Hundreds of people protest Puerto Rico's neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, during a march in New York City on Sept. 19, 2019. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
By Jeremy Deaton
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are in a dead heat in Texas, a state that has swung Republican in every presidential election since 1976. If Biden pulls off the unthinkable and defeats Trump in Texas, it will be by mobilizing Latino voters.
<p>This fact could play into the ongoing debate in Democratic circles over the party's position on climate change, which is a <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/race-and-climate-change/" target="_blank">leading issue</a> 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 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-climate-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-democratic-party-irked-by-councils-insurgent-climate-plan-sources-idUSKBN23M1DO" target="_blank">Reuters</a> that the more modest plan is likely to win out. This could come at the cost of Latino votes.</p><p>"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."</p>
<h2>Latinos Are Really Worried About Climate Change. Democrats and Climate Advocacy Groups Aren't Capitalizing on This Fact.</h2><p>Latinos consistently vote in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/historic-highs-in-2018-voter-turnout-extended-across-racial-and-ethnic-groups/" target="_blank">smaller numbers</a> than other groups. The reasons are varied. Latinos often face structural barriers, like onerous <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/poll-prri-voter-suppression/565355/" target="_blank">voter ID laws</a> or long lines at <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/there-are-868-fewer-places-to-vote-in-2016-because-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act/" target="_blank">polling places</a>. 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 <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/candidates-need-young-people-boost-latino-voter-turnout-here-s-n1138346" target="_blank">failing</a> 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.</p><p>"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 <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-latino-mind-may-2017/" target="_blank">want policies</a> that address climate change.</p><p>"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."</p><p>Compared to other groups, Latinos are <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-latino-mind-may-2017/" target="_blank">more worried</a> about the crisis, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00058/full" target="_blank">more willing</a> to take action, and <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Climate-Change-Latino-mind-May-2017.pdf" target="_blank">more likely</a> 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."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNDU2NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzc2MjczNn0.0LQ3QBYBCrUoZd0WDHGl2SID_18jXzZJoWP2JyoS-bM/img.png?width=980" id="36101" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fe77905af83f4d2c945512ee1a239dc8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>Leiserowitz said that, broadly speaking, Latinos are worried about climate change because they are <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/why-do-latinos-perceive-global-warming-as-a-greater-risk/" target="_blank">more likely</a> 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 <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/when-the-government-fails-after-natural-disasters-this-is-who-picks-up-the-cost-a921e92814ff">Puerto Rico</a>, for instance, the federal government left the island to languish, allowing many survivors to slip into <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-year-after-maria-puerto-ricos-economy-remains-feeble/2018/09/12/a947ce78-b136-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html" target="_blank">poverty</a>.</p><p>While climate change remains a <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/race-and-climate-change/" target="_blank">top-tier issue</a> 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.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNDU2OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzg0NTQ3MH0.8MBM31Ft5BJGvWhYPN8E2jk5DGMIeJdJqQeIbgglhUI/img.png?width=980" id="b3718" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="339dc1b133cad78e4110482a765782ed" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>"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."</p>
<h2>Democrats Can't Rely on Anti-Trump Sentiment to Mobilize Latinos.</h2><p>In one sense, Trump is already doing everything he can to spur Latinos to the polls, not just through his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents" target="_blank">gross mistreatment</a> of Latin American immigrants, but also by failing to address climate change. Hurricane Maria, a storm made <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/17/714098828/climate-change-was-the-engine-that-powered-hurricane-marias-devastating-rains" target="_blank">more severe</a> by rising temperatures, spurred many Puerto Ricans to move to the mainland, where they are able to vote in the upcoming presidential election.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p><p>"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 <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/coronavirus-could-decimate-latino-wealth-which-was-hammered-great-recession-n1178861" target="_blank">hit especially hard</a> by the recession.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/latino-voters-are-worried-about-climate-change-they-could-swing-the-election-da1c58d39489" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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An aerial view of a large solar thermal power plant station in the Nevada desert. Mlenny / Getty Images
By Jeremy Deaton
Experts disagree about how fast the United States can replace coal and gas-fired power plants with zero-carbon electricity. Some say we can shift to 100 percent clean power by 2050 with little friction and minimal cost. Others say that's unrealistically optimistic. Scientists on both sides of the argument agree that it's possible to get to 80 or 90 percent clean power. The debate centers on that last 10 or 20 percent.
<p>Researchers tried to get around this sticking point in a <a href="https://www.2035report.com/" target="_blank">new analysis</a> 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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p><p>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 <a href="https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019" target="_blank">Lazard</a>. From 2010 to 2019, the cost of batteries also dropped close to 90 percent, according to <a href="https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-market-ramps-up-with-market-average-at-156-kwh-in-2019/" target="_blank">Bloomberg New Energy Finance</a>. 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.</p><p>"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.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4OTMxMi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzgyMDI0OX0.SKg1-ecirYBB2Q2lY4vhOzDGRr-RgC0j4OYCyBZ32Xc/img.png?width=980" id="75496" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="43218ba1671a8c31ebe9be246ed80086" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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
<p>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.</p><p>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 <a href="https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/90-Clean-By-2035-Policy-Memo_June-2020.pdf" target="_blank">policy paper</a>, such as a national clean power standard and tax credits for renewable energy.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4OTMxNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTI1MzE3N30.9Z9C-L9RjW4v_TeVY74d0owEF5fzEFc0XQT_Z5zLiTo/img.png?width=980" id="0fbc7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7cfc1c8f4bd17250cfd39ba52f6319a4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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
<p>The study makes use of the latest models from the <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/reeds/" target="_blank">National Renewable Energy Laboratory</a> and software developer <a href="https://energyexemplar.com/solutions/plexos/" target="_blank">Energy Exemplar</a>. 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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 <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/USStatesWWS.pdf" target="_blank">own research</a>, 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.</p><p>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 <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/has-green-hydrogens-time-finally-come" target="_blank">green hydrogen</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/next-gen-nuclear/" target="_blank">next-generation nuclear power</a> and <a href="https://www.popsci.com/need-high-power-home-battery-use-your-water-heater/" target="_blank">home appliances</a> 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.</p><p>"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."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/the-united-states-could-achieve-90-percent-clean-power-by-2035-at-no-extra-cost-9ba47f40cd42" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em></p>
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The coronavirus adds a new wrinkle to the debate over the practice of eminent domain as companies continue to work through the pandemic, vexing landowners. Patrick J. Endres / Getty Images
By Jeremy Deaton
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan is cutting a 400-mile line across the middle of Texas, digging up vast swaths of private land for its planned Permian Highway Pipeline. The project is ceaseless, continuing through the coronavirus pandemic. Landowner Heath Frantzen said that dozens of workers have showed up to his ranch in Fredericksburg, even as public health officials urged people to stay at home.
<p>"There weren't wearing masks. They weren't wearing gloves. They weren't practicing social distancing," he said. Frantzen believes the workers pose a danger to him and his 85-year-old father, whom he cares for. While the laborers are confined to the pipeline's path, he worries they could spread the coronavirus by touching fence railings or gates that he might later handle.</p><p>In Texas, where the governor exempted <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-executive-order-implementing-essential-services-and-activities-protocols" target="_blank">pipeline projects</a> from his March <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-executive-order-implementing-essential-services-and-activities-protocols" target="_blank">stay-at-home order</a>, companies like Kinder Morgan have <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/kinder-morgan-texas-hill-country-lawsuit/" target="_blank">few checks</a> on their power of eminent domain, which allows them to build pipelines through privately owned farms and ranches that lie in their way. Eminent domain is <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/687322" target="_blank">broadly unpopular</a> and, when used for pipelines, <a href="https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/the-public-use-clause-in-an-age-of-u-s-natural-gas-exports/" target="_blank">legally contentious</a>. The coronavirus adds a new wrinkle to the debate over the practice as companies like Kinder Morgan continue to work through the pandemic, vexing landowners.</p><p>"It is wild that people are being forced to accept others onto their land at this time, and if they have an issue with what's happening, they have to put themselves at risk to address workers directly," said Erin Zweiner, who represents Blanco County and Hays County in the Texas House of Representatives. "These are workers who hop all over the country, so they're pretty high-risk spreaders."</p><p><span></span>Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs at Kinder Morgan, said the company has instructed workers on how to avoid spreading the coronavirus, though, he added, it is not always possible to take every precaution.</p>
<p>"Once construction is underway and you're on site, there are some limitations on masks and the distance people need to be away from each other simply for safety and construction purposes," he said, "We do leave that to the discretion of the contractor specific to the tasks that they are performing."</p><p>While eminent domain does entitle landowners in the pipeline's path to compensation, it does nothing for those living nearby who may be impacted by construction. In March, Kinder Morgan <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/blanco-water-contaminated-kinder-morgan-permian-highway-pipeline/269-b4224661-b5ab-452f-ae68-e75acf6c2ec4" target="_blank">reportedly</a> spilled drilling fluid into an underground water supply in Blanco County. Teresa Albright, who lives close to the site, <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/blanco-water-contaminated-kinder-morgan-permian-highway-pipeline/269-b4224661-b5ab-452f-ae68-e75acf6c2ec4" target="_blank">told KVUE</a> that brown fluid later poured out of her faucet, making it harder to wash her hands or clean her clothes, even as the coronavirus demanded she do both.</p><p>Fore said that Kinder Morgan has supplied water and food to affected homeowners and promised to pay for plumbing repairs. He also said that the company, which is currently facing a <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/kinder-morgan-to-be-sued-over-drinking-water-contamination/269-e77fcd0a-7761-4984-92c6-07e48d2146b2" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> over the spill, has halted work at the site of the accident and is looking for alternate routes for the pipeline.</p>Rebekah Sale, executive director of the Property Rights and Pipeline Center, emphasized that Texas isn't the only place where pipeline projects are creating headaches for landowners worried about the coronavirus.
