https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/business/culdesac-tempe-phoenix-sprawl.html Source:  By   Conor Dougherty , The New York Times.  Excerpt: On an empty lot near Phoenix, perhaps the most auto-addicted city in America, a start-up is betting $170 million on a more walkable future. Phoenix...has been called “ the world’s least sustainable city .” ...The development,   Culdesac Tempe , is a 17-acre lot just across the Salt River from Phoenix. ...the site will eventually feature 761 apartments, 16,000 square feet of retail, 1,000 residents — and exactly zero places for them to park. The people who live there will be contractually forbidden to park a car on site or on nearby streets, part of a deal the development company struck with the government to assuage fears of clogged parking in surrounding neighborhoods. ...Culdesac Tempe is directly on a light-rail line to downtown Phoenix, but residents may never need to leave: The complex will feature its own grocery store, coffee shop, resta

https://eos.org/opinions/how-scientists-can-engage-to-solve-the-climate-crisis Source:  By Raleigh L. Martin, Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Policymakers need scientists. Here’s how one geoscientist contributed to a U.S. congressional report that’s already churning out legislation—and real action. ...The gap between scientific consensus and political action on the unfolding climate crisis can be frustrating. For decades,  geoscientists have been warning  about the dangers of unmitigated climate change. Synthesis documents, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2018  Global Warming of 1.5°C  report, express the consensus scientific view that immediate and dramatic reductions in carbon emissions are needed to avert climate catastrophe. But translating this alarm into tangible policy action can feel daunting when some political leaders continue to deny the science of climate change. To counter this pessimism, I offer here a motivating example of science-driven work by the

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/climate/oil-wells-leak-canada.html Source:  By Alec Jacobson, The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Canada has committed to reducing its planet-warming carbon emissions and has singled out the oil and gas industry as the source of almost half of the country’s annual emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that can have 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide over 20 years. Alberta, the heart of Canadian hydrocarbon extraction, has set a goal of a 45 percent drop in the industry’s methane footprint from active infrastructure by 2025. But the inactive wells — the ones no longer producing oil or natural gas but many still lingering in suspension like zombies — may be as big a threat to the planet. After decades of booms and busts, an enormous backlog of these inactive wells has built up, and it grows about 6 percent each year. There are now 97,920 wells... that are licensed as temporarily suspended, compared to the province’s 160,000 active wells.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/united-kingdom-lights-its-unusual-fusion-reactor Source:  By  Daniel Clery , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: The United Kingdom’s revamped fusion reactor, known as the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) Upgrade, powered up for the first time yesterday after a 7-year build. The £55 million device will be a testbed for technologies critical to all future fusion reactors, and may provide a stepping stone to a new design of energy-producing facility.  MAST is a variation on the standard tokamak ; it is shaped more like a cored apple than a doughnut. Researchers believe that shape can confer greater stability in the roiling plasma than a doughnut-shaped tokamak, but it is less well understood than the traditional design. MAST first tested the concept on a large scale starting in 1999 and has now been upgraded with extra heating power, new technology for extracting heat from the plasma, and other improvements. ...U.K. researchers hope MAST Upgrade will de

https://eos.org/science-updates/reaching-consensus-on-assessments-of-ocean-acidification-trends Source: By Adrienne Sutton and Jan A. Newton, Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Media coverage concerning carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions into Earth’s atmosphere most often focuses on how these emissions affect climate and weather patterns. However, atmospheric CO 2   is also the primary driver for ocean acidification, because the products of atmospheric CO 2   dissolving into seawater reduce seawater’s pH and its concentration of carbonate ions. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of the ocean has increased by over 30%. Some organisms in the ocean may struggle to adapt to increasingly acidified conditions, and even resilient life-forms may have a harder time finding food. Higher CO 2   levels in ocean water also make it difficult for shellfish to build their shells and corals to form their reefs, both of which are made of carbonate compounds. Ocean acidification, which affect

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/fleet-robotic-probes-will-monitor-global-warming-s-impact-microscopic-ocean-life Source:  By   Paul Voosen , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: A single drop of seawater holds millions of phytoplankton, a mix of algae, bacteria, and protocellular creatures. Across the world’s oceans these photosynthesizing microbes pump out more than half of the planet’s oxygen, while slowing climate change by capturing an estimated 25% of the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) released from humanity’s burning of fossil fuels. But the scale of this vital chemistry is mostly a guess, and there’s little sense of how it will change as temperatures rise. ...Soon, 500 drifting ocean floats studded with biogeochemical sensors will deliver answers. Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced it will   spend $53 million to fund the new floats,   marking the first major expansion of the Argo array, a set of 4000 floats that for 15 years has tracked rising ocean temperatures. ..

