Most recent 30 articles: Grist Climate and Energy
 |
Earth just sweltered through the hottest day ever recorded - Grist Climate and Energy (Jul 23) |
|
Jul 23 · Sunday was an unprecedented day, and not just because President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race so close to the election. July 21 was the hottest day on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, with a global average temperature of 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly beating out the previous record set on July 6 of last year.
For 13 straight months now, the planet has been notching record temperatures, from hottest year (2023) to hottest month (last July). And what was a daily temperature record eight years ago has now become worryingly commonplace. “What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Homeowners associations in Michigan now have to allow rooftop solar - Grist Climate and Energy (Jul 11) |
|
Jul 11 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
People who want to install solar panels on their roofs have to consider a lot: sunlight, cost, and coordinating with contractors and utilities. Tens of millions of people across the country also have to think about their homeowners association.
In Michigan, a new law aims to remove that barrier by telling homeowners associations, or HOAs, they have to allow rooftop solar.
The Homeowners’ Energy Policy Act was signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Monday.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.
To support our nonprofit environmental ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Taking a train during a heat wave? Watch out for ‘sun kinks’ - Grist Climate and Energy (Jul 9) |
|
Jul 9 · One of the iconic sensory experiences of riding a train is actually the sound of ingenuity. As steel railroad tracks heat up, they grow: 1,800 feet of rail expands by more than an inch for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit of temperature increase. So rails used to be laid down in sections - each between 30 and 60 feet long - with small gaps.
“The very specific railway noise that you hear - chuchat … chuchat … chuchat … chuchat … chuchat - is because there is a gap between the rails, and this gap is meant for such expansion,” said Dev Niyogi, who studies urban climate extremes at the University of Texas at Austin.
Still, in a severe heat wave, the rail can swell until the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Scientists just got closer to solving a major Antarctic puzzle - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 28) |
|
Jun 28 · Three million years ago, the atmosphere’s carbon-dioxide levels weren’t so different from those of today, but sea levels were dozens of meters higher. Looking that far back presents a foreboding peek into the future, as satellite records show that melting Antarctic ice sheets are on their way to bulking up this epoch’s oceans, too. The puzzle for scientists is that the climate models they create can’t seem to match what they see with their own eyes. “Lots of people have been scratching their heads trying to figure out what is missing from our ice sheet models,” said Alex Bradley, an ice dynamics researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, part of the United Kingdom’s Natural ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The Tule River Tribe of California recruits an old ally in its fight against wildfires: Beavers - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 28) |
|
Jun 28 · After a decade of work, the Tule River Tribe has released nine beavers into the nation’s reservation in the foothills of California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains. The beavers are expected to make the landscape more fire and drought resistant. Beaver dams trap water in pools, making the flow of water slower so the surrounding ecosystem can reap the benefits of the moisture while making it more difficult for forest fires to start. They can also help a forest heal after a fire by rehydrating the area.
“We’ve been through numerous droughts over the years,” Kenneth McDarmet said, who is a Tule River tribal member and former councilman. “It’s going to be wonderful to ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The secret to decarbonizing buildings might be right under your feet - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 27) |
|
Jun 27 · Along with earthworms, rocks, and the occasional skeleton, there’s a massive battery right under your feet. Unlike a flammable lithium ion battery, though, this one is perfectly stable, free to use, and ripe for sustainable exploitation: the Earth itself.
While temperatures above-ground fluctuate throughout the year, the ground stays a stable temperature, meaning it’s humming with geothermal energy that engineers can exploit. “Every building sits on a thermal asset,” said Cameron Best, director of business development at Brightcore Energy in New York, which deploys geothermal systems. “I really don’t think there’s any more efficient or better way to heat and cool ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A rare celebration of Indigenous Pacific cultures underscores the cost of climate change - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 7) |
|
Jun 7 · More than 2,000 people are gathering in Hawai?i this week and next for the 13th Festival of Pacific Island Arts and Culture. It’s the largest gathering of Indigenous Pacific peoples in the world. And it comes at a critical time for the island region known as Oceania as sea levels, storms, and other climate effects threaten traditional ways of life and connections to land and sea.
