https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/ipcc-issues-bleakest-warning-yet-impacts-climate-breakdown By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian.  Excerpt: Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted and there is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages, the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  (IPCC) has said. ...In what some scientists termed “the bleakest warning yet”, the summary report from the global authority on climate science says droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather are accelerating and wreaking increasing damage. Allowing global temperatures to increase by more than  1.5C above pre-industrial levels , as looks likely on  current trends in greenhouse gas emissions , would result in some “irreversible” impacts. These include the melting of ice caps and glaciers, and a cascading effect whereby wildfires, the die-off of trees, the drying of peatlands and the thawing of permafrost release add

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/world/australia/australia-flood-queensland.html By Yan Zhuang , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Days of downpours have pummeled Queensland and New South Wales, with the authorities describing the wild weather as “waves of water just coming down.” ...Up to 18,000 homes across the state have been affected, the authorities estimated, with about 15,000 of those in Brisbane. More than 1,500 people have been evacuated and about 53,000 homes were without power on Monday morning. Hundreds of schools are closed, and officials have asked residents to work from home. Residents have been asked to conserve water after flooding knocked a water treatment plant offline on Sunday. On Monday morning, the rain had eased and the Brisbane River had peaked at 12.6 feet. It was expected to peak again in the afternoon.… See also Washington Post article .

https://www.fastcompany.com/90725151/how-solar-canals-could-help-california-survive-a-megadrought By Roger Bales, Fast Company.  E xcerpt: Mounting evidence suggests  the western United States is now in its worst megadrought  in at least 1,200 years. Groundwater supplies are  being overpumped  in many places, and the dryness, wildfires, and shrinking water supplies are making  climate change  personal for millions of people. As  an engineer , I have been working with colleagues on a way to both protect water supplies and boost renewable energy to protect the climate. We call it the solar-canal solution, and it’s about to be tested in California. About  4,000 miles of canals  transport water to some 35 million Californians and 5.7 million acres of farmland across the state. As we  explained in a 2021 study , covering these canals with solar panels would reduce the evaporation of precious water—one of California’s most critical resources—and help meet the state’s renewable energy goals,

https://www.science.org/content/article/finland-built-tomb-store-nuclear-waste-can-it-survive-100000-years? By Sedeer El-Showk, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Finland is set to open the world’s first permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. ...Although nuclear power is declining in many nations, Finland has embraced the carbon-free energy source, lobbying the European Union to label it as sustainable. ...nuclear power will account for more than 40% of Finland’s electricity. The emissions-free electricity comes with a downside: hot and highly radioactive spent uranium fuel rods. ...surface storage is vulnerable to accidents, leaks, or neglect during the thousands of years the waste remains dangerous, ...groundwater contaminated by leaky waste tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Hanford Site in Washington state, where reactors produced plutonium for the first nuclear weapons. Without a long-term solution, the waste is piling up. Finland had about 2300 tons of waste in

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/23/usps-trucks-epa-climate-change By Jacob Bogage  and  Anna Phillips , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The U.S. Postal Service finalized plans Wednesday to  purchase up to 148,000 gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks , defying Biden administration officials’ objections that the multibillion-dollar contract would undercut the nation’s climate goals. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy disregarded  requests  from the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency this month to reconsider replacing the delivery fleet with 90 percent gas-powered trucks and 10 percent electric vehicles, at a cost of as much as $11.3 billion. The contract, orchestrated by DeJoy, offers only a 0.4-mpg fuel economy improvement over the agency’s current fleet. The decision is a major blow to the White House’s climate agenda. President Biden has pledged to transition the federal fleet to clean power, and apart from the military, th

https://www.science.org/content/article/fight-climate-change-biotech-firm-has-genetically-engineered-very-peppy-poplar By Gabriel Popkin, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: A California biotech company seeking to create fast-growing trees that can rapidly soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide has announced its first experimental results: the firm’s genetically enhanced poplars grew more than 1.5 times faster than unmodified ones in lab trials. Plant scientists applaud the news, but caution that much more work is needed before engineered trees can start to help curb climate change.…

