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The Environment
Other than climate change, at least four factors contribute to the growing cost of weather-related events in the US: increasing density of coastal populations, exceptionally high inflation in the construction industry, rising value of assets, and changes in crop insurance.
So, what does one do with this assertion of fact? Some options: 1) investigate the claim and remain noncommittal about its truth-value until questions are answered to your satisfaction (if they ever are); 2) register the claim as a possible fact but remain noncommittal about its truth-value. Reject further investigation as too time consuming: 3) accept the claim as true or true-enough, and leave it at that: and, 4) accept the claim as plausible, which is good enough to present it as established fact in the service of some higher purpose… Reject further investigation as quibbling about details and overlooking the bigger picture.
Are the costs of weather-related damage going up because the weather in the US has gotten worse? For example:
Are hurricanes more powerful or frequent?
Are heatwaves longer or more intense?
Are droughts getting longer or more frequent?
Are high precipitation events wetter or more frequent?
The Our World in Data website has tons of data pertinent to these questions, summarized in a series of charts. First, trends in hurricane activity…
Both articles seemed to suggest that, thanks to climate change, weather-related damage is on the rise in the US and the increased cost of this damage is due mostly to changes in the weather and not to factors unrelated to the weather, such as trends in population density or the value of assets in climate-vulnerable areas. Is this actually the case?
As part of its discussion of possible climate futures, the 2021 report assesses the climate response to five illustrative scenarios called shared socio-economic pathways, or SSPs. The SSPs differ in their estimated trajectories of emissions and consequent global warming…
The Biodiversity Framework should be finalized later this year. For more info on the Draft version, go here or check out my post, The UN's New Strategic Plan to Increase Biodiversity and Save Endangered Species: Highlights. This post will be about the money side of the Framework, specifically how much the US should be willing to spend to do its part.
The UN has recently released its First Draft of The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. As with the 2010 Plan, this latest version includes multiple targets for urgent action over the coming decade. They include…
This time around I’m going to address what more the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) can do to protect the environment, increase biodiversity, and combat climate change. The USDA already has several programs that help agricultural producers and foresters adopt and maintain conservation systems that protect water and air quality, reduce soil erosion, protect and enhance wildlife habitat, forests and wetlands, conserve water, and sequester carbon. Here are some of them…
Thanks to political pressure from farmers and various industry groups, and despite abundant evidence that increasing biofuel production would do the planet more harm than good, the federal government continues to spend billions on biofuel subsidies every year. This has got to change.
Non-native species are typically described as “invasive” species, clearly not a term of endearment. However, many biologists and conservationists are having a change of heart regarding these much-maligned “aliens” (another common descriptor): they’re not all bad - and some may even help native species survive and thrive, especially in biological communities under stress from habitat loss and a changing climate. A zero-tolerance approach to non-native species makes no sense when their effects are often neutral or positive.
“…many of the practices recommended to reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change also will make farms and ranches more resilient to extreme weather and often increase soil health, productivity, and profitability.”
Alley cropping is an agroforestry practice that involves alternating field crops with rows of trees or shrubs. Besides soaking up emissions and storing carbon, alley cropping reduces surface water runoff and erosion, improves soil quality, enhances habitat for wildlife and beneficial insects, and decreases offsite movement of nutrients or chemicals. Alley cropping also provides farmers the opportunity to make extra revenue given that tree products like fruit and nuts generally fetch higher prices than many field crops. So why haven’t more US farmers adopted the practice?
Many more species will be getting on the extinction express by the end of the century. That’s because habitat loss and deterioration “suggests that around 9 per cent of the world’s estimated 5.9 million terrestrial species – more than 500,000 species – have insufficient habitat for long-term survival, and are committed to extinction, many within decades, unless their habitats are restored “ (Diaz et al, 2019). As for water-dwellers: nearly one-in-three freshwater species around the world are now threatened with extinction…That’s the picture. What to do? Here are some ideas…
Between 1989 and 2008, 1,125 lawsuits were filed challenging the US Forest Service land management decisions. The Forest Service won around half these cases and either lost or settled the rest. Almost 80% of the lawsuits were initiated by environmental groups seeking to protect National Forests. Litigants generally challenged vegetative management, such as debris removal and thinning forests through logging and controlled burns. The median time to case deposition was a year and a half.
A climate-driven global redistribution of species is already underway. But many of the species at greatest risk of extinction from changing weather patterns have insurmountable dispersal barriers – they can’t move elsewhere without help, because roads, cities, farmland, and warring humans get in the way. We could “let nature take its course”, meaning allow mass extinctions. Or, we could very carefully and only as a last resort, move endangered species to save them. Of course, introduced species would have to be monitored closely to insure they’re not too disruptive a presence in their new biological communities. But those communities are already being disrupted by climate change.
As it turns out, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently forecast that US energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would decline by 11% in 2020. Since CO2 emissions account for around 97% of energy-related emissions, we will likely lower CO2 emissions by 10.7% this year alone. How can we lower emissions even more? …
Hundreds of organizations have endorsed the Great American Outdoors Act, including the Audubon Naturalist Society, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Defenders of Wildlife, League of Conservation Voters, National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, and The Nature Conservancy. According to Mark Kramer, a director of the California chapter the Nature Conservancy, one of the highlights of the Great American Outdoors Act is that secures reliable funding to help protect the nation’s ecological diversity, including its wildlife.
After two years of growth, global emissions were unchanged at 33 gigatonnes in 2019 even as the world economy expanded by 2.9%. This was primarily due to declining emissions from electricity generation in advanced economies, thanks to the expanding role of renewable sources (mainly wind and solar), fuel switching from coal to natural gas, and higher nuclear power generation.
The environmental impact of cattle farming is particularly devastating for the planet, both directly (grazing) and indirectly (feed crops). According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock farming is responsible for 14.5% of the world's greenhouse emissions, of which 65% comes from beef and dairy cattle. Even sustainable cattle grazing “threatens wildlife and takes an enormous toll on habitats, and won’t fix the climate crisis animal agriculture creates”. Without intensifying production, sustainable cattle farming is little more than virtue display.
All the above adaptations would be good ideas even if the climate were not warming. Meaning that even climate change skeptics could get behind these adaptations because they address current threats to humanity and the environment. As documented in The Environmental Concerns of Climate Change Skeptics, beliefs about climate change and caring about the environment are not strongly correlated.