: not just in terms of the electrical power required, but also the cost of carbon capture and electrolysis plants, which makes it four to seven times more expensive than conventional aviation fuel. In other words, the widespread use of SAF makes carbon-neutral aviation a possibility, but it also costs more resources and more money. This means that flying will have to become even more expensive than it already needs to be in order to meet the climate targets. “Anyone buying a ticket today can pay a few extra euros to make their flight supposedly carbon neutral, by investing this money in climate protection,” says Romain Sacchi. “But this is greenwashing, because many of these measures for offsetting carbon are ineffective. To fully offset the actual climate impact, tickets would have to cost about three times as much as they do today.”

“Such a hefty price hike should significantly reduce the demand for flights and bring us closer to the goal of climate neutrality,” says Viola Becattini. In addition, SAF production is expected to become cheaper and more efficient over the years as quantities increases, and this will have a positive effect on the carbon footprint. The study took such dynamics into account – including the fact that the electricity mix used to produce SAF is shifting. This distinguishes the analysis from most others.

“The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet for achieving climate neutrality in aviation by 2050,” says Sacchi. “We cannot continue as before. But if we develop the infrastructure for storing CO₂ underground and producing SAF quickly and efficiently, while also reducing our demand for air travel, we could succeed.”

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July 7, 2023
Technology to eliminate

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Technology to eliminate “forever chemicals” showing positive results – CBS News

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A new study has found that man-made toxic PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” may be found in 45% of the tap water in the U.S. However, a scientific company has developed a technology that uses an annihilator to completely eliminate PFAS within seconds. Mark Strassmann has more.

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July 6, 2023
Public backing for hydrogen and biofuels to decarbonize shipping
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- Nuclear preferred to heavy fuel oil (HFO), but the UK public think it’s too risky
- Liquid natural gas likely to be regarded as a positive transitional step
- Ammonia elicits strong negative responses from the UK public
Newswise — New research into public attitudes towards alternative shipping fuels shows public backing for biofuel and hydrogen.

The study involving the University of Southampton also found that nuclear was preferred to the heavy fuel oil (HFO) currently used in the global shipping industry, although both were perceived negatively. Ammonia had the least public support.

Global shipping is responsible for 80 to 90 per cent of the world trade and accounts for around 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2021, 230 industry leaders pledged to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.

The new study published in Environment, Development and Sustainability is the first to test public attitudes to various fuels that could play a crucial role in decarbonising the global shipping industry.

“Switching to fuels with the potential to reduce GHG emissions on the scale needed to address the climate crisis has huge implications for the shipping industry,” says co-author of the paper Professor Damon Teagle, Director of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.

“Due to the substantial investment and new infrastructure required, industry stakeholders are wary of going down the wrong path. It’s crucial that policymakers and industry leaders consult with the public and ensure their voices are heard when planning for this transition.”

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews and a survey of nearly a thousand people in the UK to explore public perceptions and support alternative shipping fuels.

Biofuel and Hydrogen were regarded the most favourably. Biofuel was viewed as low risk, while people felt hydrogen had low negative by-products.

Liquid natural gas (LNG) had middling support and didn’t elicit a strong public reaction, with the strongest association being around its current availability.

Nuclear was viewed more positively than HFO but it was still perceived negatively overall as people felt it was risky. As one interviewee put it, “If there was an oil spill, it’s terrible. But if there’s a nuclear spill it’s a freaking disaster.”

Although some techno-economic assessments have proposed that ammonia is the most-balanced carbon-free fuel alternative for shipping, the UK’s public perception was strongly negative. Ammonia was perceived as unproven and risky, and described as “dangerous” and “toxic” in interviews.

Interestingly, people living in port cities were slightly more supportive of using alternative shipping fuels overall.

“Our research shows there is public support for the research, development and implementation of alternative shipping fuels over incumbent fossil fuels, with biofuel and hydrogen preferred solutions,” says lead author Daniel Carlisle from Massey University in New Zealand. “LNG also seems likely to be regarded as a positive transitional solution.”

“Of course, public opinion is neither uniform nor static. But the disparity between public attitudes toward ammonia and that of scientists and industry leaders shows that public concerns need to be considered alongside technological and economic evaluations.”

Public response to decarbonisation through alternative shipping fuels is published in Environment, Development and Sustainability and is available online.

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University of Southampton

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July 6, 2023
Research led by UW undergrad shows ultrafine air pollution reflects Seattle’s redlining history

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Newswise — Despite their invisibly small size, ultrafine particles have become a massive concern for air pollution experts. These tiny pollutants — typically spread through wildfire smoke, vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions and airplane fumes — can bypass some of the body’s built-in defenses, carrying toxins to every organ or burrowing deep in the lungs.

New research from the University of Washington found that those effects aren’t felt equitably in Seattle. The most comprehensive study yet of long-term ultrafine particle exposure found that concentrations of this tiny pollutant reflect the city’s decades-old racial and economic divides.

The study, published July 5 in Environmental Health Perspectives, also found that racial and socioeconomic disparities in ultrafine particle exposure are larger than those observed in more commonly studied pollutants, like fine particles (PM 2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

The study used mobile monitoring — a car loaded with air pollution sensors driving around the city for the better part of a year — to examine long-term average levels of four pollutants: soot (or black carbon), fine particles (PM 2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ultrafine particles. Researchers found the highest concentrations of all four pollutants on census blocks with median household incomes under $20,000 and those with proportionately larger Black populations.

Disparities in concentrations of ultrafine particles — which are less than 0.1 micron in diameter, or 700 times thinner than the width of a single human hair — were especially stark. Blocks with median incomes under $20,000 had long-term UFP concentrations 40% higher than average. Blocks where median incomes are over $110,000, meanwhile, saw UFP concentrations 16% lower than average.

“We found greater disparities with this pollutant of emerging interest, a pollutant that hasn’t been well-characterized. That’s very interesting,” said senior author Lianne Sheppard, a UW professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. “Our work has shown the highest ultrafine particle concentrations are north of the airport and below common aircraft landing paths, downtown, and south of downtown where there are port and other industrial activities.”

The study also found that modern-day air pollution disparities mirror Seattle’s history of redlining, the racist practice that denied racial minorities and low-income residents access to bank loans, homeownership and other wealth-building opportunities in more “desirable” areas. The practice shaped American cities throughout the early 20th century, building a foundation of segregation and environmental racism.

Today, neighborhoods once classified as “hazardous” are still exposed to higher concentrations of pollution than those once labeled “desirable,” the study found. This was true for all sizes of particles. The spatial disparities were largest, however, in Seattle neighborhoods that received no label because they were once considered industrial areas.

In those previously industrial areas, ultrafine particle concentrations were 49% above average.

“These results are important because air pollution exposure has been shown to lead to detrimental health effects, and these health effects disproportionately impact racialized and low-income communities,” said Kaya Bramble, the study’s lead author, who graduated from the UW in 2022 with a degree in industrial and systems engineering. “Notably, air pollution is just one factor, and there are plenty of other examples of how systemic racism is detrimental to people’s health and well-being.”

Bramble said the results didn’t surprise her. She was raised in Tacoma, in a neighborhood near Interstate 5, where the constant crush of cars and diesel trucks spewed pollution into the air. And as a student journalist at the UW, she researched the relationship between redlining, green spaces, heat and air pollution.

“In the case of air pollution exposures, these policies affect the health of real people. I think at a time where the teaching of systemic racism is a controversial topic in this country, being ignorant is not going to reduce the number of children who suffer from asthma due to air pollution,” Bramble said. “Instead, I hope we can have conversations about how past policies affect us today, to drive efforts toward a healthier, sustainable society.”

