Scientists Found Microplastics in Every Human Semen Sample They Examined
Victor Tangermann – June 11, 2024
A team of researchers has found microplastics in all 40 semen samples they examined from healthy men, highlighting the urgent need to study how these tiny particles could affect human reproduction.
In a paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, researchers from a number of Chinese institutions identified eight different polymers in the samples, with polystyrene being the most prevalent.
As The Guardian reports, it’s only the latest in a string of studies that have equally found microplastics in semen.
While their effect on reproduction and human health still isn’t entirely understood, researchers have also been documenting a global decline in sperm count and other issues plaguing male fertility, linking them to a number of environmental and lifestyle factors.
Given the latest research, these tiny pollutants could even have troubling consequences for our ability to reproduce.
“As emerging research increasingly implicates microplastic exposure as a potential factor impacting human health, understanding the extent of human contamination and its relation to reproductive outcomes is imperative,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
Studies involving mice “demonstrate a significant decrease in viable sperm count and an uptick in sperm deformities, indicating that microplastic exposure may pose a chronic, cumulative risk to male reproductive health,” they added.
A different study published in the journal Toxicological Sciences last month found microplastics in all samples of 47 canine and 23 human testicles.
“At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” coauthor and University of New Mexico professor Xiaozhong Yu told The Guardian at the time. “When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.”
Worse yet, the samples dated back to 2016, suggesting that the “impact on the younger generation might be more concerning,” given the particles’ growing prevalence, Yu added.
As a result, experts are calling for action to reduce the amount of plastic being produced worldwide, much of which will end up polluting the environment and our bodies.
“In particular, there is a need for action to avoid additional permanent damage to the planet and the human body,” University of Rome’s Luigi Montano, who coauthored a separate study that found microplastics in human semen, told The Guardian.
“If microplastic pollution impacts the critical reproductive process, as evidenced in particular by the decline in seminal quality recorded in recent decades globally, it may prove to be [even worse] for our species in the not too distant future,” he added.
Mexico’s new president ran on climate goals. Will she follow through?
Thomas Graham in Mexico City – June 10, 2024
Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico City, Mexico, last week.Photograph: Raquel Cunha/Reuters
The month before Mexico’s 2 June presidential vote the country was bedeviled by water cuts and blackouts as a record heatwave took the country beyond red and into an ominous purple on the weather map.
As dehydrated monkeys dropped dead from trees, the landslide victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, might look like salvation. But her record paints a more complicated picture – one where climate convictions have often, and may still, come second to political pragmatism.
Sheinbaum will inherit a country that has slipped from frontrunner to laggard on climate policy – in part due to the policies of her predecessor and ally, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which she has promised to continue.
López Obrador, who comes from the oil-rich state of Tabasco, prioritised “energy sovereignty” by growing the role of state companies and striving for self-sufficiency.
This was manifested in a $17bn oil refinery and colossal injections of cash and tax cuts for Pemex, the most indebted state oil company in the world, and one of the biggest historical polluters.
One result was to entrench a dirty-energy matrix, with almost 80% coming from fossil fuels.
“Not only are we nowhere near it, but we don’t have any specific and detailed plans to achieve it, let alone financing and concrete infrastructure projects,” said Diego Rivera Rivota, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
“Acapulco taught us a big lesson. We weren’t prepared for that,” said Gustavo Alanís, general director of CEMDA, an environmental NGO. “These floods, droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves aren’t just going to continue, but possibly get more severe and frequent.”
Many hope Sheinbaum’s background as a climate scientist – one who contributed to the reports of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – will shine through once she takes office on 1 October, notwithstanding her reliance on López Obrador to win the presidency.
When she was mayor of Mexico City, there were certain signs of the approach she might take as president, with an emphasis on solar energy, electrified public transport and a new cable car line.
But then, the city saw no great improvement in either of its fundamental environmental problems: air pollution and water shortages.
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Sheinbaum promised all things to all people, saying she would both continue López Obrador’s policies but also do more for the environment.
This means the Maya Train – one of López Obrador’s flagship infrastructure projects to develop historically poorer regions – will continue to cut through Latin America’s second-largest tropical forest. Sheinbaum has even suggested expanding it to neighbouring Belize and Guatemala.
There will also be more backing for Sembrando Vida, López Obrador’s pet forestry and rural development initiative that has had money plowed into it as budgets for state environmental agencies have been slashed – even though its results are little understood, and there are reports it even promotes deforestation.
And there will be more public money for Pemex as it staggers on under its debt burden and tries to increase its oil output.
On the other hand, Sheinbaum has also suggested that Pemex expand its remit to include mining for lithium, a crucial element of electric batteries.
And there was a campaign pledge to spend $14bn on clean-energy projects. That would mark a radical change from López Obrador’s government, which not only invested very little in renewables, but also revoked or blocked permits for private projects.
Experts also expect to see more action on the demand side of the equation, with an emphasis on electrification of public transport and incentives for residential solar panels. “This is a country with 300 days plus of sun,” said Rivera Rivota. “It has massive potential for that.”
