By JAN HOŠEK et al, Science.  Summary: Around 20,000 years ago, the land we now call Europe was almost entirely encased in ice. It was near the end of what scientists refer to as the last glacial maximum (LGM). Species not well suited to such chilly conditions either moved south to more temperate areas near the Mediterranean or were simply wiped out. Or, so many scientists thought. Now, fossils in the Czech Republic suggest  there was an ‘oasis’ of sorts in the region, warmed by hot springs, which kept temperate plants alive during the global winter . ...we present the first unequivocal proof that thermophilous trees such as oak ( Quercus ), linden ( Tilia ), and common ash ( Fraxinus excelsior ) survived the LGM in Central Europe .. .  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6611 . 

By Eric Brooks , SFGATE.  Excerpt: [Bark beetles] are black and about 2 millimeters long. They are tiny, but represent a grave threat: They’re responsible for the deaths of 40 giant sequoia trees, and counting, at  Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks . While the bark beetle and the giant sequoias previously coexisted successfully, climate change is transforming their relationship to one with significant consequences. ...The beetles, native to the Sierra, have literally made their mark on the giant sequoias for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The two have peacefully co-existed that entire time, until recently, when climate change-related stressors have been introduced into the equation. The two biggest challenges? Intense wildfire and drought. Both have the power to severely weaken even the most resilient of trees. The giant sequoias, known for their ability to harness fire for better reproduction, are no exception to that test. So while the beetles have always b...

By Nina Lakhani , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen,  ExxonMobil , Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog. Some of these companies no longer use CO 2 offsets amid mounting evidence that carbon trading do not lead to the claimed emissions cuts – and in some cases may even cause environmental and social harms. ...The fossil fuel industry is by far the largest investor in the world’s most popular 50 CO2 offsetting schemes. At least 43% of the [81 million] CO 2 credits purchased by the oil and gas majors are for projects that have at least one fundamental flaw and are “probably junk”, according to the analysis....  Full article at https://www.thegua...

By Karishma Mehrotra  and  Dan Stillman , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: DELHI — India’s capital territory of Delhi experienced some of its hottest weather on record Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs in some neighborhoods near the landmark threshold of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). The exceptional heat has closed schools, endangered outdoor workers, stressed water supplies and infrastructure, and  reached levels that would test the limits of human survival if sustained. The searing temperatures in northern India are part of a broader heat wave across much of Southeast Asia, which is one of multiple heat waves occurring around the world because of a combination of short-term weather patterns and long-term warming trends fueled by human-caused climate change....  Full article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/05/29/record-heat-delhi-india-climate-survival/ . For

By John King , San Francisco Chronicle.  Excerpt: Throughout its 125-year history, there have been times when the formidable elegance of  San Francisco’s Ferry Building  was shadowed by uncertainties — from fears early on that it wouldn’t survive a major earthquake to the question, after the opening of the Bay Bridge, of whether it should be torn down. ...The most ominous element, though, is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ desire to elevate the huge structure by at least 3½ feet as part of a larger multi-decade effort  to protect the bay shoreline  from floods and sea level rise....  Full article at https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/ferry-building-business-pandemic-19462543.php . 

By Coral Davenport  and  Noah Weiland , The New York Times.  Excerpt: For more than two years, a group of health experts, economists and lawyers in the U.S. government has worked to address a growing public health crisis: people dying on the job from extreme heat. In the coming months, this team of roughly 30 people at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is expected to propose a new rule that would require employers to protect an estimated 50 million people exposed to high temperatures while they work. They include  farm laborers and construction workers , but also people who sort packages in warehouses, clean airplane cabins and cook in commercial kitchens. ...Last year was the hottest in recorded history, and researchers are expecting another record-breaking summer, with temperatures already rising sharply across the Sun Belt. The heat index in Miami  reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit  last weekend, shattering daily records by 11 degrees. ...An...

By Jake Bittle , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance is now one of the most prominent symptoms of the climate crisis in the US. Major carriers such as State Farm and Allstate have  pulled back from offering fire insurance in California ... and dozens of small insurance companies have collapsed or fled from  Florida  and  Louisiana  following recent large hurricanes. The problem is fast becoming a crisis that stretches far beyond the nation’s coastal states. ... insurers have raised premiums higher than ever  and dropped customers even in inland states such as Iowa. ...so-called “severe-convective storms” are large and powerful thunderstorms that form and disappear within a few hours or days, often spinning off hailstorms and tornadoes as they shoot across the flat expanses of the central United States. The insurance industry refers to these storms as “secondary perils” – the other term of art is  “kitty cats” , ...smal...

