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A full moon rises over San Francisco. Image: SF Brit/Flickr
When tonight’s full moon makes its debut (as well as a lunar eclipse for just about everyone in the world except for North America) it will appear unusually large. However this moon illusion is all in your head as Mother Nature Network explained, “the moon isn’t changing sizes, and while its distance from Earth does change slightly over time — producing an occasional “supermoon,” which really does appear up to 14% larger than usual — that happens too slowly to yield such a dramatic transformation in one night.”
As the Atlantic warms, mackerel have spread north. Image: NOAA
A new study from the University of Florida and the University of Tasmania found that climate change is currently forcing species to migrate from their historic ranges and its leaving communities unprepared for these new species. As the UF blog explained, “scientists predict species will generally move toward the poles or higher elevations as they search for cooler climates, but it’s hard to know what specific species will do—and how humans will respond.”
What the Science Says: As Brett Scheffers, assistant professor of wildlife ecology and conservation in the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences explained, “What we do know is that they will move, and that presents challenges for people who make decisions about how to manage wildlife. It used to be that you could draw a box around a species and say, ‘this species lives here,’ but we are going to see them leaking out of those boxes.”
The study’s authors hypothesized that past example of species movement could provide insight into how we might manage mass movement of species affected by climate change.
Building on Past Science:Previous studies have shown that half of all species (both plant and animal) are on the move as a result of climate change. The study done by the University of Florida and the University of Tasmania focused on how people can better prepare for a mass migration of animal species.
Why This Matters: Increased migration as a result of climate change will create problems for people who manage wildlife–as it’s incredibly difficult to predict how the introduction of new species will affect an ecosystem and community. Some species we think of as good, such as tortoises or pheasants and worthy of our protection while other species like coyotes are routinely culled because we view them as pests and don’t properly manage their numbers. The human response to species migration will be key to ensuring that animals seeking new homes can coexist with people and native wildlife as climate change continues to drive them out of their historic ranges.
When you visit your doctor it’s usually to remedy something that’s bothering you or a routine preventative visit, but during those visits has your doctor ever talked to you about climate change and how it might be affecting your health? Even if your doctor hasn’t, a growing number of physicians are connecting the effects of climate change to the deteriorating health of their patients and want their profession to address climate risks with patients.
What’s Going On?: Health concerns arising from climate change range from heat-related illness and injuries or deaths from dangerous weather events to infectious diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks, illnesses from contaminated food and water, and even mental health problems resulting from a warming planet.
Doctors Connect the Dots:In a survey asking physicians if patients are being affected by climate change, 76% responded yes to air pollution-related health risks, 63% to allergic symptoms, 45% to heat effects and 57% to storm-related injuries. However, despite rising health concerns, only 31% of Americans believe that climate change impacts them personally.
Why This Matters: From more frequent and deadly heatwaves to longer pollen seasons and even deteriorating nutritional value in our crops, climate change is undoubtedly affecting human health and our ability to thrive. As NPR reported, “the World Health Organization calls climate change “the greatest health challenge of the 21st century,” and a dozen U.S. medical societies urge action to limit global warming.” Unfortunately, the problem is that individual humans can’t limit their exposure to climate change, that’s why it’s important that physicians and their trade groups in Washington become a political force for federal climate action as well as have earnest conversations with their patients about the health risks of global warming.
Disney’s new live-action film The Lion King will undoubtedly be a box office smash, but it will also mark the company’s largest public commitment to conservation by supporting a global campaign to raise awareness of the plight of lions called “Protect the Pride.” The campaign is supporting the Lion Recovery Fund, a collaboration between The Wildlife Conservation Network and the Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation, that is aiming to double the number of lions in the wild in Africa by the year 2050.
