Most recent 30 articles: VOX -Environment
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4 winners and 1 loser in the EPA’s historic move to limit power plant pollution - VOX -Environment (May 13) |
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May 13 · One winner: Natural gas.
In 2013, President Barack Obama announced on a blisteringly hot June day at Georgetown University that his administration would be taking historic action to address power plant pollution - an attempt ultimately blocked in court.
The Biden administration’s rollout of the new rules on Thursday was a more understated affair. Instead of a big presidential announcement, EPA administrator Michael Regan spoke from the University of Maryland about the agency’s third attempt at regulating power plant pollution from existing plants, explaining “these aren’t restrictions, as some would say,” but about “seizing the moment and understanding that we have an ... Read more ...
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The EPA’s long-delayed new rules for power plant pollution, explained - VOX -Environment (May 11) |
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May 11 · Biden hopes the third time is the charm for the first-ever regulations for power plant climate pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency has finally proposed a suite of new regulations targeting carbon pollution from most of the nation’s 3,400 natural gas and coal plants, which are responsible for about 25 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Power plants are the second-largest source of the country’s climate pollution, but also a sector whose emissions shrunk by more than a third since 2005. President Joe Biden has promised an even more dramatic shift in the next 12 years to reach 100 percent “clean” electricity by 2035. The Inflation Reduction Act’s ... Read more ...
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The nationalist dark side of Joe Biden’s climate policies - VOX -Environment (May 9) |
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May 9 · Why an ex-Biden official is “deeply disappointed” in his Buy American policies.
In everything from climate change to the courts to foreign policy, the Trump and Biden presidencies could not be less alike. But when it comes to foreign trade and protectionism, there’s more continuity than difference.
Former President Donald Trump was the most pro-tariff president in decades, particularly targeting China. Instead of pushing back, President Joe Biden has preserved most of the Trump tariff regime. The Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill, extensively favors US industry in a way that has provoked mass outrage from foreign governments, including close allies; ... Read more ...
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The gas industry is losing its most valuable customer: Blue states - VOX -Environment (May 4) |
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May 4 · New York just passed the first statewide law to ban gas in new buildings. Others could follow.
Republicans have eagerly jumped to the gas stove’s defense ever since it entered the culture war fray. But there’s one major miscalculation: The natural gas industry needs blue states much more than it needs red ones.
The clearest sign yet that the natural gas industry is losing ground among its most valuable customer base is in New York. On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the first budget to include a statewide ban on gas in new buildings. The law requires new buildings shorter than seven stories to have all-electric heating and cooking by 2026, and taller buildings to ... Read more ...
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Should we reflect sunlight to cool the planet? - VOX -Environment (May 4) |
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May 4 · Solar geoengineering might help lower temps, but it’s a controversial approach.
The climate change crisis has become so dire that we’re being forced not only to think of ways to curb emissions and mitigate greenhouse gases, but of ways to adapt to our current situation to buy ourselves more time.
One of those technologies is called solar geoengineering. It happens in nature when huge volcanic eruptions cover the stratosphere with ash: That ash forms a layer that reflects sunlight and cools the planet underneath. Solar geoengineering takes advantage of that principle, using different scientific methods to make the planet more reflective overall. The problem is, deploying ... Read more ...
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How to fix clean energy’s storage problem - VOX -Environment (Apr 27) |
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Apr 27 · We can’t truly switch to renewable energy without a breakthrough.
In the past few decades, solar and wind energy have made remarkable progress; they’re now satisfying significant portions of our energy demand. But there’s a problem holding us back from relying on them even more: They can’t be stored very well.
Solar energy is only generated while the sun is up, and wind energy while the wind is blowing. But our power grids are designed to respond to demand whenever it occurs. Even suddenly, as is the case with storms and heat waves.
When solar and wind are not available and demand spikes, power companies need to burn fossil fuels - particularly natural gas, because ... Read more ...