Bramble proposed and carried out this study for the Supporting Undergraduate Research Experiences in Environmental Health grant program, which provides National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences funding and mentorship to undergraduates from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue research. She joined the program in June 2020 under Sheppard’s mentorship.

Other UW authors are Magali Blanco, Annie Doubleday and Amanda Gassett of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Anjum Hajat of the Department of Epidemiology and Julian Marshall of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

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July 5, 2023
10 states plan to sue EPA over standards for residential wood-burning stoves

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JUNEAU, Alaska — Attorneys general from 10 states plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying its failure to review and ensure emissions standards for residential wood-burning stoves has allowed the continued sale of appliances that could worsen pollution.

That means programs that encourage people to trade in older stoves and other wood-burning appliances, such as forced-air furnaces, haven’t necessarily improved air quality, the states say.

“If newer wood heaters do not meet cleaner standards, then programs to change out old wood heaters may provide little health benefits at significant public cost,” the states wrote Thursday in a 60-day notice of intent to sue.

The states involved are Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, as well as the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

They allege that the EPA’s current standards aren’t good enough and that even if they were, the agency’s testing and certification program is so ineffective that it has failed to ensure those standards.

The EPA declined to comment on pending litigation.

The states allege that the EPA’s current standards must be reviewed and that its testing and certification program is so ineffective, it has failed to ensure the existing standards.

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General, in a report released in February, found the EPA’s 2015 performance standards for residential wood heaters was flawed and said the agency has “approved methods that lack clarity and allow too much flexibility.”

“As a result, certification tests may not be accurate, do not reflect real-world conditions, and may result in some wood heaters being certified for sale that emit too much particulate-matter pollution,” the report said.

The agency supports programs aimed at replacing older, dirtier wood heaters with newer, cleaner models and distributed about $82 million in grants for residential exchanges between fiscal years 2015 and 2021, the report said.

“However, if the replacement models do not meet emission standards because of the reasons described above, millions of federal, state, and local dollars could be wasted,” it said.

EPA officials, in response to a draft of the report, said they take the concerns seriously and would continue to take steps to address testing and certification issues.

The report also noted that about 39% of households in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, in Alaska’s Interior, use wood-fired heaters in the winter, when temperatures can plunge well below zero degrees F (minus 18 degrees C).

The area is susceptible to inversions that trap layers of cold air close to the ground, and that in turn traps pollution for days or weeks at a time.

More than 3,000 wood-burning appliances were replaced in the region between 2010 and 2021 through a changeout program supported by federal, state and local money, but the report said local residents “do not know whether wood heaters in their homes meet standards” and poor air quality continues to be a concern.

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July 2, 2023
4000 climate turnaround scenarios explored

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Newswise — CO2 emissions from human activities account for about 42 billion tonnes per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has calculated that only another 300 to 600 billion tonnes can be added, from 2020 onwards, or else the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be virtually unattainable. Evangelos Panos of the PSI’s Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis agrees: “It could be a close shave, because 70 percent of our scenarios predict that the world will exceed the 1.5 °C mark in the next five years.”

Which climate measures are most successful?

Tackling climate change requires numerous political, economic and social decisions to be made. However, these decisions are fraught with uncertainty. Understandably, decision-makers are seeking robust evidence, for example in answering one of the central questions: Which measures have the greatest effect and are also economically advantageous as a means of achieving the net-zero emissions target which Switzerland, for example, has set itself? A large computer simulation dealing with this issue is now providing some answers. It combines climate models with economic models and 1200 technologies for supplying and using energy, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the study, a supercomputer calculated 4,000 scenarios for 15 regions of the world, taking into account possible developments in ten-year steps up to the year 2100. “This calls for sophisticated data analysis and visualisation techniques,” adds co-author James Glynn, head of the Energy Systems Modelling Program at Columbia University in the US. The final file contains 700 gigabytes of data. The paper on this research has now been published in the academic journal Energy Policy.

What makes the work done by Evangelos Panos and his co-authors unique is that, for the first time, their integrated assessment models take into account many of the uncertainties inherent in the models. Previous scenarios have typically assumed that all parameters concerning the future are known, such as which technologies will be available and when, what they will cost, or how large the potential for expanding renewable energies is. Moreover, the IPCC calculations focus solely on technology options, i.e. on what impact choosing certain technologies has on the climate. Uncertainties inherent in climate models and the way in which the climate responds to economic growth are left out of the equation, as are many other uncertainties, such as population trends and policy measures. “The most important contribution of our research is that it allows policymakers to make concrete decisions about climate action based on a full understanding of the existing uncertainties,” says co-author Brian Ó Gallachóir from University College Cork.

18 uncertainty factors and 72,000 variables

When researchers want to calculate scenarios that contain a large number of variables and uncertainties, they often resort to what is known as the Monte Carlo method. The Monte Carlo method does not predict the future. “Instead, it creates a kind of data map made up of what-if decision pathways,” explains Evangelos Panos. So too in the current study: For each scenario, the team adjusted 72,000 variables. “We considered 18 uncertainty factors, including population and economic growth, climate sensitivity, resource potential, the impact of changes in agriculture and forestry, the cost of energy technologies and the decoupling of energy demand from economic development,” explains James Glynn of Columbia University.

Sound basis for national pathways to an energy system transformation

In order to break down individual scenarios focusing on political and economic issues into different national pathways to an energy system transformation, additional parameters specific to each country need to be taken into account. “An energy system that enables the transition to a zero-carbon economy is capital-intensive and requires the mobilisation of resources from all stakeholders,” Panos concludes. This calls for customised analyses to be carried out at the national level: “Our study provides a sound basis for these.”

Text: Bernd Müller

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Paul Scherrer Institute

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June 30, 2023
Canadian wildfire smoke polluting air across U.S.

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Canadian wildfire smoke polluting air across U.S. – CBS News

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Nearly one-third of the U.S. population is being impacted by smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada. Scott MacFarlane has the latest.

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June 29, 2023
Study estimates that gray whales near Oregon Coast ingest millions of tiny particles daily through their diet and feces.

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Newswise — CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University researchers estimate that gray whales feeding off the Oregon Coast consume up to 21 million microparticles per day, a finding informed in part by poop from the whales.

Microparticle pollution includes microplastics and other human-sourced materials, including fibers from clothing. The finding, just published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, is important because these particles are increasing exponentially and predicted to continue doing so in the coming decades, according to researchers Leigh Torres and Susanne Brander.

Microparticle pollution is a threat to the health of gray whales, in addition to obstacles related to increased boat traffic and loss of prey.

“These are quite scary numbers,” said Leigh Torres, an associate professor at Oregon State and an author of the paper. “I think they should raise concern for people who care about the marine environment or about their own environment and exposure to microplastics.

“Little by little we are all getting exposed to more and more microplastics. That’s inescapable at this point across all ecosystems, including right off our coast here in Oregon.”

Susanne Brander, an associate professor and ecotoxicologist at Oregon State and co-author of the study, said the findings reinforce the need to curb the release of microparticles because of the adverse impacts they have on organisms and ecosystems.

“This issue is gaining momentum globally and some states, such as California, have taken important steps,” Brander said. “But more action needs to be taken, including here in Oregon, because this problem is not going away anytime soon.”

The study focused on a subgroup of about 230 gray whales known as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group. They spend winters in Baja California, Mexico and migrate north to forage in coastal habitats from northern California to southern British Columbia from June through November.

Since 2015, Torres, who leads the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory in the OSU Marine Mammal Institute, and her team, including doctoral student Lisa Hildebrand, have used drones and other tools to study the health and behavior of this subgroup of gray whales off the Oregon Coast. As part of this work, they collect poop samples from the gray whales.

