https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/world/europe/germany-ebikes-transportation.html By Melissa Eddy , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Germany’s automakers are facing steep challenges as they convert to battery-powered lineups and confront rising competition from China. But business is booming in another corner of the German transport industry: e-bikes. Sales of bicycles in Germany reached a record 7.36 billion euros, or $7.8 billion, in 2022, with e-bikes accounting for nearly half of sales, according to the German Bicycle Industry Association. The group is forecasting that this year, for the first time, Germans will buy more e-bikes than conventional models. Electric bicycles and scooters are the backbone of what’s known as  micromobility , seen as crucial to cutting the carbon emissions of transportation and helping to ease pollution and congestion in European cities.... 

https://www.science.org/content/article/chemical-cages-could-store-hydrogen-expand-use-clean-burning-fuel By ROBERT F. SERVICE , Science.  Excerpt: Cheap molecular “sponges” made with aluminum can be low-pressure gas tanks. Hydrogen seems like the perfect fuel. By weight it packs more punch than any other fuel. It can be made from water, meaning supply is almost limitless, in principle. And when burned or run through a fuel cell, it generates energy without any carbon pollution. But hydrogen takes up enormous volume, making it impractical to store. Compressing it helps, but is expensive and essentially turns hydrogen storage tanks into high-pressure explosives. Now, a molecular sponge made of organic compounds and cheap aluminum promises a practical solution, holding significant amounts of hydrogen at low pressures. Described in a paper accepted last week at the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), it is the latest in a series of promising metal-organic framew...

https://www.science.org/content/article/ferociously-hot-weather-could-make-some-cities-unlivable-low-tech-solutions-can-help By VAISHNAVI CHANDRASHEKHAR , Science. Excerpt: MUMBAI, INDIA ...Before the monsoon rains arrive, temperatures can top 37°C, with humidity at a sweltering 95%. ...Sometimes, Mumbai’s heat becomes deadly. In April, on a day the temperature reached 36°C, 11 people sitting through an hourslong outdoor ceremony died from heat stroke. At least 20 others were hospitalized. ...It wasn’t until 2015 that officials designated heat waves as a natural disaster at the national level. ...heat action plans, or HAPs, have been proliferating in India in the past few years. In general, an HAP spells out when and how officials should issue heat warnings and alert hospitals and other institutions. ... IN THE LONG RUN , cooling India’s cities will mean changing the way they are built. One possibility is to look to the past, when structures were designed to insulate peo...

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1201781387/climate-change-emissions-report-offers-hope By Jeff Brady , NPR.  Excerpt: Countries are setting records in deploying climate-friendly technologies, such as solar power and electric vehicles, according to a new  International Energy Agency report . The agency, which represents countries that make up more than 80% of global energy consumption, projects demand for coal, oil and natural gas will peak before 2030. While greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, the IEA finds that there's still a path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. That's what's needed  to avoid  the the worst effects of climate change, such as catastrophic flooding and deadly heatwaves. ...overall message is more optimistic than the one issued in 2021, when the IEA released its first  Net Zero Roadmap . In addition to optimism, the  2023 version  shows that the transiti...

https://www.science.org/content/article/heat-and-disease-will-exact-heavy-toll-climate-warms Collection of articles in Science.  Excerpt: ...the stories in this special package will explore the threats, and how we can minimize them. Vector-borne diseases are a special worry . A warmer climate favors the mosquito that spreads dengue and may already be fueling a worldwide surge in the debilitating disease. Warming may also have enabled malaria-carrying mosquitoes to flourish in Africa’s cooler highlands and ticks that carry Lyme disease to advance northward. Migratory birds, which ferry cargoes of pathogens such as West Nile virus and influenza across continents, are changing the timing and routes of their journeys, with consequences that have yet to emerge. Then there are the direct effects of heat on the human body. The worsening toll of heat waves is unmistakable, with thousands dying every summer, but researchers are also discerning subtler impacts. Among the most vulnerable to ...