Although Sheinbaum’s proposals lack detail at this stage, she has repeatedly emphasised the need for long-term planning for both energy and water – looking not just to 2030, but to 2050 and beyond.
“[Long-term planning] was not guaranteed during the current administration. We had several legal and regulatory changes, and other attempts at change that led to battles in court,” said Rivera Rivota. “As long as it’s clear what the rules of the game are, what the legal framework is, I think Mexico has enormous potential for investment in renewable energy.”
The scale of victory for Sheinbaum’s Morena party, which seems to have given it a supermajority in one and perhaps both houses of congress, as well as the governorships of 24 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities, has given Sheinbaum a huge mandate as president-elect.
But whether she wants or will be able to move away from her predecessor’s policies is an unknown.
López Obrador will remain a powerful figure – and his continued support may be needed to help hold together Morena, the party that he founded but has since expanded to house disparate ideologies, and fractious groups.
“She was never going to contradict the president during the campaign,” said Rivera Rivota. “But who knows what will happen when she’s sitting in the Palacio Nacional and making the calls herself.”
“There is hope, and there is a vote of confidence [in Sheinbaum],” said Alanís of CEMDA. “But here we will be vigilant, and we will be checking the actions of her administration every day.
Honorary degree recipient Ken Burns delivers the Undergraduate Commencement speech at Brandeis University’s 73rd Commencement Exercises on May 19, 2024.
Transcript
Brandeisian, love it.
President Liebowitz, Ron, Chair Lisa Kranc, and other members of the board of trustees, Provost Carol Fierke, fellow honorees, distinguished faculty and staff, proud and relieved parents, calm and serene grandparents, distracted but secretly pleased siblings, ladies and gentlemen, graduating students of the class of 2024, good morning.
I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at such a momentous occasion that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day in all of your lives. Thank you for this honor.
Listen, I am in the business of history. It is not always a happy subject on college campuses these days, particularly when forces seem determined to eliminate or water down difficult parts of our past, particularly when the subject may seem to sum an anachronistic and irrelevant pursuit, and particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us. It is my job, however, to remind people of the power our past also exerts, to help us better understand what’s going on now with compelling story, memory, and anecdote. It is my job to try to discern patterns and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying and sometimes dismaying present.
For nearly 50 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously tried to maintain a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding advocacy if I could, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens. Over those many decades I’ve come to understand a significant fact, that we are not condemned to repeat, as the saying goes, what we don’t remember. That is a beautiful, even poetic phrase, but not true. Nor are there cycles of history as the academic community periodically promotes. The Old Testament, Ecclesiastes to be specific, got it right, I think. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. What those lines suggest is that human nature never changes or almost never changes. We continually superimpose that complex and contradictory human nature over the seemingly random chaos of events, all of our inherent strengths and weaknesses, our greed and generosity, our puritanism and our prurience, our virtue, and our venality parade before our eyes, generation after generation after generation. This often gives us the impression that history repeats itself. It does not. “No event has ever happened twice, it just rhymes,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said. I have spent all of my professional life on the lookout for those rhymes, drawn inexorably to that power of history. I am interested in listening to the many varied voices of a true, honest, complicated past that is unafraid of controversy and tragedy, but equally drawn to those stories and moments that suggest an abiding faith in the human spirit, and particularly the unique role this remarkable and sometimes also dysfunctional republic seems to play in the positive progress of mankind.
During the course of my work, I have become acquainted with hundreds if not thousands of those voices. They have inspired, haunted, and followed me over the years. Some of them may be helpful to you as you try to imagine and make sense of the trajectory of your lives today.
Listen, listen. In January of 1838, shortly before his 29th birthday, a tall, thin lawyer prone to bouts of debilitating depression addressed the young men’s lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?” He asked his audience, “Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the earth and crush us at a blow?” Then he answered his own question. “Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide.” It is a stunning, remarkable statement, one that has animated my own understanding of the American experience since I first read it more than 40 years ago. That young man was of course Abraham Lincoln, and he would go on to preside over the closest this country has ever come to near national suicide, our civil war, and yet embedded in his extraordinary, disturbing, and prescient words is also a fundamental optimism that implicitly acknowledges the geographical forcefield two mighty oceans east and west and two relatively benign neighbors north and south have provided for us since the British burned the White House in the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key.
Lincoln’s words that day suggest what is so great and so good about the people who happen to inhabit this lucky and exquisite country of ours. That’s the world you now inherit: our work ethic and our restlessness, our innovation and our improvisation, our communities and our institutions of higher learning, our suspicion of power. The fact that we seem resolutely dedicated to parsing the meaning between individual and collective freedom; What I want versus what we need. That we are all so dedicated to understanding what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he wrote that mysterious phrase, “The pursuit of happiness”. Hint, it happens right here in the lifelong learning and perpetual improvement this university is committed to.