By MARTIN ENSERINK , Science.  Excerpt: The far right’s stunning victory in the Netherlands’s parliamentary elections last fall will upset far more than the country’s immigration policies. An agreement by the four parties aiming to form a new government, presented on 16 May and debated in the House of Representatives on 22 May, also calls for cuts in science and innovation funding, rollbacks of environment and climate policies, and restrictions on the influx of foreign students. ...[Geert] Wilders, who ardently denies climate science, called in his election platform for putting all climate policies and agreements “through the shredder,” but he conceded in Parliament that won’t happen. The governing agreement leaves most climate “nonsense” in place, he said. A proposed carbon dioxide tax for industry and a plan to speed up the introduction of heat pumps in homes have both been abandoned, however....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/new-dutch-right-wing-c...

By Delger Erdenesanaa , The New York Times.  Excerpt: As many as 3.9 million abandoned and aging oil and gas wells dot the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The reasons for abandonment vary, but at least 126,000 of these wells are orphans, meaning there’s no longer an owner or company that state regulators can hold responsible for them. And many of the wells leak methane, a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 30 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a period of 100 years, .... The E.P.A. estimates that abandoned wells collectively released 303,000 metric tons of methane in 2022, roughly equivalent to how much carbon dioxide 23 gas-burning power plants might release in one year. ...The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $4.7 billion to states, tribes and federal agencies to plugorphaned wells, but given their sheer number and the enormous geographic area they cover, these federal funds will not be enoug...

By Sarah Vogelsong . Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: This March, Loudoun County, a suburb of Washington, D.C. in Northern Virginia that is home to the greatest concentration of data centers in the world, made an unexpected move: It rejected a proposal to let a company build a bigger data center than existing zoning automatically allowed.  “At some point we have to say stop,” said Loudoun Supervisor Michael Turner during the meeting,  as reported by news site LoudounNow . “We do not have enough power to power the data centers we have.” County supervisors  would later reverse the decision , approving a smaller version of the project. But the initial denial sent ripples throughout Virginia, where concern over the rapid growth of data centers and what that means for the state’s ambitious decarbonization goals is growing. ...said Tim Cywinski, a spokesperson for the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, ...“The data center industry is about 2 percent of global carbon e...

By Sierra Bouchér , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: New England is one of the most heavily forested areas in America: Roughly 15 million metric tons of carbon is stored there every year. These projects account for disasters that can kill trees and release their stored carbon. However, a  new study  published in  Global Change Biology  suggests that they may be underestimating the destructive power of hurricanes. A single hurricane in New England could release at least 121 million metric tons of carbon from downed trees, the study showed, the equivalent of the energy use of almost 16 million homes in 1 year. Many carbon offset programs reforest in the region. ...When a company buys a carbon credit, it buys a slight surplus of offset, allowing offset programs to plant slightly more trees to take in more carbon than is being emitted. That way, if trees are lost to drought, fire, disease, or other disasters, the program stays carbon neutral. ...As of 2020, 7% of California’s Cap...

By ELI KINTISCH , Science.  Excerpt: Ocean tides are burrowing beneath a thick sheet of Antarctic ice—dubbed the “doomsday glacier” for its threat to global sea levels—and melting it from below. The daily intrusions of seawater, detected by satellites, mean the Thwaites Glacier may be disintegrating “much faster” than previously thought, scientists say in a study  published today  in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Melting at Thwaites, an expanse of ice bigger than Florida that stores enough water to raise sea levels by 0.6 meters, already accounts for 4% of global sea level rise. Because the glacier rests on bedrock that dips inland into a deep basin, its underbelly is vulnerable to relatively warm seawater, which melts the ice and, by loosening it from bedrock, hastens its flow into the ocean. And because other West Antarctic glaciers drain into the same basin, scientists believe Thwaites acts as a keystone. Its removal could accelerate the oth...