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The big problem with cement, and how to fix it - VOX -Environment (Apr 20) |
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Apr 20 · Concrete emits a ton of carbon. Here’s how we get it to net zero.
Cement accounts for 8 percent of our global carbon emissions. It’s also an incredibly difficult material to do without: It’s the glue that holds together the rock, sand, and water in concrete. And concrete is the building block of the world: It’s in our buildings, our streets, our sidewalks, and our infrastructure. Aside from water, there’s no material on Earth we use more of.
In order to get to net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, we’ll have to address how we build and how we make cement. Because cement production is so closely linked to urbanization and development, China accounts for a vast majority of ... Read more ...
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Air quality is getting better and worse at the same time - VOX -Environment (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Climate change is holding back progress on reducing air pollution.
For more than two decades, the American Lung Association (ALA) has posed a simple question: Is air pollution in the United States getting better or worse?
The answer is no longer a simple one.
For the first 40-something years of the Clean Air Act of 1963, the Environmental Protection Agency could show progress toward cleaner air - even if it was sometimes slow or uneven. The agency issued regulations for sources of the pollutants it was set up to tackle, like diesel car tailpipes and coal power plants, and over time, the air quality improved.
But the trend changed abruptly about five years ... Read more ...
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The 100-year-old-mistake that’s reshaping the American West - VOX -Environment (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · What happens if the Colorado River keeps drying up?
Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
You may have heard this before: The Colorado River, which supplies drinking water to seven states in the US and two in Mexico, is the lifeblood of the American West and beyond. It’s drying up at an alarming rate, threatening cities, industries, agriculture, and energy sources. As it shrinks, rich ecosystems across its 1,450 miles are also disappearing.
In this issue of the Highlight, Vox’s reporters across the science, health, climate, and Future Perfect teams explore the interconnected causes of this crisis, the startling consequences that are already ... | By Benji Jones Read more ...
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Early heat waves can be the deadliest - VOX -Environment (Apr 14) |
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Apr 14 · Extreme heat is dangerous. Extreme heat when you least expect it is even worse.
A body adjusted to the heat knows how to sweat.
To keep the internal organs cool, blood flows to the skin at a higher rate. There’s more sweat, and it’s diluted more to reduce electrolyte loss (a key problem in dehydration). The body slows down its metabolic rate and heart rate for a lower core temperature, basically consuming less oxygen.
But it takes weeks of consistent exposure to heat to build up all this tolerance. We’re at our best when the heat doesn’t catch us off guard. A summer athlete might be familiar with this process, called acclimatization: The key is taking it slow, all ... Read more ...
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Why Asia’s early heat wave is so alarming - VOX -Environment (Apr 14) |
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Apr 14 · Extreme heat is dangerous. Extreme heat when you least expect it is even worse.
A body adjusted to the heat knows how to sweat.
To keep the internal organs cool, blood flows to the skin at a higher rate. There’s more sweat, and it’s diluted more to reduce electrolyte loss (a key problem in dehydration). The body slows down its metabolic rate and heart rate for a lower core temperature, basically consuming less oxygen.
But it takes weeks of consistent exposure to heat to build up all this tolerance. We’re at our best when the heat doesn’t catch us off guard. A summer athlete might be familiar with this process, called acclimatization: The key is taking it slow, all ... Read more ...
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The climate apocalypse is also a religious crisis - VOX -Environment (Apr 12) |
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Apr 12 · Extrapolations’ Dorothy Fortenberry on God, Laudato si’, and the climate crisis.
Climate change presents us with an unusual apocalyptic moment - and not just because various natural catastrophes and cataclysms are part of its effects. “Apocalypse” means a moment of revealing, when the curtain blows aside and we see the world as it really is. We see ourselves as we really are.
That’s what the Apple TV+ show Extrapolations aims to be: a mirror, held up to its viewers - many of them well-off and comfortable, the kind of people who might assume climate change won’t touch them all that much - to show them who they really are. The answers can be tough to face. Coming to terms ... Read more ...
