In North Carolina, coal-fired plants historically dealt with the leftover ash by mixing it with wastewater and dumping it into an open pit nearby. Because coal generators need a lot of water, power plants and coal ash ponds usually sit next to a lake or river.
This arrangement can have disastrous consequences. In 2014, a pipe under a coal ash pond owned by Duke Energy in Eden, North Carolina cracked open. The pipe carried wastewater from the nearby coal plant to the Dan River. When it broke, upwards of 30,000 tons of soggy, toxic coal ash seeped into the pipe and drained into the river.
In the aftermath, the Obama administration created the first-ever regulation on coal ash ponds, though it was remarkably weak. Michael Yaki, of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, later said it was "practically toothless in its ability to protect the poorest and minority population of our country from things such as coal ash." Despite this, in 2015, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would water down the regulation even further in ways that could lead to a repeat of the Dan River spill or allow coal ash ponds to leak toxins into drinking water.
Every single Republican member of North Carolina's congressional delegation voted in favor of the bill — including Rep. Mark Walker, whose district included the site of the Dan River spill — even as North Carolina residents living near coal ash ponds were being told not to drink well water. Every Democrat voted against it. The bill ultimately died in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
To understand why North Carolina Republicans would vote for a doomed bill to slash coal ash protections, it helps to consider their political circumstances.
In the anti-Obama fervor of 2015, it wasn't hard to marshal Republicans against the spectre of regulatory overreach, particularly against the energy industry. While Duke Energy donated to every member of North Carolina's congressional delegation, it gave substantially more to Republicans than to Democrats. But perhaps more important than campaign contributions or the political milieu was the impact of gerrymandering.
In 2010, Republicans came to power in North Carolina, and when they redrew the congressional map, they carved up Democratic strongholds to dilute the power of Democratic voters — namely, Black voters — creating districts that wiggled and stretched across large expanses. This practice, known as gerrymandering, produced a map that heavily favored Republicans.
In 2014, the GOP won only 55 percent of the vote statewide, but they came away with 10 out of 13 seats, and not one of these races was particularly close. Every politician Republican was well insulated against swings in public opinion. A 2014 poll from the Sierra Club found that 70 percent of North Carolina voters would be more likely to support a politician who " favors strong regulations and enforcement… to prevent future spills," and yet every Republican fought such rules.
Because of the way the electoral map was drawn, 12 of the 14 coal ash pond sites in North Carolina were in districts represented by Republicans, meaning that almost no one living near a coal ash pond was represented by someone who favored stronger regulations. And most coal ash pond sites are in areas that are disproportionately low-income, according to data from Earthjustice.
This is the North Carolina congressional map for the 2014 midterm election. The map is shaded according to the partisan lean of each district, with darker colors indicating more support for either Republicans, in red, or Democrats, in blue. The black dots indicate the locations of coal ash pond sites.
"Any environmental issue will receive less attention in a district where voting power has been diluted and divided," said Jason Rhode, national coordinator for the Princeton Gerrymandering Project at Princeton University. "Without that voice, environmental injustice can run rampant."
In 2016, a federal court determined that North Carolina's congressional map had diminished the power of Black voters and ordered the legislature to redraw the map. The Republican majority produced a map that, on its face, looked more fair. But it still carved up Democratic strongholds, which typically meant Black communities, with the effect of diluting the Black vote. In the most egregious case, they drew a line through the middle of North Carolina A&T State University, the largest historically Black university in the country. The final map produced just as many Republican seats, and it left only one coal ash site in a district represented by a Democrat.
This is the North Carolina congressional map for the 2016 election. The map is shaded according to the partisan lean of each district, with darker colors indicating more support for either Republicans, in red, or Democrats, in blue. The black dots indicate the locations of coal ash pond sites.
"The government is supposed to be by the people and for the people. We're getting further and further away from that," said Rev. Gregory Hairston, senior pastor at Rising Star Baptist Church and a coal ash advocate.
By diluting the Black vote, he said, the Republican-controlled legislature undermined the ability of Black voters to influence policy on issues like coal ash, which disproportionately harm Black residents.
"We found that many of the issues that we faced — strokes, cancer, asthma and different neurological diseases — had developed around these centers," Hairston said. "There is still pollution that is being put into our rivers, our basins, our water supplies."
Gerrymandering also produces more extremes, as lawmakers in safe districts are more likely to fear a primary challenge than a general election loss. This can stymie environmental legislation, said former North Carolina state Representative Chuck McGrady, a moderate, pro-environment Republican who led the legislative response to the Dan River spill.
