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It looks like Banksy just created an Extinction Rebellion mural

by CaitlinRudd Posted on April 26, 2019

Banksy, the famously anonymous street artist, appears to have lent his (or maybe her) talents to sounding the alarm about the climate crisis.

A new mural showed up in central London near Hyde Park on Thursday night, and a Banksy collector thinks it’s legit. The mural depicts a young girl with a just-planted seedling who’s holding a tiny sign bearing the symbol of Extinction Rebellion, a new group using civil disobedience to draw attention to government inaction on climate change. The words alongside it say “From this moment despair ends and tactics begin.”

The child is stenciled on a concrete block at the Marble Arch landmark, where Extinction Rebellion protestors had recently set up camp. Over the past week and a half, activists have barricaded roads and bridges across London, demanding that the British government set a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. More than a thousand of them have been arrested in the nonviolent protests.

Banksy has not yet confirmed that the mural is authentic, but the artist has created artwork about similar themes, like rising seas and sooty air, before.

Back in 2009, for instance, Banksy depicted a classic climate denial statement — “I don’t believe in global warming” — sinking into the water of a canal in north London.

Zak Hussein / PA Images via Getty Images

Another Banksy artwork last December took on air pollution. Painted on the corner of a garage in Port Talbot, one of the most polluted towns in the U.K., it looked like a kid enjoying the snow. Until you see around the corner, when it becomes clear that the “snow” is actually debris from a flaming dumpster.

Matt Cardy / Getty Images

So if Banksy is an activist trying to raise awareness about our present peril, well, unlike his or her identity, that’s not a well-kept secret.

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It looks like Banksy just created an Extinction Rebellion mural

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What will a Jones Act waiver mean for Puerto Rico’s 100% renewable energy goal?

by LaurenShields Posted on April 26, 2019

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What will a Jones Act waiver mean for Puerto Rico’s 100% renewable energy goal?

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Climate change’s deadliest effects are unfolding under the sea

by Fernand6284 Posted on April 25, 2019

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Climate change’s deadliest effects are unfolding under the sea

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The U.S. is going to want to hide its air quality report card from its parents

by WilmaR93bxwinuf Posted on April 25, 2019

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The U.S. is going to want to hide its air quality report card from its parents

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Joe Biden wants to be the anti-Trump. Here’s what that could mean for climate policy.

by FosterVDFiz Posted on April 25, 2019

Let’s play a game called two truths and a lie:

  1. Joe Biden is running for President.
  2. Joe Biden has endorsed a carbon tax and the Green New Deal.
  3. Joe Biden was the first senator to introduce climate legislation in the U.S.

For all those who guessed that No. 2 is the lie, you are correct! Congrats. The Democrat has not, in fact, endorsed the Green New Deal. Nor has gone on record about supporting carbon pricing, a climate solution embraced by most political moderates.

Story continues below

Biden announced Thursday morning that he is throwing his ice cream-stained cap in the 2020 presidential ring, which means the already-crowded, left-lurching Democratic primary has its most establishment member yet in the 76-year-old former vice president. In a video that focuses heavily on the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and the current White House occupant’s shocking response to the event, Biden clearly positions himself as the antidote to Donald Trump.

The longtime senator from Delaware has been under scrutiny for months as the media anticipated his official announcement. Dozens of stories have probed his decades-long record. And a month ago, Lucy Flores, a Democratic politician from Nevada, accused him of unwanted touching. Since then, a number of women have come forward with similar stories.

The accusations and the background checks didn’t stop the Democrat from joining the 2020 race. His launch video eschews any talk of issues, so what can we expect from Biden when it comes to tackling climate change? Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Amtrak Joe was actually the first to propose climate legislation in Congress’s upper chamber — a bill called the 1986 Global Climate Protection Act that would have done what Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee on the Climate Crisis does now: “Establish a Task Force on the Global Climate to research, develop, and implement a coordinated national strategy on global climate.” Imagine how useful such a panel might have been three decades ago. Unfortunately the president at the time, Ronald Reagan, wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to address rising temperatures.