Normally the festival takes place every four years and rotates between the three regions of the Pacific: Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. But because of the pandemic, the event hasn’t happened for eight years. It was last held on Guam, and this is the first time since it was established in 1972 ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Illinois legislature puts the brakes on a carbon capture boom - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 7) |
|
Jun 7 · The Midwest’s largest potential reservoir to store carbon is buried deep under the farmland of Illinois, and the state’s lawmakers just hit the brakes on any plans for a carbon capture and storage boom there.A controversial technology where carbon dioxide is captured and then stored deep underground, carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a big part of the Biden administration’s push for a greener planet. And a federal roll out of massive incentives for the nascent industry has spurred a carbon capture gold rush nationwide. In Illinois alone, three pipelines and 22 carbon sequestration wells have already been proposed. But local farmers, landowners, and environmental advocates are ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
As the climate changes, many species are teetering on extinction. How much should we intervene? - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 6) |
|
Jun 6 · In the first flush of an Arctic spring, the boreal forest begins to stir, emerging from a silvered quiet. Icicles shatter like glass. Meltwater babbles, braiding in puddles and then in deltas. Snow drops in clumps from the branches of black spruce. Saplings remain crooked from a long wait, as if Dr. Seuss had drawn springtime.
The trees’ twisted crowns are evidence of the forest’s scrappiness: A black spruce seed riding the wind in 1728 - the year the first Danish explorer crossed the Bering Sea between Asia and North America - might have found purchase in the rocky till revealed by retreating glaciers. When ice turned Captain Cook back from the Arctic Ocean a few decades ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Why this summer might bring the wildest weather yet - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 3) |
|
Jun 3 · Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Canada’s deadliest wildfires on record bathed skylines in smoke from Minnesota to New York. In Texas and Arizona, hundreds of people lost their lives to heat, and in Vermont, flash floods caused damages equivalent to a hurricane.
Forecasts suggest that this year’s upcoming “danger season” has its own catastrophes in store. On May 23, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be the most prolific yet. A week earlier, they released a ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Why this summer might bring the wildest weather yet - Grist Climate and Energy (Jun 3) |
|
Jun 3 · Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss: In the summer of 2023, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest season in 2,000 years. Canada’s deadliest wildfires on record bathed skylines in smoke from Minnesota to New York. In Texas and Arizona, hundreds of people lost their lives to heat, and in Vermont, flash floods caused damages equivalent to those from a hurricane.
Forecasts suggest that this year’s upcoming “danger season” has its own catastrophes in store. On May 23, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season could be the most prolific yet. A week earlier, they ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Salt in the womb: How rising seas erode reproductive health - Grist Climate and Energy (May 30) |
|
May 30 · Support climate news that leads to action. Help Grist raise $35,000 by May 31.
All donations DOUBLED.
Support climate news that leads to action. Help Grist raise $35,000 by May 31. All donations DOUBLED.
Today, 30-year-old garment factory worker Khadiza Akhter lives in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Her small concrete house is clean and organized. Green shutters frame the windows, and clothes hang on lines outside her front door. A water spigot sticks out of the concrete next to the drying laundry, and the turn of a white plastic knob is all it takes for clear, clean water to rush out. Akhter calls it “a blessing of God.”
Akhter grew up ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The 'Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than scientists thought - Grist Climate and Energy (May 24) |
|
May 24 · At the bottom of the Earth sits a massive bowl of ice you may know as the West Antarctic ice sheet. Each day, the ocean laps away at its base, slowly eroding the glaciers that line its rim. When they inevitably give in, the sea will begin to fill the basin, claiming the ice for its own and flooding coastlines around the world.
Thwaites Glacier is one of the bulwarks guarding against the collapse of this critical ice sheet, most of which rests below sea level and holds enough ice to raise the ocean by 60 meters, or about 195 feet. Unfortunately, this frosty Goliath, the size of Florida, is also one of the world’s most unstable and fastest-melting glaciers. While glaciologists ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A trillion cicadas will emerge in the next few weeks. This hasn’t happened since 1803. - Grist Climate and Energy (May 15) |
|
May 15 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, environmental media organization.
If you live in the Midwest or the Southeast, you know the cicadas are coming.
And if you live in Chicago, you know the Cicadalypse is coming.
Cicadas, winged buggy noisemakers whose relatives include leaf-hoppers and spittle bugs, come in two varieties: the annual cicadas who, sure enough, appear every year and the periodical cicadas, who appear in 13-year and 17-year cycles.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.
To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Michigan wants fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damages - Grist Climate and Energy (May 13) |
|
May 13 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday that she plans to sue fossil fuel companies for knowingly contributing to climate change, harming the state’s economy and ways of life.
“It’s long past time that we step up and hold the fossil fuel companies that are responsible for all these damages accountable,” she said.
