The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge links the two Pacific coast cities suing Big Oil over climate change. Phil Scott / Flickr
If you turn on the news, you might think that climate science has been on trial for decades. But now a San Francisco judge will give it an official day in court.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who is hearing a suit brought by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco against five big oil corporations, ordered a historic tutorial in which both parties will have a chance to present their view of the science behind climate change, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reported March 7.
"This will be the closest that we have seen to a trial on climate science in the United States, to date," Michael Burger, head of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, told the Bureau.
The hearing marks the most recent novel development in an already groundbreaking lawsuit. As EcoWatch reported, San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to sue the fossil fuel industry over climate change when it filed with Oakland against the five largest fossil-fuel producing corporations in September 2017.
The cities claim the companies named in the suit—Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell—"have known for decades that fossil fuel-driven global warming and accelerated sea level rise posed a catastrophic risk to human beings." They are therefore suing the companies for the costs of adapting to the climate challenge, such as the building of sea walls.
Alsup scheduled the hearing for March 21, and has asked each side to prepare a two-part presentation.
According to Alsup's order, "The first part will trace the history of scientific study of climate change," while "the second part will set forth the best science now available on global warming, glacier melt, sea rise, and coastal flooding," the Bureau reported.
EarthRights International General Counsel Marco Simmons said the hearing was a positive development. "The court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science, which they have desperately tried to avoid doing," he told the Bureau.
Still, Alsup's ruling was not entirely favorable to the cities, who had filed a motion to have the case tried in California courts, which have developed precedent around "public nuisance" law.
Alsup instead held that the case belonged in federal court. "[A] patchwork of fifty different answers to the same fundamental global issue would be unworkable," the court ruled, according to the Columbia Law Blog.
The California cities' suit isn't the only historic climate case that will be decided in federal court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration could not halt a suit brought by 21 children and teenagers against the federal government for failing to act on climate change, The Washington Post reported.
These suits brought by cities, municipalities and children represent creative legal ways in which ordinary citizens are trying to hold powerful interests accountable for man-made climate change. And an accurate understanding of climate science is key to their success.
"We're looking forward to putting the federal government on trial on climate science and its dangerous fossil fuel policies," Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust, the head lawyer in the children's case, told the Post.
200+ Scientists Want Trump-Backer and Climate Denial Funder Rebekah Mercer Kicked Off Natural History Museum Board… https://t.co/3ipWLyniSY— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1517000127.0
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A new super enzyme feeds on the type of plastic that water and soda bottles are made of, polyethylene terephthalate (PET). zoff-photo / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Scientists are on the brink of scaling up an enzyme that devours plastic. In the latest breakthrough, the enzyme degraded plastic bottles six times faster than previous research achieved, as The Guardian reported.
<p>This new super-enzyme is able to break down plastic at room temperature, setting it apart from the enzyme that the French company Carbios discovered in April. As <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mutant-enzyme-recycles-plastic-2645686207.html" target="_self">EcoWatch</a> reported at the time, the Carbios enzyme started to work when the plastic was heated to 65 to 72 degrees Celsius, or 149 to 161 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the range when plastic bottles start to soften and melt.</p><p>The researchers worked doggedly to reengineer the enzymes of an enzyme first discovered in Japan in 2016. The scientists published their results Monday in the <em><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/23/2006753117" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em>. In the paper, they describe how the bacterium Idoenella sakaiensis produces two enzymes that thrive by consuming plastic bottles, according to <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-created-an-enzyme-cocktail-that-eats-plastic-1845206488" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>.</p>