But the isolation of those two oceans has also helped to incubate habits and patterns less beneficial to us: our devotion to money and guns and conspiracies, our certainty about everything, our stubborn insistence on our own exceptionalism blinding us to that which needs repair, especially with regard to race and ethnicity. Our preoccupation with always making the other wrong at an individual as well as a global level. I am reminded of what the journalist I.F. Stone once said to a young acolyte who was profoundly disappointed in his mentor’s admiration for Thomas Jefferson. “It’s because history is tragedy,” Stone admonished him, “Not melodrama.” It’s the perfect response. In melodrama all villains are perfectly villainous and all heroes are perfectly virtuous, but life is not like that. You know that in your guts and nor is our history like that. The novelist, Richard Powers recently wrote that, “The best arguments in the world,” — and ladies and gentlemen, that’s all we do is argue — “the best arguments in the world,” he said, “Won’t change a single person’s point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” I’ve been struggling for most of my life to do that, to try to tell good, complex, sometimes contradictory stories, appreciating nuance and subtlety and undertow, sharing the confusion and consternation of unreconciled opposites.
But it’s clear as individuals and as a nation we are dialectically preoccupied. Everything is either right or wrong, red state or blue state, young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, Palestinian or Israeli, my way or the highway. Everywhere we are trapped by these old, tired, binary reactions, assumptions, and certainties. For filmmakers and faculty, students and citizens, that preoccupation is imprisoning. Still, we know and we hear and we express only arguments, and by so doing, we forget the inconvenient complexities of history and of human nature. That, for example, three great religions, their believers, all children of Abraham, each professing at the heart of their teaching, a respect for all human life, each with a central connection to and legitimate claim to the same holy ground, violate their own dictates of conduct and make this perpetually contested land a shameful graveyard. God does not distinguish between the dead. “Could you?”
[Audience applauding]
“Could you?” A very wise person I know with years of experience with the Middle East recently challenged me, “Could you hold the idea that there could be two wrongs and two rights?”
Listen, listen. In a filmed interview I conducted with the writer James Baldwin, more than 40 years ago, he said, “No one was ever born who agreed to be a slave, who accepted it. That is, slavery is a condition imposed from without. Of course, the moment I say that,” Baldwin continued, “I realize that multitudes and multitudes of people for various reasons of their own enslave themselves every hour of every day to this or that doctrine, this or that delusion of safety, this or that lie. Anti-Semites, for example,” he went on, “are slaves to a delusion. People who hate Negroes are slaves. People who love money are slaves. We are living in a universe really of willing slaves, which makes the concept of liberty and the concept of freedom so dangerous,” he finished. Baldwin is making a profoundly psychological and even spiritual statement, not just a political or racial or social one. He knew, just as Lincoln knew, that the enemy is often us. We continue to shackle ourselves with chains we mistakenly think is freedom.
Another voice, Mercy Otis Warren, a philosopher and historian during our revolution put it this way, “The study of the human character at once opens a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul. We there find a noble principle implanted in the nature of people, but when the checks of conscience are thrown aside, humanity is obscured.” I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the US, but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of “us” and also “we” and “our” and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the US. And if I have learned anything over those years, it’s that there’s only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there’s a them, run away. Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self imprisonment, which brings me to a moment I’ve dreaded and forces me to suspend my longstanding attempt at neutrality.
There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, “The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed.” The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When in fact with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, “a bigger delusion”, James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.
[Audience applauding]
Listen, listen. 33 years ago, the world lost a towering literary figure. The novelist and storyteller, not arguer, Isaac Bashevis Singer. For decades he wrote about God and myth and punishment, fate and sexuality, family and history. He wrote in Yiddish a marvelously expressive language, sad and happy all at the same time. Sometimes maddeningly all knowing, yet resigned to God’s seemingly capricious will. It is also a language without a country, a dying language in a world more interested in the extermination or isolation of its long suffering speakers. Singer, writing in the pages of the Jewish Daily Forward help to keep Yiddish alive. Now our own wonderfully mongrel American language is punctuated with dozens of Yiddish words and phrases, parables and wise sayings, and so many of those words are perfect onomatopoeias of disgust and despair, hubris and humor. If you’ve ever met a schmuck, you know what I’m talking about. [audience laughs] Toward the end of his long and prolific life, Singer expressed wonder at why so many of his books written in this obscure and some said useless language would be so widely translated, something like 56 countries all around the world. “Why,” he would wonder with his characteristic playfulness, “Why would the Japanese care about his simple stories of life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe 1,000 years ago?” “Unless,” Singer paused, twinkle in his eye, “Unless the story spoke of the kinship of the soul.” I think what Singer was talking about was that indefinable something that connects all of us together, that which we all share as part of organic life on this planet, the kinship of the soul. I love that.