<p>"We have people sending us pictures from these pipeline sites all over where no one's wearing a mask," she said. "People are gathered together. In some cases, they need to bring in 'man camps' of workers to build these pipelines in communities."</p><p>Marvin Winstead of Nash County, North Carolina is battling the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would run through his farm. In March, Winstead learned the project's managers would be sending assessors from Maryland to estimate the value of his property.</p><p>"Not only did they want to be on my property, they wanted to send these assessors into the interior of my home," he said.</p><p>A spokesperson for Dominion Energy, which is leading the project, said the appraisal would have taken place before North Carolina issued its stay-at-home order at the end of March. After conferring with landowners' attorneys, however, it agreed to postpone its appraisals indefinitely. Winstead was nonetheless alarmed that Dominion had planned to send workers into his home during a pandemic.</p>
<p>Stacey McLaughlin of Douglas County, Oregon said the pandemic has made it more difficult to pay for a lawyer, and thus, harder to fight off Pembina, the company behind the Pacific Connector Pipeline, which would run through her property, a plot that she and her husband restored after it had been logged by the previous owners.</p><p>"I personally have lost all of my income from my work for 2020, and now we are being faced with exorbitant and extraordinary legal fees to fight for our land and against eminent domain," said McLaughlin, a consultant for local governments. "They could, at any day, pursue a court order to try to get on our property to do surveying."</p><p>Champions of the project are <a href="https://www.westernnaturalgas.org/post/openlettertogovernorbrown" target="_blank">pressuring</a> Oregon governor Kate Brown to greenlight the pipeline, claiming it would create thousands of jobs, helping to overcome the economic slump. But McLaughlin said that with the virus still raging, she does not want workers to come onto her land. With two parents in their eighties and a son who is a nurse at a nearby hospital, she is already feeling overwhelmed.</p><p>"We're losing sleep at night for a lot of reasons," she said. "Having to deal with this pipeline as we struggle to keep ourselves and our families safe is just inhumane."</p><p>Sale said that the Pacific Connector Pipeline is an especially egregious example of eminent domain. The legal justification for such projects comes from the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/717f" target="_blank">Natural Gas Act of 1938</a>, which allows for the use of eminent domain for pipelines that will serve the interests of the American public — namely to deliver gas to homes and power plants. The Pacific Connector Pipeline will primarily carry gas drilled in Canada and the Rockies to a port in Oregon so it can be shipped to Asia.</p>
<p>"Because the frantic oil and gas industry is trying to get the last dollars out of what seems, very clearly, to be a dying industry, they just run roughshod over property rights," Sale said.</p><p>Drillers have flooded the market with cheap fracked gas, driving down prices. As a result, gas has proven <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/business/energy-environment/natural-gas-shale-chevron.html" target="_blank">increasingly unprofitable</a>. Companies have <a href="https://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Bankruptcies-in-Fracking-Sector-Mount-in-2019_January-2020.pdf" target="_blank">amassed debt</a>. Stock prices have <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-stocks-are-black-eye-on-the-s-p-500-again-11580468400" target="_blank">slumped</a>. And the coronavirus has only <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-covid-19-will-reshape-global-gas" target="_blank">accelerated</a> these trends.</p><p>"It seems pretty hard to argue with a straight face that these projects are financially essential right now when we're seeing a reduction in production," Zweiner said. "I think a lot of folks are assuming that it will suddenly reverse one day, but I suspect we're looking at a much longer term issue."</p><p>When landowners do triumph over pipeline firms, it usually isn't by challenging the use of <a href="https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2020/05/27/stories/1063242935" target="_blank">eminent domain</a>. More often, it is by persuading officials to deny needed permits. On that front, landowners may have just gotten a big helping hand. A federal judge in Montana recently <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anthony-swift/federal-court-halts-trump-attempt-fast-track-keystone-xl" target="_blank">revoked</a> a blanket permit allowing pipeline projects to skirt environmental review. The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, which could create major hurdles for pipeline projects.</p><p>Over the long term, lawmakers may seek to narrow the use of eminent domain. In January, House Democrats released a draft climate bill that, <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/a-clean-future-eliminates-eminent-domain-for-interstate-natural-gas-pipelines/" target="_blank">experts say</a>, would effectively end the practice for pipeline projects. McLaughlin said landowners should be clamoring for such a measure.</p><p>"You have people across this country who are up in arms — and bearing arms — so they don't have to stay inside their houses and they don't have to wear a mask," McLaughlin said. "That's nothing compared to the violation of our constitutional rights as property owners."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" target="_blank">Nexus Media</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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The Earth's atmosphere. NASA
By Jeremy Deaton
You may have heard about the hole in the ozone layer, which hovers over Antarctica. It has shrunk over time thanks to policies that curbed the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. In the nearly 40 years that NASA has kept track, it has never been smaller. That's the good news.
<p>The bad news is that a separate hole in the ozone layer briefly <a href="https://www.livescience.com/arctic-ozone-hole-closes.html" target="_blank">opened up</a> in the Arctic in March before closing in April, and climate change may be partly to blame.</p><p>This isn't the first <a href="https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/NH.html" target="_blank">such rift</a> 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 <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2006GL026731" target="_blank">climate</a> <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003GL018844" target="_blank">change</a> may have set the stage for a colder, and thus more powerful, polar vortex.</p><p>"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.</p>
<p>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.</p><p>In a stratospheric polar vortex, high-altitude <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_stratospheric_cloud" target="_blank">clouds form</a> 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMwNjMxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTQwNDE1N30.gWej2PmnNRQE8RsCuiF3UvmowoEgPqZXsKE4i8ZLvNo/img.jpg?width=980" id="8a1e9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="883655d17c29fcbc095e4aedcd0198a1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar stratospheric clouds activate the chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. NASA
<p>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.</p><p>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 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/chlorofluorocarbon" target="_blank">chlorofluorocarbons</a>, which are found in air conditioners, refrigerators and spray cans, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/halon" target="_blank">halons</a>, which are found in fire extinguishers, and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout/methyl-bromide" target="_blank">methyl bromide</a>, 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.</p><p>"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.</p><p>To restore the ozone layer, in 1987, countries adopted the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Montreal-Protocol" target="_blank">Montreal Protocol</a> 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.</p>
<p>While many Americans <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/15/is-the-ozone-hole-causing-climate-change/" target="_blank">mistakenly</a> <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2010_10_Americans%E2%80%99-Knowledge-of-Climate-Change.pdf" target="_blank">believe</a> 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p>
<p>"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?'"</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/another-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-climate-change-may-be-to-blame-f86825b19135" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A power plant emits pollution next to a train in Chicago, Illinois. Arcaid / Universal Images Group / Getty Images
By Jeremy Deaton
The coronavirus is a case study in the limits of federalism. Where the federal government has declined to gather and distribute masks, gloves and ventilators, states and cities have been forced to compete for medical supplies, paying exorbitant prices to secure needed equipment. Where the federal government has been slow to ramp up testing, states and cities are struggling to conduct tests at the scale required to reopen business.
