Author Archives: Michael Riojas

What Is Jimmy Carter’s Environmental Legacy?

Posted on by January 9, 2025

In 1979, when President Jimmy Carter famously unveiled 32 solar panels on the White House roof, he remarked, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Despite his reputation as an often ineffective president, he had an enormous effect on the environment as an advocate for clean energy, protecting lands and regulating toxic chemicals.

Jimmy Carter was an early adopter of clean energy in an effort to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil following the oil crisis that preceded his presidency. Four years before Carter took office, the member nations of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on the U.S. and several other western nations in response to their support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. As a result, the price of oil rose by more than 300%, while American dependence on foreign oil was simultaneously rising. 

After Carter took office, he responded by creating the U.S. Department of Energy. One of Carter’s major goals for the agency was to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels by pushing for the domestic production of energy. While this push wasn’t perfect — part of his solution for the complex crisis included propping up domestic coal power — it was also a first-of-its-kind endorsement for clean energy, championing sustainable sources like solar and nuclear. “No one can embargo the sun,” Carter once said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute our air or poison our waters. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”

In 1979, a second oil crisis hit, this time spurred by the decline in oil trade in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Carter responded by laying out plans to expand renewable energy sources and made a pledge that 20% of American energy would be produced by renewable sources by 2000, but was voted out of office before many of these plans could come to fruition. 

Carter also protected far more land than any U.S. president in history. In 1978, he advocated for the National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA,) which aimed to protect vast amounts of Alaskan wilderness from commercial use and destruction. After the bill failed due to a last-minute filibuster, Carter used executive authority to protect more than 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, designating those lands as National Monuments. This action alone would more than double the size of the National Park system.

Snowcapped mountains in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. In 1978, President Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act into law, creating 10 new national parks and preserves including this one, the largest U.S. national park. National Park Service

In December of 1980, roughly six weeks before Carter left office, ANILCA was debated again in Congress, and passed. Upon Carter’s signature, the law became the most expansive federal protection of American lands in history, granting protection to more than 157 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, which included further protections for much of the land Carter had protected two years prior. Of those 157 million acres, it also designated nearly ten million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, more than nine million acres to the Wilderness Preservation System, and more than three million acres to the National Forest System.

He was the first president to take notable action against federal water projects, arguing that building dams in the American West would harm river health. This stance was an extension of his conservation efforts as governor of Georgia, when, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, his own domestic affairs advisor, he became “the first governor to block a Corps of Engineers dam,” and during his presidency was “the most consistently pro-environmental president since Theodore Roosevelt.”

Today, many rivers throughout the American West suffer from major droughts. 

While it’s difficult to directly measure the impact his stance on these federal water projects had, these rivers would have surely been even worse off if it weren’t for Carter.

After Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring brought pesticides to the forefront of the public eye a little more than a decade earlier, Carter took broad steps to regulate pesticides. He passed major amendments to the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIRFA) in 1978, requiring stricter registration of pesticides, and in 1976, he passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, giving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to require reporting, testing and record-keeping of toxic chemicals. 

Of course, Jimmy Carter is nearly as famous for his exceptional post-presidency as his actual presidency. Likewise, his impact on the world outlives his time in the Oval Office. He and his wife, Rosalynn, famously worked with Habitat for Humanity, personally helping to build, repair or renovate about 4,400 homes, according to the organization’s website, for instance.

Carter strolls the worksite at the Habitat For Humanity Work Project in San Pedro, California on Oct. 29, 2007. Charley Gallay / Getty Images

The Carter Center, his own nonprofit, has also had a significant impact globally. When the organization assumed leadership in the global fight against Guinea Worm in 1986, there were 3.5 million cases in Africa and Asia, according to the Carter Center. By 2022, that number had dropped to thirteen. It is currently on track to become the second human disease to be eradicated in history, following only smallpox.

Some of the Carter Center’s other achievements include:

  • Rallying against other diseases, like trachoma, river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and malaria;
  • Increasing healthcare access in thousands of impoverished global communities;
  • Pioneering “new public health approaches to preventing or controlling devastating neglected diseases in Africa and Latin America;”
  • Observing elections in dozens of countries in an effort to strengthen democracies; and
  • “Furthering avenues to peace in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, the Korean Peninsula, Haiti, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Middle East.”

Jimmy Carter has had a profound impact back in his hometown too. In 2017, nearly four decades after he had solar panels installed on the White House roof, Carter leased ten acres on the land he used to farm peanuts to build a 1.3-megawatt solar farm that’s been powering half of his hometown of Plains, Georgia ever since. Rather than a road not taken, it represents the life of a man who has perhaps paved too many roads to count. 

The post What Is Jimmy Carter’s Environmental Legacy? appeared first on EcoWatch.

A Marine Heatwave Killed 4 Million of Alaska’s Murre Seabirds

Posted on by December 17, 2024

Beginning in late fall 2014 and lasting into 2016, an anomalous, massive marine heatwave nicknamed “the Blob” developed off the western coast of the U.S., covering all of Alaska’s coastwater and extending as far south as Southern California, raising ocean temperatures by several degrees Celsius.

