Carbon

Romanian Bison & Carbon Sequestration

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Bison (Bos Bonasus), Kennemerduinen National Park, Kraansvlak, The Netherlands. Enclousure in a fenced reserve, 250 hectar, in Kennemerduinen National Park. STAFFAN WIDSTRAND / REWILDING EUROPE

Bison restoration stories we have linked to are mostly in North America. But the Carpathian mountains have demonstrated Romania’s outsized efforts at rewilding. Now the largest such effort in Europe, according to Rewilding Europe, is this:

The goal of the Tarcu Mountains bison initiative is to help build a herd of at least 500 bison living in freedom by 2025 in the Southern Carpathians. This is an area spanning some 1.4 million hectares of wild mountains and valleys in the southern part of the Carpathian mountain chain.

Thanks to Yale e360 for more on this news from Romania.

European bison in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. DANIEL MIRLEA / WWF ROMANIA

How a Small Herd of Romanian Bison Is Locking Away Thousands of Tons of Carbon

Gone from Romania for 200 years, European bison were reintroduced to the Țarcu Mountains, at the southern end of the Carpathian range, in 2014. Now numbering 170, the bison are reshaping the mountain landscape in ways that are helping clean up emissions. Continue reading →

Price Adjustments & Carbon Emmissions

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illustration: javier jaén/getty images

The Economist shares this news:

Carbon emissions are dropping—fast—in Europe

Thanks to a price mechanism that actually works

“Our most pressing challenge is keeping our planet healthy,” declared Ursula von der Leyen on the day she was elected president of the European Commission in July 2019. Continue reading →

If You Eat Beef, Track Its Origins

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A JBS facility in Tucuma, Brazil. JONNE RORIZ / BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Reducing meat in our diet was easier living in India, and we committed specifically to cutting beef consumption. This effort has been assisted by awareness of this issue. Thanks to Yale e360 for bringing the work of this team to our attention:

Marcel Gomes (center) with colleagues at Repórter Brasil’s offices in São Paulo. GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE

Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

Journalist Marcel Gomes has traced beef in supermarkets and fast food restaurants in the U.S. and Europe to Brazilian ranches on illegally cleared land. In an e360 interview, he talks about the challenges of documenting the supply chains and getting companies to clean them up.

Investigative journalism can be a very deep dive. By the end of his probe into the supply chain of JBS, the world’s largest meat processing and packing company, Marcel Gomes reckons he and his team at the São Paulo-based nonprofit Repórter Brasil knew more about the origins of the beef it supplies from the Amazon to the world’s hamburger chains and supermarkets than the company itself. Continue reading →

Andrea Vidaurre, Making Good Trouble in California

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Take five minutes to celebrate Andrea’s activism and its accomplishments:

2024 GOLDMAN PRIZE WINNER

Andrea Vidaurre

Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.

Heat Pumps, Circa 2024

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Heat pumps are energy efficient and considered by many to be powerful tools in combating climate change. Jackie Molloy for The New York Times

The technology is still young, and raising questions, but also full of promise according to this article by Hilary Howard in the New York Times:

Why Heat Pumps Are the Future, and How Your Home Could Use One

The highly efficient devices are the darlings of the environmental movement. Here’s why.

Heat pumps, which both warm and cool buildings and are powered by electricity, have been touted as the answer to curbing greenhouse gas emissions produced by homes, businesses and office buildings, which are responsible for about one-third of the emissions in New York State. Continue reading →

Are We Anthropocenic Or Not?

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Art works by Aletheia Casey

Thanks, as always, to Elizabeth Kolbert for illumination on this mystery:

The “Epic Row” Over a New Epoch

Scientists, journalists, and artists often say that we live in the Anthropocene, a new age in which humans shape the Earth. Why do some leading geologists reject the term?

A few months into the third millennium, a group called the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (I.G.B.P.) held a meeting in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Among the researchers in attendance was Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist best known for his research on ozone-depleting chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons. Continue reading →

Babatana Rainforest Conservation Project & High Integrity Carbon Credits

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Sirebe tribal ranger Elijah Qalolilio Junior in the rainforest. DOUGLAS JUNIOR PIKACHA / NAKAU

A sign marks the boundary of protected Sirebe land. DOUGLAS JUNIOR PIKACHA / NAKAU

Of all the methods for addressing climate change, new incentives for protecting forests are among those we have most confidence in. Thanks to this article by Jo Chandler in Yale e360, if your introspection after reading this previous article had you down on carbon credits, there may be a way to restore your confidence:

The Sirebe forest at dusk. DOUGLAS JUNIOR PIKACHA / NAKAU

Solomon Islands Tribes Sell Carbon Credits, Not Their Trees

In a South Pacific nation ravaged by logging, several tribes joined together to sell “high integrity” carbon credits on international markets. The project not only preserves their highly biodiverse rainforest, but it funnels life-changing income to Indigenous landowners.