<p>It is against this backdrop that 23 cities and counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National League of Cities added their voice to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/climate/states-lawsuit-clean-power-ace.html" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> challenging the Trump administration's plan to weaken limits on carbon pollution from power plants. The document detailed how cities will struggle to cut carbon pollution without help from Washington.</p><p>"Cities can do a lot, but there are many ways in which the success of cities' climate plans hinge on concerted federal action," said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, which worked with local leaders on a brief in support of the lawsuit. "I think that the fact that we were able to get this many cities to take the time necessary to give a final review to the brief, provide comments and get the final sign-off, indicates how important this issue really is."</p>
<p>Burger said the project had taken on special significance as of late, given that people living in more polluted areas are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html" target="_blank">more likely to die</a> of the coronavirus. Notably, it is communities of color that are most likely to be under siege from both <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/pollution-is-rotting-your-brain-d9f282722333">air pollution</a> and the <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/04/07/people-of-color-coronavirus-deaths" target="_blank">coronavirus</a>, as well as worsening <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/hurricane-harvey-hit-low-income-communities-hardest-6966d859e61f">floods</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/this-map-shows-which-communities-need-the-most-help-in-a-disaster-a424c1942015">storms</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/racist-housing-practices-have-left-communities-of-color-at-greater-risk-of-extreme-heat-801ead143422">heat waves</a>.</p><p>Civic leaders have limited means to cope with these inequities — a mayor can't shut down a power plant that lies outside her jurisdiction, even if that power plant is sending pollution wafting over her city.</p>
<p>"The EPA's irresponsible weakening of its rules to allow power plants to pollute more will increase air pollution, asthma rates, and the overall burden on public health services for cities like Las Cruces," said Mayor Ken Miyagishima of Las Cruces, New Mexico, which signed onto the amicus brief. "At all levels of government, we need to be more vigilant about managing and reducing risks, whether it's a pandemic or climate change."</p><p>In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/washington/03scotus.html" target="_blank">authority</a> to regulate heat-trapping gases. The agency later determined that it also had the <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/02/what-is-the-epa-endangerment-finding/" target="_blank">obligation</a> to do so. To fulfill that duty, the EPA under President Obama crafted the Clean Power Plan, a sweeping policy to limit carbon pollution from power plants.</p>
<p>President Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax, <a href="https://apnews.com/94c981eb440f43c3bbbfff84063a9ecc/Environmental-groups-denounce-Trump-override-of-climate-plan" target="_blank">promised</a> to do away with the Clean Power Plan in his <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/even-republicans-oppose-trumps-energy-plan-f5887dd9edf1">2016 campaign</a>. He has since fulfilled that promise by replacing the policy with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which does far less to limit pollution from power plants. Now, 22 states and the District of Columbia are suing the EPA for falling short of its legal duty to regulate carbon pollution.</p><p>While carbon dioxide poses little short-term threat to human health, it comes from the same power plants that produce mercury, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/coal-and-air-pollution" target="_blank">linked</a> to lung disease, heart disease, asthma and other maladies. Over the long term, carbon pollution is fueling deadly weather disasters like Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina. By the EPA's own estimate, the Clean Power Plan promised to save as many as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/01/trumps-epa-says-obamas-climate-rule-could-prevent-up-to-4500-deaths-annually-moves-to-scrap-it/" target="_blank">4,500 lives</a> a year by 2030. Its replacement would only save <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-06/documents/ace_ria_fact_sheet_6.18.19_final.pdf" target="_blank">around 120</a> at the high end. That grim calculus has mayors, governors and business leaders eager to strengthen federal limits on carbon pollution.</p><p>"We don't get to net zero in the United States without some kind of coordinated, comprehensive action by the federal government," Burger said. "Whether it's a public health crisis at this scale or the climate crisis, failures at the federal level lead inevitably to failures at the local level."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/cities-besieged-by-pollution-amid-a-pandemic-implore-the-courts-for-help-f3392d752069" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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By Jeremy Deaton, video by Bart Vandever
The 2010 BP oil spill dumped more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, where it killed billions of fish. Had things gone as planned, that oil would have fueled cars and trucks, worsening climate change, which is going to kill billions of fish — and that was the best-case scenario. In short, oil is bad for sea life.
<p>Except sometimes it's not.</p><p>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.</p>
<p>"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."</p><p>Experts say offshore oil will <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/offshore-oil-to-peak-in-2020-then-join-shale-in-market-slowdown" target="_blank">peak this year</a> as prices fall, a trend <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/03/20/oil-slide-price-shock-demand-hit-opec-coronavirus/" target="_blank">exacerbated</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p><p>"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."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE2NzQ0OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzI5ODU4OX0.Fevmxtg8wssystdKM0porKSik-aLfx2xUjLHPUxuZQQ/img.png?width=980" id="edf6a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4bf306b9d793fcd992629b7f1234a94b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A diver explores sea life on the Eureka oil rig off the coast of Long Beach, California. Blue Latitudes
<p>Hazelwood and her business partner Amber Sparks, co-founded consulting firm <a href="http://www.rig2reefexploration.org/team" target="_blank">Blue Latitudes</a>. 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.</p><p>Naturally, not everyone is wild about leaving the skeletons of oil platforms to rust in the ocean. In 2010, California <a href="https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/RC-Rigs-to-Reef-Law-Fall2010.pdf" target="_blank">passed a controversial law</a> 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.</p><p>"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.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE2NzQ1MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTg4OTI4OX0.HR7BkA8MXTe3TnuvNDgeWH54iQ1BtST3shnMPlswIPk/img.png?width=980" id="8e6af" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2ac4982120d288e03ade22aa5f50d8d0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/the-dazzling-ocean-reefs-hidden-beneath-oil-rigs-video-67cbd80a54cc" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>Divers explore sea life on the Eureka oil rig off the coast of Long Beach, California. Blue Latitudes
<p>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.</p><p>"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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p>From Your Site Articles
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By Lauren Wolahan
For the first time ever, the UN is building out a roadmap for curbing carbon pollution from agriculture. To take part in that process, a coalition of U.S. farmers traveled to the UN climate conference in Madrid, Spain this month to make the case for the role that large-scale farming operations, long criticized for their outsized emissions, can play in addressing climate change.
<p>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.</p><p>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?"</p>
<p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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 <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/an-opportunity-for-farmers-in-a-green-new-deal-f48f37fd6d3c">smart farming practices</a>, they can actually help curb pollution.</p><p>Many farmers, for instance, are using <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/artificial-intelligence-is-changing-the-way-we-farm-15981f95e1e8">advanced technologies</a> 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.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjE2NTAzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODk5NjUzN30.eYXKQPAA2ve4aZHlw3MOO2UxAjXLHkCcelxw7udw0G4/img.jpg?width=980" id="2f478" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ca48b649ee39247443516d5df03d5180" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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<p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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 <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/IowaIdeas/stories/agriculture/cover-crops-in-iowa-illinois-indiana-profitability-20190503" target="_blank">4 percent</a> of Iowa farmland. Widespread adoption of cover crops could be key to curbing farming-related emissions.</p><p>Critics, however, say that even with smarter practices, large-scale farms will continue to be a significant source of pollution.</p><p>"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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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?"</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/at-un-climate-conference-u-s-growers-defend-large-scale-farming-5ef0944bfd5" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Miners at a riverbank site in the Amazon. Maria Rodriguez
By Marlene Cimons
Last summer, scientist Maria Rodriguez traveled to the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios, once the home of lush rainforests, meandering rivers and thriving wildlife. But her destination was anything but picturesque. She'd come to study several sites ravaged by illegal gold mining that had left a legacy of destruction and mercury poisoning. One area, in fact, resembled a lunar landscape, rather than a rainforest.
<p>"No more trees, very dry, full of sand and rocks," she said. "We couldn't believe what our eyes were seeing. How did this happen?"</p><p>It happened because small-scale artisanal gold miners had been defying the law by working there, using toxic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28element%29" target="_blank">mercury</a> to separate gold from the soil and river sediments. They extract the sediments from the river, pile them on the riverbanks, and then add mercury. Finally, they burn the mix, isolating the gold and releasing most of the mercury into the air. The remaining mercury stays in the soil, or ends up in the water, threatening wildlife, plants — and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning" target="_blank">people</a>.</p><p>At one point, Rodriguez and her colleagues traveled 45 minutes through the fog by riverboat, spotting small boats at the river banks, dredges that remove the sediments from the river.</p><p>"Miners were working under these black plastic roofs and some of them inside the river or at the riverbanks," she recalled. "We even saw families with children. This was very frustrating because we knew they were polluting this beautiful environment, and also contaminating themselves. The mercury can affect the nervous system after exposure, especially in children."</p><p><br/></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTkwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjg5MjMxMH0.WuSbxjz3sOEjYyK6qf9_xGFvtxMNyUpzxKp9xgzYIxY/img.jpg?width=980" id="9b3b7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ecb8378e832b40fac015faf81458aa57" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A mining site in the Amazon.
Maria Rodriguez
<p>Rodriguez, a University of Maryland environmental engineering doctoral candidate in the <a href="https://eng.umd.edu/" target="_blank">A. James Clark School of Engineering</a>, went to Peru with faculty mentors <a href="https://cee.umd.edu/clark/faculty/240/Natasha-Andrade" target="_blank">Natasha Andrade</a> and <a href="https://user.eng.umd.edu/~alba/TorrentsLab/Alba_Torrents.html" target="_blank">Alba Torrents</a> to assess the mercury damage there. The field trip was the start of a long-term project sponsored by the school and by <a href="http://cincia.wfu.edu/en/who-we-are/" target="_blank">CINCIA</a>, the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation, which is working on the ground in Peru to reforest degraded areas in Peru. Rodriguez hopes the partnership will help restore the Peruvian region which, she says, already has lost nearly 250,000 acres to artisanal gold-mining in the last two decades.</p><p>While most recent attention has focused on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a> that have been raging in the Amazon rainforest, which soak up carbon pollution and are often described as the "lungs" of our planet, other serious threats exist in the region, illegal gold mining and its use of mercury chief among them.</p><p>In Peru, the illegal mining is performed by individuals and small companies, many of the workers poor people from Andean regions, Rodriguez said. "But their activity is controlled by criminal organizations," she said. "The artisanal activity has been performed in the Peruvian Amazon from the 1980's but has <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-devastating-costs-of-the-amazon-gold-rush-19365506/" target="_blank">increased</a> in recent decades due to the high price of gold in the international markets."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTkwMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTI5OTMwMn0.1l1JkXL-DLk_l2jwDVRCzfYdQwtiByqpsslJ9t4dZ74/img.jpg?width=980" id="707e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9566d87c886c9bc8ee2622a6c25e199c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A former mining site in the Amazon rainforest.