For the new study, the researchers collected zooplankton, which are an important food supply for gray whales, and commercial and recreational fish.

“We had determined the caloric content of several zooplankton species, so next we wanted to know what their microparticle loads might be to get a more complete picture of the quality of these prey items,” Hildebrand said.

Brander, Hildebrand and members of Brander’s Ecotoxicology and Environmental Stress Lab analyzed the microparticle loads in 26 zooplankton samples collected from whale feeding areas and found microparticles in all of them. A total of 418 suspected microparticles were identified, with fibers accounting for more than 50% of them.

Torres and Hildebrand then combined that data with known estimates of energetic requirements for lactating and pregnant female gray whales to quantify how many zooplankton and microparticles they consume in a day. That yielded estimates that lactating and pregnant whales consume between 6.5 million and 21 million microparticles per day.

“It’s a wake-up call that whales are getting that much microplastic from what they eat,” Torres said. “It’s likely that humans are also getting a lot of microplastics from our own fish diet.”

Torres notes that the microparticle consumption estimates are likely conservative because they only account for what the whales consume from zooplankton.

Gray whales likely ingest more microparticles directly from the water and seafloor sediment because they are filter feeders that engulf large amounts of water while consuming prey and also use suction feeding to obtain prey from the seafloor.

Analysis of the poop samples provided a window to what kind of microparticles these gray whales were digesting. The researchers analyzed five poop samples and found microparticles in all of them. Similar to zooplankton, the majority of the microparticles were fiber.

The researchers also found that the microparticles in the poop were significantly larger than those found in the zooplankton, leading them to believe the larger particles came from the water or sediment, not the prey (too small to consume these larger particles).

The findings raise concerns for Torres, whose past research has shown that this subgroup of gray whales is skinnier than other groups of gray whales.

“These whales are already stressed out with boats driving around all the time and the risk of getting hit by one of those boats,” she said. “They might also have less prey around because of changes in the environment, like less kelp. And now the quality of the prey might be poor because of these high microplastic loads.”

Brander and Torres are continuing their investigations by studying the effects of microfibers on zooplankton that are an important food source for whales and fish in Oregon waters.

“That all can lead to being poorly nourished and having poor health,” Torres said, “That can lead to stunted growth, smaller body size, lower ability to have calves and animals not using this habitat anymore. All of those are areas of significant concern.”

Other authors of the paper are Julia Parker, Elissa Bloom, Robyn Norman, Jennifer Van Brocklin and Katherine Lasdin. They are all from Oregon State and in the colleges of Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Science. Brander is also affiliated with Oregon State’s Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

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June 26, 2023
Soil microbes speed up CO2 emissions amid global warming

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Newswise — The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration is a primary catalyst for global warming, and an estimated one fifth of the atmospheric CO₂ originates from soil sources. This is partially attributed to the activity of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that decompose organic matter in the soil utilizing oxygen, such as deceased plant materials. During this process, CO₂ is released into the atmosphere. Scientists refer to it as heterotrophic soil respiration.

Based on a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Eawag, and the University of Lausanne has reached a significant conclusion. Their study indicates that emissions of CO₂ by soil microbes into the Earth’s atmosphere are not only expected to increase but also accelerate on a global scale by the end of this century.

Using a projection, they find that by 2100, CO₂ emissions from soil microbes will escalate, potentially reaching an increase of up to about forty percent globally, compared to the current levels, under the worst-case climate scenario. “Thus, the projected rise in microbial CO₂ emissions will further contribute to the aggravation of global warming, emphasising the urgent need to get more accurate estimates of the heterotrophic respiration rates,” says Alon Nissan, the main author of the study and an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow at the ETH Zurich Institute of Environmental Engineering.

Soil moisture and temperature as key factors

These findings do not only confirm earlier studies but also provide more precise insights into the mechanisms and magnitude of heterotrophic soil respiration across different climatic zones. In contrast to other models that rely on numerous parameters, the novel mathematical model, developed by Alon Nissan, simplifies the estimation process by utilising only two crucial environmental factors: soil moisture and soil temperature.

The model represents a significant advancement as it encompasses all biophysically relevant levels, ranging from the micro-scales of soil structure and soil water distribution to plant communities like forests, entire ecosystems, climatic zones, and even the global scale. Peter Molnar, a professor at the ETH Institute of Environmental Engineering, highlights the significance of this theoretical model which complements large Earth System models, stating, “The model allows for a more straightforward estimation of microbial respiration rates based on soil moisture and soil temperature. Moreover, it enhances our understanding of how heterotrophic respiration in diverse climate regions contributes to global warming.”

Polar CO₂ emissions likely to more than double

A key finding of the research collaboration led by Peter Molnar and Alon Nissan is that the increase in microbial CO₂ emissions varies across climate zones. In cold polar regions, the foremost contributor to the increase is the decline in soil moisture rather than a significant rise in temperature, unlike in hot and temperate zones. Alon Nissan highlights the sensitivity of cold zones, stating, “Even a slight change in water content can lead to a substantial alteration in the respiration rate in the polar regions.”

Based on their calculations, under the worst-case climate scenario, microbial CO₂ emissions in polar regions are projected to rise by ten percent per decade by 2100, twice the rate anticipated for the rest of the world. This disparity can be attributed to the optimal conditions for heterotrophic respiration, which occur when soils are in a semi-saturated state, i.e. neither too dry nor too wet. These conditions prevail during soil thawing in polar regions.

On the other hand, soils in other climate zones, which are already relatively drier and prone to further desiccation, exhibit a comparatively smaller increase in microbial CO₂ emissions. However, irrespective of the climate zone, the influence of temperature remains consistent: as soil temperature rises, so does the emission of microbial CO₂.

How much CO₂ emissions will increase by each climate zone

As of 2021, most CO₂ emissions from soil microbes are primarily originating from the warm regions of the Earth. Specifically, 67 percent of these emissions come from the tropics, 23 percent from the subtropics, 10 percent from the temperate zones, and a mere 0.1 percent from the arctic or polar regions.

Significantly, the researchers anticipate substantial growth in microbial CO₂ emissions across all these regions compared to the levels observed in 2021. By the year 2100, their projections indicate an increase of 119 percent in the polar regions, 38 percent in the tropics, 40 percent in the subtropics, and 48 percent in the temperate zones.

Will soils be a CO₂ sink or a CO₂ source for the atmosphere?

The carbon balance in soils, determining whether soils act as a carbon source or sink, hinges on the interplay between two crucial processes: photosynthesis, whereby plants assimilate CO₂, and respiration, which releases CO₂. Therefore, studying microbial CO₂ emissions is essential for comprehending whether soils will store or release CO₂ in the future.

“Due to climate change, the magnitude of these carbon fluxes—both the inflow through photosynthesis and the outflow through respiration—remains uncertain. However, this magnitude will impact the current role of soils as carbon sinks,” explains Alon Nissan.

In their ongoing study, the researchers have primarily focused on heterotrophic respiration. However, they have not yet investigated the CO₂ emissions that plants release through autotrophic respiration. Further exploration of these factors will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the carbon dynamics within soil ecosystems.

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June 23, 2023
Rubbery Materials That Keep Their Bounce After a Beating

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Newswise — DURHAM, N.C. — When it comes to the environmental impacts of cars, much ink has been spilled on tailpipe emissions. But there’s another environmental threat from cars you might not think about: microplastic pollution.

Car tires are made of rubber but also plastic polymers and other materials. Tiny bits of these materials, most a fraction the size of a grain of sand, slough off whenever tires rub against the road. Some are washed into soils and waterways; others enter the air, where their long-term effects on the health of humans and other living things are unknown.