The Blob had an extreme effect on Alaska in particular. According to a study released Thursday, it resulted in the deaths of roughly four million common murres — one of Alaska’s most prominent seabirds — representing a decline of more than half of the state’s entire population.

“We’ve never seen a bird die-off nearly this big — or really any non-fish vertebrate,” Heather Renner, a Fish and Wildlife Service supervisory wildlife biologist at Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and first study author, said in a video interview.

The team kept track of murre populations across 13 breeding colonies and over three distinct periods: pre-heatwave (2008-2014), heatwave (2014-2016) and post-heatwave (2017-2022), to measure population trends.

Comparison of common murre colony on a census plot, South Island, Semidi Islands, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, before and after the 2015-2016 marine heatwave. The top image shows the colony in 2014, and the bottom image shows the colony in 2021. USFWS

During the murre’s annual breeding season, Renner explained, the researchers — equipped with binoculars or spotting scopes and a tally counter — spent long days, often in the cold and fog, observing the birds’ populations in dense breeding colonies from afar, whether they watched while perched on an adjacent cliffside or wading in a small boat.

“During and immediately after the heatwave,” Renner wrote in an email, “many murres didn’t nest as they normally do. They would show up on the cliffs one day and another day nobody would be there.” She added, “In 2015 and 2016, there were a number of colonies that had complete reproductive failure.” 

“Immediately after the heatwave, we knew there had been a tremendous loss, but we weren’t sure how much was due to birds dying or alternatively whether they were just skipping breeding because conditions were tough,” she added. “We had to wait several years for the birds to come back and resume breeding before we could be sure of the extent of the die-off.” 

A common murre adult feeds a small forage fish to a common murre chick in the Buldir Islands of Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge on July 27, 2007. Cornelius Nelo Schlawe / USFWS

The study authors wrote that the heatwave had an enormous effect on key habitat-forming species, like corals and kelps, which triggered cascading bottom-up harm toward the top of the food chain.

Common murres rely on fish as a food source, but the fish they normally prey on were largely absent due to the cascading effects of the heatwave, making the most likely cause of the die-off a mass-starvation event.

Most of the birds died during the winter months, Renner said, and although we don’t know exactly what the murres eat in the winter, it’s likely a combination of forage fish, juvenile pollock and krill.

“We know that many of the forage fish populations also collapsed at the time, and not just the numbers. They they were smaller at the same age, they [had] lower fat contents, their distributions changed,” she said. “Another important part of it is that fish are cold blooded, and when the waters warm, their metabolism increases. And so a lot of the bigger fish that are competitors with seabirds had higher metabolisms and needed to eat more. So there’s extra pressure on prey.”

At the same time, the prey fish themselves, with their high metabolisms, struggled to find enough food, which reduced energy flow to predators. With increased competition and less total food, the murres’ beaching rate — the rate at which their carcasses washed up on beaches — was “one to three orders of magnitude above baseline for nine consecutive months,” which all appear to be major contributing factors to what the authors believe to be the “largest mortality event of any wildlife species reported during the modern era.”

Despite having plenty of time, the murres’ population has not begun to recover, but the cause is unclear, Renner said. One hypothesis is that with severely smaller colonies, it’s harder to defend against predators, like apex predator eagles or seagulls that take their eggs.

A common murre with an egg on Oct. 21, 2021. NOAA

Renner said that on top of long-term monitoring data that shows which species are vulnerable, conservation measures like removing predators introduced to their colonies could be a huge boon to their reproduction rates.

The study authors also warn that marine heatwaves are “increasing in frequency, duration, and magnitude in lockstep with global warming and at a pace that threatens the response rates of seabird communities.” 

“We suggest that the rapid and long-lasting decline of an abundant and widespread upper trophic predator, to less than half of its former population size in Alaska, may signal a new threshold of response to global warming,” the authors concluded.

A common murre perched on a ledge at Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge on July 27, 2019. Brie Drummond / USFWS

The post A Marine Heatwave Killed 4 Million of Alaska’s Murre Seabirds appeared first on EcoWatch.

Abnormal Typhoon Season in the Philippines ‘Supercharged’ by Climate Change: Report

Posted on by December 13, 2024

An abnormally active typhoon season that hit the Philippines this year was “supercharged” by climate change, according to a new attribution study published Thursday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA).

The report found that climate change exacerbated the conditions that led to the typhoon season and made the formation of typhoons nearly twice as likely.

The team noted that six major storms hit the country in less than a month, including five typhoons and one major tropical cyclone — an anomaly compared to the three average typhoons the country experiences in an entire year.

The storms, which killed more than 170 people, formed in a span of 23 days from late October to mid-November, each hitting Luzon, the country’s largest and most populated island, and impacted more than 13 million people, the study says.

Flooding in Dela Paz village from Tropical Storm Trami, in Binan, Laguna province, Philippines on Nov. 20, 2024. Ezra Acayan / Getty Images

Ben Clarke, a researcher at the WWA and the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, wrote in a press release, “While it is unusual to see so many typhoons hit the Philippines in less than a month, the conditions that gave rise to these storms are increasing as the climate warms.

The researchers used their standard parameter of “potential intensity,” or their evaluation of the maximum wind speed possible under certain conditions, to evaluate the extent to which climate change affected the storms.