"The problem is that, because of gerrymandering, there is just not a lot of discussion and not a lot of ability to find compromise on a range of issues, including environmental protection," he said. "Gerrymandering has allowed both parties to play to their base and makes it more unacceptable for anyone to compromise on whatever the issue is. It really doesn't matter."
In 2019, a North Carolina state court delivered another blow to North Carolina's gerrymandered congressional map. Judges said that map was far too partisan and ordered the Republican-controlled legislature to redraw it once again. They did, and the result was a map that would send eight Republicans and five Democrats to Congress. While it was more representative than the previous map, and some districts were made more competitive, the new map still heavily tilted toward the GOP. Only three coal ash sites were in districts represented by Democrats.
This is the North Carolina congressional map for the 2020 election. The map is shaded according to the partisan lean of each district, with darker colors indicating more support for either Republicans, in red, or Democrats, in blue. The black dots indicate the locations of coal ash pond sites.
Experts at Princeton said the more reliable way to produce a fair map is to assemble an independent citizen-redistricting commission, a bipartisan collection of citizens whose goal is to produce a fair map.
"If you have a very transparent process where the people making the decisions have the interests of the constituents at heart, that's going to make a good map," said Hannah Wheelen, project manager and data coordinator at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. "Process and public involvement are what make good maps."
In 2019, McGrady put forward a bill to overhaul North Carolina's redistricting process. The bill calls for an independent commission to draw the map and for the legislature to vote on it. McGrady also introduced a constitutional amendment to enshrine this process. Both measures failed.
"We got so very close. I had really firm commitments in terms of the North Carolina legislature taking this up last year, and then this little pandemic arrived, and it's just not an issue you can resolve through Zoom calls," he said.
Now, any hopes of ending gerrymandering are likely dead, at least for a few more years. Every 10 years, states redraw the congressional map. In the 2020 election, Republicans retained their grip on the state legislature, and in 2021 they are likely to draw the map to favor the GOP. North Carolina's democratic governor, Roy Cooper, has no veto power over the maps.
"I will continue to have an interest in making sure that our representation in the U.S. Congress more closely resembles the purple nature of our state, but I would not be surprised if my friends across the aisle take a different vantage point," said Ben Clark, a Democrat in the North Carolina Senate.
In the last round of redistricting, Clark put forward a map that would have sent seven Republicans and six Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives, meaning it would have been roughly representative. It failed, but it showed what a fairer map might look like.
Clark's map preserved communities, including those affected by coal ash ponds. On his map, the Dan River coal ash pond would fall in a Democratic-leaning district that included Greensboro, which lies just 30 miles south. And the Sandhills region, a flat, sandy area on the southern side of the state would also be collected in one district.
"It just makes sense to do a Sandhills district," he said. "They have similar historical concerns, environmental concerns."
This is a North Carolina congressional map proposed by state Sen. Ben Clark. The map is shaded according to the partisan lean of each district, with darker colors indicating more support for either Republicans, in red, or Democrats, in blue. It shows the average partisan lean according to the 2018 election for the North Carolina state Senate, state House and U.S. House of Representatives. The black dots indicate the locations of coal ash pond sites.
Among those environmental concerns is the Weatherspoon coal ash pond in Lumberton. Until the pond is finally closed, it poses a threat to people who live nearby, as heavy rains could flood the pond and carry coal ash into the nearby Lumber River. Lumberton is comprised mostly of people of color. Around a third of residents live below the poverty line.
"They're working for a living, but they don't have a whole lot," said Jefferson Currie II, Lumber Riverkeeper with the Winyah Rivers Alliance. "A lot of corporations over the years, they chose the path of least resistance. That meant [polluting] people who can't necessarily litigate and fight back."
Currently, this area is in the ninth district, which is represented by a Republican, Dan Bishop, the lead sponsor of bill requiring transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to their sex at birth. In Clark's map, the ninth district would lean Democratic, reflecting the partisan makeup of the Sandhills region. The sixth district, which includes the site of the Dan River spill, would also be represented by a Democrat. In total, six of the state's 14 coal ash pond sites would be represented by Democrats. Clark's map would also be more competitive than the current map, meaning elected officials couldn't just play to their base.
"The best of all worlds is to have a sufficient number of districts that are truly competitive, in which the candidates have to compete on their ideas and values," Clark said. "I don't want a map that automatically elects all Democrats or automatically elects all Republicans."