Duke chemistry professor Stephen Craig thinks we can do better. In a study published June 22 in the journal Science, he and colleagues describe a way to make rubbery materials an order of magnitude tougher, without compromising other aspects of their performance.

Craig is part of a team from Duke and MIT that has been studying the molecular reactions within a class of flexible polymer-based materials called elastomers. Think rubber tires, the nitrile in medical gloves, or the silicone in soft contact lenses. What makes these materials amazing is the fact that they can be stretched and squished repeatedly and still return to their original shape.

But they’re not indestructible. Enough strain and they begin to crack. Most methods to make such materials more durable invariably involve a trade-off, Craig said: Greater toughness for less elasticity, for example.

The new study suggests it doesn’t always have to be a compromise. The secret lies in weak bonds embedded within the material that actually make it stronger.

Zoom in close enough, and elastomers essentially look like a jumble of loosely coiled strings or strands of spaghetti. Each strand is a long, chain-like molecule called a polymer, with covalent bonds called cross-links holding neighboring strands together.

It’s the cross-links that help such materials hold their shape. Pulling on the material stretches the tangled polymer chains and makes them straight. Let it go, and they relax back into their more coiled and bunched-up state.

For the new study, the team’s idea was to tie some of the polymer chains together using weak cross-links that are designed to break.

In their work, the researchers designed and synthesized two identical elastomers composed of polyacrylate, a rubbery polymer used to make things like hoses, seals and gaskets. Then in one of them, they replaced the cross-links with ones that were five times weaker, due to an embedded molecule that breaks apart under strain — in this case a ring-shaped molecule called cyclobutane.

Everything else being equal, Craig said, you’d think that “linkers that break more easily should produce materials that are easier to tear.”

But instead they found the opposite. “Surprisingly, the overall network got much stronger as opposed to weaker,” he added.

In mechanical tests, the researchers loaded thin sheets of each material into a machine that measures the force it takes to rip a sample.

Both were similar in terms of stiffness and elasticity, but the one made with weak cross-linkers was up to nine times more difficult to tear than the one cross-linked with stronger bonds.

“The toughness enhancement comes without any other significant change in physical properties, at least that we can measure, and it is brought about through the replacement of only a small fraction of the overall material,” Craig said.

Tearing in a polymer material is essentially a chemical reaction, said first author Shu Wang, who did the work as part of his Ph.D. dissertation under Craig and Duke polymer theorist Michael Rubinstein.

Typically, the polymer strands that span the leading edge of the tear must break for the crack to spread.

But in their design the weak cross-links break first, leaving the main polymer thread uncinched but otherwise intact. This helps the material resist breaking down further, even once small nicks and blemishes start to form.

The team has filed a patent on the approach. Much work remains to be done to use the insights to design tougher synthetic rubber like that found in tires, Craig said.

“But that’s the long-term application I’m most excited about.”

Previous studies estimate that, each year, tires release some 6 million metric tons of dust and debris worldwide, accounting for as much as 10% of the microplastics that end up in the oceans, and 3-7% of the particulate matter in the air we breathe.

“That’s just from tire tread wearing down on roads,” Craig said. “If you could reduce that by even 10%, that’s still 600,000 tons of microplastics you’d be keeping out of the environment.”

“So I’m really excited to see how these kinds of ideas might translate to that problem,” Craig said.

This research was supported by the Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks, or MONET, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (CHE-2116298).

CITATION: “Facile Mechanochemical Cycloreversion of Polymer Cross-Linkers Enhances Tear Resistance,” Shu Wang, Yixin Hu, Tatiana B. Kouznetsova, Liel Sapir, Danyang Chen, Abraham Herzog-Arbeitman, Jeremiah A. Johnson, Michael Rubinstein, Stephen L. Craig. Science, June 23, 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.adg3229

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June 23, 2023
Oregon county sues oil, gas companies including Exxon, Shell, Chevron for deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome

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Shanton Alcaraz from the Salvation Army Northwest Division gives bottled water to Eddy Norby who lives in an RV and invites him to their nearby cooling center for food and beverages during a heat wave in Seattle, Washington, U.S., June 27, 2021.

Karen Ducey | Reuters

Multnomah County in Oregon is suing oil and gas companies Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and related organizations for the damages caused by the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. Multnomah County said these and other fossil fuel companies and entities operating in the region are significantly responsible for causing and worsening the deadly heat event.

“The combined historical carbon pollution from the use of Defendants’ fossil fuel products was a substantial factor in causing and exacerbating the heat dome, which smothered the County’s residents for several days,” Multnomah County alleges, according to a written statement released Thursday.

The lawsuit is filed against Anadarko Petroleum (acquired by Occidental Petroleum in 2019), American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Marathon Petroleum, McKinsey & Company, Motiva, Occidental Petroleum, Peabody Energy, Shell, Space Age Fuel, Total Specialties USA, Valero Energy and Western States Petroleum Association.

Multnomah County is seeking $50 million in actual damages, $1.5 billion in future damages, and an estimated $50 billion for an abatement fund to “weatherproof” the city, its infrastructure and public health services in preparation for future extreme weather events.

Starting on June 25, 2021, Multnomah County had three consecutive days where the heat reached 108, 112 and 116 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively. Each of those days was about 40 degrees above the regional average and were the hottest days in the County’s recorded history.

The heat event is called a heat dome which is a weather event caused by a high-pressure system that in this case prevented cooler maritime winds to blow and also prevented clouds from forming.

The heat caused the deaths of 69 people, and property damage and was a draw on taxpayer resources, Multnomah County says.

Multiple climate scientists researched the cause of the heat dome and all said that the event was caused by excessive carbon dioxide emissions released by the burning of fossil fuels, the plaintiff says.

“The heat dome that cost so much life and loss was not a natural weather event. It did not just happen because life can be cruel, nor can it be rationalized as simply a mystery of God’s will,” the lawsuit reads. “Rather, the heat dome was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the Defendants’ decision to sell as many fossil fuel products over the last six decades as they could and to lie to the County, the public, and the scientific community about the catastrophic harm that pollution from those products into the Earth’s and the County’s atmosphere would cause.”

Jessica Vega Pederson, the chair of Multnomah County, is seeking to protect the residents of the county she represents.

“This lawsuit is about accountability and fairness, and I believe the people of Multnomah County deserve both. These businesses knew their products were unsafe and harmful, and they lied about it,” Pederson said in a written statement announcing the lawsuit. “They have profited massively from their lies and left the rest of us to suffer the consequences and pay for the damages. We say enough is enough.”

The case is being brought by three law firms with expertise in catastrophic harm litigation: Worthington & Caron PC, Simon Greenstone Panatier PC, and Thomas, Coon, Newton & Frost.

The plaintiffs allege the defendants committed negligence and fraud and created a public nuisance.

Bill Forte from North Sky Communications works on a fiber optic line during a heat wave gripping the Pacific Northwest in Lake Forest Park, Washington, U.S., June 26, 2021.

Karen Ducey | Reuters

“There are no new laws or novel theories being asserted here. We contend that the Defendants broke long-standing ones, and we will prove it to a jury,” Jeffrey Simon, a partner at Simon Greenstone Panatier, said in a statement.

The case is using new and expert climate science, according to Roger Worthington, a partner at Worthington & Caron.

“We will show that the normal use of fossil fuel products over time has imposed massive external, unpriced and untraded social, economic and environmental costs on the County. We will show that they were aware of this price, and instead of fully informing the public, they deceived us. And we will ask a jury to decide if it is fair to hold the polluters accountable for these avoidable and rising costs,” Worthington said in a written statement.