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/09/air-force-eyes-future-logistics-missions-its-first-electric-air-taxi/390614/ By BY AUDREY DECKER , Defense One.  Excerpt: Joby Aviation delivered its battery-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to Edwards AFB in California. The U.S. Air Force will soon begin testing how it will use battery-powered planes to transport people and cargo. ...The aircraft holds one pilot and four passengers, can carry a payload of up to 1,000 pounds, and flies at speeds up to 200 miles per hour, said Greg Bowles, head of government affairs for Joby. It will primarily fly missions between 25 to 50 miles, “but the aircraft has the capability to do a lot more than that,” Bowles told  Defense One  on Friday. If the Air Force decides to use the aircraft in operations, it could be to fly cargo and personnel short distances in the Pacific. The Joby aircraft could be helpful within “some of the island clusters that don’t have those large ran...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/25/climate/fracking-oil-gas-wells-water.html By Hiroko Tabuchi  and  Blacki Migliozzi , The New York Times. Excerpt: Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water to fracture bedrock are threatening America’s fragile aquifers. ...energy giants are drilling not just for oil, but for the water they need. ...Along a parched stretch of La Salle County, Texas, workers last year dug some 700 feet deep into the ground, seeking freshwater. Millions of gallons of it. The water wouldn’t supply homes or irrigate farms. It was being used by the petroleum giant BP to frack for fossil fuels. The water would be mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped right back underground — forcing oil and gas from the bedrock. ...Fracking a single oil or gas well can now use as much as 40 million gallons of water or more. These mega fracking projects, called “monster fracks” by researchers, have become the industry norm. They barely...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-great-british-seaweed-race-to-save-the-earth By Charlotte Lytton, Daily Beast.  Excerpt: ...97 percent of seaweed farming currently happens in Asia, British companies are looking to muscle in on the $13.3 billion industry. ...A  2021 study from the University of California , Davis found that mixing a small amount of seaweed into cow feed over five months reduced Earth-polluting methane emissions by 82 percent—making it a potential green goldmine.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/business/food-companies-emissions-climate-pledges.html By Julie Creswell , The New York Times. Excerpt: Five years ago McDonald’s said it planned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third in parts of its operations by 2030. A few years later, it pledged to be “net zero” — cutting emissions to as close to zero as possible — by 2050. But in its most recent  report , McDonald’s disclosed that things were moving in the wrong direction: The company’s emissions in 2021 were 12 percent higher than its 2015 baseline. McDonald’s is hardly alone. An examination of various climate-related reports and filings for 20 of the world’s largest food and restaurant companies reveals that more than half have not made any progress on their emissions reduction goals or have reported rising emissions levels. The bulk of emissions — in many cases more than 90 percent — come from the companies’ supply chains. In other words, the cows and wheat used to make b...

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4217336-white-house-directs-agencies-to-consider-climate-costs-in-purchases-budgets/ By   RACHEL FRAZIN , The Hill. Excerpt: The White House is directing agencies to account for climate costs in purchasing decisions and budget proposals. The White House said in a Thursday fact sheet that agencies should weigh the costs of potential climate damages as they make purchases and put together budget proposals. ...A source briefed on the directive told The Hill that they expect it to also expand the use of climate accounting in environmental reviews for infrastructure projects. “It’s a way to balance climate effects against other economic effects,” said Max Sarinksy, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law. For example, he said, the “social cost of carbon offers even stronger support for the purchase of electric vehicles because you would add the climate cost savings to the budgetary cost...

https://www.nytimes.com/article/tropical-storm-nigel-hurricane.html By Judson Jones , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...The Atlantic hurricane season started on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30. In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  predicted that there would be 12 to 17 named storms  this year, a “near-normal” amount. On Aug. 10, NOAA officials  revised their estimate upward , to 14 to 21 storms. ...A  record 30 named storms took place in 2020 . This year features an  El Niño  pattern, which arrived in June. ...it typically impedes the number of Atlantic hurricanes ...increases the amount of wind shear, .... Hurricanes need a calm environment to form, and the instability caused by increased wind shear makes those conditions less likely. (El Niño has the opposite effect in the Pacific, reducing the amount of wind shear.) At the same time, this year’s heightened sea surface temperatures pose a number of threats, including the a...