“It was therefore appropriate to study an area over the ocean just to the east of the Philippines, in which all of the storms that affected the Philippines developed,” Clarke told EcoWatch in an email.

The potential intensity is calculated using both real-world observations and large-scale computer models of storms.

A truck overturned by Super Typhoon Man-yi in Bambang, Philippines on Nov. 18, 2024. Ezra Acayan / Getty Images

Clarke told reporters in a video conference that the researchers also calculated the storms’ wind speeds using their IRIS storm model and combined that with their “understanding of of the physics and the factors that are really important for cyclone intensity.”

“So from these 2 analyses,” Clarke said, “we find that the conditions in which the storms developed in 2024 have become about 70% more likely due to warming of 1.3 degrees. That means that the storms were more likely to develop more strongly and reach the Philippines at a higher intensity than they otherwise would have.”

“On the hazard side,” Clarke wrote in an email, “the biggest takeaways are that the conditions in which these storms all developed are more likely due to climate change (mostly but probably not entirely because of ocean heating) and that the Philippines should expect more years in which more than three major typhoons make landfall.” 

Rice fields flooded by Super Typhoon Man-yi in Bambang, Philippines on Nov. 18, 2024. Ezra Acayan / Getty Images

Afrhill Rances, a regional communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the Philippines, said in the press briefing that this year’s typhoon season revealed significant vulnerabilities and heightened exposure to climate impact in the Philippines, especially in Luzon.

Rances cited urban sprawl, deforestation and river silting as factors leading to “compounding risks” for rural communities and cities in Luzon.

The report also looked into what future typhoon seasons might look like under warmer conditions, Clarke said. “At 2.6 degrees of global warming — which is kind of the optimistic side of what we’re currently on track for given implemented national policies — we would find that these conditions will increase by about 40% again, compared to now. And that’s in likelihood. So we’ll see them 40% more often, and this is likely a relatively conservative estimate.”

The post Abnormal Typhoon Season in the Philippines ‘Supercharged’ by Climate Change: Report appeared first on EcoWatch.

Election 2024: Where Do Harris and Trump Stand on the Climate Crisis?

Posted on by November 4, 2024

The 2024 presidential election is widely projected to be one of the closest in American history, and each candidate says the stakes have never been higher. There are many issues on the ballot, from abortion rights to foreign policy. But where do the candidates stand on the climate crisis facing the planet?

Kamala Harris

When she ran for president in 2020, then-Senator Kamala Harris campaigned as a climate champion. She embraced a Green New Deal, called for a ban on fracking, and released a $10 trillion climate plan that had provisions to invest in renewable energy, hold major polluters accountable and emphasize environmental justice reforms.

Since she was named President Joe Biden’s vice president, however, climate policies Harris once supported went to the back burner as she publicly embraced Biden’s climate policy, which was largely to her right.

So where does she stand now? 

On Climate Science

While Harris has long been an advocate for climate action, the Harris campaign has not yet released a comprehensive climate plan, and Harris has been fairly silent on climate change and energy as a whole on the campaign trail. That silence could be a strategic move, though, so as not to alienate certain voters, especially Pennsylvanians — the voters in a crucial swing state with a significant fossil fuel industry — and young voters. Harris’ commenting on green energy and a need to move away from fossil fuels would risk the ire of the former. And remarks on the record oil production under the Inflation Reduction Act, which she’s said has helped lower energy costs in the U.S., would risk alienating the latter.

“It looks like a deliberate decision to forgo both pro-climate and pro-drilling messaging,” Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, told The Washington Post. “The campaign may have concluded that it has more to lose by alienating voters on either side than to gain by drawing in undecideds.”

However, a comment made by one of Harris’ advisors at a DNC event could shine more light on her climate stance. Ike Irby, a senior advisor to Harris, said that Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz are “committed to bold action to build a clean energy economy, create good jobs, ensure America’s energy security, reduce emissions, protect public health, support communities in the face of climate disasters and hold polluters accountable.” 

Fracking

Harris, in a U-turn on her views on fracking, said she would not support a ban on fracking, citing the need to “invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”

This, too, could be a strategic move, as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speculated. Sanders said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he views Harris’ reversal on fracking and Medicare for all as a “pragmatic” decision to do “what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

However, it’s worth noting that Harris was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which, along with major subsidies for renewable energy, did open up new leases for fracking, a point she made in her debate with former President Trump.

Energy Policy

Harris has defended the record oil and gas production in the U.S. under Biden by saying that it helps keep energy prices low as the country shifts toward renewable energy sources.

Her official policy page lays out how she plans to tackle the climate crisis. She says she will “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she builds on this historic work, advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters, lowers household energy costs, creates millions of new jobs, and continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all.” 

Inflation Reduction Act

Among its many provisions, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) featured an historic amount of of legislation to curb the climate crisis. 

The IRA included generous tax credits for renewable energy sources, corporate tax credits for companies that produce renewable energy components, a tax credit for energy companies to produce renewable energy, funding for climate change resilience and drought mitigation, electric vehicle tax credits and production credits, a clean fuel standard, and provisions to promote carbon capture and storage, as well as climate research. 

After casting the tie-breaking vote for the IRA, Harris said she plans to build on it as president. 

Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s views on climate change and energy are more primitive as he does not support renewable energy, and sides with fossil fuels. 

His previous administration also aggressively rolled back nearly 100 climate regulations.

On Climate Science

Former President Trump has a long history of climate denialism. He has called climate change a “hoax.” Recently on the campaign trail, he said that nuclear warming, not climate change, is “the warming that you’re going to have to be very careful with.”

Fracking

Donald Trump supports fracking. At a recent Pennsylvania rally, Trump said, “With me, one thing you know, I will never be stopping fracking,” and has repeatedly said he will “Drill, baby, drill.” 

Energy Policy

Trump favors fossil fuel and coal energy. On his official Agenda 47 policy plan, Trump says that he will “rescind” what he sweepingly describes as “every one of Joe Biden’s industry-killing, jobs-killing, pro-China and anti-American electricity regulations.” He has also promised to massively escalate domestic oil and natural gas production.

Paris Climate Agreement

Trump’s Agenda 47 policy says he will leave the “horrendously unfair Paris Climate Accords.” This promise isn’t surprising, as Trump previously took the U.S. out of the agreement, which aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming.

Project 2025

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would have enormous consequences for climate policy if enacted. It calls for an extreme restructuring of virtually every facet of the executive branch, including the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA.

Although Trump has tried to publicly distance himself from the project, many people associated with him are behind the document.

Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Heritage Foundation has been extremely influential in every Republican presidential administration. It has done so through detailed documents called Mandates for Leadership, a guide for right-wing domestic and foreign policy. 

Just weeks after Reagan won reelection in 1984, The Washington Post reported that the first Mandate for Leadership, which was “designed to force the federal government to the right” was so influential in the Reagan Administration that it “became a bible of sorts for many in the Reagan White House.” The Heritage Foundation boasts that about 60% of their entire policy guide was implemented by the end of Reagan’s first term. 

The foundation and its mandates were similarly influential in the administrations of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump. 

In Trump’s 2017-2021 administration, the Heritage Foundation had enormous influence. It had a say in who would be part of the White House staff, including at least 66 Heritage employees and alumni, according to The New York Times. Trump also bragged about his success with instituting the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations faster than Reagan did.

In all but name, Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership. Its main architects are Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and Russ Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who is the former head of the office of management and budget in the Trump White House and is the current policy director for the Republican National Committee.

Kevin Roberts said that he views his role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Project 2025 has been labeled as extremely authoritarian and far-right on both social and economic issues. It opposes abortion, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights and racial equity, according to the ACLU.

Mandy Gunasekara, the previous chief of staff to Trump’s EPA, and who wrote the chapter on the EPA for Project 2025, shows she is at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change, denouncing what she describes as the EPA’s “fear-based rhetoric” around the “perceived threat of climate change.”

Chris Sellers, the head of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative’s (EDGI’s) Policy Monitoring and Interviewing Initiative, told EcoWatch that Gunasekara is now being “being talked about as the leading candidate for EPA Administrator.”

Concerning broad restructuring for executive branch departments, Sellers said, “They want to basically do away with a lot of the civil service requirements… [for] the EPA, they want to put a political appointee in charge of research and development. And that’s kind of emblematic, I mean, that kind of politicization.”

The EPA chapter also advocates for “open-source science,” which according to the EDGI’s annotation of Project 2025, is “code language for conservative efforts to undermine the work of scientists and the role of science in the regulatory process.” The authors of the annotation say that it’s a variation on the controversial “sound science” idea pushed by Scott Pruitt, Trump’s head of the EPA, as a right-wing talking point used to further fossil fuel interests.

The annotation authors write, “This ‘open-source science’ agenda would exclude from regulatory considerations practically all the burgeoning science done over the past two decades centering on actual people who are exposed to toxic pollutants.”

As for energy policy, Robert Lifset, associate professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and researcher for EDGI, told EcoWatch, “This was basically written by oil and gas lobbyists, or it was written by people who sat down with oil and gas lobbyists and asked them what they wanted, or what what they wanted to see done.”

Bernard L. McNamee, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump, wrote the chapter on the Department of Energy, which pushes, among many changes, energy dominance through liquefied natural gas and fossil fuels.

William Perry Pendley, who was acting director of the Bureau of Land Management under Trump, wrote the chapter on the Department of the Interior, which in part pushes domestic oil and fossil fuels.

Additionally, Project 2025 would see the U.S. completely back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, break up NOAA, end all subsidies for renewable energy and eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances.

Some of these proposed sweeping changes could be difficult to enact in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine, a landmark ruling surrounding how the federal government should deal with unclear or ambiguous language in laws concerning the executive branch. Laws giving authority to departments in the executive branch have often been written intentionally vague to allow for experts in those departments to have large sway over how to approach their duties, which the Chevron doctrine allowed for — a boon to Democratic and Republican administrations alike. 

Now, any ambiguous language would be the responsibility of the judicial system to clarify, which could make a second Trump administration’s role in instituting Project 2025 more difficult. A cold comfort, perhaps, as there are hundreds of conservative federal judges, along with six conservative Supreme Court justices, who, given the opportunity, now have the authority to essentially rewrite any ambiguous administrative regulations almost as they see fit.