https://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading-wildfire-rising-threat-extraordinary-landscape-fires By UN Environment Programme.  Excerpt: Wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent, ravaging communities and ecosystems in their path. Recent years have seen record-breaking wildfire seasons across the world from Australia to the Arctic to North and South America. With global temperatures on the rise, the need to reduce wildfire risk is more critical than ever. A new report,  Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires , by UNEP and GRID-Arendal, finds that climate change and land-use change are making wildfires worse and anticipates a global increase of extreme fires even in areas previously unaffected. Uncontrollable and extreme wildfires can be devastating to people, biodiversity and ecosystems. They also exacerbate climate change, contributing significant greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/23/russia-ukraine-eu-nordstream-strategy-energy By Michael Birnbaum  and  Steven Mufson , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: Ukraine crisis has pushed Europe toward renewables — but will the change come quickly enough?.…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-carbon-climate-change.html By Sabrina Imbler, The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Although peatlands make up just 3 percent of land on Earth, they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined.…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/21/social-cost-of-carbon-biden By Maxine Joselow , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: A recent court ruling that bars the Biden administration from accounting for the  real-world costs of climate change  has created temporary chaos at federal agencies, upending everything from planned oil and gas lease sales to infrastructure spending. The  Feb. 11 decision  by a Louisiana federal judge blocked the Biden administration from using a higher estimate for   the damage that each additional ton of greenhouse gas pollution causes society. This formula, called   the social cost of carbon, applies to   consequential decisions affecting fossil fuel extraction on public lands, infrastructure projects and even international climate talks. ...President Biden last year directed federal agencies to applyan interim social cost of carbon of $51 per ton — the figure used under former president Barack Obama — while his administration weighed whether

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/02/20/texas-energy-winter-renewable-jacobson-dessler-rogan By Kasha Patel , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: …a  recent study  shows that electricity blackouts can be avoided across the nation — perhaps even during intense weather events — by switching to 100 percent clean and renewable energy, such as solar, wind and water....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/02/17/skiing-snow-climate-change-olympics/ By Denise Hruby, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: OBERWÖLZ, Austria — At the Lachtal ski resort, high in the eastern Alps of Austria, skiers immediately pull out their phones after sliding off the chairlift — not to take selfies, but rather to snap pictures of the windmills that have become part of the mountainous vista. When the first windmills were built here in 2002, at about 7,290 feet, many tourists saw the massive blades as an eyesore. But as the wind park grew and expanded, so did skiers’ environmental conscience. Today, locals and tourists are proud to ski among the backdrop. “When I ride up with them and eavesdrop, they’re usually impressed,” says Rudolf Wiesnegger, who maintains the wind park and adjacent solar panels. “They comment that it’s great for the environment,” he says. ...Skiers and spectators have been flabbergasted by this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. Just as the L

https://eos.org/articles/coal-seam-fires-burn-beneath-communities-in-zimbabwe By Andrew Mambondiyani , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: As Zimbabwe’s coal industry expands, residents around the western town of Hwange are experiencing the effects of underground coal seam fires. Residents, particularly children, and livestock are at risk from falling into the smoldering fires beneath unstable ground. Unfenced areas above the fires are often used as outdoor toilets, playgrounds, and grazing areas. Victims suffer burned legs, and in one case, a young girl  died of her burn injuries . ...Most of  these fires start  with the ignition of exposed coal seams, but they can also spark in coal storage or waste piles. Coal seam fires, which can ignite naturally as well as through human activity, can burn for decades and even  thousands of years . Thousands of fires are burning at any given time, releasing  toxic fumes  that account for 3% of the world’s carbon emissions and release 40 tons of mercury to the atmo

https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/affordable-housing-for-teachers-california-owns-plenty-of-land-for-that/ By  Ivan Natividad , UC Berkeley News.  Excerpt: New research from UC Berkeley has the potential to influence state policy aimed at providing affordable housing to public school teachers and staff. The report, “ Education Workforce Housing in California: Developing the 21st Century Campus ,” was published today by  UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities + Schools , the  Terner Center for Housing Innovation  at Berkeley, and  cityLAB at UCLA . The research, developed in collaboration with the California School Boards Association and funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, looked at tens of thousands of potential California housing sites and found that counties across the state own public land that can be designed and developed to house public school teachers and staff. Researchers found that the scarcity of affordable housing in California impacts the quality of K-12 education becaus