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1199273629/climate-change-exacerbates-deadly-floods-worldwide By Rebecca Hersher ,   Lauren Sommer , NPR.  Excerpt: Catastrophic floods in eastern Libya killed at least 3,958 people, according to the United Nations. The disaster comes after a string of deadly floods around the world this month, from China to Brazil to Greece. In every case, extremely heavy rain was to blame. The enormous loss of life on multiple continents reinforces the profound danger posed by climate-driven rain storms, and the need for better warning systems and infrastructure to protect the most vulnerable populations. Climate change  makes heavy rain more common,  even in arid places where the total amount of precipitation is small. That's because a hotter atmosphere can hold more moisture. Everyday rainstorms, as well as bigger storms such as hurricanes, are increasingly dangerous as a result. Human-caused warming made the extreme rainfall in ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/opinion/climate-summit-2023-un.html By Lydia Millet , Opinion Piece in New York Times.  Excerpt: ... federal funding  for clean technologies ...[is] a crucial step but brutally inadequate: If we keep drilling, pumping and using oil and gas, green-energy money will remain a sprinkling of sugar on a poison pill. ...The more difficult and more essential task is to remove incentives for oil and gas companies to continue their frantic pace of production, transport and profiteering. ...U.S. crude oil exports have gone up  almost 850  percent since an important export ban was lifted in 2015, and in 2023 domestic oil production will hit an  all-time high . Cleaning up our domestic portfolio won’t mean much if we keep shipping out dirty fuels to be combusted abroad. ...Fossils are currently subsidizing conflicts from  Russia’s war against Ukraine  to  militias in Myanmar . ...while the Paris Agreement  doesn’t e...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/17/climate/california-climate-disclosure-law.html By Coral Davenport , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said that he would sign  a landmark climate bill that passed the state’s legislature last week  requiring major companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, a move with national and global repercussions. The new law will require about 5,000 companies to report the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that is directly emitted by their operations and also the amount of indirect emissions like employee travel, waste disposal and supply chains. Climate policy advocates have long argued that such disclosures are an essential first step in efforts to harness financial markets to rein in planet-warming pollution. For example, when investors are made aware of the climate-warming impacts of a company, they may choose to steer their money elsewhere. The law would apply to public and private businesses th...

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/exploring-just-how-extreme-future-storms-could-get By Sarah Stanley , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Storms that drop exceptionally high volumes of precipitation often cause flooding and otherwise imperil human safety, infrastructure, and ecosystems. As climate change progresses, such  extreme events  are likely to become  even more intense and more frequent  in many regions around the world. ... Gessner et al.  demonstrate a novel way to combine storm simulations with statistical approaches to better estimate how extreme future precipitation events could become. ...analysis suggested that precipitation events much more intense than previously have been recorded will be possible in the near future in the region. ...estimates indicating that near-future extreme events might result in precipitation volumes that are 30%–40% higher than those seen in past events. The researchers note that even higher precipitation magnitudes cannot be ru...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science By Dharna Noor , The Guardian. Excerpt: ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal. The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York’s attorney general as part of an  investigation  into the company announced in 2015. They add to a  slew  of  documents  that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal  lawsuits  against big oil....

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/climate/sultan-al-jaber-uae-cop28.html By Max Bearak , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The [United Arab] Emirates, made wealthy by decades of oil exports, wants to be seen as a climate-friendly renewable energy superpower, even as it helps lock developing nations around the world into decades more fossil fuel use. Straddling that split is one man: Sultan al-Jaber. He founded the renewable energy company, Masdar, which has invested billions of dollars in zero-emissions energy technologies like wind and solar power across 40 countries. Simultaneously, he directs Adnoc, the national oil company, a behemoth that makes Masdar look minuscule. Adnoc pumps millions of barrels of oil per day and aims to spend $150 billion over the next five years, mostly to ramp up its output. And this year, the United Nations has in effect vested Mr. al-Jaber with one of humanity’s most pressing tasks: steering its annual global climate negotiations [COP 2023; United Natio...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-find By Damian Carrington , The Guardian.  Excerpt: ...planetary boundaries are the limits of key global systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing. ...Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone hole shrinking. ...The planetary boundaries are not irreversible tipping points.... Instead, they are points after which the risks of fundamental changes in the Earth’s physical, biological and chemical life support systems rise significantly. ...Prof Johan Rockström...said: “...But what worries us, even more, is the rising signs of dwindling planetary resilience.” ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/12/new-york-university-fossil-fuel-divestment By Dharna Noor , The Guardian.  Excerpt: New York University plans to divest from fossil fuels, the Guardian has learned, following years of pressure from student activists. The move from one of the US’s largest private universities, whose endowment totals over $5bn, represents a significant win for the climate movement, organizers said....