While North Carolina's GOP-controlled legislature is unlikely to produce a competitive map on its own, there is some slim hope for reforming gerrymandering this year. Congress is currently considering a bill, H.R. 1, that would require states to use independent citizen-redistricting commissions to draw maps. The bill would also ban map drawers from engaging in partisan gerrymandering or breaking up relevant communities – in particular, communities of color, like North Carolina A&T State University.
Clark, however, is pessimistic about the chances of ending gerrymandering in 2021. Currie held a similarly dim view, but he said that people should rally nonetheless.
"We don't push strong enough or hard enough. We need to say, 'We want a nonpartisan commission or we're gonna vote y'all out of office,'" he said. Though, he added, "I'm not expecting them to draw the most geographically and politically representational map. And if they did, I might pass out."
Jeremy Deaton writes for Nexus Media, a nonprofit climate change news service. You can follow him @deaton_jeremy. This story was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundation.
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
He surfaces, hoisting his catch. Its tail snaps loudly, and its antennae makes a high-pitched squeak. Castillo's father, Pablo Catzim Pech, 51, hauls the spiny lobster into their fishing boat. The creature is one of most sought after crustaceans in the Caribbean. Marked by its thick antennae and sharp spines that run the length of its body, it can sell for $40 a pound in the United States.
Castillo and his father Pech are part of a collective with exclusive rights to fish spiny lobsters in Maria Elena bay, part of Mexico's Sian Ka'an national park. The lobster fishers of Maria Elena are an ecological success story. Even as the lobsters face increasingly chaotic weather and overfishing around the Caribbean, they are flourishing in the bay, thanks to the efforts of the collective.
Castillo is left behind in the ocean, as his father, Pech, steers the boat away from the rain to keep the lobsters alive. Agostino Petroni and Sandali Handagama
When it starts to rain, Pech dips two rags in the ocean and spreads them over the plastic crates attached to the sides of his boat, each one filled with dozens of lobsters submerged in saltwater. Pech steers the boat back to shore, leaving Castillo with only his mask and flippers — and no life jacket — in the ocean behind him.
"Sweetwater kills the lobsters," Pech said.
Climate change is bringing more intense rainfall to the region, flooding the bay with freshwater, menacing the lobsters, which can only survive in saltwater. The fishers say they are finding it harder to understand the weather. To make matters worse, rising seas are eroding the narrow beaches of Maria Elena. Seven years ago, a hurricane destroyed all but one cabana along the beach, while rainwater stagnated in the bay and killed many lobsters.
Then there is overfishing. Since the 1980s, lobster populations have dropped as much as 40 percent across the Caribbean, according to Eloy Sosa, a marine biologist at the research center Ecosur, who works with Castillo's collective to protect the spiny lobster. The crustaceans are diminishing in number and becoming harder to find, so fishers are having to dive as much as 40 meters underwater, weighed down by oxygen tanks, to try to nab them.
That's not the case in Maria Elena, where the lobsters are thriving. The bay's newest lobsterman, Jose Eduardo Uitz, actually came to the reserve because he no longer wanted to risk his life going deeper into the ocean to catch lobsters. In Maria Elena, they lie just under the surface.
Fishers of Maria Elena prepare to go to sea. Agostino Petroni and Sandali Handagama
Maria Elena wasn't always a lobster haven, however. The collective was granted special permission to fish in the reserve after it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987, but it wasn't until a decade later that the collective adopted sustainable fishing practices.
"Nobody knew anything about sustainability back then. Fishermen would take the eggs from a pregnant lobster, go home and scramble them with chicken eggs," Pech said.
Things changed when scientists like Sosa began conducting workshops inside the park, showing the fishers how to protect the lobsters by allowing them enough time to grow and reproduce. Thanks to the collective's efforts, lobster numbers have risen in Maria Elena, though they have yet to return to levels seen in the 1980s.
"The old men say that when they first arrived, there were so many lobsters that they even used to walk up to the shore," Castillo said.
Today's fishers are far more responsible than their forebears. They treat the crustacean like an investment and guard it jealously, hoping to nurture it back to its former glory.
Pablo Catzim Pech measures the tail of a smaller lobster with a 5-inch ruler. If the tail is shorter than the ruler, he will throw the lobster back into the ocean. Agostino Petroni and Sandali Handagama
"Being in Maria Elena is a privilege," Sosa said. "If an associate breaks the rules, the punishment is tough. They could expel you from the collective."