Natasha Andrade
<p>Because mercury is destroying soils and foliage in the area, the scientists' goal is to rejuvenate the forest by planting new species of vegetation that can withstand exposure to the poisonous element. Rodriguez hopes to determine the toxic threshold of mercury for the new-growth plants, species that include achiote, cocona and yucca, so that they can be planted safely and not pose a danger to people who later consume them.</p><p>Through tests and analyses, the researchers hope to figure out whether the new plants will grow in the contaminated soil, and how much soil needs to be cleared to eliminate the hazard. The findings also will help them predict whether new trees will grow there.</p><p>Latin America illegally extracts the world's highest percentage of gold, according to the <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/organized-crime-and-illegally-mined-gold-in-latin-america/" target="_blank">Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime</a>, with Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru topping the list.</p><p>"All the Amazonian countries in South America are suffering the impacts," she said. "This is gold mining conducted by individual miners or small enterprises with limited capital investment and production. They don't use safety protection or procedures to prevent environmental pollution." A 2018 <a href="https://saqueada.amazoniasocioambiental.org/story" target="_blank">report</a> cited more than 2,000 Amazon locations with unregulated mining, she said.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTkwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NjE5MjUyMX0.NkekjmCNGx112ujt_3XSrBJigw2gzHAXmZkZYssDTYs/img.jpg?width=980" id="c9124" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bd306db3b8731157d311c26b858ab8a5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Dredge in Madre de Dios river.
Natasha Andrade
<p>The definition of "illegal" differs by country, she added. "For example, in Peru, mining in national parks and their surrounding area is forbidden," she said. "It's also forbidden in rivers. In Brazil, artisanal mining in rivers is allowed. Some miners perform the activity in non-forbidden areas, with a permit from the government, but they use procedures that increase deforestation and contaminate soil, air and water with mercury."</p><p>The Peruvian government has tried fighting it with its military, the most recent operation in February, she said. "They expelled the miners from the mining sites in the national parks and installed military bases there," she explained. "But the maintenance of these bases is expensive. In similar operations in the past years, once the military left, the miners went back to the sites."</p><p>Moreover, ending these activities is made more difficult because gold is bought and sold by a network of middlemen who provide false receipts, allowing export companies to buy the gold, which is refined abroad, she added.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTkwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzcxOTE5M30.GOQAm6Qm0mjNLfyi2mvAEPDNDM8qZbp5DAQtUc-tGZQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="d2e24" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c1950b9509a3137794ef30a494aa324" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/where-humans-search-for-pay-dirt-nature-pays-the-price-2fcbe79749a7" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>A former mining site in an indigenous territory in the Amazon.
Natasha Andrade
<p>The <a href="https://www.gold.org/" target="_blank">World Gold Council</a>, the global trade organization for the pure gold mining industry, won't comment on illegal mining. "However, we do work closely with our mining members on [environmental, social and governance] initiatives," said Iya Davidson, a spokeswoman for the organization. The organization recently released <a href="https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/responsible-gold/responsible-gold-mining-principles" target="_blank">Responsible Gold Mining Principles</a>, a framework for consumers, investors and the supply chain, which, among other things, urges "respect for the environment."</p><p>Miles Silman, a Wake Forest University biologist and CINCIA's associate director of science, stressed the importance of good governance. "The profit from mining can be very large, so if a society decides to do it, they should make sure it is governed in a way where the benefits of the activity are worth the environmental destruction," he said.</p><p>Rodriguez pointed out that the public likely knows little about controversial gold mining practices. "I think consumers are not aware of this problem because they are not even aware that they are consuming gold," Rodriguez said. "Gold is not only use for jewelry or gold bars, but also for electronic devices, like cellphones. I'm sure that campaigns like the ones about blood diamonds could help to reduce the extent of illegal gold mining."</p><p>While in Peru, Rodriguez visited the indigenous communities of San Jacinte and Kotsimba — home to the Shipibo and Harakbut people, respectively — where mining had left dead soil behind where nothing can grow. "The indigenous don't want the miners to work in their territory but can't do anything about it," she said. "This is a common issue in this region."</p><p>Many of the indigenous people asked about the possibility of soil treatments and other efforts that could help regenerate the forest, hoping to encourage ecotourism, she said.</p><p>"They wondered whether anyone will come to visit this ugly landscape," she said. "They want their forest back. We felt very sad knowing that the forest will take hundreds of years to recover."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Environmental scientists say they need help coping with grief about the decay of nature. Pexels
By Marlene Cimons
Scientist Tim Gordon studies how rising temperatures are damaging corals in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where intense cyclones and warm waters have caused extensive damage in recent years. What he sees brings him to tears.
<p>"They used to be some of the most colorful, vibrant, bustling, noisy ecosystems in the world, but now many of them are eerily quiet, empty gray rubble fields," Gordon said. "It's haunting. The place is a ghost of its former self."</p><p>At times when diving at the reef, he stops for a minute and just floats, gazing helplessly at the wreckage around him. "It gets quite overwhelming," said Gordon, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter. "This sense of complete powerlessness sets in — this used to be the most beautiful place in the world, but now it's crumbling into ruins around me."</p><p>Gordon was, and is, experiencing something that the public does not typically expect from scientists — grief.</p>
<p>Although researchers are expected to distance themselves from their subject to ensure their work is free of bias, scientists — much like physicians, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/suicides-among-veterinarians-has-become-a-growing-problem/2019/01/18/0f58df7a-f35b-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html" target="_blank">veterinarians</a>, disaster relief workers, service members and others — often have strong emotional reactions to things they see and experience at work. Some of these professions have recognized the psychic toll of the job and are taking steps to help people cope. But scientists have not received the same level of support and frequently feel isolated or unable to express their feelings.</p><p>"It's not just me," Gordon said. "All around the world, from the rainforests to the poles, environmental scientists are measuring similar devastation, with similar consequences for both natural systems and the people that rely on them. We're recording the most severe destruction of the natural world in human history. It's really important that we are able to work with those feelings — and through those feelings — rather than being choked or paralyzed by them."</p><p>He and two other researchers, Stephen D. Simpson, also a marine biologist at Exeter, and Andrew N. Radford, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Bristol, described the dilemma in a <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6462/193.1" target="_blank">letter</a> recently published in the journal <em>Science. </em>In it, they call for greater understanding of scientists' responses to environmental damage, and permission for them to, well, cry if they need to.</p>
<p>Denying, ignoring or suppressing these emotions impairs their ability to conduct science effectively, the authors said, writing that forcing scientists to be "dispassionate observers" would be "dangerously misguided." Rather, they "must be allowed to cry and be supported," quoting Charles Darwin who declared that one "who remains passive when overwhelmed with grief loses [the] best chance of recovering elasticity of mind."</p><p>"It's really important that both doctors and environmental scientists stay objective and clear-minded in their work to make sure it's done rigorously and accurately. But at the same time, in both professions, there are really hard moments watching patients and ecosystems get sick and die, and not being able to stop it from happening," Gordon said. "Grief can either stop us in our tracks or galvanize and inspire us to move forward, [but] that depends on how we process and react to those feelings."</p><p>Gordon says he personally knows several scientists who moved away from researching environmental degradation to guard their emotional health. "Some moved into different professions entirely, and some altered their research focus to address restoration processes, rather than measuring degradation," he said.</p>
<p>Gordon said scientists will need help processing their grief. "If we only allow scientists to respond to their ecological grief in private, then we're limiting their options for working through these feelings effectively," he said, adding scientists may need to seek counseling or talk with colleagues working through the same feelings, strategies deployed by professionals in other stressful jobs. Veterinarians, for example, now have access to "well-being" workshops and emotional support seminars, "pet loss" counselors and other resources.</p><p>"The veterinary community has been quite responsive," said Elizabeth Schooley, a veterinarian in Columbia, Virginia who struggled with many of these issues when she began practicing. "I wanted to help everyone and the money wasn't available to help the patients. I took a lot of emotional stress from the pet owners… and it really affected my health and wellbeing."</p><p>Tracey Shors, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University, who studies trauma, said one approach to managing stress might be for scientists to speak out about their findings and share their grief.</p><p>"If more scientists could get their findings out to the world, they would feel like they have more control," she said. "If nothing else, they would know they are waking up others to the problem. Most of the [scientists] I know got into the field because they love nature. Then they are trained to distance themselves for the sake of objectivity. It must be breaking their hearts. It breaks my heart, and I am not a field scientist."</p>
<p>Gordon said they have received a great deal of positive feedback from environmental scientists. "Some are people we know as current and previous colleagues, and some of them we've never met before," he said. "They've all been thanking us for expressing a view that they strongly agree with, and have been relieved and comforted to see shared publicly."</p><p>Not every scientist, however, agrees that it's a good idea for researchers to share their grief, at least not publicly. "It does deeply hurt to see Arctic and Antarctic wildernesses being invaded and ravaged by plastic, but indeed it is crucial for scientists to be independent," said David Barnes, a marine ecologist with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Antarctic_Survey" target="_blank">British Antarctic Survey</a> who <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/plastic-pollution-has-increased-a-hundredfold-in-the-south-atlantic-d74a82644802">studies ocean plastic pollution</a>. "I wince at the hundredfold increase in plastic washing ashore on the remote islands I work around. [But] we are not policymakers. We are key providers of evidence." He added, "When scientists express strong views it is unsurprising that concern of bias is likely to emerge."</p><p>Gordon and his colleagues said they appreciate this point of view. "Many people understand and support emotional responses from scientists to what they study happening in the environment," he said. "Others dismiss it as scientists being overly sensitive, unprofessional or letting their emotions get in the way of their work. I think the split in public opinion goes to show it's a discussion that needs to be had if we're serious about moving forward and working for a better future for the natural world. That's why we wrote this letter — to provoke discussion about these feelings and how we can support each other to use them for positive change."</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/environmental-scientists-want-help-coping-with-their-grief-5650a69c1240" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Pexels
By Marlene Cimons
Scientist Aaswath Raman long has been keen on discovering new sources of clean energy by creating novel materials that can make use of heat and light.