<p>The research holds tremendous promise for tackling the plastic waste crisis since the enzyme feeds on the type of plastic that water and soda bottles are made of, polyethylene terephthalate (PET). That type of plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade. The enzyme that the researchers enhanced can break the plastic down in just a few days, according to John McGeehan, the director of the Center for Enzyme Innovation at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, as <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/28/plastic-eating-super-enzyme-may-key-beating-pollution/" target="_blank">The Telegraph</a> reported.</p><p>"When we linked the enzymes, rather unexpectedly, we got a dramatic increase in activity," said McGeehan, as The Guardian reported. "This is a trajectory towards trying to make faster enzymes that are more industrially relevant. But it's also one of those stories about learning from nature, and then bringing it into the lab."</p>
<p>He was referring to the process that bacteria in nature use to devour polyesters, which occur in nature to protect plant leaves. "Bacteria have been evolving for millions of years to eat that," he said, as the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43783631" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported in April.</p><p>McGeehan added that the enzyme could help accelerate a sustainable model since it enables the plastics to be "made and reused endlessly, reducing our reliance on fossil resources," as <a href="https://www.independent.ie/world-news/super-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-significant-leap-forward-in-pollution-crisis-39570785.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a> in Ireland reported.</p><p>McGeehan believes that cooperation between researchers and corporations could help scale up the enzyme in the near future.</p><p>"If we can make better, faster enzymes by linking them together and provide them to companies like Carbios, and work in partnership, we could start doing this within the next year or two," he said, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>McGeehan and his team also believe their enhancements can be improved so the enzymes are able to consume plastic faster. By adjusting a bit of the residue on the enzyme's surface, it was able to work a bit faster, suggesting that further optimization is still down the road. A testing facility is under construction for McGeehan and his team in Portsmouth, while Carbios is building a plant in France to put the enzymes to use, according to The Guardian.</p><p>"The faster we can make the enzymes, the quicker we can break down the plastic, and the more commercially viable it will be," said McGeehan, as The Telegraph reported.</p>
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A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that human-caused global heating is making the world's oceans more stable. Michelle Maria / Pixabay
By Jessica Corbett
In a rare calm moment during a historically active Atlantic hurricane season, an international team of climate scientists on Monday published a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change showing that human-caused global heating is making the world's oceans more "stable"—which, as co-author Michael Mann explained, is "very bad news."
<p>Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-oceans-stabilizing-1534512" target="_blank">detailed</a> researchers' findings about ocean stratification in a piece for <em>Newsweek</em>. Using "more comprehensive data and a more sophisticated method for estimating stratification changes" than past studies, the scientists found that "oceans are not only becoming more stable, but are doing so faster than was previously thought."</p><p>The team—led by Guancheng Li of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in China—specifically found that stratification globally increased by a "substantial" 5.3% from 1960 to 2018, mostly in the upper 650 feet or so of the world oceans. "This seemingly technical finding has profound and troubling implications," Mann noted.</p><p>"The more stable the upper ocean, the less vertical mixing that takes place. This mixing is a primary means by which the ocean buries warming surface waters. So the surface warms up even faster. It's what we call a 'positive feedback'—a vicious cycle," he wrote. "That's bad for a number of reasons."</p>
<div id="e639b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d8d112e123588b9bf3c3eadcc89627e8"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1310602217825726465" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Thank you to @MichaelEMann for patiently and clearly explaining to non scientists why increased ocean stabilizati… https://t.co/yW2BmQhKGp</div> — Dr Naomi Wolf (@Dr Naomi Wolf)<a href="https://twitter.com/naomirwolf/statuses/1310602217825726465">1601306893.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Noting the ongoing storm season and previous warnings from scientists—<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/28/climatologist-michael-mann-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-hate-say-we-told-you-so" target="_blank">including him</a>—that the increasingly devastating recent hurricanes "have fed off warmer surface waters," Mann explained that "a more stably stratified ocean potentially favors more intense, destructive hurricanes." Warmer waters also "absorb less atmospheric carbon dioxide" and "hold less dissolved oxygen."