A descendant of Maria Elena's founders, Castillo knows this better than most. He is still trying to earn his place in the collective, waiting for a position to open up in the group of 50. For now, he is just an employee of his father, who is a member.
"I hope he will take charge of everything. I am teaching him everything about the lobster fields, the reef, and how to be a good captain," Pech said.
To keep the lobsters healthy, Pech inspects each one that Castillo catches. If it looks too small, he measures it. If the tail is shorter than the five-inch ruler, he throws the lobster back into the sea.
"We also free the biggest lobsters, weighing more than six pounds. The market doesn't pay their value. They are usually females, and they keep the species alive," he said.
Lobster tails, cut from the animals that died during capture, are collected in a bucket to be sold separately from the live exports. Agostino Petroni and Sandali Handagama
When the lobster fishers throw a female back into the ocean, they not only protect the local population, they also support lobster populations in other parts of the Caribbean. The females lay millions of eggs that grow into larvae and float along ocean currents to new homes thousands of miles away.
After measuring and sorting the lobsters, the fishers send them to Cozumel to be sold. Occasionally, they keep a few for themselves, to be cooked on a hot skillet in a crowded cabana on the beach. It is a small indulgence for fishers who have nurtured the lobsters back into abundance in Maria Elena bay.
"The biggest threat to this place is us," Pech said. "We are in the lobsters' habitat. It is our livelihood, but we are invading a place we do not belong."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
Matteo Farinella is a neuroscientist-turned-cartoonist who uses comics to explain science. You can follow him @matteofarinella. Jeremy Deaton writes for Nexus Media, a nonprofit climate change news service. You can follow him @deaton_jeremy.
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
This fact could play into the ongoing debate in Democratic circles over the party's position on climate change, which is a leading issue for Latinos. Biden's climate advisory council, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former secretary of state John Kerry, has put forward an ambitious climate plan which bans fracking and oil exports — policies that could turn out Latinos in states like Texas and Arizona. This stands in contrast to Biden's current, relatively modest climate plan, which permits fracking, a concession to gas-rich states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Sources told Reuters that the more modest plan is likely to win out. This could come at the cost of Latino votes.
"Given what we know about Latinos and their interest in voting for candidates who are pro-climate, we think they are a really important group that could be mobilized," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. "They could potentially make a really big difference in states like Texas and Colorado and Arizona."
Latinos Are Really Worried About Climate Change. Democrats and Climate Advocacy Groups Aren't Capitalizing on This Fact.
Latinos consistently vote in smaller numbers than other groups. The reasons are varied. Latinos often face structural barriers, like onerous voter ID laws or long lines at polling places. Many are immigrants or the children of immigrants and have never voted nor seen their parents vote. The biggest factor, however, may be that politicians are failing to reach Latinos or failing to speak to issues Latinos care about, said Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, assistant dean for civic engagement at the University of Texas.
"There is a need to attack apathy," she said. "While structural barriers do have an impact, the problem is apathy and figuring out what policies connect most to people." Consistently, Latinos say they want policies that address climate change.
"Many people assume that the only people who really care about climate change are white, well-educated, upper-middle-income, latte-sipping liberals, and it's just not true," Leiserowitz said. "Actually, the racial and ethnic group that cares more about climate change than any other is Latinos."
Compared to other groups, Latinos are more worried about the crisis, more willing to take action, and more likely to say they will vote for a candidate because of her stance on climate change. Leiserowitz and his colleagues have sorted Americans into six groups according to their views on climate change, ranging from the "Alarmed," who are most exercised about the problem, to the "Dismissive," who think it's a hoax. Latinos — Spanish speakers in particular — are far more likely to count among the "Alarmed."
Leiserowitz said that, broadly speaking, Latinos are worried about climate change because they are more likely to hold an egalitarian worldview. Latinos fear climate change will worsen inequality, a concern that is often born out of personal experience. After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, for instance, the federal government left the island to languish, allowing many survivors to slip into poverty.
While climate change remains a top-tier issue for Latinos, the political class has yet to act accordingly. "Alarmed" Latinos are less likely than other "Alarmed" Americans to say they have been contacted by an organization working on climate change, a shocking failure of public outreach.
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
"That is the whole point of an advocacy organization — they recruit people," said Leiserowitz. "I think there are plenty of reasons to be engaging this community and really investing in this community."
Democrats Can't Rely on Anti-Trump Sentiment to Mobilize Latinos.