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Let’s talk about the biggest cause of the West’s water crisis - VOX -Environment (Apr 10) |
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Apr 10 · The Colorado River is going dry ... to feed cows.
Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
Part of the issue The 100-year-old-mistake that’s reshaping the American West from The Highlight, Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
Last May, 30 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, a barrel containing a dead body washed up on the shores of Lake Mead, the country’s largest water reservoir. In the following months, more human remains surfaced, along with a World War II-era boat and dozens of other vessels.
While these discoveries might sound like the opening to a crime thriller, they’re more than just morbid curiosities - they’re ... Read more ...
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The worst-case scenario for drought on the Colorado River - VOX -Environment (Apr 10) |
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Apr 10 · Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
Part of the issue The 100-year-old-mistake that’s reshaping the American West from The Highlight, Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
The Colorado River provides water for irrigation, power generation, recreation, and habitats for endangered species. But the 40 million people who drink from this critical artery have watched it wither amid the region’s worst dry spell in more than 1,200 years.
This massive drought, sometimes called a megadrought, settled over the Western United States two decades ago, and precious precipitation has flowed and faded from year to year. But since 2020, the ... Read more ...
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A renter’s guide to the Inflation Reduction Act - VOX -Environment (Apr 7) |
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Apr 7 · Time to approach your landlord or consider a window unit heat pump.
In theory, the Inflation Reduction Act could do a lot for renters.
People who rent their homes often deal with older buildings, leaky piping, and poor ventilation. The IRA’s attempt to get fossil fuels out of the home would benefit them significantly. But renters could be the last to see the benefits.
The new law passed last August authorizes $369 billion in investments for utilities, transmission lines, and greener manufacturing over the next decade, including $43 billion in tax breaks and rebates that bring down the cost of products like solar panels, electric appliances, and electric ... Read more ...
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The tricky plan for “negative emissions” - VOX -Environment (Apr 6) |
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Apr 6 · Will carbon dioxide removal work? It has to.
In recent years, over 70 countries have committed to net-zero carbon emissions, aiming to become carbon neutral by mid-century. The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally limit it to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Despite global efforts, emissions are still rising, and achieving the 1.5-degree goal has become increasingly difficult.
Most pathways to keep warming below 2 degrees and eventually return back to 1.5 rely on negative emissions, which involve pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods like enhanced weathering and ... Read more ...
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Refrigerators have gotten really freaking good. Thanks, Jimmy Carter. - VOX -Environment (Mar 29) |
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Mar 29 · The underrated way energy efficiency has made life better, and climate progress possible.
Consumer tech news tends to focus on the latest gadget like a new smartphone camera, but the boring old refrigerator ought to get its share of credit - when we weren’t looking, the fridge got really good.
Since the 1970s, the standard fridge has grown in size, but uses a quarter of the energy of those older models. And you’re getting more for less money, since the manufacturer price of the fridge has halved (adjusting for inflation) in those 50 years. Walk into a Home Depot or Lowes for a replacement, and you can trust that whatever you come out with could be bigger than what you ... Read more ...
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Biden just broke a big climate promise - VOX -Environment (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · The Willow Project is a “carbon bomb” that will complicate Biden’s climate legacy.
The same president who passed the nation’s biggest law ever to slash climate pollution may have just undone part of that legacy.
The Biden administration gave the green light on Monday to one of the largest-ever oil projects on public lands. The approval clears the way for one of the world’s largest oil companies, ConocoPhillips, to start construction on the Willow project in northern Alaska in a matter of days. According to the Bureau of Land Management’s estimate, the project could produce up to 614 million barrels of oil over the next 30 years. Construction is likely to begin ... Read more ...
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There’s something different about the new gas stove influencer - VOX -Environment (Mar 10) |
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Mar 10 · A celebrity chef is blaming the user - not the product - for any health concerns.