“We are confident that, once we show what the fossil fuel companies knew about global warming and when, and what they did to deny, delay and deceive the public, the jury will not let the fossil fuel companies get away with their reckless misconduct,” Worthington said.

Defendants say a court case won’t help

Exxon says the lawsuit is unproductive.

“Suits like these continue to waste time, resources and do nothing to address climate change,” a spokesperson for Exxon told CNBC. “This action has no impact on our intention to invest billions of dollars to leading the way in a thoughtful energy transition that takes the world to net zero carbon emissions.”

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group for the oil and gas industry, defended its constituents’ work making energy available to consumers and, like Exxon, called the lawsuit unproductive.

“The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint,” Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel for API, told CNBC in a statement. “This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless lawsuits against our industry is nothing more than a distraction from important issues and an enormous waste of taxpayer resources. Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not the court system.”

Legal counsel for Chevron called the lawsuit unproductive and unconstitutional.

“Addressing the challenge of global climate change requires a coordinated policy response. These lawsuits are counterproductive distractions from advancing international policy solutions,” Theodore Boutrous, Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, told CNBC in a statement. “The federal Constitution bars these novel, baseless claims that target one industry and group of companies engaged in lawful activity that provides tremendous benefits to society.”

People sleep at a cooling shelter set up during an unprecedented heat wave in Portland, Oregon, U.S. June 27, 2021.

Maranie Staab | Reuters

Shell said it is working toward a low-carbon future and does not see a lawsuit as productive.

“The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We agree that action is needed now on climate change, and we fully support the need for society to transition to a lower-carbon future. As we supply vital energy the world needs today, we continue to reduce our emissions and help customers reduce theirs,” a Shell spokesperson told CNBC.

“Addressing climate change requires a collaborative, society-wide approach. We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress,” Shell said.

ConocoPhillips and the Western States Petroleum Association told CNBC they don’t comment on active litigation.

BP, Motiva, Occidental Petroleum, Space Age Fuel, Valero Energy, Total Specialties USA, Marathon Petroleum, Peabody Energy, the Koch Industries, and McKinsey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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June 23, 2023
United Nations adopts high seas treaty, the first-ever pact to govern and protect international waters
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United Nations — The United Nations on Monday adopted the first-ever legally binding international treaty governing the high seas. Known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty (BBNJ), but widely referred to as the High Seas Treaty, the measure approved by the 193 U.N. member states imposes rules aimed at protecting the environment and heading off disputes over natural resources, shipping and other matters in waters beyond any country’s national jurisdiction.

Until now, there has never been any international law governing the high seas, so many individuals and organizations hope the U.N.’s adoption of the measure will mark a clear turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation efforts have long struggled in a sort of wild west of exploration, overfishing, oil exploration and deep-sea mining.

“You have delivered,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the member nations Monday upon the treaty’s adoption. “And you have done so at a critical time.”

What’s the point of a High Seas Treaty?

“To prevent a cascading of species extinctions, last year we universally agreed to the Global Biodiversity Framework’s target of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030,” Peter Thomson, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Oceans, told CBS News. “To reach that target, we’ll have to establish Marine Protected Areas in the High Seas, and happily the BBNJ Treaty will give us the legal means to do that.”

“Roughly two thirds of the Earth’s oceans lie beyond national boundaries in an area known as the ‘high seas’ — yet only about 1% of that largely unexplored expanse has been protected. This year, nearly 200 nations finally agreed on the first treaty to protect the high seas,” the Conservation International organization said.

“Oceans Give, Oceans Take”: Their role in climate change

07:01

The only treaty that came close previously was the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force three decades ago. But that treaty regulated seas within country’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zones, leaving nearly half the planet’s surface and two-thirds of the ocean unregulated — particularly when it comes to protecting biodiversity. The new high seas treaty was agreed to under the authority of the previous Law of the Seas Treaty.

“The high seas are among the last truly wild places on earth,” said Monica Medina, the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, who was the Biden administration’s chief negotiator and supporter of the treaty.

“It is often said that the ocean is too big to fail. That is simply not true,” Medina said. “The ocean is more fragile than most people understand. It is also more essential. It provides the oxygen we breathe and food for tens of millions of people.”

A marine biologist inspects signs of coral bleaching during a dive on Tubbataha reef, April 23, 2018, off the Philippines in the Sulu Sea.

Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty

Nichola Clark, who works with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ ocean governance project, told CBS News the treaty was “critical for our climate, as the world’s oceans play “an important role in regulating our climate – absorbing carbon dioxide and excess heat from the atmosphere, regulating temperatures, and driving our global weather patterns.”

So, what’s in the treaty? Here are the key points:
- MPAs: The treaty establishes a framework for “Marine Protected Areas” — beyond the ones already within national territorial waters — to counter biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems of the ocean caused by the impact of climate change, including warming and acidification of oceans, as well as plastics, pollutants and overfishing.
- It establishes standards and guidelines to determine the environmental impacts of high seas activities, including their impact on marine life and ecosystems. It requires signatory countries to present an assessment of pollution or other impacts of their proposed activities on the high seas, such as deep-sea mining.
- The treaty creates a Conference of Parties (COP) to monitor and enforce compliance with the treaty’s terms, which will include a scientific advisory board.
- It creates a mechanism for the transfer of marine technology to developing countries to ensure equitable sharing of benefits and resources from the high seas, including materials that could prove ground-breaking in medical and nutrition science.
Final hurdle: National ratifications

There is a final hurdle — or 60, actually — that the new treaty must still clear: It will only go into effect 120 days after it is ratified by at least 60 U.N. member nations individually. In the U.S., that means Senate approval.

Clark, of the Pew Charitable Trusts, told CBS News the hope was that the requisite 60 ratifications would be in-hand by the next U.N. Ocean Conference, set to convene in the summer of 2025.

“As with all treaties, ratification is the key to bringing it into force, and only then can we implement the benefits accruing. All parties should work towards this being achieved by the time of the next UN Ocean Conference, June 2025, in Nice, France,” the U.N.’s Thomson told CBS News.

But in a sign of the work still to come, Russia’s delegate Sergey Leonidchenko on Monday made it clear that his country, “distances itself from the consensus on the text of the agreement prepared by the conference.”

While Moscow did not seek to block adoption of the treaty by the U.N., his remarks made it clear that Russia could not yet be counted on for one of the 60 required ratifications, calling the international treaty as written, “unacceptable.”

Protecting the Planet: Climate Change News & Features

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Pamela Falk

Pamela Falk is the CBS News correspondent covering the United Nations, and an international lawyer.
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June 19, 2023
Railroad industry sues to block new locomotive pollution rules in California

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The railroad industry on Friday sued to block new environmental rules in California, arguing they would force the premature retirement of about 25,000 diesel-powered locomotives across the country long before their zero-emission counterparts are ready to take their place.

California’s aggressive strategy to fight climate change by weaning the state off fossil fuels has produced some of the world’s toughest environmental regulations in the past few years. Since 2020, the state has OK’d rules that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, lawn equipment and trucks by the middle of the next decade.

Those rules are designed to slowly phase out gas- and diesel-powered products by banning the sale of most new combustible engines. But the rules governing railroads would ban the use of locomotives more than 23 years old starting in 2030 and would force railroads to start setting aside more than $1 billion a year starting this fall solely to purchase zero-emission locomotives and related equipment. Due to the crucial role California ports hold and the way railroads pass off trains to each other, the state’s mandate would have huge effects nationwide.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, the industry says the technology for zero-emission locomotives hasn’t been sufficiently tested and won’t be ready to carry the load of delivering more than 30 million carloads of freight nationwide each year.