<p>And lately, he has focused on developing better cooling systems, perhaps inspired by childhood summer visits to his grandparents in Mumbai, where the temperature can hover at 100 degrees F with killer humidity — and where his family refused to add an air conditioner.</p><p>"It's not unusually different from Miami, I suppose — just a bit challenging without air conditioning," he said.</p><p>His interests in clean energy and cooling led him to learn about a phenomenon called "radiative cooling," which is when objects facing up shed heat into the sky after dark, cooling the surrounding area. This "aha" moment also recently led to his developing a pollution-free source of electricity.</p><p>"I was blown away by how this natural, passive cooling mechanism was ubiquitous, but something I'd never heard of," he said.</p><p>Even more surprising was learning that the concept was centuries old. Ancient Middle Eastern civilizations–especially the Persians–used radiative cooling to make ice, pouring water into a pool as the sun set, collecting the frozen chunks the next morning. Even though the ambient temperature stayed above freezing, the pool would grow more cold than the surrounding air as the water radiated heat into the sky. During the day, heat from the sun would have kept the water warm, but at night, it grew colder and colder until it froze over.</p>
<p>Raman, an assistant professor of materials science at engineering at UCLA, wanted to take advantage of this phenomenon to produce clean energy. So he and his colleagues designed a device that can harness nighttime cooling to generate a small amount of power.</p><p>For now, the device is too costly and generates too little electricity to compete with other forms of clean energy. To power a 3-watt LED lightbulb, the generator would need to be 1300 square feet. Raman said he believes scientists could get that number down 60 square feet, and they could also lower costs enough to make it useful in remote areas disconnected from the power grid. A future iteration of the device could allow people without access to electricity to turn on a lightbulb, charge a cell phone, or power some other small device at night.</p><p>"There are also low-power sensors: think monitoring oil pipelines, or weather and climate monitoring in the Arctic," he added. "The combination of remoteness and low-power needs make them a great fit for this device, especially in polar, northern regions where you have limited or no sunlight for a large fraction of the year."</p><p>His invention is deceptively simple. It looks like a small disc propped up on four legs. The side facing up radiates heat into the night sky, while the side facing down is warmed by the surrounding air. Sandwiched in between these two surfaces is a thermoelectric generator, which uses the difference in temperature to produce power.</p>
<p>A description of the <a href="https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30412-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS254243511930412X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">research</a>, co-authored with frequent collaborator Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, was published in the journal <em>Joule</em>.</p><p>"This is an excellent demonstration of how the night sky can be used as a thermodynamic resource to do something useful," said Jeremy N. Munday, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California Davis, who has <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d832a10791b8a06dddc7b1f/t/5d8a80f755caf430f832a08c/1569358091209/Munday_Joule_2019.pdf" target="_blank">proposed</a> using radiative cooling to combat climate change. He said that more research is needed to know if the technology could someday provide a workable alternative to wind or solar power, for instance.</p><p>Raman has also looked for ways to take advantage of radiative cooling during the day. For a long time, most experts had dismissed this as improbable, insisting that the cooling effect only worked at night, but Raman was convinced he could create substances that could take the concept of radiative cooling and make it work during the day.</p><p>Ultimately, he and his colleagues created ultra-thin, hair-like materials — known as metamaterials — that successfully produced daytime cooling by acting as a mirror, reflecting the sun and heat back into the sky during the daytime hours, essentially removing the heat. It's the same principle at work as natural nighttime radiative cooling, but with a little boost from materials created by the scientists.</p>
<p>The scientists have since <a href="http://skycoolsystems.com/#renewable-cooling" target="_blank">incorporated</a> this material into panels that use radiative cooling to improve the efficiency of existing air conditioning and refrigeration systems, helping to save energy. This is an important development as climate change will fuel more stifling and unrelenting heat waves, so the need for cooling–especially during the day–is going to increase, upping demand for electricity.</p><p>Initially, Raman did not spend a lot of time thinking about how to use radiative cooling to re-engineer existing air conditioners and refrigeration systems — and then, always up for a challenge, he changed his mind.</p><p>"It always seemed like such a mature and well-developed field," he said. But, then, Raman asked himself: "Was there anything we could do to make it better? Turns out, yes!"</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/scientists-use-the-dark-of-night-to-generate-clean-energy-8b0d9d6c68ff" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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By Allegra Kirkland, Jeremy Deaton, Molly Taft, Mina Lee and Josh Landis
Climate change is already here. It's not something that can simply be ignored by cable news or dismissed by sitting U.S. senators in a Twitter joke. Nor is it a fantastical scenario like The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 that starts with a single crack in the Arctic ice shelf or earthquake tearing through Los Angeles, and results, a few weeks or years later, in the end of life on Earth as we know it.
<p>Instead, we are seeing its creeping effects now — with hurricanes like Maria and Harvey that caused <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/29/us/puerto-rico-growing-death-toll/index.html" target="_blank">hundreds of deaths</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-lost-43-billion-after-hurricane-maria-according-govt-n943441" target="_blank">billions of dollars</a> in economic damage; with the Mississippi River and its tributaries <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/us/flooding-river-shipping.html" target="_blank">overflowing their banks</a> this spring, leaving huge swaths of the Midwestern plains under water. Climate change is, at this very moment, <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/climate-change-explained-global-warming" target="_blank">taking a real toll on wildlife, ecosystems</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/climate/us-climate-report.html" target="_blank">economies</a>, and <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html" target="_blank">human beings</a>, particularly in the global south, which <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/scpibackground/" target="_blank">experts expect</a> will be hit first and hardest. We know from the increasingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report" target="_blank">apocalyptic warnings</a> being issued by the United Nations that it will only get worse.</p>
<p><em><em><em><em>Note: This story is based on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/rcp-85-the-climate-change-disaster-scenario/579700/" target="_blank">RCP 8.5</a>, the so-called "business-as-usual" emissions scenario that assumes that Earth will continue to heavily rely on fossil fuels as the global economy grows. Per Nexus Media, "As we are currently doing virtually nothing to stop climate change, RCP 8.5 is a pretty good predictor of what's going to happen over the next couple of decades. Part of that is because it will take a while for the climate to reach a new equilibrium, so even if we stopped polluting now, the planet would continue to warm for decades." It looks at a sea level rise of six feet, on average, globally, based on the findings of this <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014EF000239" target="_blank">widely-cited 2014 study</a>.</em></em></em></em></p><p><em><em><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/climate-change-timeline-st-louis-san-francisco-houston" target="_blank">Teen Vogue</a> in partnership with <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a></em>. <em>It is republished here as part of</em> <em>EcoWatch's partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</em></em></em></p>
<p>But these early omens of our unstable, hot, wet future can be difficult to wrap our heads around. So <em>Teen Vogue</em> partnered with the team at the nonprofit news service <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>, who developed a timeline predicting how climate change could affect three major U.S. cities over the course of the 21st century. Climate change will look different in different places across the world, but we chose three places with distinct geographic concerns and climate vulnerabilities — to ground all the ominous statistics and headlines in a real sense of place. These are cities you may have visited, or where you may have family, or where you may even live.</p><p>According to the research Nexus compiled, St. Louis will see flooding, extreme heat, severe rainfall, and drought in the surrounding farmland. In Houston, on the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes will grow more destructive and temperatures will soar. San Francisco will witness rising sea levels, fierce wildfires, and extreme drought.</p><p>This timeline is based on interviews with a dozen climate experts and a review of several dozen scientific studies. The projections assume an average <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014EF000239" target="_blank">sea level rise of six feet by 2100</a> — a little more in some places, and less in others — and the business-as-usual <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/rcp-85-the-climate-change-disaster-scenario/579700/" target="_blank">emissions scenario</a>, which assumes that we will continue to pollute and use fossil fuels at our current rate.</p><p>Rather than a scientific assessment, it is a rigorously researched prediction of what our future could bring unless we come together as a country and as a global community — fast— to address climate change as the crisis it is.</p><p>As Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, put it: "The future is not set in stone. Some amount of change is inevitable. It's as if we've been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades, but we don't have lung cancer yet."</p><p>"The amount of change that we're going to see — whether it's serious, whether it's dangerous, whether it's devastating, whether it's civilization-threatening — the amount of change we're going to see is up to us," she continued. "It depends on our choices today and in the next few years."</p>
2020
