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India and U.S. team up to give boost to solar power startups

by ViolaClaflin984 Posted on June 8, 2016

India and U.S. team up to give boost to solar power startups

By on Jun 8, 2016Share

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is serious about fighting climate change, and about collaborating with the U.S. to do it, he made clear during an address to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. He said that “protection of the environment … is central to our shared vision of a just world,” and called for “a lighter carbon footprint and a greater use of renewables.”

On Tuesday, the first day of Modi’s state visit to Washington, D.C., his government and the Obama administration issued a joint statement on U.S.-India cooperation that led with plans for expanding clean energy deployment in India. The most important component is $60 million in clean energy financing. The Indian and U.S. governments will split the costs of helping small Indian solar startups get off the ground, especially in rural villages that are not on the country’s electrical grid. These subsidies and loan guarantees should help the young companies expand to the point where they can attract far greater international investment — as much as $1.4 billion, the two governments estimate. That additional money will mostly come from the private sector, although some may come from other government sources, such as the U.S. Export-Import bank.

“These off-the-grid companies are small and need funding to scale up,” John Coequyt, the Sierra Club’s director of international climate campaigns, told Grist. “The hope is that it will raise far more than that seed money.”

Boosting India’s renewable sector will help curb the need for expanded coal power by providing electricity to areas in India that current lack it. Modi has emphasized in past speeches that 300 million Indians still don’t have access to electricity. As seriously as India takes climate change, Modi warns, it won’t keep its people in the literal dark. The new financing deal with the U.S. is specifically designed to address that concern.

The two countries also made plans for a $30 million public-private research program on smart grids and storage of renewable energy, and agreed to improve cooperation on wildlife conservation and combating wildlife trafficking.

One part of the announcement that won’t sit well with some environmental activists is that India will buy six nuclear reactors built by Westinghouse, an American firm. But even green groups that oppose the nuclear portion of the deal are pleased overall. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement that the agreement will “accelerate the momentum toward a 100 percent clean energy economy” and “help connect families to clean, reliable electricity after generations of being failed by the fossil fuel grid.”

India is the second most populous country in the world, and its enthusiastic participation is crucial to any global effort to limit climate change. It has poverty that needs to be alleviated through economic development and it has large reserves of coal — a potentially lethal combination for the planet.

Before the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris last December, climate hawks were nervous about whether India would cooperate. Efforts to bring the country into a strong deal proved challenging but ultimately successful. India agreed to dramatically increase its renewable energy deployment and to increase its coal use less than previously expected (although still not enough to help the world stay below 2 degrees C of warming).

This represents major progress. In 2014, Modi skipped the U.N. Climate Summit in New York and made peculiar, inscrutable comments to the U.N. General Assembly shortly thereafter suggesting that yoga could help combat climate change. But, as pollution from burning coal and gasoline has turned Delhi and other Indian cities into some of the most polluted in the world, India has started to shift its stances.

This week in D.C., Modi reiterated his commitment to the Paris Agreement, pledging to work on getting his government to ratify it this year, a complex and arduous process. The global community is newly focused on bringing the agreement into effect before next January because Donald Trump has threatened to try to undo the global pact. If at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have ratified it before a President Trump takes office, then the agreement will go into force and can’t be easily unraveled.

India’s new plans for collaborating with the U.S. won’t just matter in Delhi and D.C. India is the de facto leader of a large bloc of developing nations in climate negotiations, so its latest actions will reverberate around the world.

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India and U.S. team up to give boost to solar power startups

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A Very Brief Timeline of the Bathroom Wars

by ValentinBunbury Posted on May 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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A very brief Twitter conversation yesterday got me curious about the timeline of transgender bathroom hysteria. Where and when did it start? I’m not interested in going back to the beginning of time and regaling you with the history of Jim Crow bathroom laws and the origin of sex-segregated bathrooms in 18th-century Paris and Victorian Britain. I just want to know the recent history. As best I can piece it together, it goes something like this:

March 2016: The North Carolina legislature meets to discuss the now-infamous HB2, which requires people to use the bathroom of their birth gender. It was passed and signed into law the same day it was introduced. It was a response to:

February 2016: A new law in the city of Charlotte that effectively allowed transgender people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. Charlotte was following the lead of San Francisco, which in turn was part of a wave of trans-friendly bathroom bills:

2015: In December, Washington State had clarified that existing law allowed transgender people to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. In September Philadelphia adopted rules that would require gender-neutral signage on single-occupancy bathrooms. “It’s a sign change,” said the mayor’s director of LGBT affairs. “We’re labeling restrooms as what they are: restrooms, not gender-monitored spaces.” In July the Justice Department took the side of Gavin Grimm, a Virginia high-school student who argued that he should be allowed to use school bathrooms that match his gender identity. In April President Obama opened the first gender-neutral bathroom in the White House. These actions were largely a response to transphobic laws that had been proposed in red states all over the country:

Late 2014 and early 2015: Texas and several other states introduce “bathroom surveillance” bills that would require transgender people to use bathrooms that match their birth gender. The communications director at the National Center for Transgender Equality says the wave of new legislation seemed to be a backlash to “the gains we have seen in state and local non-discrimination policies that protect transgender people.” For example:

August 2014: Austin approves a law that requires gender-neutral signage on single-occupancy bathrooms. Among others, they join Portland (one of the first a year earlier) and Washington DC, and are soon joined by West Hollywood, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. These cities were largely been inspired by:

2012-13: A growing movement to install gender-neutral bathrooms at university campuses. During this period, 150 university campuses installed gender-neutral bathrooms, along with a growing number of high schools. The movement for gender-inclusive bathrooms in public facilities started at least as early as 2009 in the state of Vermont.

Ancient history: For our purposes this is anything more than five or six years old. A few random examples include the Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, a 2010 collection of papers about (among other things) nongendered bathrooms. In 2005, U of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case gave a presentation called “On Not Having the Opportunity to Introduce Myself to John Kerry in the Men’s Room.” She has been performing surveys of mens and womens bathroom facilities for years. And of course, there’s the ur-hysteria of recent decades, when Phyllis Schlafly led a campaign against the Equal Right Amendment throughout the 70s out of fear that it would lead to gay marriage, women in combat, taxpayer-funded abortions, and, of course, unisex bathrooms. We never got the ERA, but as it turned out, Schlafly was pretty much right, wasn’t she?

This timeline was surprisingly hard to put together, and it may not be 100 percent accurate. But it gives you the general shape of the river. There are two points I want make about all this. First, there’s a lot of griping about the hypersensitivity of university students these days. You know: safe spaces, microaggressions, trigger warnings, and so forth. And, sure, maybe some of this stuff is dumb. History will judge that eventually. But I’ve always found it hard to get too exercised about this stuff. These kids are 19 years old. They want to change the world. They’re idealistic and maybe ??. So were you and I at that age. Frankly, if they didn’t go a little overboard about social justice, I’d be worried about them.

But guess what? The first concrete movement toward gender-neutral bathrooms started at universities. Now it’s becoming mainstream. Good work, idealistic college kids! This is why we should think of universities as petri dishes, not a sign of some future hellscape to come. They’re well-contained areas for trying stuff out. Some of this stuff dies a deserved death. Some of it takes over the world if the rest of us think it makes sense. Stop worrying so much about it.

Second: “Who started this fight?” Yes, that’s a crude way of putting it. But if we contain ourselves to the last decade or so, the answer is: liberals. Before then, the status quo was simple: men used one bathroom and women used another. It was liberals who started pressing for change, and the conservative response was a response to that.

As I’ve said before, we should be proud of this. Most of the right-wing culture war is a backlash against changes to the status quo pushed by liberals. And good for us for doing this. The culture war is one of our grandest achievements of the past half century. It’s helped blacks, gays, women, immigrants, trans people, the disabled, and millions more. Sure, conservatives have fought it all, but that’s only natural: they’re conservatives. What do you expect?

So own the culture war, liberals! Why are we always blaming such a terrific thing on conservatives?

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A Very Brief Timeline of the Bathroom Wars

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What to Plant, Weed and Prune in May

by MaximilianDiehl Posted on May 4, 2016

If youre a gardener in the Northern Hemisphere, the month of May is an excellent time to refresh your garden after its winter sleep. Dont know where to start? Try some of these simple steps to prepare your garden for a smooth growing season ahead.

Planting

Whether youve been stockpiling packages of seeds or have trays of young seedlings waiting around, May is the perfect month for getting the majority of your plants in the ground.