In one sense, Trump is already doing everything he can to spur Latinos to the polls, not just through his gross mistreatment of Latin American immigrants, but also by failing to address climate change. Hurricane Maria, a storm made more severe by rising temperatures, spurred many Puerto Ricans to move to the mainland, where they are able to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
But Democrats can't count on Trump to mobilize Latinos, DeFrancesco Soto said. And their outreach to Latinos must speak to more than just concerns about immigration.
"I think that there needs to be more attention paid to economic needs and structural inequities that Latinos face. Immigration needs to be a pillar of the platform of reaching out to Latinos, but not the main one," she said. "They have to feel that the system takes into account their voice."
Democrats can make their case by pushing for ambitious climate policy that also tackles economic issues, said Ramon Cruz, the current president of the Sierra Club, the first Latino to hold the position. The Green New Deal aims to curb pollution from highways, factories and power plants in communities of color and to create jobs in those same communities.
"Construction, manufacturing, agriculture — all of those could benefit greatly from the Green New Deal," Cruz said. "It is boosting the sectors of the economy that are very important for the Latino population." He added that economic stimulus will be especially critical for wooing Latinos, who have been hit especially hard by the recession.
Cruz said the Sierra Club is working to mobilize Latinos, and that his election as the club's president is, in part, a recognition of the central role that Latinos play in the climate movement. He said the Sierra Club is publishing materials in Spanish and reaching out to groups in key states like Arizona and Florida.
"Clearly, there are a lot of people who would like to see him gone, but the challenge is how to mobilize those people," Cruz said. "We need to activate our base, and we need to ensure that the message is consistent with a clean economy."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
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Researchers tried to get around this sticking point in a new analysis from UC Berkeley. Instead of asking, "how much?" they asked "how fast?" — specifically, how fast we could get to 90 percent zero-carbon power — meaning wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear power — at no extra cost to consumers. Thanks to rapidly falling costs for wind turbines, solar panels and batteries, the answer is 2035.
"We're spending too much time stressing about the last 10 percent and not enough time thinking about the first 90 percent," said Ric O'Connell, executive director of GridLab, a clean energy consulting firm, and co-author of the report. "So let's focus on the first 90 percent."
When utilities build a new power plant, they pass the cost on to ratepayers. By 2035, ratepayers will have paid off most gas- or coal-fired power plants running today, meaning consumers won't lose money if utilities shut those plants down early. That's what researchers mean by "no extra cost." Ratepayers will be funding new, exclusively carbon-free power plants after they have paid off the old ones. Cutting pollution will help people breathe easier, reducing health care costs, making it cheaper overall to move to shift away from fossil fuels.
By building out wind, solar and battery storage, the authors say, we can take every coal-fired plant offline, as well as a number of gas-fired power plants. We would use the remaining gas-fired power plants to supply electricity when needed. Fossil fuels would only account for 10 percent of the power supply, while nuclear power and hydropower — which generate no carbon pollution— would account for around 20 percent. The remaining 70 percent will come from wind and solar paired with battery storage — meaning 90 percent of our electricity would come from zero-carbon sources.
The cost of renewable energy has fallen precipitously over the past decade, consistently outpacing expert projections. From 2009 to 2019, the cost of wind power fell 70 percent, while the cost of large-scale solar fell close to 90 percent, according to Lazard. From 2010 to 2019, the cost of batteries also dropped close to 90 percent, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The falling costs of batteries is a game changer, because batteries can store power for when the sky is dark and the wind is idle.
"The pace of technology development has typically been underestimated," said Amol Phadke, an energy research scientist at UC Berkeley and lead author of the report. "In my career, all my projections have been conservative." He said that experts have grown more and more optimistic about how fast costs will drop in the years to come.
Every year, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) projects the future cost of wind and solar energy. The graphs above show the projected cost of wind and solar in the best-case scenario. Every year since 2015 the projections have grown more optimistic. Source: UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy
Authors considered the fact that Americans are embracing battery-powered cars and buses, which will put added strain on the power grid. They say that utilities can meet the rising demand at the same cost with wind and solar as they would with coal or gas.
None of this is likely to happen, however, without the help of lawmakers. The cost of fossil fuels by and large does not account for the toll they take on human health. To account for this fact, and to help overcome inertia in the energy system, experts call for several measures in an accompanying policy paper, such as a national clean power standard and tax credits for renewable energy.