Between his early days in the Senate and now, Biden’s most notable climate-related accomplishment was serving as Barack Obama’s sidekick for eight years. The administration was especially focused on climate action, especially during its second term (think: CAFE standards, Clean Power Plan, the Paris agreement, among other achievements). Following the 2008 recession, Biden handed out $90 billion in funding for clean-energy programs and called the move “the thing I’m proudest of” from the administration’s first term. In a 2015 speech, the vice president said tackling climate change was “the single most important thing” the White House could do.

Overall, however Obama’s climate record is far from spotless: He bragged about helping the U.S. become the world’s leading oil producer. And part of his energy plan included handing Shell a permit to drill in the Arctic and promoting offshore drilling. Biden might now have to answer for those decisions.

Today, as the chatter left of the aisle centers on the Green New Deal, it’s clear that ideas like the Obama-era “all of the above” energy strategy aren’t going to fly in the Democratic primary. Already, five 2020-bound senators have signed on as cosponsors of the ambitious equity-focused, economy-transforming proposal offered by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey. A slew of other candidates not serving in the Senate have thrown their support behind the idea, too.

Biden, however, has so far been uncharacteristically quiet on that front. But, in a speech at the Conference of Mayors in January, he gave the audience a taste of what his thinking around climate is these days:

Lots of renewables: “Today we generate wind power for 24 million homes,” he said. “There’s no reason why we can’t quadruple that, virtually overnight.”
He’s all about setting goals: “There’s no reason that in 2025 all of North America can’t get half its electricity from non-polluting sources.”
Bipartisanship: “There’s unanimity in my party, the vast majority of Republicans agree,” he claimed, that climate needs to be addressed.
Climate change is a matter of national security: “Sea levels rise a half a foot or a foot, you have tens of millions of people migrating,” he explained, shaking his fist. “That’s how wars start.”
Climate change poses an existential threat: “It’s about a matter of survival.”

Biden wrapped up his speech with a call to arms: “We cannot continue down this blind path,” he proclaimed. “We cannot ignore science, we cannot abdicate our duty to lead the world.”

It’s no accident that Biden spent a third of his 30-minute speech expounding on his record on the environment and enumerating ideas to tackle climate change. With the clock ticking on much-needed action, the issue is often on the lips of many challengers vying to take on Donald Trump — and then, hopefully, warming.

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Joe Biden wants to be the anti-Trump. Here’s what that could mean for climate policy.

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Remember the rainforests? We still haven’t saved them.

by TiffinyDarley Posted on April 25, 2019

Every half hour, the world lost a football-field chunk of tropical forest in 2018.

Over the course of the year, that added up to a total forest loss of nearly 30 million acres, an area the size of Pennsylvania, according to the World Resources Institute’s annual report, out Thursday. As bad as that sounds, many more acres were lost in each of the two previous years, when huge fires wiped out millions of trees. The report is hardly cause for celebration, said Frances Seymour, senior fellow at WRI.

“The world’s forests are in the emergency room, said Seymour. “Even though they are recovering from extensive burns suffered in recent fires, the patient is also bleeding profusely from fresh wounds.”

Global Forest Watch

Deforestation is responsible for about 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. If deforestation were a country, it would be the third largest source of carbon pollution, after the United States and China.

“Tropical forest loss pulls the rug out from under efforts to stabilize the global climate,” Seymour said.

Every year, WRI’s Global Forest Watch pores over satellite images of the world’s woodlands and reams of data to monitor where trees are falling. Here are a few bullet points from the report:

Old growth deforestation continues: Primary or old-growth rainforest stores a lot of carbon in big trees and a lot of biodiversity — the frogs, bromeliads, lichens, leafcutter ants, and lemurs that live in those big trees. Since 2000, we’ve been losing about the same amount of primary rainforest every year: A Belgium-sized 9 million acres.

And it’s spreading: Efforts in Indonesia and Brazil to stem the loss of old-growth forests have started to work. By enforcing a moratorium on clearing primary forest, Indonesia has managed to bring deforestation down to the lowest level since 2003, said Belinda Margono from Indonesia’s Department of Environment and Forestry. But forests are falling at a quicker pace in West Africa, Colombia, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Big trouble in Madagascar: The East Africane East African island island country lost a full 2 percent of its primary forest, more than any other country.

Peace brings cattle to Colombia: A truce between the government and between the government and rebels made it safe for farmers to enter previously perilous forests. Now they’re cutting down trees to create pastures for cattle.