A male oriole whistler on a forest ranger’s hand. DOUGLAS JUNIOR PIKACHA / NAKAU

When head ranger Ikavy Pitatamae walks into the rainforest on Choiseul Island, the westernmost of the nearly 1,000 islands that make up the South Pacific archipelago of Solomon Islands, he surveys it with the heart of a tribal landowner and the eye of a forester. Continue reading →

Industry Pivots Via Carbon Sequestration

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This gas processing plant at Casalborsetti is the focus of the first phase of an ambitious plan to capture carbon dioxide and bury it under the sea. Maurizio Fiorino for The New York Times

Where to put carbon is a major question of the day. Thanks to writers like Stanley Reed and publications like the New York Times the ideas keep coming:

Plan to Stash Pollution Beneath the Sea Could Save Money and Jobs

The Italian energy giant Eni sees future profits from collecting carbon dioxide and pumping it into natural gas fields that have been exhausted.

Renowned for ancient churches and the tomb of Dante, the 14th-century poet, the city of Ravenna and its environs along Italy’s Adriatic coast are also home to old-line industries like steel and fertilizer. Continue reading →

Does Recycling Matter In 2024?

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Thanks to Yale Climate Connections for this primer:

Does recycling actually do anything? What about carbon offsets? Did you know that the average person’s carbon footprint is about 6.5 tons but the average American’s footprint is double that? Meteorologist Alexandra Steele talks to the experts to get answers about what actually helps the planet, and what doesn’t. You can calculate you carbon footprint by using the links below:

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calc…

https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-invo…

Credits Script, research, interviews, camera: Alexandra Steele Script Editors: Sara Peach, Pearl Marvell Edit Producers: Iain Moss, Sam Lucas Production support: Anthony Leiserowitz, Lisa Fernandez Production Editor: Iain Moss Graphics: Screen Stories Production Manager: Ellie Aitken Social Media Manager: Ellie Phillips Director of Production: Hal Arnold Production Company: Little Dot Studios

An Oil Company Funding Carbon Capture?

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The plant will be powered by geothermal energy. Francesca Jones for The New York Times

David Gelles in the New York Times furthers our understanding of the expanding use of carbon capture, and the motives of the key actors utilizing this technology:

On a windswept Icelandic plateau, an international team of engineers and executives is powering up an innovative machine designed to alter the very composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

“Collector containers” where air is pulled in. Francesca Jones for The New York Times

If all goes as planned, the enormous vacuum will soon be sucking up vast quantities of air, stripping out carbon dioxide and then locking away those greenhouse gases deep underground in ancient stone — greenhouse gases that would otherwise continue heating up the globe.

Just a few years ago, technologies like these, that attempt to re-engineer the natural environment, were on the scientific fringe. They were too expensive, too impractical, too sci-fi. Continue reading →

Map For Planting & For Not Planting Trees

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Regions where tree planting would curb warming on balance are shaded in blue, while regions where tree planting would intensify warming are shaded in red. HASLER, ET AL.

As we prepare to plant trees when the rainy season starts in a few weeks, a story like this one gives pause. If you are capable of reading and understanding the article summarized below, congratulations; meanwhile, thanks to Yale e360 for interpretation that allows the lay reader to follow along:

This Map Shows Where Planting Trees Would Make Climate Change Worse

Though oft touted as a fix for climate change, planting trees could, in some regions, make warming more severe, a new study finds. Continue reading →

Where Does Captured Carbon Go?

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The Heirloom Carbon direct air capture plant in Tracy, California, which opened last November. HEIRLOOM CARBON

For keeping an eye on the captured carbon trail, thanks to Nicola Jones:

As Carbon Air Capture Ramps Up, Major Hurdles Remain

Aided by tax breaks and carbon credits, scores of plants are being developed or are now operating that remove CO2 from the air. Such facilities are considered necessary to limit global warming, but critics have questions about the high costs and where the captured carbon will go.