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z By A. Park Williams ,  Benjamin I. Cook  &  Jason E. Smerdon , Nature Climate Change.  Abstract: A previous reconstruction back to 800 CE indicated that the 2000–2018 soil moisture deficit in southwestern North America was exceeded during one megadrought in the late-1500s. Here, we show that after exceptional drought severity in 2021, ~19% of which is attributable to anthropogenic climate trends, 2000–2021 was the driest 22-yr period since at least 800. This drought will very likely persist through 2022, matching the duration of the late-1500s megadrought.… See also New York Times article How Bad Is the Western Drought? Worst in 12 Centuries, Study Finds .

https://eos.org/science-updates/new-perspectives-on-the-enigma-of-expanding-antarctic-sea-ice By Edward Blanchard-Wrigglesworth ,   Ian Eisenman ,   Sally Zhang ,   Shantong Sun  and   Aaron Donohoe , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: ...The extent of Antarctic sea ice varies greatly from year to year, but 40 years of satellite records show a long-term trend. Although some Antarctic regions have experienced reductions in sea ice extent, the  overall trend since 1979 shows increased ice . The increase in Antarctic sea ice extent stands in stark contrast to conditions in the Arctic, where  sea ice extent has declined  significantly—by about 2 million square kilometers, or about 20%, over the past 40 years. Much of the observed loss of Arctic sea ice, which is in general agreement with expectations from climate models, has been attributed to anthropogenic global warming. The trend in Antarctic sea ice, meanwhile,  has confounded scientists —most climate models indicate that Antarctic sea ice extent sho

https://eos.org/articles/himalayas-are-experiencing-an-exceptional-loss-of-glacial-mass By Rishika Pardikar , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: The Himalayas have lost 40% of their glacial mass since the Little Ice Age. East Nepal and Bhutan have experienced the most rapid losses.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html By  Liz Alderman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: President Emmanuel Macron announced a major buildup of France’s huge nuclear power program on Thursday, pledging to construct up to 14 new-generation reactors and a fleet of smaller nuclear plants as the country seeks to slash planet-warming emissions and cut its reliance on foreign energy. The announcement represented an about-face for Mr. Macron, who had previously pledged to reduce France’s reliance on nuclear power but has pivoted to burnishing an image as a pronuclear president battling climate change as he faces a tough re-election bid in April.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/climate/highways-climate-change-traffic.html By  Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...widening highways and paving new roads often just spurs people to drive more,  research shows . And as concerns grow about how tailpipe emissions are heating the planet, Colorado is among a handful of car-dominated states that are rethinking road building. In December, Colorado  adopted a first-of-its-kind climate change regulation  that will push transportation planners to redirect funding away from highway expansions and toward projects that cut vehicle pollution, such as buses and bike lanes. ...In 2019, states spent one-third of their highway dollars on new road capacity,  roughly $19.3 billion , with the rest spent on repairs. “This is a major blind spot for politicians who say they care about climate change,” said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress.... “Everyone gets that oil pipelines are carbon infra

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/02/10/army-military-green-climate-strategy/ By  Michael Birnbaum  and  Tik Root , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The U.S. Army released its first climate strategy this week, an effort to brace the service for a world beset by global-warming-driven conflicts. The plan  aims to slash the Army’s emissions in half by 2030; electrify all noncombat vehicles by 2035 and develop electric combat vehicles by 2050; and train a generation of officers on how to prepare for a hotter, more chaotic world. It is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to address climate change across government agencies, including at the Pentagon. ...strategists are increasingly alarmed about the security implications of climate change. The strategy notes “an increased risk of armed conflict in places where established social orders and populations are disrupted.…