The lawsuit asks a judge to declare the California Air Resources Board does not have the authority to issue these rules. The trade groups say that only the federal government can regulate railroads because it is an interconnected industry that crosses state lines. They note that more than 500 companies all share the 180,000 miles (289,682 kilometers) of track across 49 states, Canada and Mexico.

“While the urgency to act is real and unquestionable, CARB (the California Air Resources Board) uses unreasonable, flawed assumptions to support a rule that will not result in emissions reductions,” said Ian Jefferies, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, an industry trade association that filed the lawsuit along with the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association. “Railroads are working toward reliable, efficient zero-emissions technologies; however, they cannot simply be willed into immediate existence by policymakers.”

The railroad groups say in their lawsuit that the rules show regulators’ “lack of experience with and understanding of the railroad industry.”

Another argument from opponents of the California rule is that transporting goods through railways contributes fewer planet-warming emissions than if those goods were trucked. The transportation sector contributed the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, but rail only made up 2% of those emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

CARB spokesperson Lys Mendez said Friday the board had not yet seen the lawsuit and would not comment on it.

Regulators say they must move quickly given the scope of the emissions problems from locomotives. CARB says the rules will dramatically reduce pollution from nitrogen oxides, which contribute to the formation of smog, and a type of tiny pollutants that can penetrate deep into a person’s lungs and has been linked to cancer. The board estimates it will save $32 billion in health care costs and prevent 3,200 premature deaths.

Adrian Martinez, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, called the fate of the California rule “a matter of life and death.”

“There’s generally been a reckless disregard from the rail industry for saving lives from air pollution, and this is just another feather in their cap in their pursuit of continuing to burn really dirty diesel fuel,” Martinez said of the lawsuit.

Alicia Aguayo, a spokesperson for the advocacy group People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, is also not surprised by the lawsuit. For more than two decades, Aguayo lived near a BNSF railyard in San Bernardino, California. Aguayo, whose brother has asthma, is concerned about the health risks diesel pollution from locomotives poses to residents.

“For those of us that lived next to the railyards, it’s significant because it’s a step towards reducing something that is very harmful for our communities,” she said of the rule.

The EPA said last fall that it will consider toughening its rules for locomotive pollution that were last updated in 2008, but California regulators acted first. The California rule would need approval from the EPA to move forward.

California has some of the worst air quality in the country, mostly because of its bustling transportation sector. The state is home to two of the busiest ports in the world at Los Angeles and Long Beach. Most of that cargo is shipped to warehouses further inland before getting on trains to be transported throughout the country.

The top four most polluted cities for ozone and year-round particle pollution in the U.S. are all in California, according to the American Lung Association.

The new California rules would have the biggest effect on Union Pacific and BNSF and short-line railroads that operate in that state. But the changes would affect every railroad because they all regularly pass locomotives back and forth to keep trains moving efficiently across the U.S. A single locomotive might cross the entire country every couple of months. Any changes would have to be standardized across the industry.

The major freight railroads are already working with major manufacturers to test out battery-powered locomotives with the first ones starting to roll out to Union Pacific railyards in Nebraska and California this year. They’re also experimenting with alternative fuels like hydrogen as possible replacements for their diesel-powered workhorses.

One of the leading locomotive makers, Wabtec, told California regulators that it is at least a couple years away from having battery-powered locomotive prototypes ready for widespread tests hauling freight over long distances, although it did try one out with BNSF for a few months in 2021. Wabtec also said some of the other technologies like hydrogen power face challenges related to the availability of that fuel and the need for an entirely new fueling network. And battery manufacturers may already have a hard time keeping up with all the demand from electric cars, even without upgrading thousands of locomotives.

Railroads prefer to keep using locomotives for decades after they buy them. Just last year, both Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern announced plans to modernize hundreds of locomotives in their fleets to extend their useful life and reduce their carbon emissions. Those upgrades don’t do much to reduce the amount of particulate matter and nitrous oxide emissions those locomotives produce, but the industry has made progress with those also. Those emissions are associated with increased cancer risks and other health problems — particularly in neighborhoods around railyards.

___

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press reporter Sophie Austin contributed from Sacramento, California.

___

Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna

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June 16, 2023
The ‘climate kids’ want a court to force Montana’s state government to go green | CNN

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Helena, Montana
CNN
—

It’s a Big Sky story fit for a big screen.

On one side: 16 kids from ranches, reservations and tourist boomtowns across Montana – a group of wannabe climate avengers ranging in age from 5 to 22 and assembled to fight for a livable planet.

On the other side: Montana’s governor, attorney general and the Republican supermajorities of both houses, who may have lost a three-year fight to kill the nation’s first constitutional climate case before it hit court, but are still determined to let oil, gas and coal keep flowing for generations.

The setting is a small courtroom in Helena and the whole plot pivots around the Montana constitution, widely considered the greenest in the nation.

“The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations,” reads Article 9, and those pivotal words “clean and healthful environment” are also guaranteed separately in the state’s bill of rights.

“This case is about the equal rights of children,” attorney Roger Sullivan began in his opening argument in Held vs. Montana this week, “and their need now for extraordinary protection from the extraordinary dangers of fossil fuel pollution and climate crisis that their state government is exposing them to.”

In the half-century since the environmental promises were added to the constitution, the Treasure State has never rejected a fossil fuel project for potential harm to air or water. And this spring, after a county judge cited the constitution in pulling the permit of a new gas-fired power plant, state leaders quickly crafted House Bill 971 to make it illegal for any state agency to analyze climate impacts when assessing large projects, like power plants, that need environmental review.

In a region full of ranchers and farmers who depend on stable weather and the kind of National Park beauty that draws millions of outdoor enthusiasts a year, the bill created the most buzz by far in the May legislative session, drawing more than 1,000 comments.

But while 95% of the comments were opposed, according to a legislature count, the bill passed.

“Skinny cows and dead cattle,” Rikki Held said, when asked how drought changed her family’s Broadus ranch.

Since she was the only plaintiff of legal age when the suit was filed, the historic case bears her name. Now finally on the stand, she described with emotion what it was like to work through smoke and ash on 110°F days. “We have the technology and knowledge,” said Held, now an environmental science major at Colorado College. “We just need empathy and willingness to do the right thing.”

One after another, her fellow plaintiffs have testified how the effects of a warming planet are already causing them physical, emotional and financial pain. “You know, it’s really scary seeing what you care for disappear right in front of your eyes,” said Sariel, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, after describing how the loss of consistent snow affects everything from native plants to tribal traditions.

“Do you believe the state of Montana has a responsibility to protect this land for you?” a lawyer asked Sariel, who, like the other children who were under 18 when the case was filed, is being referred to only by her first name. “Yes, I do,” she replied in a soft voice. “It’s not only written in our constitution, an inherent right to a healthy land and environment, but it’s also just about being a decent person.”

“During the course of this trial, the court will hear lots of emotions,” Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said in his opening argument. “Lots of assumptions, accusations, speculation, prognostication … including sweeping, dramatic assertions of doom that awaits us all.” But this case is “far more boring,” Russell argued, and is little more than a show trial over statutes “devoid of any regulatory authority.”

Montana’s population of 1.1 million is “simply too minuscule to make any difference in climate change,” Russell told the court, “which is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have tried to poke holes in this argument, pointing out Montana’s outsized energy footprint.

On Thursday, Peter Erickson, a greenhouse gas emissions expert and witness for the plaintiffs, pointed out Montana has the sixth largest per-capita energy-related CO2 emissions in the nation – behind other big energy-producing states like Wyoming, West Virginia and Louisiana.