By James Wagner ,  Emiliano Rodríguez Mega  and  Somini Sengupta , The New York Times.  Excerpt: A system of dams and canals may soon be unable to provide water to one of the world’s largest cities, a confluence of unchecked growth, crumbling infrastructure and a changing climate. The groundwater is quickly vanishing. A key reservoir got so low that it is no longer used to supply water. Last year was Mexico’s hottest and driest in at least 70 years. And one of the city’s main water systems faces a potential “Day Zero” this summer when levels dip so much that it, too, will no longer provide water. ...Mexico City, once a water-rich valley that was  drained  to make way for a vast city, has a metropolitan population of  23 million , among the  top 10  largest in the world and up from 15 million in 1990. It is one of several major cities facing severe water shortages, including  Cape Town ;  São Paulo , Brazil; and  Chennai , India...

By Katherine Bourzac , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new study estimates that climate change could cost $38 trillion per year, but emissions mitigation and adaptation strategies could limit future damages. Worldwide income may fall by 19% by 2049 because of changes in climate... according to a new study published in  Nature . Poorer countries in the tropics that have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions will experience the greatest economic burden, researchers said. The “huge” $38 trillion annual price tag of climate-related damages is 6 times greater than the cost of mitigating emissions to meet the targets in the Paris Agreement, said  Anders Levermann , a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the study’s authors. ...Poorer countries will experience 61% more income loss than richer countries will. And the effects will also fall disproportionately on those that have contributed relatively little to climate cha...

By Kristoffer Tigue , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: The Midwest is emerging as a major manufacturing hub for the clean energy transition as federal incentives and falling prices for renewables spur companies to invest tens of billions of dollars into new factory operations across the country. In August 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides generous tax credits for projects and purchases related to clean energy. Since then, Midwestern states have received about $30 billion dollars in private investments to boost domestic production of electric vehicles, batteries and equipment for solar and wind farms, according to  a monthly tally of funding announcements  kept by energy think tank E2. Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have received $11.6 billion, $7.8 billion and $7 billion respectively, the E2 analysis said, placing them among the top 10 states nationwide to receive the most private investments for clean energy projects between August 2022 and Apri...

By Oliver Milman , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The economic damage wrought by climate change is six times worse than previously thought, with global heating set to shrink wealth at a rate consistent with the level of financial losses of a continuing permanent war, research has found. A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product (GDP), the researchers found, a far higher estimate than that of previous analyses. The world has already warmed by more than 1°C (1.8°F) since pre-industrial times and many climate scientists predict a 3°C (5.4°F) rise will occur by the end of this century due to the ongoing burning of fossil fuels, a scenario that the  new working paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, states  will come with an enormous economic cost. A 3°C temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100” the paper states. This economic loss is so severe that it is “comparable to ...

By Chen Ly , NewScientist.  Excerpt: Engineers have developed a device that can generate temperatures of over 1000°C (1832°F) by efficiently capturing energy from  the sun . It could one day be used as a green alternative to burning  fossil fuels  in the production of materials such as  steel , glass and  cement. ...“About half of the energy we use is not actually turned into electricity,” says  Emiliano Casati  at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. “It’s used to produce many of the materials that we need in our daily lives and our industries.”.... Full article at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2431224-sunlight-trapping-device-can-generate-temperatures-over-1000c/ . See also original article Solar thermal trapping at 1,000°C and above .

By Ella Nilsen , CNN.  Excerpt: As Florida copes with  rising seas  and  record temperatures , lawmakers are going to exceptional lengths to delete many mentions of climate change from state laws in a new bill that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on Wednesday,  according to his official X account . The wide-ranging law makes several changes to the state’s energy policy – in some cases deleting entire sections of state law that talk about the importance of cutting planet-warming pollution. The bill would also give preferential treatment to natural gas and ban offshore wind energy.... The bill deletes the phrase ‘climate’ eight times – often in reference to reducing the impacts of global climate change ...or directing state agencies to buy ‘climate friendly’ products when they are cost-effective and available. The bill also gets rid of a requirement that state-purchased vehicles should be fuel efficient. ...DeSantis and state lawmakers have poured ove...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Federal regulators on Monday  approved sweeping changes  to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy. The new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ...which was two years in the making, requires grid operators around the country to identify needs 20 years into the future, taking into account factors like changes in the energy mix, the growing number of states that require wind and solar power and the risks of extreme weather. Grid planners would have to evaluate the benefits of new transmission lines, such as whether they would lower electricity costs or reduce the risk of blackouts, and develop methods for splitting the costs of those lines among customers and businesses....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/climate/electric-grid-overha...