Okay, let me speak directly to the graduating class. Watch out, here comes the advice. Listen. Be curious, not cool. Insecurity makes liars of us all. Remember, none of us get out of here alive. The inevitable vicissitudes of life, no matter how well gated our communities, will visit us all. Grief is a part of life, and if you explore its painful precincts, it will make you stronger. Do good things, help others. Leadership is humility and generosity squared. Remember the opposite of faith is not doubt. Doubt is central to faith. The opposite of faith is certainty. The kinship of the soul begins with your own at times withering self-examination. Try to change that unchangeable human nature of Ecclesiastes, but start with you. “Nothing so needs reforming,” Mark Twain once chided us, “As other people’s habits.” [audience laughs]
Don’t confuse success with excellence. Do not descend too deeply into specialism. Educate all of your parts, you will be healthier. Do not get stuck in one place. “Travel is fatal to prejudice,” Twain also said. Be in nature, which is always perfect and where nothing is binary. Its sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer put it, but in the inscrutable and paradoxical ways of wild places, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self regard.
At some point, make babies, one of the greatest things that will happen to you, I mean it, one of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry, I mean really worry, about someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating, I promise. Ask your parents.
[Audience laughs]
Choose honor over hypocrisy, virtue over vulgarity, discipline over dissipation, character over cleverness, sacrifice over self-indulgence. Do not lose your enthusiasm, in its Greek etymology the word enthusiasm means simply, “god in us”. Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Denounce oppression everywhere.
[Audience applauding]
Convince your government, as Lincoln understood that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land. Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts.
[Audience cheering]
They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country; They just make our country worth defending.
[Audience applauding]
Remember what Louis Brandeis said, “The most important political office is that of the private citizen.” Vote. You indelibly… [audience applauding] Please, vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenship, and most important, our kinship with each other when you do. Good luck and godspeed.
La Niña, which means “little girl” in Spanish, is a climate phenomenon characterized by the cooling of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. La Niña and its opposite, El Niño, as well as a neutral phase, are part of a larger climate pattern known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The tropical Pacific can be in either one of those three states.
According to scientists, El Niño years tend to bring cold, wet winters to California and the southern U.S. but warm, dry conditions to the Pacific Northwest and the Ohio Valley. La Niña tends to bring the opposite: dry conditions for the whole southern half of the country but colder, wetter weather for the Pacific Northwest.
La Niña is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate pattern.
How does La Niña affect Texas weather?
La Niña has a notable impact on Texas weather, primarily influencing temperature and precipitation patterns. Here’s how La Niña typically affects Texas, according to NOAA:
Temperature: La Niña often brings warmer-than-average temperatures to Texas during the winter months. The warmer conditions are a result of the jet stream shifting northward, reducing the frequency of cold air masses moving into the region. Summers during La Niña years can also be hotter than normal, with higher heatwaves and increasing demand for water and energy.
Precipitation: La Niña is usually associated with drier-than-normal conditions across Texas, particularly in the fall and winter months. The northward shift of the jet stream tends to divert storm systems away from the state, reducing the overall rainfall. The reduced precipitation can lead to an increased risk of drought. Texas may experience significant water shortages, affecting agriculture and water supply and increasing the likelihood of wildfires.
Severe weather: Due to warmer temperatures during La Niña winters, the likelihood of severe weather, such as snow and ice storms, is generally lower. However, La Niña can increase severe weather events like tornadoes in Texas due to enhanced instability and favorable atmospheric conditions.
Hurricane season: La Niña can contribute to a more active Atlantic hurricane season. This means Texas might face a higher risk of hurricanes and tropical storms making landfall, bringing heavy rainfall and potential flooding. The NOAA predicts between 17 and 25 named storms this season, with 4 to 7 becoming major hurricanes classified as category 3, 4, or 5.
Cities look for new ways to keep people safe — and alive — as extreme summer heat looms
Denise Chow – May 16, 2024
More than five weeks remain before summer’s official start, but preparations for extreme heat have been underway for many months in parts of the country hit hard by last year’s sweltering conditions.
“We prepare for heat year-round in Phoenix,” Mayor Kate Gallego said. “It’s something that we know is coming, so we have to think about it even on the coldest day of the year.”
The 2023 heat waves revealed how challenging it can be to cope with extreme temperatures for weeks on end, even in places where residents are accustomed to warm weather. And the months ahead are expected to be just as hot — if not hotter.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that based on global temperatures so far, 2024 will rank among the five warmest years in recorded history and has a 61% chance of being the hottest on record.
That has prompted cities across the South and the Southwest to re-evaluate how best to keep people safe — and alive — this summer. Some have launched new initiatives aimed at increasing shade in public spaces, strengthening health care systems to deal with victims of heat waves and doing outreach with outdoor workers, homeless populations and other vulnerable communities.
Gallego said Phoenix has been creating “cool corridors” by planting trees and resurfacing the pavement with more reflective coatings to reduce urban heat. A primary focus right now is mitigating high overnight temperatures, which plagued the city last summer.
“We were getting low temperatures that were setting records for how hot they were,” she said. “That’s really pushing us to focus on how we design the city — what materials we use and how we protect open spaces, which tend to dissipate heat at night.”
extreme heat help water hot weather (Matt York / AP file)
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, chief heat officer Jane Gilbert said a key priority is channeling resources to protect residents who are most vulnerable to temperature spikes.