Small farmers, big problems: Small-scale farmers (often growing cocoa for chocolate) were responsible for most of the forest loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru. By contrast, large farms — like those growing soy for China — were the main culprit in Bolivia.

From the distance, these data points might seem abstract, but the numbers represent “heartbreaking losses in real places,” Seymour said. “For every area of forest loss there’s likely a species one inch closer to extinction. And for every area of forest loss there’s likely a family that has lost access to an important part of their daily income from hunting, gathering, and fishing. Such loses pose an existential threat to the cultures of indigenous peoples. And for every area of forest loss there’s likely a community downstream that has less access to clean water and is more exposed to floods and landslides.”

Still, she said she’s optimistic that the world can stop leveling forests. Some countries have radically slowed tree loss by passing and enforcing laws. And the United Nations program that pays developing countries to stop deforestation has worked in the few places where it has been funded, she said.

“We know what to do, we just need to do it,” Seymour said.

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Remember the rainforests? We still haven’t saved them.

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12 Simple Hacks for an Eco-Friendly Kitchen

by MarylinRaposo42 Posted on April 25, 2019

Food waste. Energy-draining appliances. Toxic cleaning products. Your kitchen can be a very environmentally unfriendly room in your home ? if you let it. Fortunately, it?s also a space in which it?s easy to go green. Here are 12 simple hacks for a more eco-friendly kitchen.

1. Switch to energy-efficient appliances

When it?s time for a new kitchen appliance, be sure to do your homework on the most energy-efficient models you can buy. For instance, refrigerators with top or bottom freezers often are more efficient than the side-by-side models, as less cold air escapes when you open the door, according to HGTV. And if you?re in the market for an oven, consider convection. ?This type of oven uses a fan to drive heat rapidly from source to food so it cooks it 25 percent faster than a conventional oven,? HGTV says.

2. Conserve as you cook

Even if you have energy-efficient appliances, you still might be wasting energy. For example, cooking or reheating food in the oven when a microwave would have worked just fine uses a lot of unnecessary energy. ?Even small things make a difference, such as using lids on pots to bring them to a boil faster and using as few burners as possible,? according to the DIY Network.

3. Clean with natural products

Credit: Geo-grafika/Getty Images

Choose natural cleaning products to tackle messes in your kitchen (and around the rest of your home). Natural cleaners can be just as powerful as their synthetic counterparts ? but without all the toxins that are detrimental to your health and pollute the environment. Plus, if you make your own cleaning products, you?ll cut down on production and packaging waste. You might even have some ingredients already in your kitchen that can help clean it.

4. Swap paper towels for reusable rags

Towels and sponges are major sources of germs in the kitchen. So in that regard, single-use towels help to cut your risk of getting sick. But instead of turning to paper towels, choose reusable rags for a more eco-friendly approach. Have a stash of kitchen rags, such as small microfiber cloths, that you can use for one-time cleanups and then toss in a laundry basket. Once you have a full load of rags, throw them in a sanitizing wash. Yes, it?s a little less convenient, but you might be surprised by how many paper towels (and how much money) you save in the process.

5. Opt for a full dishwasher over handwashing

These days, being a dishwashing eco-warrior is as simple as filling your dishwasher, turning it on and walking away. ?It may feel more virtuous to wash by hand, but it?s actually more wasteful: You use up to 27 gallons of water per load by hand versus as little as 3 gallons with an Energy Star-rated dishwasher,? according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. ?And just scrape off the food scraps instead of rinsing each dish before you load it.?

6. Grow a kitchen herb garden

When you buy locally grown food ? or better yet, grow your own at home ? you?re helping the planet. ?When you eat from your own garden, you eliminate the need to use fossil fuels to transport vegetables from a faraway farmer’s field to your plate,? the DIY Network says. ?Even growing your own herbs on the windowsill helps; when you buy fresh herbs at the grocery store, you usually end up wasting leftovers and throwing away the plastic package.? Plus, the more plant-based your diet is, the fewer resources it takes to produce your food.