<h4>Houston<br></h4><p>It's starting to get hot. It's now about one degree <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> warmer in Houston than it was in the second half of the 20th century. Houstonians can expect especially balmy falls this decade, as autumns are <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/outreach/alert-archive/2018/2018SeasonalWarming-English-Dropdown-ARCHIVE.html?market=stlouis" target="_blank">warming faster</a> than other seasons in Texas.</p><p>Houston knows how much it stands to lose from climate change. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated the city, which was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/climate/hurricane-harvey-climate-change.html" target="_blank">supercharged</a> by warm waters in the Gulf. But Houston is also helping to drive the rise in temperature. <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/organization/eco-dev/Texas_Largest_Companies.pdf" target="_blank">Several major oil companies</a> and a vast network of oil refineries and petrochemical plants call the city home.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>This decade, St. Louis is expected to be more than <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">two degrees Fahrenheit warmer</a> than it was, on average, during the latter half of the 20th century. While locals have endured more sweltering summer days, they have felt the change the most during the cold months. Missouri winters are <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/outreach/alert-archive/2018/2018SeasonalWarming-English-Dropdown-ARCHIVE.html?market=stlouis" target="_blank">warming faster</a> than summers, springs, and falls.</p><p>Warmer air holds more water, which can lead to <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/report-pouring-it-on-climate-change-intensifies-heavy-rain-events" target="_blank">more severe rainfall</a>. In recent years, rainstorms have pummeled the Midwest and led to widespread flooding across the region. In 2019 in St. Louis, rivers reached <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/as-second-highest-river-crest-reaches-st-louis-low-lying/article_08e5f1d1-5306-5795-81d9-349696462899.html" target="_blank">near-historic levels</a>, and floodwaters <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-goZZPlM9M" target="_blank">inundated the area</a> around the city's iconic Gateway Arch.</p><p>This storm wasn't a blip on the radar, but rather a sign of what's to come. As the planet heats up, St. Louis can expect <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2013EF000185" target="_blank">more extreme rainstorms</a> — and more <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/apartment-buildings-evacuated-in-st-louis-county-along-flooding-river/article_e888e663-c8fa-5aae-a183-67d57eb3d0bc.html" target="_blank">orders to evacuate</a> low-lying neighborhoods.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>For San Franciscans, the beginning of the decade will feel only a little different from past years. In 2020, it's expected to be less than <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">one degree Fahrenheit warmer</a> in San Francisco than it was, on average, between 1950 and 2000. The change is small, but locals can sometimes feel it in the spring, which is <a href="http://ccimgs-2018.s3.amazonaws.com/2018SeasonalWarming/2018SeasonalWarming_CA_en_title_lg.jpg" target="_blank">warming faster</a> than the other seasons, or on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/09/01/san-francisco-smashes-all-time-record-high-temperature-hits-106-degrees/" target="_blank">especially hot days</a>.</p><p>But there are new worries for the city. Rising temperatures have fueled <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3xxzk/get-ready-for-more-california-droughts-thanks-to-climate-change" target="_blank">ongoing drought</a> in recent years, which has, in turn, led to more wildfires. Fires now burn <a href="http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/techreports/docs/20180827-Projections_CCCA4-CEC-2018-014.pdf" target="_blank">more regularly</a> across the Sierra Nevada as well as coastal mountain ranges. The flames may <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/08/08/yosemite-closed-indefinitely-as-california-fires-grow-to-largest-in-history-map-and-update/#6d89ea4a3ef2" target="_blank">ruin plans</a> for weekend getaways to Yosemite or deliver noxious smoke to the Bay Area. And locals may start to reach for air masks as dangerously smoky days become more common.</p><p>"We get a lot of the smoke that comes from the wildfires that happen in inland California, and that makes it really hard to breathe the air," said Kristy Dahl, a climate scientist at the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>, who is based in San Francisco. "Last year when there was a massive wildfire hundreds of miles away, San Francisco for a day [ranked among] the worst air quality in the entire world."</p>2030
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMTExODMzNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5ODYxODM1Mn0.xgR3gyPWt0ycd4gqcJ_orGihTxQ0CG1aUHV7_-mPNF8/img.png?width=980" id="bee21" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3dc110479cc2fec787aa87d2d280a579" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />NEXUS MEDIA
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By 2030, temperatures are expected to have warmed almost <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">two degrees Fahrenheit</a> in Houston. Seas are expected to have risen a little more than a foot, enough to occasionally flood some low-lying areas outside the city. Warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico will <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-tx.pdf" target="_blank">raise the speed limit</a> for winds during hurricanes and ramp up rainfall during storms.</p><p>"Hurricanes are not getting more frequent, but they are getting stronger and bigger and slower," said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at <a href="https://www.ttu.edu/" target="_blank">Texas Tech University</a>. "They're intensifying faster and they have a lot more rain associated with them today than they would have had a hundred years ago."</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>By 2030, temperatures are expected to have warmed around three degrees Fahrenheit in St. Louis. The kind of rainstorm that currently strikes the Midwest around once every five years will hit around once <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2013EF000185" target="_blank">every three years</a> this decade.</p><p>"We've seen these record-breaking, devastating floods in the Midwest," said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at <a href="https://www.ttu.edu/" target="_blank">Texas Tech University</a>. "It's not like they've never had floods before, but the floods are just getting a lot worse and a lot more frequent."</p><p>This could mean trouble for local infrastructure. Rivers swell after heavy rains, and the rush of water can <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cira/climate-action-benefits-bridges" target="_blank">weaken bridges</a> by carrying away sediment from around their foundations. This could be a big problem in Missouri, which is home to hundreds of <a href="https://www.modot.org/Bridges" target="_blank">aging</a> bridges, many of which have been <a href="https://artbabridgereport.org/state/ranking" target="_blank">deemed deficient</a>. Climate change could mean even more heavy <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/21/" target="_blank">repair costs</a> for taxpayers.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>This decade, the rise in temperature is expected to pass two degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> in San Francisco. That may not feel like a lot in the city. But warmer weather is taking a serious toll.</p><p>California's drought will get <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">progressively worse</a> this decade, the product of warmer temperatures drying out soil and meager rainfall failing to replace the water lost. Rising temperatures will also yield <a href="https://www.kqed.org/science/1936797/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-californias-sierra-snowpack" target="_blank">less snowfall</a>. The snow that does come down will melt in the spring and early summer, depriving the state of a critical source of water in the late summer, when, historically, melting snow has fed streams and rivers.</p><p>The snow drought will strain farmers in the Central Valley, while putting pressure on cities to use less water. The <a href="https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/2018/05/31/permanent-california-water-restrictions-approved-gov-jerry-brown/662456002/" target="_blank">water restrictions</a> the state put in place in 2018 will have grown much more severe in the past 12 years. Officials could urge Californians across the state to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns to cope with the worsening drought.</p>2040
<h4>Houston</h4><p>This decade, sea level rise around Houston is projected to reach two feet, enough to inundate much of nearby Freeport and Jamaica Beach. That extra water will mean that hurricanes, when they strike, will deliver <a href="https://scied.ucar.edu/hurricanes-and-climate-change" target="_blank">more powerful floods</a> to coastal areas.</p><p>"A small and steady rise of the water level elevates a platform for flooding that we've had throughout history," said Maya Buchanan, a sea level rise scientist at <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/" target="_blank">Climate Central</a>. "That means larger storm surges."</p><p>That's bad news for people who live near the shore. Around <a href="https://weather.com/safety/hurricane/news/hurricanes-tropical-storms-us-deaths-surge-flooding" target="_blank">half of deaths</a> caused by hurricanes are the result of coastal flooding, and waters <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/houston-harvey-environmental-justice_n_59a41c90e4b06d67e3390993" target="_blank">tend to inundate</a> poor neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, which are more likely to lie in flood-prone areas.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>In 2040, St. Louis is expected to be four degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was at the end of the last century. While that may sound like a small number, it means big problems for the city. A small uptick in the average temperature could lead to milder winters, stifling summers and changing rainfall.</p><p>St. Louis will tend to see wetter springs and drier summers. That means the region will withstand heavier downpours, but it will also endure long stretches without a drop of rain. Despite the growing peril of major flooding, extended dry spells and rising temperatures will dry out the land. Drought will <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">set in</a> in Missouri, endangering farms.</p><p>And just remember — it will never be this cool again.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2040, sea levels are predicted to rise around one foot, enough to encroach the beaches on the west side of the city and Candlestick Point on the east, popular recreation areas. Parts of San Francisco Airport and Oakland Airport will flood regularly, making air travel in and out of the city more difficult.</p><p>Drought will have grown <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">increasingly severe.</a> Forests will dry out, and become vulnerable to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-bark-beetle-fueled-californias-wildfires/" target="_blank">bark beetles</a>, which burrow into trees to lay their eggs. Healthy trees can ward off the bugs by covering them in resin — but already struggling trees have no way to protect themselves.</p><p>Large parts of forests will die, and the dead trees will become tinder for wildfire. In 2040, fires are expected to burn around twice as much big sections of the Sierra Nevada as they do today. Areas south of San Francisco will also grow more vulnerable to erupting in flames.</p>2050