“It’s people who can’t stay cool at home affordably, it’s people who have to work outside, it’s the elderly, it’s people who have to take a bus on a route where they might have to wait at an unsheltered stop for over an hour in that heat,” she said.
To that end, the county’s Transportation Department installed 150 new bus shelters last year and is expected to add 150 more this year, according to Gilbert. With a $10 million grant from the Inflation Reduction Act, the office is also planting trees along roads maintained by the county and the state to increase shade.
Gilbert’s team has focused on raising awareness among renters and homeowners about affordable ways to cool their spaces. Her office also tries to educate employers about the importance of protecting their workers and holds training programs for health care practitioners, homeless outreach workers and summer camp providers.
Nationally, heat kills more people than any other extreme weather event; it’s often referred to as a “silent killer” because heat’s impact on the human body is not always obvious.
“When a hurricane hits or a wildfire comes through, there’s no doubt about what just happened, but heat is more difficult because, for the most part, we don’t have those same context clues in our environment until it gets so extreme,” said Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability.
Ward and her colleagues specialize in “heat governance,” helping local and state governments prepare for extreme heat events. The work includes finding ways to mitigate heat and develop emergency responses for major heat waves.
In North Carolina, for example, Ward and her colleagues have helped counties craft heat action plans to identify their most vulnerable populations.
She said government officials should treat onslaughts of high heat and humidity similar to hurricanes, tornadoes and other disasters.
“People in emergency management and public health have a lot of structures in place already for all kinds of other extreme weather events, but not so much for heat,” Ward said.
Last summer was a wake-up call, she added.
“That was our category 5 heat event,” Ward said. “The extreme nature of what we saw last summer was enough to focus attention on this topic.”
Climate change is increasing the frequency, duration and intensity of heat waves around the world, studies show. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record, and the warming trend continues. April was the 11th consecutive month with record-breaking global temperatures, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In much of the U.S., temperatures over the next three months are expected to be above average, according to NOAA.
Ward said that it’s heartening to see cities take extreme heat seriously but emphasized that major challenges lie ahead. For one, preparing early for extreme heat requires funding, which is a major challenge, especially for rural communities.
Even trickier will be addressing the underlying social issues that get magnified during heat waves, such as homelessness, rising energy costs and economic inequality.
Ward is optimistic, though, that last summer’s experience has catalyzed some local governments to act.
“What I hope we see going forward is more emphasis on what we can do to reduce those exposures to begin with,” she said, “so that we’re not constantly in response mode.”
Scientists sound alarm as growing threat looms over coastal states: ‘We are preparing for the wrong disaster’
Doric Sam – May 7, 2024
Scientists have issued a stern warning over the ongoing threat of rising sea levels caused by the ever-changing climate.
What’s happening?
A detailed report by The Washington Post revealed that coastal communities across eight states in the U.S. are facing “one of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth.” Since 2010, satellite data shows that the Gulf of Mexico has experienced twice the global average rate of rising sea levels, with more than a dozen tide gauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina registering sea levels that are at least six inches higher than they were 14 years ago.
While many understandably assume that extreme weather events like hurricanes are the source of these changes, experts revealed that rising water levels face a “newer, more insidious challenge” of accumulation caused by smaller-scale weather events.
“To me, here’s the story: We are preparing for the wrong disaster almost everywhere,” said Rob Young, a professor at Western Carolina University and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines. “These smaller changes will be a greater threat over time than the next hurricane, no question about it.”
Charleston, South Carolina recorded its fourth-highest water level since measurements began in 1899, with the city’s average rising by seven inches since 2010. Jacksonville, Florida has seen an increase of six inches during that period, but Galveston, Texas experienced a whopping eight-inch increase in 14 years.
Why is this concerning?
These rapidly increasing water levels are uncommon, and to make matters worse, experts believe they are here to stay even if the rate of the rise tapers off eventually.
“Since 2010, it’s very abnormal and unprecedented,” said Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who has studied the changes. “It’s irreversible.”
Rising global temperatures have caused warmer currents that cause water to expand. However, human-induced climate change caused by harmful gases and a lack of care for the environment have also contributed to these concerning issues.
The rising levels have particularly impacted the state of Louisiana, where wetlands that are meant to act as a natural barrier to catastrophic storms are now in a state of “drowning.” This issue would make the state more vulnerable to future major weather events.
Across the rest of the American South, failing septic systems can lead to contaminated water sources. During big storms, roads can fall below the highest tides and leave residents in the community cut off from essential services like medical care. Also, the future value of homes in flood-prone areas is being impacted by rising rates and limited policies from insurance companies.
What can be done about it?
Officials are trying to figure out ways to combat these issues. In Galveston, for example, there is a plan to install several pump stations over the next few years using funding provided through federal grants. However, it was noted that each pump is expected to cost over $60 million, which is likely to exceed the city’s annual tax revenue.