7. Buy in bulk

Credit: CameronAynSmith/Getty Images

Buying food in bulk often is better for your wallet and the environment ? just as long as you actually consume the food you buy. Certain foods are usually easier to buy in bulk, thanks to their long shelf life. But it all depends on what you eat and how well you store the food. Make space in your kitchen to properly keep your bulk buys, and enjoy this simple way to do right by the planet.

8. Keep a full fridge

Sometimes your refrigerator needs a bit of help to run as efficiently as possible. For starters, keep the condenser coils free of dust and dirt. This allows the fridge to stay cool with less effort. Plus, make sure the fridge door seal is still strong. And if you don?t tend to keep much in your refrigerator, you might want to fill that space. The Kitchn recommends placing containers of water in empty fridge space to ?keep things cold so your refrigerator doesn?t have to work as hard.? The containers help to reduce the amount of air transfer whenever you open the fridge door.

9. Store refrigerated food the right way

Besides maintaining the actual function of your refrigerator, how you store your food also matters for its efficiency. For instance, allowing hot food to cool (in a safe manner to prevent bacteria growth) before you store it in the fridge prevents the appliance from having to work extra hard to cool it, according to The Kitchn. Likewise, cover your food to stop it from releasing moisture. ?When left uncovered, foods will leach this moisture into the air and the compressor in your refrigerator will have to work twice as hard to remove it,? The Kitchn says. And it should go without saying that storing food in reusable containers will score you major eco-friendly points.

10. Maximize efficient lighting

Bright lighting is necessary in the kitchen for safe cooking. So you?ll definitely want to make sure you?re using efficient bulbs to conserve as much energy as possible. If you haven?t already, make the switch to LED bulbs, which use less energy and last longer than standard bulbs. And don?t forget about the lights over your stove or in your fridge. Plus, maximize the natural light your kitchen gets by limiting window treatments and using bright colors that reflect light.

11. Start composting

Credit: lucentius/Getty Images

Up your green game turning appropriate food waste into compost instead of tossing it in the trash. ?It’s easy to get started with a small bin that you keep moist and mix the contents of about once a week,? Food Network says. ?Then, after a few weeks, you’ll have nutrient-rich compost to perk up your garden ? and much less food waste in your trashcan.? Even if you?re an apartment dweller, there are several composting options that could fit your needs.

12. Skip the full remodel

If you?re looking to renovate your kitchen, aim not to rip things down to the studs. ?Think ?refresh,? not ?remodel,?? DIY Network says. ?New paint and updated hardware for cabinets can give you a new look without producing the landfill waste that a remodeling project generates.? Try to donate materials you don?t need anymore. And if you bring in anything new, look for sustainable options, such as countertops made from recycled materials.

Main image credit: jodiejohnson/Getty Images

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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12 Simple Hacks for an Eco-Friendly Kitchen

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Climate movement grandpa James Hansen says the Green New Deal is ‘nonsense’

by ulrichculp8886 Posted on April 24, 2019

In the 1980s, NASA scientist James Hansen brought climate change to the attention of Congress, and shortly thereafter the public. Humans, he testified in 1988, were responsible for rising global temperatures.

But the man who put his reputation on the line to alert the world to the dangers of global warming doesn’t appear to agree with the most recent crop of climate advocates.

In April 20 debate with Sunrise Movement’s Varshini Prakash and Christian Aid’s Amanda Mukwashi, Hansen called the Green New Deal “nonsense.”

Hosted by Al Jazeera, the 12-minute debate highlights a growing fault line between two theories of climate action. Among progressives and environmental justice advocates, the Green New Deal represents a last-ditch, economy-wide overhaul. Hansen, on the other hand, seems to argue for a more economically incremental approach that is centered on a carbon tax.

That tension came to a head when Hansen appeared visibly aggravated by the progressive proposal and Prakash, realizing that one of the most prominent climate scientists in the world was scoffing at her organization’s central focus, could only laugh in disbelief.

Although Hansen is a proponent of using technology to bring down emissions, a carbon tax, he said, “is the underlying policy required. People need energy, we need to make the price of fossil fuels include their cost to society.”

The green new dealers, on the other hand, think their predecessors are offering too little too late. Prakash referenced a “point of no return” during the debate, a threshold past which temperatures rise so much that they trigger a series of unstoppable and catastrophic feedback loops. That kind of outcome can only be stopped by drastic action, she argued. When I spoke to Sunrise’s Evan Weber late last year, he indicated that the organization wasn’t actively pursuing a carbon tax.