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/jury-duty-global-warming-citizen-groups-help-solve-puzzle-climate-action Source:    By   Cathleen O’Grady , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Until recently, Sue Peachey, an apartment building manager in Bath, U.K., didn’t think much about climate change. ...She never imagined the U.K. Parliament asking for her advice on climate policy. But last year, a letter arrived in her mailbox inviting her to do just that, by joining the United Kingdom’s first ever climate assembly. ...The assembly was more than a focus group or a town hall meeting: It was an experiment in handing political power to a random but representative set of citizens. Last month, it produced its final report, and its recommendations will shape debates in Parliament.The U.K. Climate Assembly is one of a growing number of similar gatherings popping up across Europe, many of them charged with addressing climate change and other science-heavy issues. A citizens’ assembly in Ireland that de

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/10/29/climate-change-electric-boats/ Source:  By Justin Sondel, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — With the sun streaming into the Niagara Gorge, visitors lined up in socially distanced groups waiting to shuffle onto the Maid of the Mist, the boats that have ferried tourists to the base of Niagara Falls for the past 174 years. Whether they knew it or not, these passengers were experiencing a new era of maritime transportation: boats powered by electricity. Earlier this month, the Maid of the Mist launched two electric catamarans into the gorge, the first of their kind in North America. The hulking double-deckers run on dual banks of lithium-ion batteries. All the power used to charge the batteries is supplied by the nearby Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant, one of the most productive hydroelectric facilities in the United States, making the boats a zero-emission operation. ...On the other side of the country, Was

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/10/28/climate-solutions-ocean-conservation/ Source:  By Saqib Rahim, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Rob Weary ...as a dealmaker trying to convince small countries to protect their seas in a novel way — in partnership with big banks and international financial institutions. Four years ago, he struck a pioneering deal with the Seychelles, a splash of islands off the East African coast. ...the country was deep in debt.... Its economy depended on tourism and fishing, two industries facing decimation from climate change. As part of an investment team at the Nature Conservancy, the U.S.-based environmental group, Weary threw the Seychelles a lifeline: a chance to refinance more than $21 million of its debt. There were just two conditions. The government had to spend the savings on ocean conservation work such as coral restoration and trash cleanup, and it had to designate 30 percent of its waters as special zones where activities such

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/28/climate/how-electricity-generation-changed-in-your-state-election.html Source:   By   Nadja Popovich   and   Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: America isn’t making electricity the way it did two decades ago. Now the future of the nation’s energy mix has become a major election issue. How the United States generated electricity from 2001 to 2019. ...Overall, fossil fuels still dominate electricity generation in the United States. But the shift from coal to gas and renewable technologies has helped to lower carbon dioxide emissions and other pollution. Last year, natural gas was the largest source of electricity in 20 states, while wind emerged as a leader in Iowa and Kansas. Coal remained the primary power source in 15 states – about half as many as two decades ago....  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/business/japan-carbon-neutral.html Source:  By   Ben Dooley , Makiko Inoue and Hikari Hida, The New York Times.  Excerpt: TOKYO — Japan will be carbon neutral by 2050, its prime minister said on Monday, making an ambitious pledge to sharply accelerate the country’s global warming targets, even as it plans to build more than a dozen new coal-burning power plants in the coming years. The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, laid out the goal during his first major policy speech since taking office in September....    See also  article in The Washington Post .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/10/22/greensburg-kansas-wind-power-carbon-emissions Source:  By   Annie Gowen , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: GREENSBURG, Kan. — After powerful tornadoes swept through   Nashville   earlier this year, killing 25 and leaving a trail of destruction for miles, one of the first calls officials made was to tiny Greensburg, population 900. A wind-swept farming community in southwestern Kansas, Greensburg rebuilt “green” after an EF5 tornado — the most violent — barreled through at more than 200 miles per hour and nearly wiped it off the map in 2007. A decade later, Greensburg draws 100 percent of its electricity from a wind farm, making it one of a handful of cities in the United States to be powered solely by renewable energy. It now has an energy-efficient school, a medical center, city hall, library and commons, museum and other buildings that save more than $200,000 a year in fuel and electricity costs, according to one federal es