At first glance, a local news station in San Diego seemed to be airing a soft news piece helping viewers achieve their new year’s resolutions. The host for San Diego Living, a CBS8 program that sometimes airs sponsored content, said their next guest, a celebrity TV star, would deliver fun facts about healthy living and showcase some recipes.
Then, they dove in. The next four minutes were indistinguishable from an ad, paid for by the propane industry. The show’s host made a brief disclosure at the beginning, but after that, viewers would have had to read the tiny fine print on screen that ... Read more ...
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What Europe showed the world about renewable energy - VOX -Environment (Feb 21) |
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Feb 21 · It’s possible to do hard things for the climate - and the US isn’t that far behind.
One year ago, on the cusp of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seemed unimaginable that renewable energy in Europe could overtake electricity from oil and gas.
But not even a year later, it did. By the end of 2022, wind and solar combined overtook natural gas in electricity generation. The latest data on Europe’s renewable transition tells a remarkably upbeat story about the hard things countries can accomplish on climate change with enough political will.
Before the Russia-Ukraine war, 40 percent of natural gas and 27 percent of oil imports to Europe came from Russia, and Europe ... Read more ...
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10 years ago, we were turning nuclear bombs into nuclear energy. We can do it again. - VOX -Environment (Feb 14) |
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Feb 14 · How we turned 20,000 Soviet nukes into zero-carbon energy - and how we can do the same with some of our own.
Just a decade ago, one in 10 American lightbulbs was powered by dismantled Russian nuclear weapons.
That was made possible by the Megatons to Megawatts program, an agreement negotiated after the collapse of the Soviet Union to convert uranium from Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile into fuel for US nuclear power plants. The unconventional policy was first proposed by MIT physicist Thomas Neff in a 1991 New York Times op-ed. By the time Megatons to Megawatts ran its full course from 1993 to 2013, it had eliminated about 20,000 nuclear warheads and stood out as a ... Read more ...
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Oil company profits are at a record high. It won’t last. - VOX -Environment (Feb 8) |
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Feb 8 · Exxon, BP, and the rest of the oil industry aren’t prepared for competition from renewables.
The oil and gas industry has never been more profitable than it was in 2022. ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and ConocoPhillips reported combined hauls totaling more than $177 billion.
Interpreting these huge sums gets more complicated. Environmentalists say they show an industry price-gouging during wartime, profiteering from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago. Oil executives say they show the fundamental strategy of the business is working: “performing while transforming,” as CEO Bernard Looney put it in BP’s earnings call.
The profits have managed to erase the ... Read more ...
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The forgotten gas stove wars - VOX -Environment (Feb 5) |
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Feb 5 · We’ve been fighting over gas stoves for decades.
Forty years ago, the federal government seemed to be on the brink of regulating the gas stove. Everything was on the table, from an outright ban to a modification of the Clean Air Act to address indoor air pollution. Congress held indoor air quality hearings in 1983, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were both investigating the effects of gas appliances.
Backed into a corner, the industry that profits from selling consumers natural gas for their heating and cooking sprang into action. It filed comments to agencies disputing the science. It funded its own studies ... Read more ...
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How to slash carbon emissions while growing the economy, in one chart - VOX -Environment (Nov 13, 2022) |
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Nov 13, 2022 · More than 30 countries have already broken the link between emissions and economic growth.
There’s a common intuition that says we can either have a healthy climate, or a growing economy, but not both.
Economic activity, so long as it’s powered by fossil fuels - which still provides about 80 percent of the world’s energy - creates greenhouse gas emissions. So it seems to follow that if we want to emit fewer greenhouse gasses, we’re going to have to sacrifice some economic growth, even though raising average income levels is a key part of reducing poverty.
This creates a horrible dilemma, because fighting climate change and fighting poverty are both hugely important ... Read more ...
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Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner is dying as world leaders arrive for UN climate summit - VOX -Environment (Nov 09, 2022) |
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Nov 09, 2022 · As COP27 launches, Alaa Abd el-Fattah goes on hunger strike.