1. Vegetables and Annuals

At the beginning of May, start hardening off any seedlings and potted plants youve kept in the house. Put them outside during the day so they get used to direct sun and cooler temperatures. Always bring them back inside at night if the temperatures are below freezing.
Young vegetable and ornamental annual seedlings can be planted out as soon as the risk of frost has passed in your area. This includes onion sets and seed potatoes.
Sow cold-tolerant vegetable seeds directly in the soil in early May or late April. Examples are green peas, lettuce, mustard greens, kale, arugula, spinach and root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, beets and radishes.
After your frost-free date later in May, you can direct seed warm season veggies like cucumbers, beans, squash, melons, pumpkins and herbs including basil, dill, parsley, marjoram and oregano.
Direct-sow ornamental annual seeds after the risk of frost has passed. Annuals like alyssum, lobelia, poppies, sunflowers, cosmos, marigolds and nasturtiums all grow well from direct seeding.

2. Perennials, Shrubs and Trees

Select what types and varieties you want in your yard, and pay close attention to the maximum size they will reach when mature. Trees and shrubs in particular can outgrow their space quickly if youre not careful.
If youve been storing any potted perennials inside, harden them off the same as annual seedlings.
Prepare your planting site by digging a hole about twice as large as your pot. Mix some compost in around the edges and make sure the soil level comes up to the bottom of your plants pot. Remove the plants pot and brush your hand lightly against the outside of the root ball to loosen it, taking apart any circling roots. Place it in the prepared hole, fill in with soil, tamp down with your hand or foot, and water it in well. Cover the soil surface with mulch for better moisture retention.
If you bought any bareroot perennials, shrubs or trees from mail-order catalogues, plant these as soon as they arrive in a similar way.
May is also a good time to plant summer-flowering bulbs, such as lilies, dahlias, alliums, canna lilies and gladiolas. You can buy fresh bags of bulbs and plant them directly in the ground. Or plant out any non-hardy bulbs youve overwintered and stored from last year.
Planting perennial vegetables are another option this time of year. Try experimenting with eatable plants such as asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, or herbs like oregano, thyme, sage or lovage.

Weeding

Unfortunately, the explosive May growth you see in your garden also applies to weeds. An important first step is to never let weeds go to seed. Deal with them as soon as they start. These are some of the worst types of weeds to watch out for and how to keep them under control.

Weeds with tap roots. Some of the hardiest weeds fall into this category, including dandelions, thistles and docks. Their strength lies in the nutrients and energy stored in the tap root. Repeatedly digging up the tap roots by hand will weaken the weeds over time until they eventually die. You can also spray the plants individually with an organic herbicide or treatment such as vinegar, boiling water or a small flame thrower.
Annual weeds. These often come up in large groups of fresh seedlings in May. They can be hand-weeded if there arent too many. Smothering is an option for larger areas. This involves covering the weeds with newspaper, cardboard or other organic mulch in a thick enough layer to block out all light reaching the ground. Keep the covering layer moist and leave it in place to decompose during the growing season. Plant what you want around it.
Creepers. Weeds that spread through underground roots can be especially invasive, such as grasses and bindweed. Hand-dig any smaller patches that have started, taking care to remove shoots that have grown sideways. You can solarize an affected area by covering it with a heavy plastic sheet and leaving this in place for a few weeks until the weeds underneath have all died from the heat.
Other Intruders. Keep an eye out for unwanted tree or shrub seedlings that might have drifted into your yard from invasive neighbors. You might also have to remove perennials you planted previously, but have since shown their ugly sides.

Pruning

Its best to prune trees and shrubs at the end of the dormant season just before they start to grow their first leaves. This is often in April or May, depending on your location and the individual plants. Keep these tips in mind as you plan your spring pruning.

Early spring-flowering shrubs should be pruned immediately after flowering because the shrub will start to set flower buds for the next year. This includes shrubs like forsythia, lilacs, magnolias, ornamental cherries and apricots, and azaleas.
Berry bushes like raspberries and blackberries should be pruned as early as possible to remove any old, non-productive branches. This will encourage new fruiting growth.
Prune hedges as they start to grow in the spring and a second time in mid-summer to keep the growth even and compact.
For multi-stemmed shrubs, such as forsythia or hazelnuts, you can remove one-third of the main stems in spring to control growth and improve the shape.
If you havent already, make sure to cut the dead growth from last year off any herbaceous perennial plants. These include perennials like daisies or ornamental grasses that die down to the ground each year. You can also divide and move around any perennials that need it.
Fruit trees are typically pruned during late winter or summer. Spring weather conditions can promote the spread of bacteria, so avoid pruning trees like apples, peaches, cherries or pears.
Avoid pruning hardwood trees in May for the same reason, such as oaks, maples, walnuts or birch.
You can prune off dead, diseased or insect-infested branches at any time of year.