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/us-cities-struggling-meet-lofty-climate-goals Source:    By  Peter Behr, E&E News .  Excerpt: Most major U.S. cities that have signed on to the climate fight with pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are failing to meet their goals or haven't even started to track local progress, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution. The  report , " Pledges and Progress ," looked for climate policy and actions in the nation's 100 most populous cities, finding that two-thirds have made commitments to address citywide emissions.President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris climate accord after he took office sparked a strong response at the local level. Mayors joined governors, business leaders and academics in taking the "We Are Still In" pledge to help meet targets for cutting emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The pledge now lists 3800 signers. "At their best, the plans have exemplified the hop

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/climate/beef-cattle-methane.html Source:  By  Henry Fountain , The New York Times.  Excerpt: HAPPY, Texas — Randy Shields looked out at a sea of cattle at the sprawling Wrangler Feedyard — 46,000 animals milling about in the dry Panhandle air.... ...at its most basic, the business simply takes something that people can’t eat, and converts it into something they can: beef. That’s possible because cattle have a multichambered stomach where microbes ferment grass and other tough fibrous vegetation, making it digestible. “The way I look at it, I’ve got 46,000 fermentation vats going out there,” Mr. Shields said. But this process, called enteric fermentation, also produces methane, a potent planet-warming gas that the cattle mostly belch into the air. ...Researchers within and outside the industry are working on ways to reduce emissions from fermentation, through feed supplements or dietary changes. ...In the United States, cattle are far from the larges

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/dust-bowl-20-rising-great-plains-dust-levels-stir-concerns Source:  By   Roland Pease , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Earlier this month, a storm front swept across the Great Plains of the United States, plowing up a wall of dust that could be seen from space, stretching from eastern Colorado into Nebraska and Kansas. It was a scene straight from the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when farmers regularly saw soil stripped from their fields and whipped up into choking blizzards of dust. ...According to a new study, dust storms on the Great Plains have become more common and more intense in the past 20 years, because of more frequent droughts in the region and an expansion of croplands. “Our results suggest a tipping point is approaching, where the conditions of the 1930s could return,” says Gannet Haller, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who led the study. ...Lambert came across the trend unexpectedly, while reviewing data from NASA sate

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2019/10/18/nasas-eyes-on-extreme-weather/ Source:  By  Ota Lutz , NASA-JPL.  Excerpt: An extreme weather event is something that falls outside the realm of normal weather patterns. ... NASA uses airborne and space-based platforms , in conjunction with those from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to monitor these events and the ways in which our changing climate is contributing to them. ...NASA makes this data available to the public, and students can use it to understand extreme weather events happening in their regions, learn more about weather and climate in general, and design plans for  resilience and mitigation . ...Global climate change...has had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up and melting earlier in the year, precipitation patterns have changed, plant and animal habitat ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner, exposing fruit blossoms to

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/china-s-rare-birds-may-move-north-climate-changes-new-data-suggest Source:    By   Dennis Normile , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: China’s growing army of amateur birdwatchers is a dedicated bunch—and that dedication could eventually pay off in better protection for their feathered friends. A new study uses more than 2 decades of bird sightings by China’s citizen scientists to map the ranges of nearly 1400 species, from the endangered red-crowned crane to the pied falconet. Spinning those maps forward to 2070, researchers have determined what their future ranges might be—and pinpointed 14 priority areas for new nature preserves. Researchers have used such citizen science data from bird lovers before, but experts say this study is the first in China to use it on a nationwide scale....    

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/distant-seas-might-predict-colorado-river-droughts Source:   By  Warren Cornwall , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...scientists say they may have come up with a potential early warning system for the Colorado’s water levels—by watching temperature patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thousands of kilometers away. ...Scientists have long recognized links between ocean temperatures and continental weather patterns. Most famously, the central Pacific’s El Niño—a periodic warming of ocean waters—has been tied to drought in Africa, torrential rains on the Pacific coast of North America, and wildfires in South America. ...The scientists found that in the seven most extreme drought years over the past 6 decades, including 2012, the downturn  nearly always happened on the heels of a multiyear pattern of global ocean temperatures , they report this month in Communications Earth & Environment. Those patterns started with unusual warm spells in t

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2020/10/16/gm-detroit-hamtramck-assembly-plant-renamed-factory-zero/3665925001/ Source:   Jamie L. LaReau , Detroit Free Press.  Excerpt: The iconic General Motors factory that straddles two cities is getting a new moniker as GM turns it into its most modern plant in the country. Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly will now be Factory ZERO, serving as the "launchpad" for GM's multi-brand EV strategy, GM said Friday. “Factory ZERO is the next battleground in the EV race and will be GM’s flagship assembly plant in our journey to an all-electric future,” said Gerald Johnson, GM executive vice president of Global Manufacturing. “The electric trucks and SUVs that will be built here will help transform GM and the automotive industry.” ...To that end, GM is investing $2.2 billion in the 35-year-old factory to build all-electric vehicles there starting late next year. It's GM's single largest investment in a plant in the auto