The graphs above show the power mix in two different scenarios — one, where the lawmakers enact policies, such as a national clean power standard, to push utilities to shift to wind and solar (left), and one where utilities continue to operate as normal (right). Source: UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy
The study makes use of the latest models from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and software developer Energy Exemplar. It finds that moving to 90 percent zero-carbon power, a labor-intensive endeavor, could generate upwards of half a million jobs a year, which authors say could help the United States overcome the current economic slump.
The shift to clean power would also be a boon to public health at a time when the country is battling a deadly respiratory disease. The report finds that a shift to 90 percent clean power could save as many as 85,000 lives by 2050 by sparing Americans from toxic pollution. Experts unaffiliated with the study commended the report, including its focus on public health.
"Climate and environmental impacts fall disproportionately on communities of color and low-income communities," Patrick Brown, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, said in an email. "It's always important to be clear about the human cost of fossil energy when it's included in such models, so I was glad to see these costs included."
Mark Jacobson, a professor of environmental engineering at Stanford University, believes the report wasn't ambitious enough, saying, "I am confident their goal can be met, but I think we can go even further." His own research, which has been the subject of vigorous debate, found it would be possible to power the country entirely with wind, solar and hydropower by mid-century.
O'Connell believes that researchers should focus on getting to 90 percent zero-carbon power rather than arguing about the feasibility of reaching 100 percent. Just as scientists 20 years ago couldn't have predicted how cheap wind and solar would be today, scientists today can't predict how much new technologies will cost 15 years from now. He listed several that could get the United States to 100 percent zero-carbon electricity, such as green hydrogen, next-generation nuclear power and home appliances that interact with the electric grid. But, he said, technology has already advanced to the point where the United States can overhaul the power grid right now.
"A lot of the focus has been on 2050," O'Connell said. "We said, 'Let's look at the near-term runway and what we can do in the next 15 years."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
The bad news is that a separate hole in the ozone layer briefly opened up in the Arctic in March before closing in April, and climate change may be partly to blame.
This isn't the first such rift to develop in the Arctic, but it is the largest. Scientists say that in March, a stratospheric polar vortex — a band of strong, frigid winds circling the pole — corralled chlorine and bromine that chewed away at the ozone layer. Scientists said that climate change may have set the stage for a colder, and thus more powerful, polar vortex.
"In those years when a vortex can spin and set itself up and be undisturbed, it's getting colder and colder," said Ross Salawitch, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland. Cold air strengthens polar vortexes, allowing them to deal more damage to the ozone layer, he said.
This year's Arctic polar vortex was unusually strong and long-lived, helping to deplete the ozone layer. At the same time, currents that would normally deliver ozone from surrounding areas were stagnant. The bruising was far less severe than what is typically seen over the South Pole, though. At the South Pole, stratospheric polar vortexes are reliably strong thanks to the extreme cold, so the ozone layer regularly thins.
In a stratospheric polar vortex, high-altitude clouds form from trace gasses in the atmosphere. Pollutants containing chlorine and bromine are essentially benign until they run into one of these clouds. Then they transform into chemicals capable of terrorizing the ozone layer.
They still need sunlight to do their dirty work, however. That comes at the start of spring —around September in the Southern Hemisphere and around March in the Northern Hemisphere. As the days get longer, these chemicals react with sunlight to deplete stratospheric ozone.
Because Antarctica is so isolated from the rest of the world, a strong polar vortex can form undisturbed. That's not the case in the Arctic, where the mix of land and water surrounding the North Pole produces more dynamic weather that can weaken or disrupt a polar vortex.
Polar stratospheric clouds activate the chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. NASA
Ozone holes rarely form at the North Pole — the last one appeared in 2011 — and they are typically short-lived. But what happens in the Arctic does not stay in Arctic. As a result of the damage, the ozone layer is now a little thinner everywhere else. While it will repair itself over time, the recent polar vortex has likely slowed the recovery.
At the South Pole, the ozone layer tears open yearly. Scientists first discovered the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. Researchers determined that it was caused by chemicals containing chlorine and bromine. These include chlorofluorocarbons, which are found in air conditioners, refrigerators and spray cans, halons, which are found in fire extinguishers, and methyl bromide, which is used to kill weeds, insects and other pests. The discovery was met with alarm, as the ozone layer filters out dangerous ultraviolet radiation, helping to sustain life on Earth.
"If there was no ozone layer, the ultraviolet radiation would sterilize the Earth's surface," said Paul Newman, chief scientist for earth sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Crop yields go down as ultraviolet exposure goes up." In humans, ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and cataracts, and can weaken the immune system.