By Jan Esper ,  Max Torbenson  &  Ulf Büntgen , Nature.  Abstract: Including an exceptionally warm Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer, 2023 has been reported as the hottest year on record. Contextualizing recent anthropogenic warming against past natural variability is nontrivial, however, because the sparse 19 th  century meteorological records tend to be too warm. Here, we combine observed and reconstructed June-August (JJA) surface air temperatures to show that 2023 was the warmest NH extra-tropical summer over the past 2000 years exceeding the 95% confidence range of natural climate variability by more than half a degree Celsius. ...Although 2023 is consistent with a greenhouse gases-induced warming trend that is amplified by an unfolding El Niño event, this extreme emphasizes the urgency to implement international agreements for carbon emission reduction.  Full article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07512-y . 

By Euronews Green .  Excerpt: Portugal has made huge progress in renewable power, up from 27 per cent in 2005 and 54 per cent in 2017. Portugal generated an ‘historic’ 95 per cent of its electricity from renewables in April, according to the network operator REN. ... Solar  might not have been the star of the show in REN’s new stock take. A third of the way through the year, the renewable made up 7 per cent of Portugal’s electricity mix, behind wind at 30 per cent and hydroelectric plants at 48 per cent. However, “the solar component continues to grow substantially,” REN says. April saw the “highest monthly significance ever recorded” for solar - when it covered 10.5 per cent of the country’s electricity consumption. ...Portugal had the third highest share of  wind energy  in its electricity mix last year at 29 per cent, behind Ireland (36 per cent) and Denmark (58 per cent)....  Full article at https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/10/renewables-are-meeting-95...

By Angela Symons , Euronews.green.  Excerpt: Venezuela has lost its last glacier, making it the first nation in modern history to hold this unenviable record. At least five other glaciers have disappeared in the South American country within the last century as climate change drives up temperatures in the Andes. The country lost 98 per cent of its glacial area between 1952 and 2019,  research  shows. ...Temperatures are warming faster at the Earth's  higher elevations  than in lowlands. This has caused Venezuela’s last glacier to decline more quickly than anticipated. Back in 2019, scientists predicted that the Humboldt could be gone within two decades, but it has already reportedly shrunk to less than two hectares....  Full article at https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/10/this-country-has-become-the-first-in-modern-history-to-lose-all-of-its-glaciers . 

By Maddie Stone, Grist .  Excerpt: Aluminum is a crucial raw ingredient in the fight against climate change. But to ensure the transition off fossil fuels is a clean one, the  industry  needs a serious makeover. A new federally funded “green smelter” could help make that happen. ...aluminum manufacturers are responsible for about  1.1 billion tons  of carbon dioxide emissions a year. ...In March, the agency  announced  $6 billion in funding for “industrial demonstration” projects that showcase promising strategies for reducing the climate impact of heavy industry. ...The beneficiaries of the government’s cleanup effort include Century Aluminum Company, which could receive up to half a billion dollars to build the nation’s first new aluminum smelter in 45 years. The facility, dubbed the Green Aluminum Smelter, could double the amount of virgin, or primary, aluminum the country produces while emitting 75 percent less CO2 than older smelters, thanks ...

By Amanda Schupak , The Guardian.  Excerpt: ...Here’s our (mostly) scientific ranking, from worst to best. 7. [worst] Compostable serveware. ...6. Some plastic and paperboard packaging ...Some plastics used in food service containers, such as number 6 (polystyrene), generally are not recyclable. Nor are   soft plastics, like film labels and straws.... 5. Clear, rigid plastic boxes, cups and clamshells The same goes for classic Chinese takeout boxes and similar containers, since they’re coated with plastic to prevent leaking. ...But among different types of plastics, those with a number 1 (PET or PETE) or 2 (HDPE) inside the chasing arrows ...are more valuable to recyclers than plastics with higher numbers. Widely used number 5 (polypropylene or PP) plastics are becoming more recyclable and valuable, too. ...4. Recycled containers ...Containers made from recycled materials are better than ones that aren’t. ...3. Aluminum boxes ...there’s a robust market for recycled alumin...

