Actions to Preserve the Environment

After a four-year hiatus, the United States is officially taking climate change seriously again. On Thursday, President Joe Biden  pledged  that by 2030 the nation will slash its carbon pollution 50 to 52 percent compared to 2005 levels. Many climate scientists say it’s imperative that the United States, which has put  more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over time than any other country , cut its climate-warming carbon pollution at least in half this decade. That’s necessary, they say, to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), the widely accepted threshold for preventing catastrophic damage from climate effects.   The U.S. is currently the second biggest carbon emitter annually after China, with emissions of  6.6 billion metric tons  in 2019. Its two largest sources are the transportation and power sectors, which respectively accounted for 29 and 25 percent of the 2019 total. Heavy industry, including steel, cement, and ...

On March 13th I attended the Cape Cod Natural History Conference hosted by Mass Audubon. A variety of interesting topics were discussed such as climate change, moths, sea turtles, seals, sharks and more. There were experts for each section that talked about the rescue, harm, and rehabilitation of their species of expertise. As climate change progresses, it becomes increasingly important to understand the expected effects on the natural and built environment to better prepare for and adapt to climate change impacts. Dr. Danielle Perry, Mass Audubon’s climate adaptation ecologist, completed climate vulnerability assessments of Mass Audubon (MAS) properties including Barnstable Great Marsh and Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuaries located in Cape Cod, MA. The studies evaluated expected impacts of sea level rise (SLR) on infrastructure and natural ecosystems within these sanctuaries. The vulnerability assessments consisted of 3 components: 1. Resource Prioritization; 2. Sea Level Rise Scenari...

Electric car ownership is still remarkably low, with less than 10 million electric vehicles on the roads globally. However, this is all set to change in 2021, as sales are expected to increase by 60%, adding around 4.4 million electric vehicles onto the roads. This could drastically increase if car companies start to shift towards making electric vehicles. The oil demand crisis instigated by the pandemic may not last much longer, with the BNEF predicting a re-balance in the global oil market in 2021. The IEA instead predicts that oil prices will slowly decline through 2021, with some predictions showing a 1-2% decline on average each year through until 2050. As solar panels gain efficiency and battery technology grows in storage capacity and life expectancy, solar paneling is set to play a key component of the UK’s Energy White Paper. More and more businesses are committing to sustainability goals and solar panels are a vital tool enabling them to do this.

  In Cape Town, South Africa the water crisis was so bad that there were almost at Day Zero (day in which they wouldn't have any water). According to National Geographic they were set to reach Day Zero around June of 2018, and soon the authorities implicated regulations that stated they weren’t allowed to flush potable water and each person wasn’t allowed to shower more than twice a week. Although it isn’t the hygienic rule it eventually, along with some aid from the weather, was able to wipe out the drought in Cape Town. Another similar instance was in Sao Paulo, Brazil in which they actually reached their Zero Day because of their immense population of 20 million people. The city combated this by turning off the water supply for 12 hours a day in order to prevent the use of their already scarce supply. This forced businesses and some industries to shut down. Now out of the 20 megacities 14 of them are suffering from drought and water scarcity.

Cars consume a lot of energy before they ever make it to the road. Automotive production leaves a giant footprint because materials like steel, rubber, glass, plastics, paints, and many more must be created before a new ride is ready to go. Similarly, the end of a car’s life doesn’t mark the end of its environmental impact. Plastics, toxic battery acids, and other products may stay in the environment. Fortunately junkyards are slowly decreasing in size over time. About three-quarters of today’s average car, including most of a steel frame, can be recycled. Production, recycling, and disposal costs to the environment are difficult to quantify and largely beyond the control of most consumers. Most of an automobile's impact (80-90%) will be due to fuel consumption and emissions of air pollution and greenhouse gases that climate scientists say are driving global warming. 

The planet has warmed around 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s (and is tied for the hottest year on record), when the spread of industrialization led to rising emissions of greenhouse gasses. Since 1980, warming has averaged about 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. According to climate scientists, the world is seeing an increase in heat waves, storms and other extreme weather as the planet warms, and in disasters like droughts, floods and wildfires that result. Last year offered no respite, with record fires in Australia and California, and severe drought in central South America and the American Southwest. Some forecasters had thought that the arrival of cooler sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean — part of the recurring global climate phenomenon called La Niña — would lower temperatures this year. Clearly La Nina was overshadowed by the rise in temperatures throughout the year. La Niña only emerged in September, and is expected to continue at least through winte...

In 2020 there was a whopping ten percent decline in emissions. However that isn’t a cause for celebration as 2021 is set to become a rebound year. The reason for this decline is the COVID-19 pandemic as he combined drop in driving and air travel helped produce a drop of 273 million metric tons in transportation emissions, the most recorded by any economic sector in the United States last year.  The nearly 15% decline marked a sharp reversal from previous years, which have seen transportation emissions edged upward to overtake the power sector as America’s leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. The US committed to a 26-28 percent drop in emissions by 2025 with the Paris Agreement. President Trump had pulled America from the Agreement but President elect Joe Biden is expected to rejoin. This along with the pandemic will help limit the use of greenhouse gasses.  In order to combat the emission issue it is important that the Government invests in public transportation, bike...