To restore the ozone layer, in 1987, countries adopted the Montreal Protocol to stem the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. It worked. Over time, the hole grew smaller and smaller, and the ozone layer began to heal. By the middle of this century, scientists expect it will be fully restored.
While many Americans mistakenly believe that the hole in the ozone layer is driving climate change, it may be that the reverse is true — that climate change is harming the ozone layer.
Carbon pollution is acting like a blanket, trapping heat in the lower atmosphere. As a result, it is both warming the surface of the Earth and preventing heat from reaching the upper atmosphere. As such, the lower atmosphere is warming, while the upper atmosphere is actually cooling. Polar vortexes grow stronger in the cold, producing more of the high-altitude clouds that activate the chemicals that eat up the ozone layer.
"The temperatures in the stratosphere will probably be decreasing somewhat, and so that may slow down the recovery of the ozone layer," Manney said. "We have this situation in the Arctic, where we have had a couple of winters in the last couple of decades that have been much colder than usual."
Newman believes that falling temperatures will do little to deplete the ozone layer, however. He is more concerned with how climate change will alter currents that replenish Arctic ozone or break up the Arctic polar vortex.
"We don't really see a strong cooling of the Arctic stratosphere," he said. "The question in my mind is rather, 'What is the impact of climate change on these large-scale weather systems?'"
Salawitch said that it is difficult to determine what, exactly, the future holds for the ozone layer in the Arctic. Models disagree as to how much or how fast temperatures will change at the North Pole, or what that means for the polar vortex. As such, some say Arctic ozone will continue to thin, while others project a speedy recovery.
Scientists emphasized that the recent ozone hole in the Arctic would have been substantially worse had countries not taken steps to curb pollution. They said the episode speaks to the importance of the Montreal Protocol.
"We do have to keep in mind that the Montreal Protocol was very successful in getting the world to stop emitting these chlorofluorocarbons. The ozone layer is starting to recover," Manney said. "It's a remarkable success story."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
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Except sometimes it's not.
That's because the legs and bracings holding up oil platforms are the ideal setting for ocean reefs. Fish like to gather around the pylons, which are covered in mussels, barnacles and corals. Emily Hazelwood, who worked as a field technician after the BP oil spill, recalled learning about the reefs firsthand.
"BP had hired all the fishermen who lost their jobs to drive our boats," she said. "Every time we would go out with them, and we would pass one of the many oil platforms, they would say they couldn't wait to go out there fishing."
Experts say offshore oil will peak this year as prices fall, a trend exacerbated by the coronavirus and the ongoing price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The slump is expected to send a growing number of rigs offline.
There is a real question as to what to do with the shuttered rigs, which can provide a safe home to ocean life. Oil platforms typically lie far from shore, so they are protected from the water pollution that empties into the ocean, Hazelwood said. They are safe from commercial fishing trawlers that gather up schools of fish out at sea.
"Stretching from sea floor to sea surface, these platforms can be as large as the Empire State Building, which provides a lot of real estate for marine life," Hazelwood said. "That richness of life on an oil platform is just so cool. I have never seen a group of fish like that before."
A diver explores sea life on the Eureka oil rig off the coast of Long Beach, California. Blue Latitudes
Hazelwood and her business partner Amber Sparks, co-founded consulting firm Blue Latitudes. Together, they work with oil companies to preserve the reefs that form on decommissioned oil platforms, lopping off the top while letting the rest of the structure stay in place. This process can save oil firms millions by sparing them the cost of tearing down an old rig.
Naturally, not everyone is wild about leaving the skeletons of oil platforms to rust in the ocean. In 2010, California passed a controversial law that would allow oil firms to convert old rigs into artificial reefs. Critics say it lets companies off the hook for cleanup by making the state liable for the remains of decommissioned oil platforms.
"The oil companies walk away. The state has to deal with this structure in the ocean forever, dealing with any safety issues, any pollution issues, any maintenance issues," said Linda Krop, chief counsel with the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, California.
Divers explore sea life on the Eureka oil rig off the coast of Long Beach, California. Blue Latitudes
She said it's also unclear if the rigs-to-reef program has much value for sea creatures. If old oil platforms become hot spots for recreational fishing, that could leave reefs mostly barren of marine life.
"We don't know what benefit will arise from leaving a platform at sea. We want that studied. That's what the current law requires. But the proponents are trying to weaken that part of the law," she said.