In addition, in Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court also granted the president complete immunity over any “official acts” made while in office — a massive win for the former president, the implications for which are still largely unknown. 

While Trump has publicly renounced Project 2025 with claims to blacklist anyone involved with it, that may be easier said than done. Project 2025’s long list of credits includes more than 150 former Trump officials and staffers. Trump’s VP pick J.D. Vance also has ties to the Heritage Foundation, and he even wrote the foreword to Kevin Roberts’ upcoming book. 

“[Trump] has lied so many times. I mean, my sense is that he’s also doesn’t know much about the environment, and he blurts out these things when they ask about it,” Sellers said. “So he’s going to really delegate, and because he doesn’t know really what he’s doing there, other than broad symbolic gestures. So I think he’s going to delegate, there’s a stable of people there to whom he can delegate now… I think that’s that’s a signal to me that Project 25, at least on the environmental front, [has] kind of a green light should Trump get in there.”

To that point, Lifset concurred. “I agree with that. And I’d add that Republican administrations for the last two or three decades have largely outsourced energy environmental policy to the oil and gas industry.”

The post Election 2024: Where Do Harris and Trump Stand on the Climate Crisis? appeared first on EcoWatch.

Only 37% of Europe’s Surface Water Is Healthy, Study Finds

Posted on by October 18, 2024

Just a little more than one-third of Europe’s surface water is in “good” health or better, a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) has found. The report also said the majority of protected aquatic species and habitats have either a “poor” or “bad” conservation status.

The data was collected from 19 EU member countries. 

According to the report, only about 37% of the surface water analyzed in 2021 was identified as having “good” quality or better, and only 29% had at least a good chemical status. 

A major contributing factor to poor chemical status was long-lived pollutants, like mercury or “brominated flame retardants.” If these were not a factor, the study says, 80% of the surface water would be in good health or better.

Another major factor is ongoing atmospheric pollution, largely coming from coal plants and diffuse pollution from agriculture.

Groundwater, on the other hand, which supports local ecosystems and supplies two-thirds of the continent’s drinking water, was reported to be much healthier, although still not in perfect health. About 77% of groundwater studied was in good chemical status and 91% was in “good quantitative status.”

According to the study authors, “Failure to achieve good ecological status shows that European aquatic ecosystems are still seriously degraded.”

Only 17% of protected lake, river, alluvial and riparian habitats were shown to be in good health, while 89% of wetlands were shown to be in bad health or worse. A majority of protected fish and amphibian species were shown to be in poor or bad ecological health and are threatened with becoming locally extinct. “This shows that the EU is far from achieving its biodiversity ambition in aquatic ecosystems,” the authors wrote.

The study uses the 2022 catastrophic die-off event in the Oder River in Germany and Poland as an example of the consequences of bodies of water being in poor or bad health. More than 100 metric tonnes (148 U.S. tons) of dead fish were removed from the river after an algal bloom of the harmful species Prymnesium parvum released deadly toxins in the water.

The algal bloom was largely caused by a combination of salt pollution from salt mines and nutrient pollution — including nitrogen and phosphorous — from urban wastewater, the study said.

The “most significant” pressure, according to the report, was from agriculture, especially from the use of “nutrients and pesticides” for crops.

Agriculture as a practice also consumes an immense amount of water and is the single practice that uses the most water in all of Europe by far. The report warns that, without any significant changes, agricultural demand is set to increase in the coming years.

More From EcoWatch

“The health of Europe’s waters is not good,” Leena Ylä-Mononen, EEA’s executive director, said in a press release. “Our waters face an unprecedented set of challenges that threatens Europe’s water security. We need to redouble our efforts to restore the health of our valued rivers, lakes, coastal waters, and other water bodies and to make sure this vital resource is resilient and secure for generations to come.”

The press release outlines how the health of these waters can improve, including reducing water use, increasing water use efficiency, setting effective targets and improving water management.

Europe should also take on pressures affecting the waters, including preventing pollution, as well as improving nature restoration. In addition to improving water quality, doing so would help fight the climate crisis, Trine Christiansen, one of the study authors, told The Guardian.

“Having a healthy aquatic ecosystem helps mitigate the impacts we’re seeing of climate change,” Christiansen, said. “The better the [water] situation we have, the more capable we are of handling these more extreme events.”

The post Only 37% of Europe’s Surface Water Is Healthy, Study Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

Only 37% of Europe’s Surface Water Is Healthy, Study Finds

Posted on by October 18, 2024

Just a little more than one-third of Europe’s surface water is in “good” health or better, a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) has found. The report also said the majority of protected aquatic species and habitats have either a “poor” or “bad” conservation status.

The data was collected from 19 EU member countries. 

According to the report, only about 37% of the surface water analyzed in 2021 was identified as having “good” quality or better, and only 29% had at least a good chemical status. 

A major contributing factor to poor chemical status was long-lived pollutants, like mercury or “brominated flame retardants.” If these were not a factor, the study says, 80% of the surface water would be in good health or better.

Another major factor is ongoing atmospheric pollution, largely coming from coal plants and diffuse pollution from agriculture.