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/business/electric-supercars-porsche-taycan-tesla.html Source: By Paul Stenquist, The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...A   2012 article   in The New York Times summarized a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that found the environmental benefits of subcompact, modestly powered electric cars like the Nissan Leaf depended on where they were charged. ...many states still relied heavily on coal-fired plants for electricity, and the investigators found that in some areas, electrics were no cleaner than efficient gasoline-powered cars when factoring in the emissions resulting from electricity generation. E.V. technology has advanced considerably since then, and electricity generation in America has shifted, as well. The latest report from the Union of Concerned Scientists,   in a February article   by David Reichmuth, its senior vehicles engineer, is much more optimistic than the one eight years ago. ...the group found that electric vehicles were r

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/climate/noaa-climate-call-drought.html Source:  By  Henry Fountain , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Nearly half of the continental United States is gripped by drought, government forecasters said Thursday, and conditions are expected to worsen this winter across much of the Southwest and South. Mike Halpert, deputy director of the  Climate Prediction Center , a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said a lack of late-summer rain in the Southwest had expanded “extreme and exceptional” dry conditions from West Texas into Colorado and Utah, “with significant drought also prevailing westward through Nevada, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.” Much of the Western half of the country is now experiencing drought conditions and parts of the Ohio Valley and the Northeast are as well, Mr. Halpert said during a teleconference announcing NOAA’s weather outlook for this winter. This is the most widespread drought in the contine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/14/phoenix-record-heat-100-degrees/ Source:  By   Ian Livingston , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The unrelenting and unprecedented heat that scorched Phoenix all summer, setting countless records, has carried over into the fall. Now it has set another blistering milestone: the most 100-degree days ever observed in a calendar year. On Wednesday, the mercury in Phoenix climbed to at least 100 degrees for the 144th time in 2020, surpassing 143 days in 1989 for the most instances on record. Half of the days (144 out of 288) of the year so far, equivalent to 20.6 weeks, have hit 100 degrees. A few more such days are likely....  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/14/number-global-methane-hot-spots-has-soared-this-year-despite-economic-slowdown Source:  By  Steven Mufson , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The worldwide number of methane hot spots has soared 32 percent so far this year despite the economic slowdown, according to satellite imagery analyzed by a private data firm. ...Methane, the main ingredient of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period....   

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/jellies-transfer-a-significant-amount-of-carbon-to-the-deep-ocean Source:  By   Rachel Fritts , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: New research suggests jellies play a more valuable role in food webs and carbon storage than scientists previously thought. A new   study   in the AGU journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles estimates how much carbon gelatinous sea creatures store in their bodies and where that carbon goes. The results show that 3.7–6.8 billion metric tons of organic carbon can be traced back to jellies each year, an amount on par with the United States’ 2018 carbon dioxide emissions. Mass jelly die-offs (called   jelly-falls ) alone could increase estimates of the total carbon that reaches the bottom of the ocean by 35%, according to the study. Ultimately, a substantial portion of that carbon could end up stored on the ocean floor. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that jellies, long considered a nuisance and a symbol of collapsing ecosystems,

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/8/22/back-to-school-burn-the-science-of-wildfires/ Source:  By   Ota Lutz , NASA-JPL.  Excerpt: ...Fueled by high temperatures, low humidity, high winds, and years of vegetation-drying drought, more than 7,700 fires have engulfed over 3 million acres across California already this year. ...the U.S. Forest Service found that   fire seasons have grown longer   in 25 percent of Earth's vegetation-covered areas. ...JPL uses a suite of Earth satellites and airborne instruments to help better understand fires and aide in fire management and mitigation. By looking at multiple images and types of data from these instruments, scientists compare what a region looked like before, during, and after a fire, as well as   how long the area takes to recover . While the fire is burning, scientists watch its behavior from an aerial perspective to get a big-picture view of the fire itself and the air pollution it is generating in the form of smoke filled with