Hazelwood and Sparks, for instance, have called for streamlining the rigs-to-reef program to make it easier for oil companies to convert old platforms into ocean habitats. They say that tearing down viable reefs just doesn't make sense.
"Most environmental groups, they want to go back to the way the world was 10,000 years ago. And who wouldn't? I mean, that would just be an unbelievable planet to live on," Hazelwood said. "But that's not necessarily the reality of our situation right now, so we advocate for finding that silver lining."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.
Often, conversations about agriculture feature calls for more small-scale, organic farming, the abolition of animal agriculture, and a shift away from farming row crops like corn and soy. The farmers at the meeting in Madrid, many of them political conservatives, aimed to challenge this view.
A.G. Kawamura, a third-generation fruit and vegetable grower and California's former secretary of food and agriculture, responds to critics by asking, "Well, did you eat today?"
The debate about the environmental impact of agriculture harkens back to the 1950s, which gave rise to synthetic pesticides and fertilizer, genetically modified crops, and advanced machinery. These tools allowed farmers to produce more food than ever before, but they also did considerable damage.
The widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers killed insects and birds, as well as fish who lived downstream of farms. The focus on cash crops led many farmers to plant the same crop year after year, sapping the soil of needed nutrients. And the embrace of high-powered farming tools turned once-rich topsoil into lifeless dust.
In light of these facts, many in the environmental community have called for a radical overhaul of the agricultural system. Longtime farmers of row crops like corn and soy are pushing back. They say that, through smart farming practices, they can actually help curb pollution.
Many farmers, for instance, are using advanced technologies that help them to cut down on pollution by allowing them to apply chemicals only where they're needed. But these technologies are only cost-effective on larger farms.
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Growers said they can mitigate the impact of large-scale farming by embracing practices such as no-till farming, which uses machines that don't tear up the earth, and so doesn't release the carbon stored in the soil. They have also called for planting cover crops — like oats, radishes and cereal rye — in between rows of corn or hay to cover any bare earth, keeping carbon trapped in the ground.
In addition to stemming pollution, these practices also help the soil hold more moisture, meaning it can absorb extra water during a heavy rainstorm, keeping farms healthy. In an industry increasingly threatened by extreme weather, this is good business, said Fred Yoder, an Ohio farmer and former head of the National Corn Growers Association. He said he thinks of his soil as a 401k, a long-term investment that will help him weather future difficulties.
Yoder and other growers want the UN to encourage member countries to incentivize climate-friendly farming practices. Cover crops, for example, are currently used on just 4 percent of Iowa farmland. Widespread adoption of cover crops could be key to curbing farming-related emissions.
Critics, however, say that even with smarter practices, large-scale farms will continue to be a significant source of pollution.
"Farming is more than just a collection of practices. It is a system within the local ecology," said Ben Lilliston of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He said that carbon-smart farming can help curb pollution, but he believes that, ultimately, growers need to build farms that are more integrated with nature.
Many growers in Madrid, however, contended that large-scale farms could operate in harmony with nature, and they were eager to defend their environmental bona fides.
"The American farmer is the original environmentalist," said Ray Gaesser in a panel on agriculture and climate change. Gaesser has been farming soybeans in Iowa for 50 years and previously chaired the American Soybean Association. "Yes, I happen to be conservative," he added, "but that doesn't mean I am not seeing the impacts of our changing planet first hand."
Gaesser recalled a time 20 years ago when he watched, astonished, as four inches of rain fell on his farm in less than an hour. The deluge washed away much of his topsoil. Since then, he's seen such rainstorms like that one strike at least once a year.
Another way that farmers can combat climate change, panelists said, is by embracing renewable energy. In corn-rich Iowa, for instance, the landscape is dotted with wind turbines and barns with solar panels on their roofs. The revenue from clean energy on farmland helps insulate growers against increasingly volatile commodity prices as well as the severe weather that could stunt yields.
"Farmers are used to working with big equipment, and they don't tolerate equipment that doesn't work, and just like everyone else, they love making money. Solar works, and it makes them money," Tim Dwight, President of the Iowa Solar Energy Trade Association, said on the panel. "What's not to love?"
Dwight said that wind and solar have grown in Iowa with the support of the agricultural community, which looms large in the Hawkeye State. His colleagues underscored this point in their argument at the climate talks.
"Farmers have a tremendous opportunity to be part of the climate solution," said Ernie Shea, president of Solutions from the Land, a non-profit advocating for better farming practices to address climate change. "That's why so many of us are here."
Reposted with permission from Nexus Media.