We can help by taking steps to reduce our own carbon footprint, like switching to electric vehicles, supporting local food sources, choosing native species when planting or volunteering for local cleanup projects in areas where rising sea levels pose a threat.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
New EV tax credit rules mean cars with Chinese materials won’t qualify — but there’s a catch
‘Impracticable-to-trace’ elements like Chinese graphite will be temporarily excluded from EV tax credit rules, a boon for US automakers.
Pras Subramanian, Senior Reporter May 6, 2024
New rules from the Treasury Department will make it harder for vehicles to qualify for the full federal electric vehicle tax credit of $7,500 if key components are sourced from China.
But the rules also offered a two-year reprieve on some materials that are mostly sourced from China.
Late last week Treasury released new rules mandating that manufacturers not use critical materials that originate from a Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) — including China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran — by 2025 if they want to receive the full EV tax credit.
The federal government, however, is giving automakers some important leeway in sourcing some rarer materials, like graphite.
“The final regulations also identify certain impracticable-to-trace battery materials,” the Treasury said, adding that “qualified manufacturers may temporarily exclude these battery materials from FEOC due diligence and FEOC compliance determinations until 2027.”
Currently, the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) federal EV credit requires that manufacturers ramp up sourcing of battery “critical materials” such as nickel and cobalt from the US and its trade partners and ensure that battery components are increasingly built in North America.
The White House’s goal with the mandates was to reduce the industry’s reliance on battery materials and components from China.
China’s chokehold over battery mineral production is the main concern for automakers who need to diversify supply chains and for the federal government as it looks to boost domestic production of these minerals. Morgan Stanley estimated that 90% of the EV battery supply chain originates from China, with Chinese companies like CATL and BYD dominating the space.
The “impracticable-to-trace” exemption is a boon for automakers in sourcing low-value and hard-to-trace elements like graphite, which is a critical component of a battery’s anode and comes mainly from China.
The automakers and their main trade group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), cheered the 2027 exemption for non-traceable elements.
“This updated guidance from the Treasury Department is something we recommended. It makes good sense for investment, job creation and consumer EV adoption,” said John Bozzella, AAI president and CEO.
This photo taken on Dec. 8, 2022, shows the graphitization process of cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries at a workshop of a company in Hegang City, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. (Photo by Xie Jianfei/Xinhua via Getty Images) (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)
Bozzella also noted that the EV tax credit was hard enough to qualify for; only 20% of EVs received the credit, and on top of that, requirements will get harder next year. Currently, only 22 vehicles sold in the US qualify for the tax credit, and only 13 of them qualify for the full $7,500.
A restriction on trace or low-value minerals would have meant even fewer (if not all EVs) would no longer qualify for the credit.
“Imagine an EV that complied with all IRA eligibility requirements but is kicked out of the program because of a trace amount of a critical mineral from an FEOC,” Bozzella said. “That makes no sense — especially when you consider the massive investments automakers and suppliers are making in domestic EV manufacturing.”
Sen. Joe Manchin questions Education Secretary Miguel Cardona during a hearing in Washington, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
“President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed an investment and manufacturing boom in the United States,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
“I’ve seen firsthand in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky how ecosystems have developed in communities nationwide to onshore the entire clean vehicle supply chain so the United States can lead in the field of green energy.”
The White House also noted that 15 battery gigafactories have been commissioned in the US since the start of Biden’s term in office.
But critics, like Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who helped push IRA legislation through the Senate back in 2022, see this loophole as the White House “breaking the law.”
“With this final rule for the consumer credit, their creation of loopholes in the commercial vehicle credit, and their EPA tailpipe rules, the Administration is effectively endorsing ‘Made in China,'” the Democratic senator from West Virginia said in a statement, adding that the White House is “blatantly breaking the law by implementing a bill that they did not pass.”
Manchin has vowed to lead a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval for the IRA’s tax credit implementation, which could lead to the repeal of Treasury’s guidance for untraceable elements.
Voters can’t tell between the arsonist and the fireman
Mark Gongloff, Bloomberg Opinion -The Tribune Content Agency May 02, 2024
US President Joe Biden presents his national statement as part of the World Leaders’ Summit of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov. 1, 2021. (Yves Herman/Pool/AFP via Getty Images/TNS) YVES HERMAN/POOL/AFP TNS
If you were shopping for toaster ovens and your choice was between one that posed a 1% chance of setting your house on fire and a competing one that would not only 100% set your house on fire but proudly guaranteed it right on the box, then you would probably go with the 1% model.
U.S. voters face a similar choice this November when it comes to which presidential candidate will set the climate on fire. But they don’t seem to realize how much of a no-brainer that choice truly is.
President Joe Biden may not have a spotless climate record, but he has done much more to ensure a livable environment for future generations than any of his predecessors. Donald Trump, on the other hand, not only has history’s worst climate record, but he has announced, loudly and often, that his second term would be far, far worse.