https://eos.org/articles/temperature-extremes-hit-lower-and-middle-income-countries-hardest By Katherine Kornei , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In an analysis of 13,000 cities around the globe, researchers furthermore found that smaller cities in lower- and middle-income countries were more likely to experience excessive heat and cold than larger urban areas in more affluent regions. ...Using data spanning 2003–2019, the researchers estimated monthly averaged maximum and minimum thermal discomfort for each city. The 10 hottest cities were clustered across four countries: Bahrain, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The 10 coldest cities, on the other hand, spanned just two countries: China and Russia. Manama, Bahrain (population: 1,250,000), and Yakutsk, Russia (population: 216,000), took the honors of being the world’s hottest and coldest cities, respectively. ...But these results shouldn’t trigger a sense of hopelessness, Tuholske was quick to point out. Research has shown that people living...

https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-digital-roadblock-keeping-green-electricity-u-s-grid By DAN CHARLES , Science.  Excerpt: Computer models that forecast overloaded power lines are holding back U.S. solar and wind energy projects. ...Southwest Power Pool (SPP) ...and other U.S. grid operators are facing an unprecedented tsunami of requests from energy firms to connect thousands of proposed wind, solar, and power storage projects to their transmission lines. The projects are essential to meeting the U.S. goal of eliminating all planet-warming carbon emissions from the nation’s electricity supply by 2035, analysts say. Together, they could generate almost 2000 gigawatts of electricity—exceeding the total capacity of the country’s existing power plants. Most of these projects, however, have been stuck in limbo for years, waiting in what energy insiders call the “interconnection queue.” One contributor to the bottleneck: mathematical simulations that SPP and other operators...

https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-bets-it-can-drill-climate-friendly-hydrogen-just-oil By ERIC HAND , Science.  Excerpt: ...Today, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the high-risk, high-reward arm of the Department of Energy (DOE),  announced it would fund $20 million in grants  to advance technologies for extracting clean-burning hydrogen from deep rocks. ...some researchers have concluded that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Earth  harbors vast deposits of the gas  that could be tapped like oil—and that reserves could be stimulated by pumping water and catalysts into the crust. ...Most hydrogen today is manufactured by combining steam and methane in factories that emit carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and add to global warming. Governments are supporting efforts to make hydrogen cleanly, either by capturing the emitted CO 2  and storing it underground (blue hydrogen) or by using renewable electricity to split water and harvesting the...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/02/us/oceanside-california-sand.html By Jill Cowan , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In Oceanside ...The sand is disappearing. ...Visitors who could once sprawl on wide stretches of sand near the pier must now compete for space on a narrow stretch studded with rocks. ... A recent study  predicted that California could lose as much as 75 percent of its beaches by 2100, given projected sea level rise related to climate change.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/headway/plastic-recycling-california-law.html By Susan Shain , The New York Times. Excerpt: Jan Dell ...collects what she calls “bad plastic containers.” ...Her specimens include lids from oatmeal canisters, cups from fast-food joints, cleaners wrapped in shrink sleeves, and many, many Amazon mailers. Each carries the familiar  “chasing arrows” recycling symbol ; none, she believes, will ever be recycled. ...Ms. Dell has run a one-woman nonprofit,  the Last Beach Cleanup ,.... Ms. Dell also headed an advisory committee that pushed for a landmark truth-in-labeling law in California. Starting in the fall of 2025, that law will  prohibit companies from placing recycling symbols  on products that are not widely recycled in the state. Yogurt tubs could be among them. So could baby food pouches. And takeout containers. And coffee cup lids....