“It’s significant. It’s disproportionately large, given Montana’s population,” Erickson said.

While attorneys for the state objected when Rikki Held tried to connect her mental health to the climate crisis, they have largely saved cross-examination for the experts as the plaintiffs lay out their case.

“If the judge ordered that we stop using fossil fuels in Montana would it get us to the point where these plaintiffs are no longer being harmed in your opinion?” Mark Stermitz, an attorney for the state, asked Steven Running, professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana.

“We can’t tell in advance,” said Running, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as one of the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Because what has been shown in history over and over and over again is when a significant social movement is needed, it often is started by one or two or three people.”

The trial is set to conclude on June 23 and is being heard before Judge Kathy Seeley, with no jury. While Seeley has no power to shut down fossil fuel use or order the end of new extraction permits, a ruling against Montana could help kill the new law outlawing climate impact analysis and set a powerful precedent for similar cases winding their ways through the courts.

“I think we’re really at a tipping point right now,” Our Children’s Trust attorney Nate Bellinger told CNN. The Oregon-based legal nonprofit has filed similar actions in all 50 states and will go to trial in September with a group of young Hawaiians suing their state’s transportation department, claiming it is allowing rampant tailpipe pollution. The group also supports the 21 young plaintiffs in Juliana vs. United States, who will get their day in federal court after amending their complaint that actions by the federal government have caused climate change and violated their constitutional rights.

When the Ninth Circuit put the Juliana case back on track, 18 Republican-led states – including Montana – tried to intervene as defendants and take on the so-called Climate Kids but were rejected.

It is likely the case will reach the US Supreme Court.

Back in the Wild West days of 1889, Montana’s original constitution was written under the guidance of a copper baron named William Clark, who claimed that arsenic pollution from mining gave the women of Butte “a beautiful complexion.”

But less than a century later, mining and logging had done obvious harm to the rivers, skies and mountainsides of “the last best place,” just as the movements for social change and environmental protection were sweeping the nation.

This was the backdrop when in 1972, 100 Montanans from all walks of life gathered in the town of Last Chance Gulch to hammer out a new constitution with not a single active politician among them. Mae Nan Ellingson was the youngest delegate back then, and as the plaintiffs set out to establish the intent behind “a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations,” she became the first witness in Held vs. Montana.

“It was important, I think, for this constitution to make it clear that citizens could enforce their right to a clean environment and not wait until the pollution or the damage had been done,” she testified.

The Montana Supreme Court agreed with her in a 1999 ruling and the majority wrote, “Our constitution does not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections can be invoked.”

Regardless of the verdict, it is likely that Held vs. Montana will end up in Montana’s Supreme Court, but for plaintiffs like Claire Vlases who are too young to vote, that will be just fine.

“I just recently graduated high school, but I think that’s something everyone knows is that we have three branches of government for a reason,” she said, sitting by the river that runs through her Bozeman yard. “The judicial branch is there to keep a check on the other two branches. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

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June 16, 2023
Carbon Emissions: How Will a Warmer World Affect Us?

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Newswise — Washington, DC—As the world heats up due to climate change, how much can we continue to depend on plants and soils to help alleviate some of our self-inflicted damage by removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere?

New work led by Carnegie’s Wu Sun and Anna Michalak tackles this key question by deploying a bold new approach for inferring the temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration—which represents one side of the equation balancing carbon dioxide uptake and carbon dioxide output in terrestrial environments. Their findings are published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

“Right now, plants in the terrestrial biosphere perform a ‘free service’ to us, by taking between a quarter and a third of humanity’s carbon emissions out of the atmosphere,” Michalak explained. “As the world warms, will they be able to keep up this rate of carbon dioxide removal? Answering this is critical for understanding the future of our climate and devising sound climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.”

Photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria convert the Sun’s energy into sugars for food, requires the uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This occurs during daylight hours. But through day and night, these same organisms also perform respiration, just like us, “breathing” out carbon dioxide.

Being able to better quantify the balance of these two processes across all the components of land-based ecosystems—from soil microbes to trees and everything in between—and to understand their sensitivity to warming, will improve scientists’ models for climate change scenarios.

In recent years, researchers—including Carnegie’s Joe Berry—have developed groundbreaking approaches for measuring the amount of carbon dioxide taken up by plants through photosynthesis, such as using satellites to monitor global photosynthetic activity and measuring the concentration of the atmospheric trace gas carbonyl sulfide.

But, until now, developing similar tools to track respiration at the scale of entire biomes or continents has not been possible. As a result, respiration is often indirectly estimated as the difference between photosynthesis and the overall uptake of carbon dioxide.

“We set out to develop a new way to infer how respiration is affected by changes in temperature over various ecosystems in North America,” said Sun. “This is absolutely crucial for refining our climate change projections and for informing mitigation strategies.”

Michalak, Sun, and their colleagues developed a new way to infer at large scales how much respiration increases when temperatures warm using measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. These measurements were taken by a network of dozens of monitoring stations across North America.

The team revealed that atmospheric observations suggest lower temperature sensitivities of respiration than represented in most state-of-the-art models. They also found that this sensitivity differs between forests and croplands. Temperature sensitivities of respiration have not been constrained using observational data at this scale until now, as previous work has focused on sensitivities for much smaller plots of land.

“The beauty of our approach is that measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from a few dozen well-placed stations can inform carbon fluxes at the scale of entire biomes over North America,” Sun explained. “This enables a more comprehensive understanding of respiration at the continental scale, which will help us assess how future warming affects the biosphere’s ability to retain carbon,” Sun emphasized.

To their surprise, the researchers found that respiration is less sensitive to warming than previously thought, when viewed at the biome or continental scale. But they caution that this temperature sensitivity is just one piece of a complex puzzle.

“Although our work indicates that North American ecosystems may be more resilient to warming than plot-scale studies had implied, hitting the brakes on climate change ultimately depends on us ceasing to inject more and more carbon into the atmosphere as quickly as possible. We cannot rely on the natural components of the global carbon cycle to do the heavy lifting for us,” Michalak cautioned. “It is up to us to stop the runaway train.”

Other members of the research team include: Xiangzhong Luo, Yao Zhang, and Trevor Keenan of University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Yuanyuan Fang of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District; Yoichi P. Shiga of the Universities Space Research Association; and Joshua Fisher of Chapman University.

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June 15, 2023
Cities across the Northeast experience better air quality indexes as hazardous wildfire smoke subsides | CNN

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CNN
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Sorely missed blue skies are returning and cities across the northeastern US are experiencing better air quality indexes after the monstrous cloud of smoke spewed by the wildfires in Canada dissipates.

Major metropolitan cities across Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have air quality indexes below 100 as of Saturday morning, according to government website airnow.gov. When the index rises over 100, the air quality is classified as “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

For days, more than 75 million people have been trapped under a thick, orange blanket of smog as the Canadian wildfires spewed noxious fumes across the border.

The fires in Canada have already scorched about 15 times the normal burned area for this time of the year: nearly 11 million acres — more than double the size of New Jersey — with more than 2 million acres concentrated in Quebec alone.

As of Saturday, Philadelphia, had a “moderate.” air quality index of 59; New York City was in the “good” category with an index of 30; Jersey City, New Jersey, was “good” at 33; and Madison, Connecticut, had a “good” index of 14.

In pictures: Canadian wildfires impact US air quality

Last week, all four cities had air quality indexes above 150 on Wednesday, which was classified as “unhealthy.” Philadelphia had an index of 205 Wednesday morning, classified as “very unhealthy.” New York reached a level of 484 Wednesday afternoon, which is classified as “hazardous” and the highest level on record in the city since the 1960s.