What was most striking about Hansen’s argument was his measured tone, a stark difference from the way even the typically staid scientists behind the U.N’s IPCC report are beginning to discuss the issue.

“We should be phasing down emissions now,” he said, which seems like a bit of an understatement considering he’s been advocating for decreased emissions for the last, oh, four decades. “If we do that, we will get a little bit warmer than we are now, and then temperature(s) can begin to decline,” he said, adding that we will have to phase out fossil fuels over the “next several decades” in order to accomplish this goal.

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Climate movement grandpa James Hansen says the Green New Deal is ‘nonsense’

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Washington and Nevada join the swelling list of states aiming for 100% clean power

by Donekola Posted on April 24, 2019

The peer pressure to clean up the electric grid is gripping the country.

Recent weeks have brought a flurry of ambitious clean-energy pledges. On Earth Day, Nevada’s governor signed into law a measure banning fossil-fuel generated electricity by 2050. Washington’s legislature just sent a bill to Governor Jay Inslee (the presidential contender) that would have the Evergreen State running on purely carbon-free electricity by 2030. Last month, New Mexico committed to 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. California, Hawaii, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, passed similar laws a bit further back. There are similar bills pending in Illinois, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, and Massachusetts. And don’t forget the 100-odd cities —  from Orlando, Florida to Pueblo, Colorado — that have vowed to kick their fossil-fuel addiction.

“Voters and state legislatures are being pretty darn clear that there’s widespread support for getting the electricity sector to 100 percent clean,” said Josh Freed, who runs the energy program at the Third Way think tank in Washington, D.C. “In our wildest expectations, we couldn’t have anticipated this much action this quickly.”

It’s a seismic shift from the 1990s and 2000s, when states made goals to get get a certain share of their electricity from renewable power. Those laws were designed to help the nascent renewables industry find its footing, Freed said. Now that the industry is up and running, “the next question is, how do we get carbon off the grid?”

That’s why everyone seems to be excited about the same goal. And this isn’t just the flavor of the month — there’s a good reason to focus on a carbon-free electric system. Though there are still hurdles to leap, states basically know how to eliminate emissions from the electrical grid, said Mike O’Boyle, head of electricity policy at the think tank Energy Innovation in San Francisco. You can’t say the same about eliminating emissions from air-travel or concrete production, at least not yet. So squeezing the greenhouse gases out of electricity is a clearly achievable goal. And there are beneficial knock-on effects: It paves the way to clean up transportation (by switching to electric vehicles) and buildings (by switching to electric heating and cooling).

“It think its a robust and meaningful trend,” O’Boyle said. “A lot of gubernatorial candidates, and presidential candidates, have campaigned on 100-percent clean electricity. It’s become part of the conventional wisdom that it’s a realistic and effective policy goal.”

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Washington and Nevada join the swelling list of states aiming for 100% clean power

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This GIF captures just how gigantic the U.S. carbon footprint is

by AbelLankford25 Posted on April 23, 2019

President Trump likes to say that fighting climate change would give China and India an upper hand over the U.S. The three countries top the world’s biggest annual emitters list, sure, but that doesn’t take historical contributions into account. And now, we have a mindblowing visualization of nations’ cumulative carbon footprints.

Simon Evans, deputy editor at the U.K.-based Carbon Brief, put together a gif that ranks the countries with the greatest output of CO2 since 1750 — right before the Industrial Revolution began. Using code published by the Financial Times, the graph shows the startling and unyielding rate at which the U.S. has contributed to rising temperatures:

As you can see, in 1850, the U.S.’ mounting emissions made it the fourth largest emitter of CO2. In 1859, we outpaced Germany. A decade later, we surpassed France. And between 1877 and 1912 we managed to outflank the U.K. by emitting 18 billion tons of CO2. At present day, we are still ahead of China when you look at the big emissions picture. While China is currently the world’s largest annual emitter of pollution, it still ranks second cumulatively. And the U.S. still takes the cake on per capita emissions, too.

When it comes to setting a bad example for the rest of the world, America is No. 1. Go, team.

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This GIF captures just how gigantic the U.S. carbon footprint is

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