Related
How to Create a Wildflower Garden
Yoga for Gardeners: Recover from the Garden on the Mat
8 of the Best Spring Flowering Shrubs

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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What to Plant, Weed and Prune in May

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How to Create a Wildflower Garden

by EJPStefanie Posted on May 2, 2016

Wildflowers can be an excellent low-cost and low-maintenance option for your garden. Like any garden, some set up is required at first. But with some basic planning and preparation, you can create a beautiful wildflower garden that will flourish for years to come.

Why go wild?

In order to highlight the value and benefits of wildflowers, the first week of May is designated as National Wildflower Week in the United States.

A wildflower garden is lower-maintenance than a traditional ornamental garden because you dont need to spend as much time keeping it tidy. It requires less mowing and fossil fuel input. You also dont need to apply any pesticides or synthetic fertilizers because wildflowers are typically pest-resistant and do well in a variety of soils.

In addition, wildflowers tend to be drought-tolerant and require less water than many of their cultivated cousins. Wildflower gardens can also provide valuable habitat for pollinaters and other beneficial insects and wildlife, as well as preventing soil erosion.

Preparation

1. Site

A few points are helpful to consider before planning your wildflower garden:

How large is your space? You could have mass plantings on a rural property, whereas a small patch of flowers is more apt for a city lot.
What direction is your garden facing? The amount of sun it gets throughout the day will affect how you use it and what to plant. Overall, a sunny location is best for wildflowers.
What is your purpose for the site? Determine if you want a purely wild space or if youd prefer walkways and seating areas where you and visitors can appreciate it.

Your wildflowers will have the best start possible if you remove all existing vegetation from the planting area. Otherwise, its easy for weeds to take over and choke out your wildflowers.

The easiest ways to do this is either physically with a shovel or sod remover, or by a process called solarization. To solarize the area, mow it as short as you can, water it well, then cover it with a layer of thick plastic sheeting. Leave it in place to bake for 6 to 8 weeks. It will be obvious when its done as any previous plant life underneath will be brown and dead. You can remove the plastic and clear away the debris.

2. Soil

Have a close look at your soil on the site. If the soil is low in organic matter, perennials are a good choice. These are plants that come back each year. Poorer soils will allow the perennials time to establish and get the upper hand over many aggressive weeds.

Annual plants are more appropriate if you have soil thats rich with nutrients. Annuals last for only one growing season and die over winter. They are usually fast-growing enough to compete on their own against weeds.

Either way, start by tilling the surface of the soil to a depth of 3 inches or less to break it up for easier planting. You can do this by hand with a shovel or use a mechanical tiller for larger areas. Its beneficial to work some bone meal or rock phosphate into the soil as you till to encourage root development in the seedlings.

You can also add lots of organic matter and compost to the soil, especially if youre planning to use annual flowers.

Poppies andLarkspur

3. Choosing Your Plants

Many wildflower seed mixes are available in stores. If you need larger amounts of seeds, you can order bulk seeds by weight through mail-order seed companies.

You can also check if your local garden center carries a mix of flowers native to your area. These will naturally grow better in your soil and climate.

If you cant find a commercial seed mix you like, its often easier to make your own. Feel free to mix perennials and annuals to see which do better in your location. These are some popular wildflowers you could try:

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) 25 to 35 tall, perennial. Available in shades of white, pink, red and yellow. The short, ferny leaves make a good ground cover.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) 35 to 45 tall, often a short-lived perennial, although reseeds well. Make excellent cut flowers.
Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) 30 to 45 tall, annual. Come in shades of pink, purple and white. Sweet fragrance.
Blanket Flower (Gaillardia spp.) 20 to 35 tall, perennial. Showy blooms can be a mix of orange, red and yellow.
Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) 30 to 40 tall, annual. Bright blue flowers.
Marigold (Tagetes spp.) up to 36 tall, annual. Make sure to use the taller varieties, there are many shorter types that could get overshadowed by larger plants.
Poppies (Papaver spp.) 20 to 40 tall, with many annual and perennial varieties and colors available.
Golden Tickseed (Coreopsis tinctoria) 30 to 40 tall, annual. Abundant yellow flowers with red centers.
Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis) 15 to 30 tall, perennial. Dark blue flower spikes. The roots of lupines can fix nitrogen in the soil.