Why This Matters: No one can capture the hearts and minds of the public like Disney and its stars. Just watch the video above. This film will be seen by billions of people around the globe and hopefully so will this campaign. The money raised will dramatically increase funding available for wild lion conservation in Africa, and the habitat conserved will also contribute to the protection of other species. So “Circle of Life”-it out the wazoo, Zazu! We Can Feel the Love for lions already. We Just Can’t Wait to see the King of the jungle’s population double. We will hope for Hakuna Matata after 2050. Until then, Be Prepared for poachers, big game hunters, and developers of all sorts to continue to threaten the pride.
A New Type of Conservation Advocacy.
Only 3% of the $410 billion donated to charities in the U.S. went to environment and animal organizations in 2018. That number is not consistent with public attitudes placing great importance on these issues and related causes. The Wall Street Journal magazine recently explained that partnerships like the one between Disney and WCN, matching the power of celebrities and conservation causes, is a new model — one that hopefully will appeal to young donors. According to The Journal, at the “forefront of the shift are organizations like the Bay Area–based WCN, which supports local groups in 35 sub-Saharan countries. Others include WildAid, which battles wildlife poaching and trafficking, and the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which rescues and rehabilitates orphaned elephants and rhinos.”
Their model is simple. Instead of direct mailers and stuffed-animal sales, use “attention-grabbing social-media campaigns and brand partnerships,” to increase the charitable dollars going to wildlife and conservation causes.
A wildly successful example is the #KnotOnMyPlanet campaign to save elephants undertaken by WCN and Tiffany’s, which yielded 1.5 billion media impressions in the first week. Tiffany’s then debuted a collection featuring tiny silver and rose-gold elephant charms, named Save the Wild, which has raised $5 million for WCN since 2017.
Similar product tie-ins have also been wildly successful for wildlife and for companies — for example, two editions of Lacoste’s Save Our Species polo shirts, in which they substituted one of 10 threatened species for their iconic alligator, sold out in under 24 hours and all proceeds went to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
What do you put in the middle of Australia’s sunny and mostly deserted Outback? Hint: it’s bigger than a blooming onion! Australia’s Northern Territory will likely soon be home to the world’s largest solar farm, revolutionizing both Australia’s and Singapore’s energy sector. The project, Sun Cable, will house an array of 10-gigawatt solar panels across 37,000 acres of desert, backed by a battery storage unit able to supply power 24 hours a day. Construction for this 20 billion dollar plan is set to begin in 2023, with operations commencing as early as 2027.
Why This Matters: Fossil fuels still dominate the global energy industry despite being extremely hazardous to the climate and environment. Declining capital costs for renewable energy, especially in developed countries all around the globe, however, is transforming the industry as the development of low-cost energy is becoming more and more feasible. Australia’s gigantic and historic project is proof of this trend. The cross-country cooperation and energy sharing between Australia and Singapore is another momentous breakthrough, and an example for the future of the energy sector and how countries and companies think about cross-border cooperation — even across the ocean. Given that capital costs to develop massive projects like this one are lower in developed countries, experts predict that Australia could be at the center of low-cost energy in a future fossil-free world.
Another group of developers is working on an even bigger and more ambitious combined wind and solar hybrid plant in Australia to power local industry and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub.
The scale of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub has expanded from 11GW to 15GW, and if built, it will be the largest wind-solar hybrid in the world.
Australia has the greatest potential renewable energy resource in the developed world, and it could expand its energy production while significantly reducing global carbon emissions — a win-win given its current fossil fuel exports.
Photo: Mani Albrecht, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
President Trump is challenging in the Supreme Court two orders from lower federal courts that froze funding for 100 miles of the President’s border wall because the President took the money from other federal programs and projects without Congress’ consent based on his border “emergency” declaration. On Friday, the Associated Press reported that the Administration appealed to the Supreme Court to allow them to move the $2.7 billion in Defense Department counterdrug funding that was going be used for on high-priority sections of border wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed challenges to the emergency funding move on behalf of The Sierra Club and The Southern Border Communities Coalition.