Groundwater, on the other hand, which supports local ecosystems and supplies two-thirds of the continent’s drinking water, was reported to be much healthier, although still not in perfect health. About 77% of groundwater studied was in good chemical status and 91% was in “good quantitative status.”

According to the study authors, “Failure to achieve good ecological status shows that European aquatic ecosystems are still seriously degraded.”

Only 17% of protected lake, river, alluvial and riparian habitats were shown to be in good health, while 89% of wetlands were shown to be in bad health or worse. A majority of protected fish and amphibian species were shown to be in poor or bad ecological health and are threatened with becoming locally extinct. “This shows that the EU is far from achieving its biodiversity ambition in aquatic ecosystems,” the authors wrote.

The study uses the 2022 catastrophic die-off event in the Oder River in Germany and Poland as an example of the consequences of bodies of water being in poor or bad health. More than 100 metric tonnes (148 U.S. tons) of dead fish were removed from the river after an algal bloom of the harmful species Prymnesium parvum released deadly toxins in the water.

The algal bloom was largely caused by a combination of salt pollution from salt mines and nutrient pollution — including nitrogen and phosphorous — from urban wastewater, the study said.

The “most significant” pressure, according to the report, was from agriculture, especially from the use of “nutrients and pesticides” for crops.

Agriculture as a practice also consumes an immense amount of water and is the single practice that uses the most water in all of Europe by far. The report warns that, without any significant changes, agricultural demand is set to increase in the coming years.

More From EcoWatch

“The health of Europe’s waters is not good,” Leena Ylä-Mononen, EEA’s executive director, said in a press release. “Our waters face an unprecedented set of challenges that threatens Europe’s water security. We need to redouble our efforts to restore the health of our valued rivers, lakes, coastal waters, and other water bodies and to make sure this vital resource is resilient and secure for generations to come.”

The press release outlines how the health of these waters can improve, including reducing water use, increasing water use efficiency, setting effective targets and improving water management.

Europe should also take on pressures affecting the waters, including preventing pollution, as well as improving nature restoration. In addition to improving water quality, doing so would help fight the climate crisis, Trine Christiansen, one of the study authors, told The Guardian.

“Having a healthy aquatic ecosystem helps mitigate the impacts we’re seeing of climate change,” Christiansen, said. “The better the [water] situation we have, the more capable we are of handling these more extreme events.”

The post Only 37% of Europe’s Surface Water Is Healthy, Study Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

Hurricanes Milton and Helene Were Intensified by Climate Change, Researchers Find

Posted on by October 16, 2024

Hurricanes — the most powerful storms on Earth — are becoming more widespread and destructive as a warming planet increases their intensity. Hurricanes Helene and Milton are following the trend of these storms becoming supercharged and more likely to form, according to a pair of studies from the World Weather Attribution (WWA). 

The researchers found that Hurricane Helene’s wind speed on the coast of Florida was about 11% stronger due to climate change, and its total rainfall increased by 10%. The high water temperatures that fueled Helene were found to be between 200 and 500 times more likely, and hurricanes the size of Helene are now 2.5 times more likely each year due to climate change, according to the report.

As for Hurricane Milton, the researchers found storms of its intensity are now 40% more common, hurricanes with heavy one-day events similar to Milton are 20-30% more intense and twice as likely, and the maximum wind speeds of similar storms are about 10% stronger due to climate change. 

This increase in wind speed, as the analysis points out, means that without human influence, Milton would have been a category 2 storm rather than category 3 when it made landfall, if it had formed at all.

“We conclude that warmer Sea Surface Temperatures along the track of Hurricane Milton were strongly influenced by climate change, which affected Milton’s environment and made it more likely for the storm to develop and intensify throughout its lifetime,” the researchers wrote.

The conditions that lead to the formation of hurricanes are complex, but there are a few general factors that influence their formation and behavior in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Hurricanes in the Atlantic typically form near the intertropical convergence zone — a low-pressure band roughly encompassing the equator, where the trade winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet and are forced high into the atmosphere. This creates a stormy ring around the planet, which, combined with warm equatorial waters that evaporate into the atmosphere, creates ripe conditions for hurricanes, especially during hurricane season, from the beginning of June to the end of November.

Once a hurricane forms here, trade winds often push them Northwest, toward the Gulf of Mexico.

But these conditions are becoming even more conducive for hurricanes with climate change.

Bernadette Woods Placky, Chief Meteorologist at Climate Central, said the warming oceans and atmosphere are “like steroids for hurricanes,” according to a press release from the WWA.

“As Helene approached the U.S., it strengthened from a Category 2 to a Category 4 hurricane in just ten hours,” she said. “This rapid intensification is happening more often with climate change. If humans keep heating the climate, we will keep seeing storms rapidly morph into monster hurricanes, leading to more destruction.”

Hurricane Helene, which first hit Northern Florida as a category four storm and went on to devastate significant parts of Georgia, Western North Carolina and South Carolina, Eastern Tennessee and Southern Virginia, killed more than 200 people, the highest U.S. death toll from a hurricane since Katrina in 2005.

“There were many things that went right. For example, the major dams held, the hurricane was forecast and emergency evacuations were declared… and yet we still had a huge death toll,” Julie Arrighi, director of programmes at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, told reporters in a briefing. 