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/13/climate/pantanal-brazil-fires.html Source:  By  Catrin Einhorn , Maria Magdalena Arréllaga,  Blacki Migliozzi  and Scott Reinhard, The New York times.  Excerpt: This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?...For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control....  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/10/13/warming-has-killed-half-coral-great-barrier-reef-study-finds-it-might-never-recover/ Source:  By   Darryl Fears , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Half of the coral populations on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef — from “big mamas” to the little baby coral they spawn — have been wiped out in the warming ocean, a new study says. Studying coral as if it were a residential demographic, and counting its abundance over 30 years starting in 1995, four Australian researchers determined that size didn’t matter when bleaching events, such as two that occurred in recent back-to-back years, strike the giant reef. “The decline occurred in both shallow and deeper water, and across virtually all species — but especially in branching and table-shaped corals,” Terry Hughes, a professor at the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Queensland and a co-author of the research paper, said in a statement Tuesday. “These were the worst

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/climate/home-sales-florida.html Source:  By   Christopher Flavelle , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Home sales in areas most vulnerable to sea-level rise began falling around 2013, researchers found. ...around 2013, something started to change: The annual number of homes sales began to drop — tumbling by half by 2018 — a sign that fewer people wanted to buy. Prices eventually followed, falling 7.6 percent from 2016 to 2020, according to data from Zillow, the real estate data company. All across Florida’s low-lying areas, it’s a similar story, according to   research published Monday . The authors argue that not only is climate change eroding one of the most vibrant real estate markets in the country, it has quietly been doing so for nearly a decade....    

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/drought-once-shut-down-old-faithful-and-might-again Source:  By   Colin Barras , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Old Faithful, it turns out, wasn’t always so faithful. The geyser, in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, is famous because it blasts hot water tens of meters into the air at regular intervals— every 90 to 94 minutes , on average. Now, geologists examining petrified wood from the park have found evidence that 800 years ago, Old Faithful stopped erupting entirely for several decades, in response to a severe drought. With climate change making drought more common across the western United States, the researchers say a similar shut down might happen again....     See also Megadrought Caused Yellowstone’s Old Faithful to Run Dry  https://eos.org/research-spotlights/megadrought-caused-yellowstones-old-faithful-to-run-dry

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/climate/peat-climate-change.html Source: By Henry Fountain, The New York Times.  Excerpt: Protecting intact peatlands and restoring degraded ones are crucial steps if the world is to counter climate change, European researchers said Friday. ... without protection and restoration efforts [for peat bogs], some targets for greenhouse gas emissions “would be very difficult or nearly impossible to achieve,” said Alexander Popp, an author of the study, which was published in  Environmental Research Letters . ...Peatlands ...make up only about 3 percent of global land area, but their deep layers of peat are practically treasure chests of carbon, overall containing roughly twice as much as the world’s forests. In pristine bogs, that carbon remains soggy and intact. But when a bog is dried out, for agriculture or other reasons, the carbon starts to oxidize and is released to the atmosphere as planet-warming carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. ...Curr

https://eos.org/science-updates/converging-on-solutions-to-plan-sustainable-cities Source:  By Donald Wuebbles, Ashish Sharma, Amy Ando, Lei Zhao, and Carolee Rigsbee, Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Climate change will exacerbate the food, energy, water, health, and equity challenges that urban communities face, but cities also have opportunities to improve sustainability and outcomes. ...a recent influx of “smart city” approaches views cities as mechanistic systems composed of discrete components to be optimized individually. However, cities cannot achieve sustainability without a holistic view of the interdependencies among essential human needs (food, energy, and water); constructed urban infrastructure; associated natural systems (air, water, land, ecosystems); and social, political, and legal decisions spanning all relevant scales (individuals, neighborhoods, municipalities, regions, nations). For example, national policy can limit or enhance what is doable within a city. At the local scale

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/we-re-part-problem-astronomers-confront-their-role-and-vulnerability-climate-change Source: By  Daniel Clery , Science Magazine.  Excerpt: ...concerns were cast in sharp relief by six papers published last month in Nature Astronomy. One, on the carbon costs of meetings, emerged directly from the 2019 European Astronomical Society (EAS) meeting in France, which took place during a record-breaking heatwave when temperatures exceeded 45°C. “We were sitting with no air conditioning, sweating through all these interesting talks,” Burtscher says. Discussions turned to climate change and the carbon emitted getting everyone to the meeting, and they inspired Burtscher and his colleagues to size up the meeting’s travel emissions. They added up to nearly 1900 tons of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) equivalent or about 1.5 tons per delegate—roughly the same as emitted by an average resident of India in a whole year. ...Another of the six studies found that Austral