Why This Matters: With the border wall and President Trump’s immigration policy at the center of the political struggle between the Republicans and Democrats, the Supreme Court is stuck in the middle again. Justice Elena Kagan late last Friday gave the environmental groups a week to respond in writing to the Trump administration’s appeal. One of the Administration’s key arguments against the funding freeze is that environmental groups (as opposed to immigrants rights groups) do not have the legal right to bring these lawsuits — these groups and their members are not “harmed” by the wall. However, as we have explained in prior stories, the border wall is an environmental disaster, for example placing unnecessary risks on many endangered species whose movements would be blocked, not to mention recreational activities on the border that would be impeded by the wall. The Administration wants the wall constructions to move ahead even though it is not clear that they have the legal right to use the funds — that seems like putting the cart ahead of the horse to us.
But It’s An Emergency – or So They Say.
According to our friends at SCOTUSblog, the Trump Administration argued in its Supreme Court filing that the Sierra Club’s “interests in hiking, bird watching, and fishing in designated drug-smuggling corridors do not outweigh the harm to the public from halting the government’s efforts to construct barriers to stanch the flow of illegal narcotics across the southern border.” The government requested that the Supreme Court rule by July 26th on their request because the funds at issue will “expire” if they are not committed by the time the federal government’s fiscal year ends on September 30.
But Isn’t The Supreme Court In Recess?
Yes, the Supreme Court finished its work and is on hiatus until the first Monday in October. But when “emergencies” arise like this one, the Justices take turns making rulings like the one made by Justice Kagan in this case. This case arises from an appeal in the 9th Circuit (the West Coast) for which Justice Kagan has responsibility. It is interesting that this is the immigration case now before the Supreme Court — this time last week, it was the citizenship question on the Census that the Administration was battling.
PG&E works on a power line destroyed by a fire in Santa Rosa, CA. Image: Jim Urquhart/Reuters
On Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would change the way the state pays for fire damages caused by utilities. As Reuters explained, Credit rating agency, S&P previously warned it could lower its ratings on the state’s two other major investor-owned power providers, Edison International’s Southern California Edison and Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric, absent “concrete actions” by policymakers to reduce credit risks posed by wildfires to the state’s utilities.
What’s In the Bill:
To compensate for the damages resultant of fires sparked by utility equipment (such as downed or exposed powerlines), a $21 million dollar fund will be created.
To gain access to this insurance plan, utility companies must first pay to get in – $7.5 billion for large investor own utilities and less than that for regional electric companies – while also investing $5 billion in safety upgrades and participating in a new annual safety certification process.
What This Means for PG&E: Reuters explained that, “San Francisco-based PG&E will need to pay the most among power providers to support the fund. To access the fund, PG&E will have to submit or have a bankruptcy reorganization plan approved by the end of June 2020 and will need to compensate victims of wildfires in 2017 and 2018 caused by its equipment.” You might recall the utility’s involvement in two of the deadliest wildfires, along with the ensuing legal battle.
The Opposition: Some Bay Area lawmakers have expressed opposition to the bill, most notably Assemblyman Marc Levine when he stated that,“It is hard not to see this bill as something of a reward for monstrous behavior.” According to California law, utilities are liable for fire damage caused by their equipment even if no negligence is involved. This bill, however, allows utility companies to access a pool of funds to pay off the damages if no negligence is proven – a shield for the companies as they face rising uncertainties with more explosive and frequent fires. Despite lingering concerns of accountability, many wildfire victims have accepted the legislation along with Governor Newsom, who praised the bill as being an important step in “Strengthening our state’s wildfire prevention, preparedness and mitigation efforts.”
Why This Matters: Many utility customers see this as a way of them footing the bill for reckless behavior on the part of PG&E despite the fact that this isn’t a bailout as the state won’t take over the company’s power lines and directly pay the company money for its assets. They worry that they are paying for a solution for PG&E and critics of the bill say that it doesn’t do enough to prevent wildfire prevention. However, CA Governor Gavin Newson assures that more legislative solutions for wildfires are coming in the very near future. Either way, this underscores the impact that climate change will have on our legal and political systems going forward and that we’re going to have to rethink how a lot of them function in an effort to limit wildfire damage and deal with reality.