She added, “I think that we start to see spots where there may have been things that need further unpacking in the days and weeks ahead — were there more evacuation options or not in some of the areas, for example — but I think it will be really interesting to see how this gets further analyzed through time.”

Along with Florida being at risk for hurricanes given its location in the Gulf of Mexico, the researchers in the flash study for Hurricane Milton attribute its low elevation and large coastal populations as major risk factors for these storms.

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The study also noted that low-income areas and racial minority communities face the greatest risk from these storms, due to “inadequate housing and resources for adequate preparedness, evacuation, and recovery.” 

Also mentioned was the major stress placed upon infrastructure as millions tried to evacuate, leading to “severely congested” highways, while gas stations ran out of fuel, and the outflux of people led to crowded hotels and motels, many of which weren’t equipped to accommodate guests with “disabilities or health issues.” In addition, the researchers noted that while 37% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency, it can cost thousands for evacuees to seek refuge.

“We really need to be adapting and preparing for these unprecedented, very extreme events,” Arrighi said. “Even in a country that has a lot of preparedness — a lot of emergency readiness —  we still see these high impacts. Increasing the preparedness of these systems for these really large events is, I’m sure, a topic that will be talked about for many weeks and months to come.”

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‘Existential Threat’: Tuvalu’s Fight to Survive, Even If It Sinks

Posted on by October 1, 2024

Rising sea levels threaten to completely submerge Tuvalu in the coming decades. Facing an unprecedented crisis, officials are not only trying to preserve a shrinking country but attempting to ensure the nation, as well as its culture and traditions, will still exist, even if its land doesn’t.

By 2050. It’s estimated that about half of the country will be underwater. By 2100, that number would be 95%. Tuvalu is extremely susceptible to rising seas due to its small size and low elevation, which is just about two meters above sea level on average.

Pasuna Tuaga, Tuvalu’s permanent secretary for foreign affairs told Reuters, “Tuvalu wishes to champion sea level rise to be treated as a standalone agenda, not crowded under the climate change discourse,” adding, “It is an existential threat to Tuvalu’s statehood and survival of its identity.”

Although it has just 10 square miles of land mass, Tuvalu also controls about 290,000 square miles of the Pacific. It’s through this patch of ocean — Tuvalu’s maritime boundaries — that officials are trying to maintain the country’s existence, even if the sea submerges each of its nine islands. In that case, Tuvalu would keep control of its maritime boundaries and lucrative fishing rights, regardless of the state of its land.

Officials see two potential paths to preserve ownership of its maritime boundaries: through the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea or a resolution from the United Nations, Reuters reported.

Last Wednesday, Tuvalu came closer to the latter, when Feleti Teo, prime minister of Tuvalu, formally requested support for the country’s campaign to permanently recognize its maritime boundaries at the UN’s General Assembly.

“A rising ocean brings higher tides, and with increasing storm intensity, our villages and fields are devastated throughout the year,” he said. “Infrastructure such as homes, roads and power lines are washed away. Higher land on which to rebuild does not exist. Our peoples will be unable to exist on the islands and shores they have called home for generations.”

Teo also said climate change threatens the culture and very way of life for Tuvaluans and other island nations. “The existential threat we face is not of our making. But it will remake us,” he said. 

Teo said he wants to help shape an “ambitious” UN declaration for 2026.

He proposed six goals for the declaration, including ensuring upholding the principle of statehood continuity, which ensures a country’s statehood, even if it undergoes government or territory changes; reaffirming Tuvalu’s maritime zones; a pathway for safe, orderly climate migration; programs to safeguard Tuvaluan culture and heritage; improved financing mechanisms for vulnerable countries; and lastly, to establish a “dedicated platform to share best practices, innovative solutions and necessary data and analysis to support informed risk disaster management decisions in affected countries.”

Tuvaluans are weighing an important question: whether to stay in their home country amid rising sea levels, or to move to a safer country. Maani Maani, 32, an IT worker and resident of Fongafale told Reuters, “Some will have to go and some will want to stay here.”

“It’s a very hard decision to make,” he added. “To leave a country, you leave the culture you were born with, and culture is everything – family, your sister, your brother. It is everything.”

“It’s a very difficult conversation, very emotional,” Grace Malie, a young mother and Tuvalu resident, said in an interview according to the Associated Press. “And it’s 50-50. Some of us wish to stay. Some of them, because they have families,” will probably head to Australia.

In response to the looming threat of the country’s destruction from climate change, Tuvalu signed the Falepili Union treaty with Australia in 2023, which addresses Tuvalu’s need for support amid rising sea levels. The treaty sees that Australia provides $11 million for coastal restoration projects. It also allows for 280 Tuvaluans to emigrate to Australia annually to escape the worst effects of the climate crisis, starting next year. 

However, Teo says there is more work to be done. 

“As a coalition for higher ambition, we will continue to work with all of you to advance stronger advocacy, to raise global awareness, and to ensure higher commitments in support for the affected countries and communities,” he said, adding, “The international community needs to act now; we cannot afford to wait any longer.”

