Environment

Rising sea levels around the world is one of the most visible consequences of human-caused climate change. As global temperatures rise, oceans absorb more heat and expand, while melting glaciers and ice sheets add even more water to the seas.

The Trump administration is trying very hard to prop up coal power in the US. The Department of Energy is keeping struggling coal plants on life support, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Department of the Interior is blocking wind and solar developments that involve public lands. But in spite of all this, coal power is fighting a losing battle.

The UN estimates that 2.2 billion people lack safely managed drinking water. Across the globe, over 300 million people rely on desalinated water for part or all of their daily needs. There are more than 22,000 desalination plants around the world. In the U.S., about 5 million people receive water from desalination, mostly in states like California and Florida.

Over the past 50 years, there have been a couple of significant efforts to move the U.S. towards the widespread adoption of clean energy such as solar power. The first, during last decades of the 20th century, was driven by values. The term “tree huggers” was used to describe the people who believed that protecting the environment was simply the right thing to do. But even after four decades of moral-based clean energy advocacy, only a tenth of one percent of U.S. electricity came from solar power.

Wild bees play a critical but often overlooked role in ecosystems, quietly pollinating both agricultural crops and native plants. While honeybees tend to get most of the attention, the vast majority of bee species live solitary lives, with many of them nesting underground in soil habitats that are both easy to miss and easy to destroy.

Solar power has been eating away at coal’s dominance in generating electricity for quite a while. While coal power is still the largest single source of electricity across the globe, most new generation capacity is coming from solar and wind. However, coal power is fighting back, and not in a good way.

Over the past seven years, there have been an increasing number of deployments of co-called “megaconstellation” satellite systems, far outstripping the number of satellites orbiting the earth that had been launched over the previous 60 years.

Rising seas are threatening coastal towns and cities all over the world. According to an analysis by researchers at Tulane University, Yale, and other institutions, coastal Louisiana faces sea level rise of 10 to 23 feet as this century moves forward. It is one of the lowest lying regions in the world, and New Orleans is particularly exposed. It sits in a bowl-shaped basin, mostly below sea level, in the middle of a rapidly shrinking delta.

The Colorado River is experiencing a crisis. Its flow has reduced by an average of 20% compared to the 20th-century average. Its system reservoirs are critically low and water storage across its major lakes is at about 35% of capacity. The Colorado supplies water and irrigation to about 40 million people across seven U.S. states and northern Mexico.

Solar power has been experiencing a massive boom for fifteen years, with an annual growth rate of 28% over the last decade. More recently, grid storage batteries have established a boom of their own. These battery banks, which can store the energy produced by solar and other sources, are expanding rapidly.