 Climate Change
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French President Emmanuel Macron Addresses Congress on Wednesday
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Oui Are Still In!
During his trip to the United States, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed a joint session of Congress where he called on the United States to help protect the planet and rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement.
“I believe in building a better future for our children, which requires offering them a planet that is still habitable in 25 years,” he said. Adding that "there is no Planet B."
While this received standing cheers from Democrats, Republicans mostly rolled their eyes. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie went on to call Macron a "socialist militarist globalist science-alarmist" on Twitter (how many buzzwords can one man use in a sentence?).
Macron ended his speech by saying "Let us work together in order to make our planet great again and create new jobs and new opportunities while safeguarding our Earth," a play on Donald Trump's 2017 campaign slogan.
Why This Matters: The global community worried that after the Trump administration announced its intent to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement that other countries would follow suit and the accord would collapse. Fortunately, that has not been the case and the United States has even stayed on track to meet its commitments through the efforts of utilities, cities, and states. Additionally last Sunday, billionaire philanthropist and UN special envoy for climate action Michael Bloomberg announced he will fill the U.S. funding gap after Congress said it would only pay $3 million this year to the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. In past years, the U.S. had pledged around $7.5 million annually.
“America made a commitment, and as an American, if the government’s not going to do it, we all have a responsibility,” Bloomberg said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I’m able to do it, so, yes, I’m going to send them a check for the monies that America had promised to the organization as though they got it from the federal government.”
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 Water
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Flooding in Miami last year. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty
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Flooded With New Peril
While sea level rise is happening (rising globally at about a tenth of an inch per year), it's not happening everywhere in equal measure. This is apparent on the US East Coast where cities like Norfolk, Baltimore, Charleston, South Carolina, and Miami, have suffered “sunny day” flooding from seas rising far faster than the global average. Scientists are working to better understand why some coastal areas are experiencing so-called “sunny day” flooding that had not been expected for decades under conventional sea level rise projections. As Yale E360 reported, researchers have zeroed in on three factors that have made the southeastern shoreline a regional hotspot of sea level rise. They include a slowing Gulf Stream, shifts in a major North Atlantic weather pattern, and the effects of El Niño climate cycles.
Sunny day flooding has increasingly disrupted coastal cities in the southeastern U.S. coast. In Charleston, tidal flooding increased to 50 days in 2016, up from four days annually 50 years ago, causing millions of dollars in damage and disrupting travel to the city’s hospital district. In Miami, flooding during unusually high tides, what local forecasters call “king tides,” is becoming an increasingly severe problem. The Gulf Steam is also at its weakest point in 1,600 years as climate change continues to alter its patterns. Oceanographers say that the Gulf Stream could slow further in coming decades as the melting of Arctic Ocean ice and the Greenland ice sheet dump huge quantities of fresh water into the North Atlantic and disrupt longstanding ocean circulation patterns.
Flooding In The News:
- The Miami Herald reported that new research demonstrates the risk of sea level rise is chipping away at Miami home values.
- Bloomberg wrote a really interesting piece that asks the question, as seas rise and coasts wash away, who owns the land that goes underwater?
- Civil Beat explained why the storms that pummeled Kauai, Oahu, and parts of other islands last weekend seemed to pop up out of nowhere and why experts didn't see them coming.
Why This Matters: Flooding is one of the most tangible consequences of climate change and there are going to be a lot of financial, legal and public safety decisions that we are going to have to make to adapt to a warming planet.
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 People
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Bike-sharing -- It's Not Just for DC & NYC Anymore
Bike-sharing is transforming transportation in cities across the U.S. It originated in 2008 in Washington, D.C., and by 2017 the concept had expanded to 55 programs and nearly 50,000 bikes nationwide in cities like NYC, Seattle, and Chicago. The latest to join the bicycle bandwagon is Minneapolis, which will start its service on May 1. Many of these cities now have dockless bike sharing, which lets users park bikes anywhere within defined districts and lock and unlock their bikes with smartphone apps. The latest entrant in this market is electric scooters, which have launched in D.C. and San Diego. They cost $1 to unlock and 15-cents per minute to ride.
Even car companies are getting into the act -- on Tuesday, Ford began sponsoring electric bikes in San Francisco to make it possible to "ride" there even with the steep hills found downtown. And the competition is ramping up -- Uber recently acquired Jump e-bikes, another San-Francisco-based share program. These e-bikes last about 25 miles on a single charge and they come with a large display screen telling you how much battery you have left, as well as your speed. Like the traditional bicycles, the e-bikes can be picked up through an app and have membership plans, like an annual $149 plan or $10-day pass.