</p><p>In other words, the new study indicates that "humans have made the oceans more stable, and the result will be more extreme weather and the acceleration of climate change," as study co-author John Abraham <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/28/how-our-warmer-oceans-are-contributing-to-climate-breakdown" target="_blank">wrote</a> Monday for <em>The Guardian</em>. Like Mann, he detailed the research team's findings about the stratification of the oceans, and the implications. Then, he added:</p><blockquote>It is not all doom and gloom. The good news is we know why the climate is changing and we know how the oceans are responding. We can do something about this problem—we have the ability to slow down climate change. We just lack the will and leadership.<br><br>But if 2020 has shown us anything, it has revealed that humans can change and adapt quickly to situations. There is hope that we can navigate the challenges resulting from a more stable ocean—but we must start immediately.<br></blockquote><p>Both co-authors' pieces provoked calls for swift, bold, global efforts to address the climate crisis:</p>
<div id="85eca" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="43780424fc8b04e23a525e1bad1086eb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1310608647651811336" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Canada has oceans on 3 sides-we can't ignore the climate news that The Oceans Appear to Be Stabilizing. Here's Why… https://t.co/SfWJWWRHr7</div> — Friends Of Halifax Common (@Friends Of Halifax Common)<a href="https://twitter.com/FriendsHalifax/statuses/1310608647651811336">1601308426.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="3e52e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f210e186b6e1481a64770e0c8722a438"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1310638669477236738" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">"Das bedeutet, dass das CO2-Budget, das zur Vermeidung kritischer Erhitzung (z.B. 1,5°C) übrig bleibt, möglicherwei… https://t.co/675YBTSybJ</div> — Parents For Future #SystemChangeNotClimateChange (@Parents For Future #SystemChangeNotClimateChange)<a href="https://twitter.com/parents4future/statuses/1310638669477236738">1601315583.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Ending his piece on a similar note, Mann wrote that "in short, it's unwise to be complacent given the accumulating scientific evidence that climate change and its impacts may well be in the upper end of the range that climate scientists currently project. There is ever-greater urgency when it comes to acting on climate. But there is agency as well. Our actions <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dangerous-new-form-climate-denialism-making-rounds-opinion-1455736" target="_blank">make a difference</a>—something to keep in mind as we head into a presidential election <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/greta-thunberg-donald-trump-true-leadership-climate-change-free-world-1461147" target="_blank">whose climate implications</a> are monumental."</p><p>Mann is on the mounting list of climate experts and advocates <a href="https://www.axios.com/2020-presidential-election-joe-biden-endorsed-climate-scientists-24013990-0300-4c2c-ad95-57571b397196.html?fbclid=IwAR3vTCBmK5BwvoafwGefadTsnIMnKo9FS6ssc9PCdFLEeXr6p4KHlnrFWKU" target="_blank">supporting </a>Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in his effort to oust President Donald Trump—who has, at various points, ignored and exacerbated the climate emergency. Earlier this month, the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/15/matter-life-and-death-after-175-years-scientific-american-backs-biden-magazines" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">editors</a> of<em> Scientific American</em> as well as the political action arms of both 350 and Friends of the Earth also <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/24/clarion-call-all-progressive-environmentalists-defeat-trumps-planetary-destruction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">endorsed</a> the former vice president.</p><p>"The stakes are clear and present," Tamara Toles O'Laughlin from 350 Action said of the general election, for which early voting is already underway in some states. "The planet cannot withstand four more years of Trump."</p>
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President Donald Trump holds up a pen after signing a Presidential Proclamation shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Utah, December 4, 2017. Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
By Hannah Murphy
When he talks about the Trump administration, David Doniger likes to say: "Imagine where we'd be if they knew what they were doing." The climate lawyer and senior advisor to the NRDC Action Fund spends his days defending the environment from the U.S. government, and for the past three and a half years, that's meant a front-row seat to the Trump administration's relentless attacks on any regulation that's meant to slow the climate crisis.