By Damian Carrington , The Guardian.  Excerpt: ...the most effective action individuals can take ...Most experts (76%) backed voting for politicians who pledge strong climate measures, where fair elections take place . ...The second choice for most effective individual action, according to the experts, was reducing flying and fossil-fuel powered transport in favour of electric and public transport. ...Globally it is a small minority of people who drive aviation emissions, with only about  one in 10 flying at all . Frequent-flying “super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population cause half of aviation’s carbon emissions, with US air passengers having by far the biggest carbon footprint among rich countries. ...Meat production has a  huge impact   on the environment . Most people in wealthy countries already eat more meat than is healthy for them and more than 60% of the scientists said they had cut their own meat consumption. Almost 30% of the ex...

By Michael B. Mahon et al, Nature.  Abstract: Anthropogenic change is contributing to the rise in emerging infectious diseases, which are significantly correlated with socioeconomic, environmental and ecological factors. Studies have shown that infectious disease risk is modified by changes to biodiversity, climate change, chemical pollution, landscape transformations and species introductions. However, it remains unclear which global change drivers most increase disease and under what contexts. Here we amassed a dataset from the literature that contains 2,938 observations of infectious disease responses to global change drivers across 1,497 host–parasite combinations, including plant, animal and human hosts. ...reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health, and preventing biological invasions and biodiversity loss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal and human diseases, especially when coupled with improvements to social and economic determinants o...

By Elise Cutts , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: ...Researchers already knew separately that drought can enhance soil cracking, that soil cracks can enhance greenhouse gas emissions, and that climate change is predicted to make drought more intense and frequent in many arid parts of the world. “What this paper does is put all that together,” said soil scientist  Kelly Caylor  of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the new study. It shows how drought-driven changes to the physical structure of soils—in this case, cracking—could contribute to climate change, too, he added. ...Soils are the planet’s greatest stockpile of terrestrial carbon. ...Vahedifard and his colleagues published their study in  Environmental Research Letters . ...  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/cracking-soils-could-accelerate-climate-change . 

By Brad Plumer  and  Nadja Popovich , The New York Times.  Excerpt: They’re delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly. ...Solar power is plentiful during the day but disappears by evening, just as people get home from work and electricity demand spikes. ...Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere in the world apart from China. They can soak up excess solar power during the day and store it for use when it gets dark ...Between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on April 30, ... batteries supplied more than one-fifth of California’s electricity  and, for a few minutes, pumped out 7,046 megawatts of electricity, akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors. ...Over the past three years,  battery storage capacity on the nation’s grids  has grown tenfold, to 16,000 megawatts. This year, it is expected to nearly double again, with the biggest growt...

By WARREN CORNWALL , Science.  Excerpt: Starting in late 2013, the first in a handful of  record-shattering heat waves  struck the north Pacific Ocean near Alaska. Temperatures in these warm “blobs,” which have occurred four times in the past decade, sometimes reach more than 2°C above normal. ...Research has implicated climate change, which can supercharge natural fluctuations in ocean heat. But now, scientists are pointing to another surprising contributor: China’s success in stemming air pollution. A steep decline in aerosols—tiny airborne particles such as sulfates—emitted by Chinese factories and power plants in the 2010s appears to have amplified a string of extreme heat waves on the other side of the Pacific,  driving up to 30% of the temperature increase during these heat waves , scientists report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...Aerosols can act like tiny mirrors, reflecting sunlight back into space and reducing the ...

By Molly Burke , Times Union.  Excerpt: New York's four reactors generate 22 percent of the state's electricity, while fossil fuels continue to power nearly 50 percent. ...The energy the plant produces — which does not emit any greenhouse gasses — will not contribute toward New York’s fast-approaching goal to transition 70 percent of the electrical grid to renewable sources by 2030 under mandates by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Nuclear energy, while low-carbon, is produced from finite materials and is nonrenewable. ...While renewable energy projects have faltered,  including two offshore wind projects off the coast of Long Island being scrapped in mid-April , nuclear energy in New York has continued steadily for a number of years. The cancellations of the wind projects ...underscore the variables and cost challenges facing efforts in New York and the nation to develop coastal wind as a major energy source.  Full article at https://www.timesuni...