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By midcentury, temperatures are expected to have warmed more than three degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> in Houston. Waters in the Gulf of Mexico will have also warmed, fueling more dangerous storms.</p><p>In the decades to come, the Gulf will see more category-four and -five hurricanes, like <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092017_Harvey.pdf" target="_blank">Hurricane Harvey</a> and <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL122005_Katrina.pdf" target="_blank">Hurricane Katrina</a>, according to Suzana Camargo, a climate scientist at <a href="https://www.columbia.edu/" target="_blank">Columbia University</a>. Warm water is like ammunition for cyclones, arming them with more powerful winds and heavier rains. People might want to think twice before they purchase a home in Houston.</p><p>"I think people have to think very carefully how they are going to plan when they want to buy a house," Camargo said, explaining that in the future, cyclones will deliver more flooding to seaside cities and towns.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>St. Louis is expected to have heated up by more than five degrees Fahrenheit on average by the middle of the century. Hot weather will dry out soil. Past 2050, the Central Plains, including much of Missouri, can look forward to <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400082?utm_source=charybd.com&utm_medium=link&utm_compaign=article" target="_blank">decades-long drought</a>.</p><p>This drought will be especially disastrous for Missouri farmers. Growers will have to take more water out of underground aquifers to feed their crops, drawing down a limited supply of groundwater, often at great cost. This, in turn, could drive up the price of food.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2050, temperatures in San Francisco are expected to have risen more than three degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>. In the second half of this century, changing weather patterns will yield lasting dry spells, leaving much of California to endure long stretches without rain. Around the time someone graduating high school today turns 50, they <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400082?utm_source=charybd.com&utm_medium=link&utm_compaign=article" target="_blank">can expect</a> California to enter a decades-long drought — with disastrous consequences.</p><p>Farmers in California will have to draw more and more water from underground. Eventually, they may not be able to grow fruits and vegetables in parts of the state. This will drive up the cost of many foods, such as strawberries, almonds, and lemons.</p><p>Snow will also start to disappear from the Sierra Nevada. By 2050, projections say, there will be <a href="https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-07/Statewide%20Reports-%20SUM-CCCA4-2018-013%20Statewide%20Summary%20Report.pdf" target="_blank">a third less snow</a> than we see today. San Francisco <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/California-Bay-Area-drought-reservoir-snowpack-SF-13591499.php" target="_blank">depends</a> on that snow for its water, and a dry Sierra Nevada could mean a looming water crisis for the city.</p><p>The drought will also leave California's forests all the more vulnerable to wildfire — fires that could cover San Francisco in smoke, making it <a href="https://www.popsci.com/fires-california-air-quality-cigarettes/" target="_blank">dangerous</a> to go outside.</p>2060
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMTExODM1Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjIwNjc2NX0.-XekcQCqYuel5NqFwuK0XTp3VnFoZzJHhMpx0QNvhmY/img.png?width=980" id="46fe3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="371e7c8ce7857c4bfb38ed9cd20aff44" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Where San Francisco residents are expected to move when they're displaced by rising seas..
NEXUS MEDIA
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By 2060, temperatures are expected to have warmed by more than four degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>. The city could see up to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-review/climate-change-hot-future.html?auth=login-smartlock" target="_blank">25 days a year</a> with temperatures over 100 degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>.</p><p>Local sea level rise, meanwhile, is expected reach three feet during this decade. This will raise the level of Buffalo Bayou, the waterway that stretches through the middle of Houston. The Scholes International Airport in nearby Galveston will sink into the sea, and at high tide, water will flood much of the San Jacinto Battleground, site of the 1836 clash where Sam Houston, the city's <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sam-Houston" target="_blank">namesake</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/mexico/battle-of-san-jacinto" target="_blank">overcame</a> the Mexican Army.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>St. Louis is expected hit a six-degrees-Fahrenheit increase in its average temperature this decade. While this might be bad news for humans, it's good for many insects, who love warm weather. Rising temperatures will bring <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-widen-range-disease-carrying-mosquitoes-says-study" target="_blank">disease-carrying mosquitoes</a> to St. Louis's doorstep. Missourians will have to be more vigilant about their health as the bugs could spread tropical viruses like <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html" target="_blank">Zika</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/index.html" target="_blank">dengue</a>, and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/yellowfever/index.html" target="_blank">yellow fever</a> around the warming Midwest.</p><p>Climate change will also bring more <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/maps/projections-in-deer-tick-habitat" target="_blank">deer ticks</a> to St. Louis. Because warmer air can hold more water, as temperatures rise, so does humidity — and deer ticks thrive in humid weather. While ticks are little seen in Missouri today, later this century they will fan out across the state, potentially spreading <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html" target="_blank">Lyme disease</a>. Those afflicted will endure fever, headache, and fatigue. They may see their joints swell or feel their face droop.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2060, temperatures in San Francisco are expected to have risen by more than four degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>.</p><p>Wildfires will burn roughly three times as much of broad swaths of the Sierra Nevada as they do today, laying waste to large stretches of California's pristine forests.</p><p>This decade, sea level rise is projected hit two feet. Water will begin to spill over the edges of the Mission Creek Channel, while threatening routine floods around San Francisco's iconic Fisherman's Wharf. Waters will have flooded much of nearby San Rafael, north of San Francisco. To the south, Foster City will be underwater, displacing thousands of residents — many of whom currently work in the tech industry.</p>2070
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By 2070, Houston is projected to be more than five degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> hotter than at the end of the 20th century. This warming is part of a larger trend that is heating up the planet and melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica, raising the sea level near the city.</p><p>"As flooding events get more severe, that can impact property values, and that could impact where people decide to live," Buchanan said, explaining that rising seas will drive down the value of homes in low-lying areas.</p><p>By this time, waters will have already subsumed much of the coastline from Freeport, south of Houston, all the way to New Orleans. Rising seas will make much of the Gulf coast unrecognizable as the ocean swallows up most of southern Louisiana. Later this decade, sea levels are expected to have risen by four feet.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>In 2070, St. Louis is projected to be more than seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it was at the end of the last century. Before the decade is through, the city is expected to see eight degrees Fahrenheit of warming. Rising temperatures will have utterly transformed the weather in Missouri, making it virtually unrecognizable to current residents. The city will see around <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest" target="_blank">20 fewer days</a> of frost each year than it does today, as well as around <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest" target="_blank">20 extra days</a> with temperatures over 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat will be felt <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/09/climate/city-heat-islands.html" target="_blank">most acutely</a> in neighborhoods short on trees and parks.</p><p>Outside the city, severe heat will <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest" target="_blank">cripple the growth</a> of corn and soybeans at nearby farms. So will drought, which experts say will <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">be worse</a> than at any time in living memory. The state will endure <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/midwest" target="_blank">more consecutive days</a> without rain. When it does rain, however, it will pour. Warmer temperatures will produce more extreme rainfall.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2070, San Francisco's average temperature is expected to have warmed by more than five degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>. Drought will be <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">more severe</a> than at any time in living memory. Rising temperatures and diminished rainfall will <a href="https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/2012publications/CEC-500-2012-037/CEC-500-2012-037.pdf" target="_blank">take a toll</a> on trees around the San Francisco Bay. More and more evergreen forests will die off and grasslands will spring up in their place, fundamentally changing the landscape around the city.</p>2080
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMTExODM2OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzQ5NzQ5MH0.ZVi9RPYLaWvmHeo01PPYBolegntrVAmrmOh9FMyqpzs/img.png?width=980" id="c4054" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76b0c2f9b54a42a535a5f3e5581177d2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />This is what Houston, St. Louis, and San Francisco will feel like in 2080.