Voters haven’t received the message, according to poll after poll. The latest is from CBS News, which found that 49% of Americans have heard little or nothing about what Biden has done for the climate. More alarmingly, most Americans think neither Biden’s second-term policies nor Trump’s would make any difference to the climate. That is dangerous nonsense.
The list of what Biden has already done is long and substantial, and it goes beyond the Inflation Reduction Act, easily the biggest climate bill in history. He also passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Chips and Science Act, both with significant investments in the renewable-energy transition. He rejoined the Paris accord to limit long-term warming to 2 degrees Celsius, tightened emissions standards for power plants and cars and limited oil and gas drilling and liquefied natural gas exports. To name just a few things.
Biden has frustrated environmentalists at times with compromises such as approving the Willow drilling project in Alaska and pulling some regulatory punches on emissions and corporate disclosures. But he has done these things mostly in the name of getting reelected – which may sound cynical, until you consider the person who will be elected if Biden is not.
During his first term, Trump ditched the Paris accord and loosened regulatory fetters on the fossil-fuel and other polluting industries at the worst possible moment, just as the global concentration of atmospheric carbon was reaching dangerous levels. A Trump restoration would again come at a key point, just when scientists say the window to avoid the worst effects of a chaotic climate is slamming shut.
And Trump’s advisers are vowing to wreck progress even more aggressively in a second term. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 lays out an agenda for Trump II that includes leaving the Paris accord again; undoing Biden’s efforts to regulate pollution; repealing the IRA or at least neutralizing it by closing the Energy Department loan office; throwing the entire country open to oil and gas exploration; and dismantling the climate-tracking National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. To name just a few things.
A second Trump term would add 4 billion extra tons of carbon to the atmosphere, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief, a nonprofit advocacy group. That’s about two-thirds of what the U.S. produces in an entire year and matches the combined annual emissions of the European Union and Japan. The global clean-energy transition has built up anti-Trump defenses in the past four years, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Liam Denning and I have written. But make no mistake about it: A second Trump presidency would be a disaster.
So the whole planet needs Biden to do a much better job of communicating the stark contrast between him and Trump. The first step will be overcoming the mistaken sense among his voting base that he has failed them with his compromises.
“The key voters that put Biden in office in the first place – young people, people of color, women in the suburbs – were very concerned about climate,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, told me in an interview. “Some of these same demographics think he’s done nothing or worse because of the Willow decision.”
Seven out of 10 Biden voters in 2020 said climate was important to their vote, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Nearly a fifth of Biden voters consider it their top priority, according to an Economist/YouGov poll. If he wants these voters back at the polls in November, then Biden must convince them early and often that staying home and giving Trump the White House would make all their worst fears come true.
The trick is that Biden may also need to win swing voters, most of whom don’t care as much about the environment and may fear (incorrectly) that there’s a trade-off between fighting global warming and growing the economy. That’s one reason Biden and his advisers spend so much time trumpeting the jobs the IRA and other climate actions create.
The good news is that the politics of this issue have shifted drastically in recent years. As evidence, Biden made his climate promises sharper for the general election campaign than during the Democratic primaries in 2020, Leiserowitz notes. Most Americans now think global warming is real and human-made and support Biden’s policies when they hear about them.
But we can’t wait for the battleship of public opinion to complete its U-turn. We don’t have another four years to waste.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. He previously worked for Fortune.com, the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Spring is tornado season in the U.S., but the tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa were quite a bit farther north and east of what would be typical for tornadoes in late April, when tornado activity is more common in Oklahoma and Texas.
The outbreak did fit another pattern for severe weather events, however, that occur as the atmosphere transitions out of El Niño. And this is exactly what was happening in late April.
I study tornadoes and the conditions under which they form. Here’s how these storm systems develop and what El Niño has to do with it.
Preliminary reports of tornadoes and hail during severe storms on April 26, 2024, collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center. NOAAPreliminary reports of tornadoes and hail on April 27, 2024, collected by the Storm Prediction Center. NOAA.
The right conditions for a tornado
Two basic conditions are required to produce the rotating supercell thunderstorms that are capable of generating tornadoes:
Warm moist surface conditions and cold air above.
Winds that change in both speed and direction as you move up in the atmosphere, known as vertical wind shear.
Picture a kid who has a helium balloon at a party and releases it – the balloon floats upward. Like that helium balloon, the warm moist air is less dense than the surrounding colder air, so it rises, accelerating upward. This upward motion releases heat, moisture and energy, and causes thunderstorms to develop.
As with many severe weather outbreaks that occur in the U.S., the atmosphere became primed for storms as warm moist air at the surface was being transported northward from the Gulf of Mexico by a series of surface low-pressure systems.
Higher up, about halfway between the ground and where airplanes fly, atmospheric waves within and below the jet stream were transporting cold air through the middle part of the atmosphere. These waves, formally called Rossby waves and commonly referred to as troughs and ridges, also enhanced vertical wind shear.
A small atmospheric wave that moved through the Central Plains and Midwest on April 26, helped trigger the tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa, including a large, destructive tornado in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, and in the town of Minden, Iowa, about 30 miles away.