<p>But it's also been a window into the hasty, sloppy, and legally dubious ways that they've gone about it. "One of the hallmarks of this administration is how incompetently they're doing this," says Doniger. "It shows up in how slowly they've been able to work, and how flimsy their legal rationales are." Almost all of Trump's attempts at deregulation — some 100 rules that he's tried to eliminate or weaken — are being challenged in court, and environmentalists are steadily winning. According to the <a href="https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Institute for Policy Integrity</a> at New York University, the Trump administration has lost 69 of the 83 legal challenges it's faced in its deregulatory blitz.</p><p>"We were saved by their incompetence," says Andrew Wetzler, from the NRDC Action Fund, mainly by their failure to follow basic rule-making procedures. They rushed through the process, often shortening or entirely skipping over the required 60 days for public comment, which provided a clear opening for their rule changes to be challenged in court. The administration's ineptitude has given environmentalists hope that if Trump loses the election, the policy impact of his unrelenting pro-fossil fuel agenda could ultimately be short-lived. "If he's a one-term wonder," says Doniger, "the biggest consequence of the Trump administration may just turn out to be lost time."</p><p>But time, at this hour of the climate fight, might be our most precious resource. As we stumble ever closer to the <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-climate-changes-worsens-a-cascade-of-tipping-points-looms" target="_blank">collapse of ice sheets, oceans and forests</a>, the range of meaningful action we could take narrows. There is now believed to be more carbon dioxide in the air than any time in the last 3 million years. Our oceans are on track by the end of this century to become more acidic than they've been in some 15 million years — when they were enduring a major extinction event. Those oceans are also rising steadily enough to threaten the homes of 150 million people in the next three decades. "We lost years at a critical time," says Wetzler. "We're on the precipice of a number of climate and biological tipping points." And, he says, we won't fully understand the impact of that loss for years. </p>
<p>If Biden wins in November, environmentalists say, his administration would have a slim window of opportunity to get our agencies back on track to meet the enormity of the climate crisis. "It means being aggressive from day one," says Brett Hartl from the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. "And not futzing around — knowing what you're going to do and implementing it immediately." </p><p>Making up for the lost time won't be easy. Despite his slap-dash approach, Trump still managed to scramble the trajectory of American climate policy, creating a tangle of legal fights that will have to be cleared up for U.S. climate policy to move forward. And he left almost no part of our environmental regulatory structure untouched — greenlighting fossil fuel infrastructure like the Dakota Access and Keystone XL Pipelines, setting us back on emission-reduction goals by reversing the Clean Power Plan and higher fuel-efficiency standards, and gutting the federal agencies that should be at the helm of our climate response.</p><p>So how difficult will it be to unscramble this mess? It would have to happen in three parts, environmentalists say, and all three would have to start on day one. First, Biden would have a powerful arsenal of executive tools available to him — if he chooses to use them. A<a href="http://climatepresident.org" target="_blank"> coalition of over 500 environmental</a> groups has already assembled a plan for how he could effectively jumpstart our fight against the climate crisis using executive powers, which would avoid both going through Congress and the lengthy federal rule-making process.<br><br>Using executive power, Biden could declare a national climate emergency. It wouldn't just send an important message to Americans — and the rest of the world — that we're taking the climate crisis seriously; it would give the administration the power to mobilize the government on a massive scale, like ordering the Secretary of Defense to redirect military spending toward the rapid development of clean energy.<span></span><br></p>
<p>Biden could also immediately order federal agencies to reverse the climate rollbacks Trump introduced through executive order — like allowing oil and gas companies to side-step state approval — and start issuing his own. Most urgently, Biden would have the power to keep more fossil fuels in the ground: He could direct the Secretary of the Interior to halt oil-and-gas leasing and fracking on federal lands, reinstitute the ban on exporting crude oil, and order all federal agencies to deny permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure, like pipelines, storage facilities, and refineries.</p><p>He'd also be able to change the ways that money moves through the energy sector. He could prohibit the U.S. government from financing fossil fuel programs overseas and end all Department of Energy loans for fossil fuels stateside, while also requiring the Federal Reserve to manage climate risks — forcing it to acknowledge the current and future impact of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a> on our economy. </p><p>Many of these tools were already available in the Obama era, but the administration chose not to use them. For example, "the Clean Air Act is actually quite clear that you have the authority to set national ambient air quality standards," says Hartl. "It would have been incredibly bold, and it actually wouldn't have had the problems that the Clean Power Plan had. They could have really moved the needle on greenhouse gases in a very, very powerful way." But, Hartl says, the Obama administration shied away from these kinds of actions for fear of political consequences. </p>