NEXUS MEDIA
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By 2080, temperatures are projected to have warmed around six degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> on average, a dizzying change in the weather that means Houston won't feel like Houston anymore.</p><p>The city will grow warmer and wetter. Around 2080, Houston <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08540-3" target="_blank">will feel</a> something like Ciudad Mante in Mexico does today, with its warmer, drier winter.</p><p>As the climate changes, Houston's native wildlife could start to head north. At the same time, plants and animals that currently make their home south of Houston may start to work their way toward the city.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>St. Louis is expected to be nearly nine degrees Fahrenheit warmer by 2080. The temperature will have changed so drastically that St. Louis no longer feels like the same city.</p><p>Around 2080, St. Louis <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08540-3" target="_blank">will start to feel</a> like Prosper, Texas, does today. This new St. Louis will be hotter and drier. Summer weather will go from balmy to sweltering, and the city will see much less rain during the warm months.</p><p>It's not just that St. Louis will feel more like Prosper. It might start to look like it too. Animals that currently live around Prosper could head northward as the climate changes, searching for a new home that feels like their old one. At the same time, the shrubs and grasslands that stretch across north Texas could start to edge their way toward Missouri.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2080, the average temperature is expected to have risen by more than six degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> in San Francisco. The city will <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08540-3" target="_blank">start to feel</a> a lot like present-day Los Angeles. The weather will be warmer and drier, much like the current climate in Palos Verdes Estates, a coastal city in the L.A. area.</p><p>With less rainfall, many of the trees that make their home in San Francisco will die. At the same time, the smaller, scrubbier plants that make their home in L.A. could migrate toward the city. It's not just that San Francisco will start to feel like L.A., scientists say. It might start to look like it too.</p>2090
<h4>Houston</h4><p>By now, temperatures are projected to have warmed close to seven degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a>, while sea levels will have risen five feet, subsuming the coastline. Much of nearby Galveston is underwater.</p><p>It's not just hot days that threaten Houston. Rising temperatures will allow the air to hold more water, increasing humidity — which could be a big problem for public health.</p><p>"As humidity rises, it becomes harder and harder for the sweat to evaporate off our skin — and it's that evaporation of sweat that cools our bodies," said Kristy Dahl, a climate scientist at the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>. "So it might only be a temperature reading of 90 degrees, but if you have 60% humidity, it's going to feel hotter than 90 degrees."</p><p>Dahl said that Houston will heat up so much that it will be hard to quantify how hot it will feel.</p><p>"By the end of the century, Houston would see about three weeks of what we call off-the-charts heat conditions, which are when the combination of temperature and humidity falls above the national weather services heat index scale," she said. "What that means is that we can't even calculate a heat index to reliably warn people about how dangerous it is."</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>St. Louis is expected to have warmed by almost 10 degrees Fahrenheit, a transformational change in the climate of the city. Rising temperatures could provoke a spike in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full?ijkey=x3wZ8kcgtomUM&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank">violent crime</a> — when people are hot, research shows, they tend to feel <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/16/two-new-studies-warn-that-hotter-world-will-be-more-violent-one/" target="_blank">more aggressive</a>.</p><p>By the end of the century, St. Louis will endure around 80 days per year where the heat index is above 100 degrees — compared to just 11 days at the end of the 20th century, according to Kristy Dahl, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.</p><p>"It's really striking because historically those off-the-charts conditions have only occurred in the Sonoran desert region of the U.S., the California-Arizona border," Dahl said.</p><p>In addition to extreme heat, the city will also endure <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">severe drought</a>, punctuated by the occasional supercharged rainstorm. The kind of downpour that currently strikes the Midwest around once every five years will hit around once <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2013EF000185" target="_blank">every year or two</a>. The most severe storms — the kind that currently show up once every 20 years — now arrive once <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/clean-power-plan-states-MO.pdf" target="_blank">every six or seven years</a>.</p><p>Heavy rainfall will lead to flooding, and floodwaters will mix with raw sewage, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/clean-power-plan-states-MO.pdf" target="_blank">helping to spread</a> bacteria. Rains will also swamp homes and businesses, offering a place for mold to grow.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By now, San Francisco is projected to have heated up more than seven degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> on average. The extra heat will mean many people will be spending <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/16/two-new-studies-warn-that-hotter-world-will-be-more-violent-one/" target="_blank">more time outdoors</a>, potentially leading to a spike in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full?ijkey=x3wZ8kcgtomUM&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank">violent crime</a>.</p><p>The state will be mired in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-historic-megadroughts-in-the-western-us-tell-us-about-our-climate-future-37615" target="_blank">lasting drought</a>. Wildfires could consume around four times as much of huge sections of the Sierra Nevada as they do today, as well as forests closer to San Francisco, endangering locals.</p><p>The Bay Area is expected to have seen more than three feet of sea level rise. The San Francisco and Oakland Airports will be completely underwater. Across the bay, coastal flooding will inundate parts of Alameda. Low-lying areas on the south end of the San Francisco Bay will also be flooded, including some of San Jose.</p>2010
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<h4>Houston</h4><p>By the end of this century, temperatures are expected to have warmed close to eight degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> in Houston. In the summer, Houston will <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/wgts/global-shifting-cities/index.html" target="_blank">feel something like</a> Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, does today. High temperatures will average over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the warmest months.</p><p>By making life harder for workers, severe hotter weather will shrink the economy of the greater Houston area by <a href="http://www.impactlab.org/" target="_blank">6%</a>. Extreme heat will also kill hundreds more people each year. Poorer neighborhoods tend to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/09/climate/city-heat-islands.html" target="_blank">be warmer</a>, in part because they tend to have <a href="https://mashable.com/2012/07/18/google-maps-income-inequality/" target="_blank">fewer trees</a>. People who live in those neighborhoods are also less likely to have air conditioners, which will put them at greater risk.</p><p>On top of the heat, Houston is expected to have seen close to six feet of sea level rise by 2100. Waters encroach on the east side of town near the water, where oil refineries and chemical plants could continue to service our catastrophic addiction to oil and gas. Routine flooding of these facilities may cause <a href="https://www.apnews.com/748cd58a4feb4785b9ea1cdf68f0ef1f" target="_blank">dangerous explosions</a> and potentially release toxic chemicals into the air.</p><p>Much of the city, however, will stay safe from the encroaching sea. That means the Houston could absorb <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3271.epdf?author_access_token=Hvxidg4gL1Q0zWEvyEXiLtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NFv3_2_MZIRrCavou7VputY0Z0x-UWFD09j5eSgqBhP56-FYSZJPA8_HdSRdIl79npShOcx0Gd16aq4FimtdoF" target="_blank">hundreds of thousands</a> of new residents by 2100 — people who were driven from Miami and New Orleans by ever-worsening coastal floods.</p><h4>St. Louis</h4><p>By the end of this century, St. Louis is expected to have warmed by roughly 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Winter will scarcely look like winter. Summers will have gone from hot to unbearable.</p><p>During the hottest months, it will be <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/maps/days-above-100f-projections" target="_blank">so scorching</a> that it will be dangerous to go outside for much of the day. People will depend more on air conditioners to stay cool, leading to <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full?ijkey=x3wZ8kcgtomUM&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank">bigger electric bills</a>. Elderly people, particularly those who can't afford to run an air conditioner, will face the risk of <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/searing-temps-have-literally-been-lethal-for-seniors/" target="_blank">heat stroke and death</a>.</p><p>The intense heat will take an immense toll on the local economy. Farms in Missouri and southern Illinois could see yields <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362.full?ijkey=x3wZ8kcgtomUM&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank">cut in half</a>, ruining livelihoods.</p><p>In St. Louis itself, experts project that heat will stifle productivity by making it too hot to work. This could help cut the city's economic output by around <a href="http://www.impactlab.org/research/estimating-economic-damage-from-climate-change-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank">8%</a>.</p><h4>San Francisco</h4><p>By 2100, San Francisco is expected to have heated up by more than eight degrees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201648" target="_blank">Fahrenheit</a> on average. It will be hot and dry. Snow will be hard to find in the Sierra Nevada. By 2100, the mountain range will see <a href="https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-07/Statewide%20Reports-%20SUM-CCCA4-2018-013%20Statewide%20Summary%20Report.pdf" target="_blank">two thirds less snow</a> than we see today, depriving San Francisco of a much-needed water source.</p><p>Seas will have risen four feet, projections say. Large parts of Alameda will be underwater. Hunters Point will have flooded, as well as much of Mission Bay. And flooding won't be limited to San Francisco.</p><p>Sea level rise could flood the homes of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3271.epdf?author_access_token=Hvxidg4gL1Q0zWEvyEXiLtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NFv3_2_MZIRrCavou7VputY0Z0x-UWFD09j5eSgqBhP56-FYSZJPA8_HdSRdIl79npShOcx0Gd16aq4FimtdoF" target="_blank">13 million Americans</a> by the end of the century, leading to a massive exodus from many coastal areas. By one estimate, rising seas in places like Oakland, Alameda, and San Mateo could spur close to <a href="https://johnsorib.github.io/slr/index.html" target="_blank">300,000 residents</a> to move to inland cities in Arizona, Texas, and New Jersey. It is the poorest neighborhoods that will be the <a href="https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/oaklands-poorest-neighborhoods-will-the-most-susceptible-to-flooding-due-to-climate-change-and-sea-level-rise/Content?oid=6401808" target="_blank">most vulnerable</a> to floods.</p>From Your Site Articles
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