With this litigation, Michigan would join dozens of local, tribal and state governments that have taken similar steps to try to make the industry pay for climate damage.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Michigan wants fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damages - Grist Climate and Energy (May 13) |
|
May 13 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday that she plans to sue fossil fuel companies for knowingly contributing to climate change, harming the state’s economy and ways of life.
“It’s long past time that we step up and hold the fossil fuel companies that are responsible for all these damages accountable,” she said.
With this litigation, Michigan would join dozens of local, tribal, and state governments that have taken similar steps to try to make the industry pay for climate damage.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Occidental Petroleum’s net-zero strategy is a 'license to pollute,’ critics say - Grist Climate and Energy (May 9) |
|
May 9 · More so than any other fossil fuel company, Occidental Petroleum - known as Oxy - has built its climate strategy around innovations that capture carbon before it can be emitted or pull it directly out of the air. The Texas-based oil giant, which made more than $23 billion in revenue last year, says on its website that these “visionary technologies” will help it achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and enable a lower-carbon future.
Scientists agree that such technologies will be necessary to limit global warming. But Oxy’s plans for them appear to be less about sustainability and more about creating a “license to pollute,” according to a new analysis from the nonprofit ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia’s water. - Grist Climate and Energy (May 8) |
|
May 8 · Every email you send has a home. Every uploaded file, web search, and social media post does, too. In massive buildings erected from miles of concrete, stacked servers hum with the electricity required to process and store every byte of information that modern lives rely on.In recent years, these data centers have been rapidly expanding in the United States. But the gargantuan facilities do more than keep cloud servers running - they also guzzle absurd amounts of water to run cooling systems that protect their components from overheating. Now, as artificial intelligence applications become ubiquitous, they’re using more water than ever.
Northern Virginia is the data center ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How should Georgia elect key utility regulators? US Supreme Court asked to weigh in - Grist Climate and Energy (Apr 24) |
|
Apr 24 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
In a case that could impact other lawsuits on voting rights, Black voters who sued over Georgia’s elections for key utility regulators are appealing their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Those elections for the Georgia Public Service Commission have been on hold for years and while last week a federal appeals court lifted an injunction blocking the elections from taking place, there is little chance the elections will happen this year.
Public Service Commissioners have enormous ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Pediatricians say climate conversations should be part of any doctor’s visit - Grist Climate and Energy (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · The reality of climate change came home for Dr. Samantha Ahdoot one summer day in 2011 when her son was 9 years old.
She and her family were living in Charlottesville, where Ahdoot is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. There was a heat wave. Morning temperatures hovered in the high 80s, and her son had to walk up a steep hill to get to his day camp.
About an hour after he left for camp, she received a call from a nearby emergency room. Her son had collapsed from the heat and needed IV fluids to recover.
“It was after that event that I realized that I had to do something,” she said. “That, as a pediatrician and a mother, this ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The IRA has injected $240 billion into clean energy. It might not be enough. - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 12) |
|
Mar 12 · If, in the 18 months since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, you’ve found yourself muttering Jerry Maguire’s timeless mantra “Show me the money!,” a handful of policy analysts has just done exactly that. Their analysis of the nation’s investment in clean energy found that for every dollar the government has contributed to advancing the transition, the private sector has kicked in $5.47, leading to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars flowing into the clean economy in just one year.
Across nearly every segment tracked by Rhodium Group and its collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, investments have not only increased since President Joe Biden signed the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
SEC will require companies to disclose emissions, with one glaring gap - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 6) |
|
Mar 6 · After two years of drafting, public comments, and delays, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, finally approved its highly-anticipated climate disclosure rules on Wednesday, laying out new requirements for companies to divulge their climate risks and some of their greenhouse emissions in public filings submitted annually to the agency
The new rules require publicly traded companies to analyze and publish how climate change threatens their business - whether through physical risks like floods and other extreme weather or through “transition risks” like regulation. This is in line with the SEC’s mission to protect investors and maintain “fair, orderly, and ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How to ‘decouple’ emissions from economic growth? These economists say you can’t. - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 4) |
|
Mar 4 · For nearly 200 years, two transformative global forces have grown in tandem: economic activity and carbon emissions. The two have long been paired together, or, in economist-speak, “coupled.” When the economy has gotten bigger, so has our climate footprint.