Texas is by far the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States: The oil-rich state releases twice as much carbon dioxide as the runner-up state, California, and as much as the entire country of Germany. Continue reading →

Responding To A Red Alert

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Another reason to subscribe to Bill McKibben’s newsletter:

How Not to Act in an Emergency

Forget AI–we need some human intelligence

We’re getting right to the nub now.

Yesterday the World Meteorological Organization officially certified 2023 as the hottest year in human history. Just to put on the record here what should have been the lead story in every journal and website on our home planet:

Andrea Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the WMO, said the organisation was now “sounding the red alert to the world”.

The report found temperatures near the surface of the earth were 1.45C higher last year than they were in the late 1800s, when people began to destroy nature at an industrial scale and burn large amounts of coal, oil and gas.

Last year’s spike was so scary that NASA’s Gavin Schmidt—Jim Hansen’s heir as keeper of NASA’s climate record—wrote in Nature this week that it raised the most profound possible implications. Please read his words slowly and carefully: Continue reading →

Climate Capitalism Conversation

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We are in need of realism more than anything else, but according to David Gelles it still makes sense to hear what an optimist has to say:

Making the Case for Capitalism

A new book argues that short-term profit incentives can deliver long-term changes to benefit the climate.

Combating the climate crisis is the ultimate long-term challenge. Can society rapidly overhaul energy production, transportation, heavy industry, agriculture and more in order to prevent truly catastrophic global warming? Continue reading →

McKibben On Responsibility & Accountability

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Vermont’s capitol city, underwater in epic July flooding that wrecked most of Montpelier’s retail district

Holding the responsible accountable is part of Bill McKibben’s objective; he also provides sunshine. Subscribe to this newsletter if you can:

You flood it, you pay for it.

States are considering ‘climate superfund’ laws to hold Big Oil accountable

One prong of the climate fight involves installing so much renewable energy that fossil fuel use actually declines dramatically—a few places are finally showing that’s possible, like sunny Germany which last week said emissions in 2023 dropped more than ten percent. Continue reading →

The Vertical Forest In Milan

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The Vertical Forest, a residential complex in Milan. Marta Carenzi/Archivio Marta Carenzi/Mondadori Portfolio, via Getty Images

Italy has not figured in our climate change solutions coverage, until now. Our thanks to Stephen Wallis and the New York Times for this:

A Growth Spurt in Green Architecture

Buildings made shaggy with vegetation or fragrant with wood are no longer novelties.

In the lineup of climate villains, architecture towers above many. The building and construction industries account for some 37 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Three of the most commonly used building materials — concrete, steel and aluminum — generate nearly a quarter of all carbon output. Continue reading →

Embodied Carbon

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Photo of a polluting factory.

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman/ChavoBart Digital Media

Thanks to Yale Climate Connections for expanding our vocabulary:

What is ‘embodied carbon’?

It’s a little-known but major factor in the carbon footprint of our buildings.

Buildings can create a lot of global warming carbon pollution, from the electricity for lights and appliances to the oil or gas used to power the furnace.

McKibben Discusses The Future With John Kerry As He Moves On

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“There’s a lack of knowledge, a lack of due diligence, a lack of basic education on the issue of climate,” John Kerry says.Photograph by Alain Jocard / AFP / Getty

With a transition this important, and especially when McKibben has a conversation like this one it is worth two posts in a row:

John Kerry Thinks We’re at a Critical Moment on Climate Change

As he steps down from office, the first Presidential envoy on the climate says that we have made progress, but we’re not moving fast enough.

He’s been perhaps most closely involved in negotiations with the Chinese government, in particular with his longtime interlocutor Xie Zhenhua, who retired in December at the age of seventy-four. One of Xie’s last encounters with Kerry came last December at the cop28 climate talks in Dubai, where Xie’s eight-year-old grandson presented Kerry with a card for his eightieth birthday. Continue reading →

When Embarrassment Really Means Shame

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Alex Wong / Getty

The sentiment is appreciated, but we should use the stronger word, shame, in describing the feeling many of us share:

Goodbye to America’s First Climate Envoy

John Kerry believes the world can still limit global warming, even if U.S. climate politics are “embarrassing.”

The smallest hint of frustration had crept into John Kerry’s voice. We were talking about international climate diplomacy, which for the past two years has been Kerry’s job as the U.S. special presidential envoy on climate, a role President Joe Biden created to signal his commitment to the issue. Continue reading →