<p>Biden would face a very different national landscape. At the beginning of this year, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/21/how-americans-see-climate-change-and-the-environment-in-7-charts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">two thirds of American adults said that protecting the environment should be a top priority of the federal government</a>, up from only 30 percent at the beginning of Obama's first term. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/19/914233038/poll-climate-becomes-top-priority-for-democrats-trump-struggles-on-race-covid-19" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In a poll last week</a>, likely Democratic voters ranked climate change as the most important issue to them in this election, and Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, has found that talking about climate change could actually help persuade voters who are on the fence to vote for a Democrat. All of this is to say, a Biden administration could have an unprecedented political mandate to take action on the climate crisis. </p><p>In addition to issuing executive orders, beginning on day one Biden would also need to start the process of unwinding the deregulation efforts that Trump carried out through the federal rule-making process — like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/climate/endangered-species-act-changes.html" target="_blank">rollbacks on the Endangered Species Act</a> and fuel-emissions standards — and writing new ones to take their place. Environmentalists are confident that a new administration could systematically undo each rollback, but that process could take two years, according to Hartl.</p><p><span></span>And the Biden administration would need to learn from Trump's mistakes. Legal challenges from the industries that these regulations impact — the American Petroleum Institute, the National Mining Association — are inevitable, "so you have to go in and be prepared to defend it the first time," says Hartl. That means following the process to the letter: establishing rules with legal backing from legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts; opening the rule up to public comment; and then presenting a final rule that can stand up in court. Unlike Trump's deregulation efforts, which were fighting against decades of environmental legislation, the law would be on Biden's side. "The reality is that when Congress passed these laws," says Hartl, "they were designed to make the environment better." </p>
<p>Finally, Biden would have to start hiring like mad. Over the past four years, Trump's EPA and Interior Department have hemorrhaged talent. The Bureau of Land Management moved the majority of its staff out of Washington, D.C., leading some 70 percent of that staff to resign, and the EPA is nearly as small as it was during the Nixon era, when the EPA was founded. "That pattern, in the most extreme way, is mirrored throughout the environmental agencies," says Wetzler. "There's been a real brain drain of people who can't stand in an agency and support the agenda under the Trump administration, and we'll have to put back the pieces of very demoralized, and in some cases broken agencies." </p><p>But from those ashes, Biden could build a coalition of climate advocates across his Cabinet. His transition team, and the 4,000 people they appoint, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/158198/inside-fight-shape-bidens-climate-policy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">are arguably more influential than any campaign promises he could make</a>. "Personnel is policy," says Jamal Raad, co-founder and campaign director for Evergreen Action, founded by former staffers of Gov. Jay Inslee's presidential campaign. "We need to choose regulators that have a climate lens," and that lens doesn't end at the EPA — it can reach the Department of Agriculture, where we have to reimagine our food production to work with our changing climate, or the Treasury, where regulators could interpret the Dodd-Frank consumer protection act to include climate risks. And within the White House, Raad says, Biden could create a National Climate Council that's equivalent to the National Economic Council. "There needs to be a plan to reorient the federal government so that climate is a lens in all decision making." </p><p>Heading into the general election, pressure from the left wing of the party shaped Biden's $2 trillion climate plan, which is "a green new deal in all but name," <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/20/joe-biden-has-endorsed-the-green-new-deal-in-all-but-name" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote activist and journalist Julian Brave NoiseCat</a>. "It's the most progressive, forward-leaning environmental plan that any candidate for president has ever released," says Wetzler of the NRDC Action Fund. "It would represent incredible progress." And while the Biden campaign hasn't laid out a timetable for the plan, "the Biden team has been signaling their prioritization of climate by making it central to their economic recovery plans," says Raad. "I think that folks should be cautiously optimistic — but vigilant — on the prospect of climate being a priority early in the first term."</p><p>Of course, this all hinges on what happens in November. And if Trump is re-elected, his administration would have the chance to establish a legacy of more than just incompetence and squandered time. Four more years of Donald Trump being in charge of the environment could permanently alter the American landscape.</p>