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Portugal Declares State of Calamity After Wildfires Kill 7

Posted on by September 20, 2024

Raging wildfires across Portugal — likely caused at least in part by arsonists and exacerbated by the country’s unique climate — have killed seven, injured dozens and prompted a state of calamity for areas hit hardest, mostly in the north. Although firefighters have since quelled most of the flames, the fires have destroyed multiple homes, as well as tens of thousands of acres of forest.

Three of the victims were firefighters: Sónia Cláudia Melo, Paulo Jorge Santos, and Susana Cristina Carvalho, Portugal’s civil protection service said in a Facebook Post. 

Portugal’s national civil protection commander Andre Fernandes said the firefighters died after the vehicle they were in caught fire, but it’s unclear whether the vehicle crashed before it was engulfed in flames. Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said they were “heroes who gave their lives defending Portugal and the Portuguese people. The greatest tribute we can pay them is to continue fighting, as they did.” The other four victims were civilians. 

Portugal’s Council of Ministers declared Friday to be a day of mourning for the victims.

Police said that several of the fires were likely started by arsonists, and have arrested 14 people under suspicion of arson in what appears to be a long-running trend. Many of last year’s devastating wildfires in the country were reportedly started by arsonists. As many as 80% of those fires were deliberately caused, according to one report.

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A 2012 study examining Portuguese forest fires between 1980 and 2009 found that as forest fires dramatically increased over those nearly three decades, arson was the leading cause of fires, making up an average of 38% of all fires. A further 28% were caused by negligence with less than 3% being attributed to “natural causes.”

Salvador Pinho Ferreira de Almeida, a professor and civil protection expert at Lusofona University, told Reuters there was strong evidence of criminal activity because the fires “started at night and it’s very bizarre to see so many outbreaks and so scattered.”

Montenegro on Tuesday pledged “repressive action” against crimes “committed in the name of particular interests,” although without clarification, according to Reuters.

In addition to having an abnormal number of arson-related fires, Portugal’s geography and climate are conducive to fire spread. Andre Inacio, a criminologist and researcher, told Reuters the human-caused fires are fast to spread due to Portugal’s dry forests and strong wind.

Satellite view of the Northern Portugal wildfires on Sept. 17, 2024. Gallo Images / Orbital Horizon / Copernicus Sentinel Data 2024

“Not managing the landscape intensively enough is creating this explosive situation,” Lindon Pronto, a fire management expert at the European Forest Institute, told Reuters.

While many of the fires have subsided, toxic particulate matter from the smoke looms over northern Portugal and is predicted to move into northern and central Spain in the coming days, according to the EU’s Copernicus model.

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Deforestation and Wildfires in Brazil Contributing to ‘Most Intense and Widespread Drought in History’

Posted on by September 13, 2024

Brazil is facing its worst drought on record, fueled by widespread deforestation and wildfire destruction in the Amazon and surrounding regions, scientists say.

The destruction hinders the area’s natural water cycle, especially its crucial “flying river” phenomenon. As the trees in the Eastern Amazon and Cerrado regions absorb rainfall brought about by moisture coming from the Atlantic, they later release water vapor into the air through transpiration, which then brings rainfall to much of Brazil and other parts of South America. 

But the trees the process requires are being destroyed, leading to rivers drying up and areas that were once green now resembling deserts.

Luciana Gatti, a climate researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, told The Washington Post, “This is a process connected from the bottom to the top, with the flying rivers at the top being weakened, and the earth being weakened at the bottom, erasing natural fountains and reducing river levels.”

Nearly 40% of the Amazon’s most vital areas are unprotected, Reuters reported Wednesday. That includes a large part of the Amazon’s northeast, nestled against the Atlantic Ocean, which holds an immense amount of carbon compared to the rest of the region. 

As the Amazon’s northeast is being destroyed, not only is it disrupting the water cycle and leading to further droughts elsewhere, but it’s also releasing an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

“This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast,” Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at CEMADEN, Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in a statement last week. “It is the most intense and widespread drought in history.”

Amid the destruction, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva recently flew into the Amazon. “It seems to me that things are getting worse, year after year after year,” he said. 

“In the Pantanal we’ve had the worst drought in the last 73 years… This is a problem that we have to fix because otherwise humanity is going to destroy our planet,” Lula added. “We cannot destroy that which we rely on for our life.”






Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on a flight over the Pantanal on July 31, 2024. Ricardo Stuckert / Lula Oficial





The Cerrado region in the country’s southeast, which is also a crucial part of the water cycle, is in the midst of its worst drought in at least 700 years, a new study shows.





The team examined geological data to “extend the perception of drought caused by global warming to a period long before the weather station’s records began,” Francisco William da Cruz Junior, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Geosciences and one of the study’s authors, told the São Paulo Research Foundation.





“This proved that the Cerrado is drier than it was and that the dry weather is associated with the disruption to the hydrological cycle caused by the rise in temperature due to human activity, especially greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.









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More than 59% of the country is under stress from drought. In São Paolo, Brazil’s most populated city with more than 21 million residents, wildfires have reduced air quality to the second lowest in the world, The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, the city’s Pinheiros River turned green from pollution and drought. 





“You can put this in capital letters,” Gatti said. “It will get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptical situation, and unfortunately, we only wake up at the last minute.”










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