Tyler Holland guides his bike through the water as winds from Tropical Storm Barry push water from Lake Pontchartrain over the seawall Saturday. Photo: David J. Phillip/AP
We wrote on Friday that Tropical Storm Barry had the potential to inflict unprecedented damage on New Orleans, and while the storm caused serious flooding and power outages to 700,000 people, the storm has weakened to a tropical depression as it continues to slowly move north through Louisiana. As NPR explained, the National Weather Service forecasts that the center of the storm will continue to move through northwest Louisiana toward Arkansas through Monday.
What’s Next: As CNN reported, “Barry is forecast to produce an additional 3 to 6 inches of rain from the lower Mississippi River Valley through portions of Arkansas, west Tennessee and northwest Mississippi. Some areas in this region could see storm totals upward of 15 inches by the time the remnants of Barry push into the Ohio Valley by midweek.”
Not Over Yet: Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards explained that just because the storm was downgraded doesn’t mean that residents are in the clear stating, “Some people may think that the threat is over. Some people may be tempted to think that because it was a Category 1 when it came ashore and has already been downgraded to a tropical storm, that it does not present a threat. That is not the case.”
Why This Matters: Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards warned residents on Sunday evening that July is just the start of hurricane season and that most hurricane activity is seen from August-September. Damage by the storm was mitigated in part due to preparedness measures taken by officials and residents and underscores how important proper planning can be for extreme weather events. This time around, search teams rescued 93 people from 11 parishes with no reported fatalities, which for how powerful Barry was predicted to become is quite a feat.
Happy Monday, glad you’re starting your week off with us! Here’s a preview of the week ahead:
Congress:
House: on Tuesday the Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the impacts of oil and gas development on climate and public health, on Wednesday the Committee on Science, Space, and Tech will hold a hearing on scientific integrity at federal agencies
Senate: on Wednesday that Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on the opportunities and challenges of electric batteries
Pop Culture: The live-action version of The Lion King opens in theaters on Thursday but back in 1995 after the original film came out Disney screened a short film at Epcot called The Circle of Life, an Environmental Fable to teach kids about protecting the environment. We think it’s time for a new version of this short film as well!
Out of This World: Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
ICYMI: footage of a massive manta ray named Freckles approaching divers to free it of the fishing hooks lodged in its body became viral over the weekend. The divers were able to remove the hooks and Freckles is said to be doing well.
Air tanker drops a load of retardant on the Malaspina Fire in Alaska. Photo: Ed Soto, Alaska Division of Forestry
By Alexandra Patel
Extreme temperatures in Alaska are causing an outbreak of explosive wildfires throughout the state, with Fairbanks, Anchorage experiencing its warmest March to date, as reported recently by Our Daily Planet.Just in the week of July 3rd, more than 600,000 acres of lands burned – doubling the year-to-date burn total which now sits at 1.28 million acres. By the end of the year, it is estimated that 2 to 3 million acres will have been engulfed in flames. Fires are not only getting more frequent, but increasingly bigger and harder to contain. In Anchorage, the Hess Creek fire is now the largest fire in the U.S. at over 149,000 acres.
The Arctic Circle is Blazing: This is not an isolated incident, but a worldwide phenomenon caused by rapid warming.
All across the Arctic Circle, there has been an eruption of wildfires which scientists are calling “unprecedented” due to the high latitudes and timing in year.
According to several studies, fires are moving farther north to the Arctic, are burning at more intense rates and are beginning earlier on in the year. This is in accordance with many climate models that have predicted the impacts of melting sea ice and rising ocean and air temperatures.
More than any other place on the planet, the Arctic is heating up the fastest and this is having a devastating effect on its environment as rampant flames slowly but surely consume the region.
Hazardous to Health: Massive amounts of smoke accumulating from the wildfires are posing a serious health threat to the surrounding areas. Concentrations of particle matter in the air have reached dangerous levels, as one air quality station recorded readings for particulate matter over 700 – anything greater than 250 is designated as hazardous.
Cosmos