<p>In some cases, it would give the Trump administration time to fight back against the legal challenges they face, leaning on courts that they've stacked with anti-environmental judges. And damage could be done that will be near impossible to undo — rules can be changed, but mines can't be unmined. The Trump administration has pursued the largest rollback of federally protected land in U.S. history. Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, for example, which Trump shrunk by 85 percent in 2017, is in the crosshairs of uranium developers. Trump's move has been mired in lawsuits, but a second term could give them the time to untangle them, and hand the land over to the uranium lobbyists.<br></p><p>Likewise, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was just approved in August, leaving little time for leasing, let alone actual development, before Inauguration Day. But if Trump wins, those leases are likely to move forward, as will the roads, pipelines, and oil rigs that come with them, doing permanent damage to a vital and fragile ecosystem. "Over time you're looking at millions and millions of acres of fossil fuel leasing," says Hartl from the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. "And eventually, once you get to the point where they're actually putting drills in the ground, it's very hard to undo that. You're locking in a tremendous amount of fossil fuel infrastructure."</p><p>Trump's influence on the Supreme Court looms heavily for the environment as well. With Trump already raring to appoint a new justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a second term is likely to offer him a fourth Supreme Court appointment, which would mean the highest court would house<em> seven</em> Republican-appointed justices. When you're suing over environmental issues, the court's make-up can be the difference between having your day in court, and not. "For example, there's a general judicial doctrine called 'standing,' or your ability to go to court to pursue your aggrieved interests," explains Hartl. "Conservative judges want to narrow who has standing as much as possible, because that limits access to the courts. When you're fighting for the environment, and your interest is protecting an endangered species or the atmosphere or the water, they've already made it hard for us to go to court, to have standing. And they can narrow it even further so that we don't even have recourse. Our ability to just <em>fight</em> for the environment is at stake."</p><p><span></span>The climate movement has never been more clear on what it is fighting for and what it needs to do, and finally has a presidential candidate who is signaling some willingness to do it. The prescription is fairly simple: Stop burning fossil fuels so we can begin drawing down the carbon in the atmosphere that's overheating our planet and disrupting the systems that have supported life on Earth as we know it. The president has a lot of power to take that action, and we have no time to lose. "It's true that we have 30 years [before an irreversible climate collapse], but <em>when</em> you act on that 30-year scale really affects how radically you have to act," says Wetzler. "If you think about where the United States was at the beginning of the Trump administration — and where the world was, in terms of taking climate change seriously — it's a huge, squandered opportunity." This November, we can choose to act, and set ourselves back on course. "If this is a one-time, Black Swan event, we're probably going to recover as a nation," says Doniger. "This is the project of the century." </p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com" target="_blank">Rolling Stone </a></em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A photo illustration shows confirmed global cases and deaths from COVID-19 displayed on a smartphone and PC screen, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Sept. 29, 2020. Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
The Johns Hopkins University tracker for worldwide coronavirus cases showed that the world passed a grim milestone early Tuesday morning, as more than 1 million have died from the virus and the infection it causes, COVID-19.
<p>That's equivalent to almost the entire population of San Jose, California. It's a larger number than the population of Boston, Seattle, Portland and nearly twice the population of Atlanta. In comparison to diseases, COVID-19 in just nine months has killed more people than HIV and dysentery, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/world/covid-1-million-deaths.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The New York Times</a> reported. It has also killed more than cholera, flu, measles and malaria combined. It's reached every corner of the globe, affecting every country in the world.</p>
<p>"This is a very serious global event, and a lot of people were going to get sick and many of them were going to die, but it did not need to be nearly this bad," said Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>In addition to the 1 million global deaths, the virus has infected nearly 33.5 million people. Many of the survivors never fully recover and end up with lingering effects that affect their lungs, joints, muscles and mental acuity. Those continued symptoms hamper their ability to return to normal life, according to another report in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/coronavirus-long-term-effects.html" target="_blank">The New York Times.</a></p>
<p>The U.S. accounts for 20 percent of the global deaths, by far the largest number of deaths, with more than 205,000 COVID-19 fatalities. The Johns Hopkins data shows that just four countries — the U.S., Brazil, India and Mexico — make up more than half the total of worldwide deaths, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p><p>India is quickly catching up to the U.S. as the virus's transmission is accelerating there. As for the U.S., the numbers are continuing to climb as only 19 states are holding steady. CNN reported that 21 states recorded a higher number of cases in the past week compared to the previous week.</p>