As leaders of civil society, climate science, and the world land in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 summit for climate negotiations, one of the country’s most prominent political prisoners has accelerated his protest against Egypt’s repressive government.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah is a 40-year-old computer programmer, blogger, and activist who has served about nine years in Egyptian prison. He was released briefly in the spring of 2019 and then rearrested that fall, held in pre-trial for about two years, and ultimately charged spuriously for disseminating false news. In protest of his ... Read more ...
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California voters said no to taxing the rich to make EVs more affordable - VOX -Environment (Nov 09, 2022) |
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Nov 09, 2022 · Despite a looming ban on gasoline cars, Californians rejected Prop 30, a measure to boost cleaner vehicles.
California voters on Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have raised taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to accelerate the sales of electric cars, particularly for low-income residents.
The measure, Proposition 30, was meant to help the Golden State meet its aggressive clean air and climate change ambitions. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. In August, California’s Air Resources Board cemented a ban on the sales of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035. The state passed a law in September that requires it to cut ... Read more ...
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How Ted Nordhaus brought realpolitik to climate politics - VOX -Environment (Oct 20, 2022) |
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Oct 20, 2022 · The Breakthrough Institute co-founder helped lay the intellectual foundation for a more effective approach to fighting climate change.
I first met Ted Nordhaus in a Manhattan coffee shop in 2008. I was there to write about him and his then-writing partner Michael Shellenberger for Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment” issue.
It wasn’t the most natural selection. Then, as now, Nordhaus was not your average environmentalist’s idea of a hero. In 2004, he and Shellenberger co-authored the essay “The Death of Environmentalism,” hitting the environmental movement with a message that was hard to hear. Despite all the money and the energy directed toward mainstream green ... Read more ...
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Under the hood of the electric vehicle revolution - VOX -Environment (Oct 17, 2022) |
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Oct 17, 2022 · In the EV era, old automakers are learning new tricks.
Part of Back to the Future, from The Highlight, Vox’s home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
LAKE ORION, Michigan - The battery packs arrive at the General Motors plant in Lake Orion, a tiny village 30 miles north of Detroit, in large capsules. Amid the clanks and clunks of the assembly floor, workers pry the capsules open before robotic buggies shuttle them away, guided by magnetic tape that trails along the ground. Eventually, they arrive underneath what amounts to an overhead conveyor belt, a miles-long industrial track that carries scores of half-built Chevrolet Bolt EVs across the factory. Then, ... Read more ...
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Why firewood is suddenly in high demand in Germany - VOX -Environment (Oct 17, 2022) |
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Oct 17, 2022 · Welcome to Europe under an energy crisis.
PUTZBRUNN, Germany - Konrad Kötterl lights another cigarette, which seems risky in a barn full of firewood. This is not cheap wood, either. The price of the pallets Kötterl sells has doubled since last year. “It’s not even cheaper to heat with wood,” Kötterl says during our conversation. “But people are very anxious that there will be no gas in general.”
They are anxious because Germany is on the edge of winter, during an unprecedented European energy crisis. Russia’s war with Ukraine, Western sanctions against Moscow, the Kremlin’s cutoff of pipeline gas, and a cascade of other calamities, has made the cost of natural gas and ... Read more ...
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Americans keep moving to where the water isn’t - VOX -Environment (Aug 28, 2022) |
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Aug 28, 2022 · People are still flocking to Sunbelt regions where the housing is cheaper and plentiful - but climate change and extreme weather are worsening.
Even with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act - which, name aside, is the most ambitious piece of climate-related legislation ever passed by Congress - the US is locked into decades of rising temperatures and more extreme weather. Just how warm it will get will depend on how quickly we can reduce carbon emissions and how sensitive the climate proves to be, but average global temperature increases of between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms seem most likely, with some regions experiencing much worse ... Read more ...
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