This pairing has been disastrous for the planet. Economic growth has helped bring atmospheric CO2 concentrations all the way up to 420 parts per million. The last time they were this high was during the Pliocene epoch 3 million years ago, when global temperatures were 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter and sea levels were 65 feet higher.
Most mainstream economists would say there’s an obvious antidote: decoupling. This ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How to recycle the giant magnets inside wind turbines? These scientists have a few ideas. - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 27) |
|
Feb 27 · Every year, hundreds to thousands of megawatts’ worth of wind turbines across the United States get a facelift. These aging turbines have their rotors swapped out, their blades replaced, and key components like the generator upgraded in order to enhance the machines’ ability to produce electricity from wind. This process is known as “repowering.” Included among the components that sometimes get replaced are magnets made with rare-earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, which also play essential roles inside smartphones, laptops, and electric car motors.
The wide range of applications for rare-earth minerals translates into a lot of potential ways to repurpose the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A geothermal energy boom could be coming to Chicago’s South Side - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 23) |
|
Feb 23 · Naomi Davis won’t lose her faith in the earth. At a recent community meeting in Chicago’s South Side she wanted to drive the point home - that the city’s Black community will not be left out of the new, emerging green economy.
To do it, she’s betting on energy trapped deep below the surface of the earth known as geothermal, which could be an answer to heating and cooling homes more efficiently and a path to building decarbonization.
Davis heads Chicago’s Blacks in Green, an environmental justice group which has dedicated the past 17 years to figuring out the blueprint for self-sustaining, climate-resilient Black communities everywhere.
“We’re hit first and worst, ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Campus divestment activists eye fossil fuel profits on stolen land - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 9) |
|
Feb 9 · Samantha Gonsalves-Wetherell, a senior at the University of Arizona, has spent years urging university officials to take climate change seriously. As a leader of UArizona Divest, she and her classmates have been pushing the university toward three goals: to divest from fossil fuels by 2029; commit to no further investments in fossil fuels; and to implement socially responsible investing goals.
“It’s hard to both combat the climate crisis and also fund it,” said Gonsalves-Wetherell. She has met with university officials to ask them what stocks the university has invested in and how much revenue oil and gas investments bring in.
But until now, she had no idea that the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A Superfund for climate change? States consider a new way to make Big Oil pay. - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 2) |
|
Feb 2 · Last June, the normally warm and humid but still pleasant New England summer was disrupted by a series of unusually heavy rain storms. Flash floods broke creek banks and washed away roads, inundating several cities and towns. Vermont and upstate New York in particular saw immense damage. As communities attempted to recover from the havoc, legislators in these states, and several others, asked themselves why taxpayers should have to cover the cost of rebuilding after climate disasters when the fossil fuel industry is at fault.
Vermont is now joining Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York in a multi-state effort to hold Big Oil accountable for the expensive damage wrought by ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Ignoring Indigenous rights is making the green transition more expensive - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 2) |
|
Feb 2 · In December, a federal judge found that Enel Green Power, an Italian energy corporation operating an 84-turbine wind farm on the Osage Reservation for nearly a decade, had trespassed on Native land. The ruling was a clear victory for the Osage Nation and the company estimated that complying with the order to tear down the turbines would cost nearly $260 million.
Attorneys familiar with Federal Indian law say it’s uncommon for U.S. courts to side so clearly with tribal nations and actually expel developers trespassing on their land. But observers also see the ruling as part of a broader trend: Gone are the days when developers could ignore Indigenous rights with impunity. Now, ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Across the country, houses of worship are going solar - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 31) |
|
Jan 31 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
On a Sunday morning in Charlevoix, a small town surrounded by lakes in northern Michigan, people gathered in the Greensky Hill Indian United Methodist Church. The small, one-room log building is almost 200 years old and the hymns are sung in English and Anishinaabemowin.
It was December, so Pastor Johnathan Mays was leading an Advent service, one of his last, since he would soon retire. In between reflections on scripture, Mays touched on an important venture: The church is planning to install solar panels on their larger meeting hall, working with ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Chicago could be first major Midwestern city to ban gas in new construction - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 29, 2024) |
|
Jan 29, 2024 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for WBEZ newsletters to get local news you can trust.
Chicago could soon be the first major Midwestern city with an indoor emissions standard that would make gas-powered appliances and heating systems a thing of the past.
The Clean and Affordable Buildings Ordinance, introduced by Mayor Brandon Johnson during the first city council meeting of the year last week, would effectively phase out fossil-fuel based appliances and heating systems in new construction and substantially ... Read more ...
|
|
|