<p>"It's not only that the number of infections keeps on going up. It's also that the test positivity rates are trending in the wrong direction," said emergency medicine physician Dr. Leana Wen to CNN.</p><p>"We're seeing more than a dozen states with a test positivity ... over 10%. And there are two states — Idaho and South Dakota — where the test positivity is over 20 percent," she added. "That means that not only do we have increasing infections in these states, we also don't have nearly enough testing."</p><p>For context, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that an area that wants to reopen businesses should have the number of positive cases at 5 percent or lower for 14 consecutive days, according to <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/testing-positivity" target="_blank">Johns Hopkins</a>.</p>
<p>Officials from the WHO believe the actual number of cases and deaths is underreported.</p><p>"If anything, the numbers currently reported probably represent an underestimate of those individuals who have either contracted COVID-19 or died as a cause of it," said Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergencies expert, told a briefing in Geneva, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/global-coronavirus-deaths-pass-1m-with-no-sign-rate-slowing" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"When you count anything, you can't count it perfectly but I can assure you that the current numbers are likely an underestimate of the true toll of COVID."</p><p>Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres called the 1 million deaths threshold agonizing and suggested the world learn from its mistakes.</p><p>"Responsible leadership matters," he said, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/29/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. "Science matters. Cooperation matters — and misinformation kills."</p>
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On Thursday, Maryland will become the first state in the nation to implement a ban on foam takeout containers. guruXOOX / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Maryland will become the first state in the nation Thursday to implement a ban on foam takeout containers.
<p>The law, which was passed in 2019, prohibits restaurants and other institutions that serve food, such as schools, from using polystyrene containers, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-stryrofoam-ban-takes-effect-20200925-dc57ytrblbdqrmbvsk4lddyw5a-story.html" target="_blank">The Baltimore Sun reported</a>.</p><p>"Single-use <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastics</a> are overrunning our <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">oceans</a> and bays and neighborhoods," chief bill sponsor Democratic Delegate Brooke Lierman <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/health/maryland-plastic-foam-ban-legislation-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">told CNN when it passed.</a> "We need to take dramatic steps to start stemming our use and reliance on them ... to leave future generations a planet full of wildlife and green space."</p><p>Lierman said she had tried twice before to pass the bill, but a shift in public opinion against plastic pollution finally pushed it over the finish line.</p>
<p>The law was originally scheduled to go into effect July 1, but officials delayed it by three months because of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/27/us/maryland-foam-container-ban-trnd/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNN reported further</a>. Dining has shifted from table service to takeout, and the government wanted to give impacted businesses more time to use up their extra foam, The Baltimore Sun explained.</p><p>Some restaurant owners still oppose the ban, arguing that foam containers are cheaper and longer-lasting than alternatives.</p><p>"We don't like increased costs," Dan Schuman of Captain Dan's Crabhouse in Eldersburg told The Baltimore Sun. "No restaurant does. Because we have to pass that onto the customer."</p><p>He said he was raising prices to cover the cost of new plastic containers, as well as an upcoming minimum wage increase.</p>
<p>However, other restaurants have already made the change on their own and were pleased with the results. Victoria Gastro Pub bar manager Megan Purcell said the Victoria Restaurant Group switched to compostable takeaway containers two years ago.</p><p>"It's just the right thing to do and it was time," Purcell told <a href="https://www.wmar2news.com/news/state/md-foam-container-ban-goes-into-effect-thursday" target="_blank">WMAR</a>.</p><p>Environmentalists, meanwhile, say the ban will help fight the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, because foam containers are made from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a>, The Baltimore Sun reported. It will also keep the containers out of waterways.</p><p>This has already been the case for Maryland localities and cities that have banned foam containers ahead of the state, including Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George's counties.</p><p>In Baltimore, the trash wheels that prevent rubbish from entering the Inner Harbor reported a 40 percent reduction in polystyrene containers caught in their spokes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/maine-bans-styrofoam-2636014775.html" target="_self">Maine</a>, New York and Vermont have passed similar bans, but they have not yet taken effect. Maryland regulators hope that their ban can be a model for these states and others considering phasing out the use of foam containers.</p><p>"We will learn how best to implement it," Maryland environment secretary Ben Grumbles told The Baltimore Sun, "and other states will watch us closely."</p>
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