The oppressive smoke postponed professional sports games, grounded flights due to poor visibility, shuttered zoos and beaches and kept children inside at school.

Those who did go outside were advised to wear N95 masks to protect themselves from the wildfire smoke, which is particularly dangerous because it contains tiny particulate matter, known as PM2.5, the tiniest of pollutants.

The enormous cloud of pollution could cause long-term health effects, depending on the person and amount of exposure, said Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist with NYU Langone Health and Allergy and Asthma Network.

When inhaled, the pollutants can travel deep into lung tissue and enter the bloodstream. Healthy people may withstand “a day or two” but vulnerable groups, like children, the elderly and immunocompromised people were at much higher risk, Parikh said.

“If people develop and keep having symptoms after the air quality returns to normal, “then they may have developed asthma or COPD as a result, and that can become chronic,” Parikh said.

Scientists warn such routine-altering weather events are more likely to continue disrupting daily life as the planet warms, creating the ideal environment for more severe and frequent wildfires.

Since it’s still early in the Canadian fire season, more wildfires could flare up this summer, and several US states are still suffering poor air quality, which could cause health problems.

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June 10, 2023
How charging drivers to go downtown would transform American cities | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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President Joe Biden’s administration is set to allow New York City to move forward with a landmark program that will toll vehicles entering Lower Manhattan, after a public review period ends Monday.

The toll is formally known as the Central Business District Tolling Program — but it’s commonly called “congestion pricing.”

In practice it works like any other toll, but because it specifically charges people to drive in the traffic-choked area below 60th street in Manhattan, it would be the first program of its kind in the United States.

Proposals range from charging vehicles $9 to $23 during peak hours, and it’s set to go into effect next spring.

The plan had been delayed for years, but it cleared a milestone last month when the Federal Highway Administration signed off on the release of an environmental assessment. The public has until Monday to review the report, and the federal government is widely expected to approve it shortly after.

From there, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) can finalize toll rates, as well as discounts and exemptions for certain drivers.

New York City is still clawing out of from the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Congestion pricing advocates say it’s a crucial piece of the city’s recovery and a way to re-imagine the city for the future.

“This program is critical to New York City’s long-term success,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said last month.

The plan would also mark the culmination of more than a half-century of efforts to implement congestion pricing in New York City. Despite support from several New York City mayors and state governors, car and truck owners in outer boroughs and the suburbs helped defeat proposals.

In 2007 Mayor Michael Bloomberg called congestion “the elephant in the room” when proposing a toll program, which state lawmakers killed. A decade later, Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who had long resisted congestion pricing — said it was “an idea whose time has come” and declared a subway state of emergency after increased delays and a derailment that injured dozens. Two years later, the state gave the MTA approval to design a congestion pricing program.

Ultimately, it was the need to improve New York City’s public transit that became the rallying cry for congestion pricing.

Each day 700,000 cars, taxis and trucks pour into Lower Manhattan, one of the busiest areas in the world with some of the worst gridlock in the United States.

Car travel at just 7.1 mph on average in the congestion price zone, and it’s a downward trend. Public bus speeds have also declined 28% since 2010. New Yorkers lose 117 hours on average each year sitting in traffic, costing them nearly $2,000 in lost productivity and other costs, according to one estimate.

The toll is designed to reduce the number of vehicles entering the congestion zone by at least 10% every day and slash the number of miles cars travel within the zone by 5%.

Congestion comes with physical and societal costs, too: more accidents, carbon emissions and pollution happen as belching, honking cars take up space that could be optimized for pedestrians and outdoor dining.

Proponents also note it will improve public transit, an essential part of New York life. About 75% of trips downtown are via public transit.

But public-transit ridership is 35% to 45% lower compared to pre-pandemic levels. The MTA says congestion fees will generate a critical source of revenue to fund $15 billion in future investments to modernize the city’s 100-year-old public transit system.

The improvements, like new subway cars and electric signals, are crucial to draw new riders and improve speed and accessibility — especially for low-income and minority residents, who are least likely to own cars, say plan advocates.

New York City is “dependent on public transit,” said Kate Slevin, the executive vice president of the Regional Plan Association, an urban planning and policy group. “We’re relying on that revenue to pay for needed upgrades and investments that ensure reliable, good transit service.”

Improving public transportation is also key to New York City’s post-pandemic economic recovery: If commutes to work are too unreliable, people are less likely to visit the office and shop at stores around their workplaces. Congestion charge advocates hope the program will create more space for amenities like wider sidewalks, bike lanes, plazas, benches, trees and public bathrooms.

“100 years ago we decided the automobile was the way to go, so we narrowed sidewalks and built highways,” said Sam Schwartz, former New York City traffic commissioner and founder of an eponymous consulting firm. “But the future of New York City is that the pedestrian should be king and queen. Everything should be subservient to the pedestrian.”

While no other US city has yet implemented congestion pricing, Stockholm, London and Singapore have had it for years.

These cities have reported benefits like decreased carbon dioxide pollution, higher average speeds, and congestion reduction.

Just one year after London added its charge in 2003, traffic congestion dropped by 30% and average speeds increased by the same percentage. In Stockholm, one study found the rate of children’s acute asthma visits to the doctor fell by about 50% compared to rates before the program launched in 2007.

Some groups are fiercely opposed to congestion charges in New York City, however. Taxi and ride-share drivers, largely a low-income and immigrant workforce, fear it will hurt drivers already struggling to make ends meet. The MTA said congestion pricing could reduce demand for taxis by up to 17% in the zone.

Commuters and legislators from New York City’s outer boroughs and New Jersey say the program hurts drivers who have no viable way to reach downtown Manhattan other than by car, and that this would disproportionately impact low-income drivers. (But out of a region of 28 million people, just an estimated 16,100 low-income people commute to work via car in Lower Manhattan, according to the MTA.)

Other critics say it could divert more traffic and pollution from diesel trucks in Manhattan into lower-income areas like the Bronx, which has the highest rates of asthma hospitalization in the city.

The MTA and other agencies have plans to mitigate many of these adverse effects, however.

Taxis and for-hire vehicles will be tolled only once a day. Drivers who make less than $50,000 a year or are enrolled in certain government aid programs will get 25% discounts after their first 10 trips every month. Trucks and other vehicles will get 50% discounts during overnight hours.

Additionally, the MTA pledged $10 million to install air filtration units in schools near highways, $20 million for a program to fight asthma, and other investments to improve air quality and the enviornment in areas where more traffic could be diverted.

The stakes of New York City’s program are high, and leaders in other cities are watching the results closely.

If successful, congestion pricing could be a model for other US cities, which are trying to recover from the pandemic and face similar challenges of climate change and aging public infrastructure.

“It’s good to see New York City’s program is moving forward,” said the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board last month. “Los Angeles should watch, learn and go next.”

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June 10, 2023
How aircraft can fly through smoke-filled skies

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Navigating smoke-filled skies may seem like a new challenge to those in the Eastern United States, but aerospace researchers have long been preparing aircraft to fly under just such conditions. Professor Jeffrey Bons of The Ohio State University is an expert in the field of particulate deposition, the study of dust/sand/salt/pollutant build up on aircraft engines. His laboratory is internationally renowned for maximizing the efficiency of gas turbine engines operating in particulate-filled atmospheric conditions, like those occurring downwind of wildfires. While not typical of the skies above most of the U.S., similar conditions are commonly encountered in flights over deserts, active volcanoes and highly polluted areas. Professor Bons can discuss advanced technology used in gas turbine jet engines to mitigate the risks of airborne particulate build up, including decreased performance and engine failure.

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Ohio State University

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June 9, 2023