Climate Change

The water covering most of our planet is slowly losing something essential to life: oxygen. Scientists are raising the alarm about declining oxygen levels in lakes, rivers, and oceans around the world.

July saw dangerously hot and humid temperatures over much of the eastern United States. Two offshore wind projects near New England delivered hundreds of megawatts of electric power to the grid as residents cranked up their air conditioners. Thanks to the recently added wind power, utilities did not need to rely as much on dirty, expensive oil-burning peaker plants – the kind that only operate when electricity demand is very high.

A heat pump is a kind of HVAC appliance that handles both heating and cooling. It doesn’t burn fuel to generate heat. Instead, it uses electricity to move heat around. In the winter, it extracts warmth from outside air, the ground, or water and transfers it indoors. In the summer, it reverses the process to provide cooling. Heat pumps are far more efficient than conventional heaters and air conditioners.

A space mirror satellite is an orbiting spacecraft that features a large deployable reflective surface. Its purpose is to redirect sunlight and beam it down to a specific location on Earth. It would basically provide sunlight on demand.

The federal government started promoting energy efficiency in the 1970s in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. Since that time, successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic, instituted regulations about energy efficiency that have transformed the US economy. Energy efficiency has been pretty much the most bipartisan issue in the country. As a result, today’s refrigerators use about one-third the electricity of those from the 70s. Stricter fuel-economy standards for cars have saved Americans about $5 trillion in gasoline costs.

Bumblebees may be only about an inch long, but they help power the global food system. As they move from flower to flower collecting nectar and pollen, they help many wild plants and food crops reproduce. Their work supports healthy ecosystems and contributes to the production of many of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts people eat every day.

Disasters are big business. Decades ago, meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started tracking the number of natural disasters in the US – the ones that incurred at least a billion dollars in damages. The numbers have gone up and up. FEMA used to handle 25 major disasters per year on average; in the past decade, the number is 63. FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund averaged $3.4 billion a year in the 90’s and the early years of the new century. Now, annual spending is closer to $16 billion.

Plastic is everywhere in modern life. According to the United Nations, 474 million tons of plastic is produced every year around the world, two thirds of which is only used for a short period of time before being thrown away. Discarded plastic can persist in the environment for decades or even centuries.

For a few decades, homeowners with solar panels on their roofs have been taking advantage of net metering, which is where excess energy from their panels is fed into the grid in return for an energy credit, reducing their power bills.

Increasingly damaging weather is the new normal and New York is having plenty of it. The New York City metro area this summer alone has seen downed power lines, submerged cars, and saw the SoHo neighborhood turn into a wading pond. As the climate changes, storms are becoming stronger and more frequent.