Meanwhile, bikes are the only thing on wheels (other than the horse-drawn carriages) that will be allowed in Central Park starting in June. Last Friday, Mayor Bill DeBlasio made the announcement, saying "[t]his park was not built for automobiles. It was built for people.”
Why This Matters: As the U.S. is gradually being weaned off coal-fired electric plants, the remaining challenge for reducing greenhouse gas emissions comes from cars. Just as renewables are transforming the electricity markets, hybrid cars will eventually replace the traditional engine. The internal combustion engine may be in its last act, but it may not be replaced solely by hybrid or electric cars. Bikes and e-bikes and e-scooters are likely to increasingly be a clean, convenient and affordable transportation alternative, especially for short trips with limited mass transit options. We will all breath easier as a result.
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 Oceans
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Scientist Collect Ice Core Samples in the Arctic. Photo: M. Fernandez, Alfred Wegener Institute
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Plastic Pervasive at the Poles
Scientists studying the composition of ice core samples from the Arctic have found a higher concentration of plastic particles than ever before. And the difference was significant -- two to three times higher than previously recorded -- the scientists found up to 12,000 pieces of microplastic per liter of sea ice. As sea ice melts, these bits of plastic under 5 mm in size will be released back into the ocean. The "fingerprint" of the plastic suggests that the particles were at one point found in the great Pacific garbage patch or were from local sources such as ships and fishing gear.
The BBC reported that Dr. Jeremy Wilkinson, a sea ice physicist at the British Antarctic Survey, said the work, published in Nature Communications, was a "benchmark study". "Microplastic particles were found throughout all cores sampled," he said. "It suggests that microplastics are now ubiquitous within the surface waters of the world's ocean. Nowhere is immune."
Why This Matters: While some of this plastic pollution originated outside the Arctic, some of it was traceable to activities in the region such as shipping and fishing. This means that human activities in the Arctic are starting to take a toll. And scientists also worry about the impact of all this plastic in the oceans on marine life, and ultimately on humans.
What You Can Do: Check out the website for a new campaign called Million Acts of Blue for great ideas on how you can take action on plastic pollution in your community. And please don't suck! Avoid using plastic straws if you can. Now there is a reusable straw -- called "Final Straw" -- that folds up and fits in your pocket or purse.
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 Cosmos
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Video: ESA
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Getting a Better Glimpse of the Milky Way
The European Space Agency's (ESA) star-surveying satellite Gaia (which was launched in 2013) just put out a new star catalog which charts an astonishing 1.7 billion stars and measures with precision their locations and motions in the Milky Way. For reference, this is only roughly 1 percent of the Milky Way's estimated 100 billion stars.
This is the second release of a star catalog using Gaia, the first was released in 2016, but this version is more precise about start positions than the first iteration. "For some of the brightest stars in the survey, the level of precision equates to Earth-bound observers being able to spot a euro coin lying on the surface of the Moon," says the ESA.
Why This Matters: Gaia was launched to help scientists better understand our galaxy and its origins. The satellite's mission is to help advance the field of "galactic archaeology" as there is still a lot we don't know about the Milky Way. Another cool thing is that Gaia is being used to test a key part of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity that predicts "dips" and "warps" in space caused by the gravity of stars and planets.
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 Animals
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Yesterday Was World Penguin Day!
Courtesy of The Guardian, and in honor of World Penguin Day, test your knowledge of penguins, and their appearances in popular culture!
1. Penguins are only found in the wild in the southern hemisphere. True or False?
2. How fast can the Gentoo penguin swim under water? 14 km/hr, 18 km/hr, 24 km/hr, or 36 km/hr
3. Which villainous penguin was featured in the Wallace and Gromit animations? Frobisher, Feathers Mcgraw, Penny Penguin, or Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot
4. Which is the largest species of penguin? Emperor, Imperial, Empolean, or King
5. Can penguins drink salty sea water? Yes or No
6. Who played the Penguin in the 1989 movie Batman Returns? Burgess Meredith, Joe Pesci, Danny DeVito, or Rick Moranis?
7. How many species of penguins are there? 12, 15, 17 or 18
8. Female emperor penguins lay one egg, which is incubated by the maile while she goes off hunting. How long is she gone for? 12, 9, 6 or 4 weeks
Bonus: Will the Washington Capitals finally beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year?
To take the full quiz, or to see how you did on these questions, click here.
Oh, but, but, but -- there is no answer to the last question....yet! Let's Go Caps!
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