The following day, a bigger wave moved through Oklahoma, where tornadoes damaged several small towns that evening.
The two images show the short-wave trough, circled in red, and the longer wave, circled in orange, traveling behind it. On the left is April 26, with the short-wave trough moving through Nebraska. On the right, the longer wave is affecting Oklahoma and Kansas on April 27. TwisterData.com
What was especially important was how close these parameters were to the center of the surface low-pressure system and a warm front that extended just to the east of it. The tornado-producing storms were able to tap into that instability and draw on the strong vertical wind shear generated in the vicinity of the warm front.
Surface temperatures (colors), winds (barbs indicating direction the wind was blowing from), surface pressure (solid black contours) indicating the location of the low pressure system (L), the warm front (red line) and the region of favorable conditions (blue circle) on the evening of April, 26, 2024. Pivotal Weather
When El Niño decays, the atmospheric waves change and can become wavier, so they have a greater amplitude. That tends to enhance conditions needed for tornadoes.
The U.S. often sees more frequent tornadoes when the climate is transitioning out of El Niño. The strong El Niño of 2023-24 was decaying in April 2024, and forecasters expect it to be gone by summer.
Weather experts are getting better at predicting tornado conditions. It is not uncommon now to know days in advance of the actual event that an elevated threat exists. Forecasters have high-resolution weather models that can anticipate storms at an appropriate spatial scale to provide a sense of the likely organization of the storms and come close to the location.
The better we understand these storms’ attributes, the better those forecasts and warnings can become.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jana Lesak Houser, The Ohio State University
An El Niño-less summer is coming. Here’s what that could mean for the US
Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologist – April 29, 2024
It may be spring, but it’s not too soon to look ahead to summer weather, especially when El Niño – a player in last year’s especially brutal summer – is rapidly weakening and will all but vanish by the time the season kicks into gear.
El Niño’s disappearing act doesn’t mean relief from the heat. Not when the world is heating up due to human-driven climate change. In fact, forecasters think it could mean the opposite.
What this summer’s weather could look like
El Niño is a natural climate pattern marked by warmer than average ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. When the water gets cooler than average, it’s a La Niña. Either phase can have an effect on weather around the globe.
By June, forecasters expect those ocean temperatures to hover close to normal, marking a so-called neutral phase, before La Niña builds in early summer, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
But the strength of El Niño or La Niña’s influence on US weather isn’t uniform and varies greatly based on the strength of the phenomena and the season itself.
The influence of El Niño or La Niña on US weather isn’t as clear-cut in the summer as it is in the winter, especially during a transition between the two phases, said Michelle L’Heureux, a climate scientist with the Climate Prediction Center.
Temperature differences between the tropics and North America are more extreme in the winter, L’Heureux explained. This allows the jet stream to become quite strong and influential, reliably sending storms into certain parts of the US.
In the summer, the difference in temperature between the two regions isn’t as significant and the obvious influence on US weather wanes.
But we can look back at what happened during similar summers to get a glimpse of what could come this summer.
In short: It’s not cool.
The summer of 2016 was one of the hottest on record for the Lower 48. La Niña conditions were in place by midsummer and followed a very strong El Niño winter.
Summer 2020 followed a similar script: La Niña conditions formed midsummer after a weak El Niño winter but still produced one of the hottest summers on record and the most active hurricane season on record.
Then there’s the fact that these climate phenomena are playing out in a warming world, raising the ceiling on the extreme heat potential.
“This obviously isn’t our grandmother’s transition out of El Niño – we’re in a much warmer world so the impacts will be different,” L’Heureux, said. “We’re seeing the consequences of climate change.”
Current summer temperature outlooks for the US are certainly bringing the heat.
CNN Weather
Above-average temperatures are forecast over nearly every square mile of the Lower 48. Only portions of the Dakotas, Minnesota and Montana have an equal chance of encountering near normal, above- or below-normal temperatures.
A huge portion of the West is likely to have warmer conditions than normal. This forecast tracks with decades of climate trends, according to L’Heureux.
Summers have warmed more in the West than in any other region of the US since the early 1990s, according to data from NOAA. Phoenix is a prime example. The city’s average July temperature last year was an unheard-of 102.7 degrees, making it the hottest month on record for any US city. It was also the deadliest year on record for heat in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.
Forecasts also show a worrying precipitation trend for parts of the West.
CNN Weather
Large sections of the West and the central US are likely to be drier than normal. This dryness, combined with above-normal heat, which only amplifies the dryness, could be a recipe for new or worsening drought.
Wetter than normal conditions are in the forecast from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast. Stormy weather could be a consistent companion for much of the East – but whether it comes from typical rain and thunderstorms or tropical activity won’t be known for months.
A warming world generates more fuel for more tropical activity and stronger storms. La Niña tends to produce favorable atmospheric conditions to allow storms to form and hold together in the Atlantic.
“We anticipate a well above-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean,” the group said in a news release.
Graduate Ceremony