By Richard Luscombe , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Climate predictions in Florida, for the most part, make pretty grim reading. Rising oceans threaten to  submerge most of the state  by the end of the century, and  soaring temperatures  could make it too hot to live here anyway. But  new research  by a coalition of prominent universities paints a more upbeat picture of Florida’s future as a thriving state for humans and wildlife, with natural resources harnessed to mitigate the worst effects of the climate emergency generally, as well as extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods. Such a prosperous tomorrow, the authors say, can only follow essential preparatory work today. One key element, an 18m-acre swath of protected land called the  Florida wildlife corridor , is already mostly in place, and will spearhead Florida’s climate resilience if properly managed and allowed to evolve, the researchers believe....  Full article at https://www...

By Dharna Noor , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The lawsuit, Juliana v United States, was filed by 21 young people from Oregon who alleged the federal government’s role in fueling the climate crisis violates their constitutional rights. The Wednesday order from a panel of three Trump-appointed judges on the ninth circuit court of appeals will require a US district court judge to dismiss the case for lack of standing, with no opening to amend the complaint. ...[said Julia Olson, attorney and founder of   Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that brought the suit] “...the full ninth circuit can correct this mistake.”....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/02/youth-climate-lawsuit-juliana-appeals-court . 

By ROBERT F. SERVICE , Science.  Excerpt: Molybdenum compound offers an efficient way to make carbon monoxide—a building block of chemicals and fuels. Imagine if carbon dioxide (CO 2 )—the primary cause of global warming—could be collected from smokestacks and turned back into fuel. Now, chemists report the discovery of a potentially cheap and stable catalyst that can efficiently split CO 2  into carbon monoxide (CO), a molecular starting point for plastics, diesel, and jet fuels. Because renewable electricity can power these reactions, the catalyst could help make commodity chemicals without burning fossil fuels. It could also help create a market for the vast amounts of CO 2  that companies are planning on capturing not just from smokestacks, but from the  ocean and air ....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/cheap-catalyst-could-help-turn-carbon-dioxide-fuels . 

By Manuela Andreoni , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The residents of Maracaçumé, an impoverished town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, are mystified by the company that recently bought the biggest ranch in the region. How can it possibly make money by planting trees, which executives say they’ll never cut down, on pastureland where cattle have been grazing for decades? ...The new company ...is a forest restoration business called Re.green. Its aim, along with a handful of other companies, is to create a whole new industry that can make standing trees, which store planet-warming carbon, more lucrative than the  world’s biggest driver  of deforestation: cattle ranching. ...About a fifth of the great rainforest is already gone. And scientist warn that rising global temperatures could push the entire ecosystem, a trove of biodiversity and a crucial regulator of the world’s climate, to collapse in the coming decades unless deforestation is halted and  an area the siz...

By Keith Bradsher , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Better batteries and falling costs underpin China’s push in electric cars. CATL, based in southeastern China and the  world’s largest manufacturer of electric car batteries , announced last week at the Beijing auto show that a 10-minute charge of its newest battery would give a range of 370 miles. A 30-minute full charge would give a range of 620 miles, the company said.... Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/business/china-electric-vehicles.html . 

By WARREN CORNWALL , Science.  Excerpt: Steelmaking, the fiery process that undergirds modern life, comes with a huge cost to the climate. Greenhouse gases gush from the burning fossil fuels that drive 1600°C blast furnaces and melt raw iron ore. Purifying the molten ore by mixing it with refined coal, or coke, releases a second, bigger surge of carbon dioxide. A third stream comes when the resulting pig iron is turned into steel by cooking it a bit further—baking off most of the remaining carbon—and alloying it with additives such as chromium or titanium. In the end, the emitted greenhouse gases weigh roughly twice as much as the steel itself. Nearly 2 billion tons of steel is produced worldwide each year, accounting for about 7% of human greenhouse gas emissions, more than Russia or the entire European Union. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is now hoping to change that. In March, DOE announced $1.5 billion in grants for low-carbon ironmaking, and last month, the agency’s Adva...