4. Planting

First, calculate how much seed you will need for your space. A good estimate is to buy a half-ounce of seed for every 100 square feet of planting space or a quarter pound for every 1000 square feet.

Rake the surface of your prepared soil to create some depth to plant your seeds in. Sprinkle your seeds evenly over the surface of the soil. Birds might eat a portion of your new seeds, so make sure to sow them heavily. Rake the bed lightly again to cover the seed.

Water the whole area well and keep it moist until the seedlings are at least a few inches tall. Adding a light layer of straw, peat or compost mulch will improve moisture retention in the soil.

Most wildflower seeds will take one to three weeks to germinate.

Cosmos

4. Maintenance

Weed seedlings typically germinate along with your new wildflowers. Weeding these out will help encourage the plants you want. If you cant recognize the weed seedlings, its alright to leave them. Weeds are often out-competed by the wildflowers as the area becomes established.

Its recommended to mow wildflower gardens once a year. When the annuals have all gone to seed in the fall and the perennials are going dormant, the whole area should be cut down to a height of 4 to 6 inches. You can do this by hand for a small area, or with a lawn mower or other cutter for larger spaces. A mowing helps all the seeds reach the ground for next year, recycles the organic matter and prevents any woody perennials from taking over.

The annual wildflowers may seed themselves year after year. But if youre seeing too many bare areas, you may need to add more seed as your wildflower garden ages.

Related:
Permaculture: Landscaping That Works With Nature
How to Coexist with Bees and Wasps
4 Surprising Reasons to Eat Ugly Fruit

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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How to Create a Wildflower Garden

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This Actress Gets to Play Like a Dozen Clones on "Orphan Black"

by FranzisVangundy Posted on April 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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When I try to tell my friends about Orphan Black, I get excited and things come out garbled: “It’s about clones, but it’s also a mystery. The clones get sick, and there’s this race for a cure, but also a quest to find out where they come from and why—and there are these crazy pop-science researchers who modify their own bodies. The military might be involved.”

More calmly put, the BBC drama, whose fourth season kicks off tonight, is a complex futuristic thriller with themes ranging from self-identity and scientific ethics to religious extremism. But perhaps the show’s greatest strength is the reproductive rights storyline that has won it acclaim as a feminist triumph—even though it was created by a couple of guys. I reached out to one of those guys, Graeme Manson, to talk about entertainment, science, and feminism. For a little catchup, here’s the season 1 trailer.

Mother Jones: How did you and co-creator John Fawcett get to a series about cloned humans?

Graeme Manson: We were looking for a high-concept feature film idea, and that’s where we came to clones. We’d been friends for 20 years. John’s a horror and sci-fi person. I was into sci-fi, drama, and comedy. Our tastes intersected at black comedy. John pitched the opening scene for “Orphan Black,” where a girl gets off a train, looks across the tracks, sees her double, and in that moment the double commits suicide. That was all we had! It was like a four-sentence pitch, and we took it from there. John got juiced by the technical aspects of shooting a single actor playing multiple roles, and I got juiced on looking at clones as a concept and as something that was beginning to happen in the zeitgeist in terms of Dolly the Sheep. I found the psychological implications really rich: What happens if we clone humans? How do you feel about your genetic identicals—after 50 years, do you not even care that you bump into them in the supermarket?

MJ: Where do you stand on the ethics of cloning?

GM: We’re a sci-fi show, and a conspiracy mystery, so we naturally look at the scarier, more conspiratorial aspects of science, and that’s not real science. There is a consistent civilian mistrust of science where 98 percent of the time, scientists have mankind’s best interests in mind. But corporate science, big science, for-profits, military science—they’re not necessarily creating science that’s good for mankind. We like that question of what’s going on beyond the lab door. We think about what’s occurring right now that’s sinister or could be misused or is complex ethically. CRISPR technology, gene editing, germ-line editing: These are sciences that could change the face of mankind. We’re such irrepressible creatures. If you give us a technology; if you put a gun in a human being’s hand, sooner or later they’re gonna squeeze the trigger.

MJ: What kind of science are you guys eyeing for the upcoming seasons.

GM: Everything from genetic patents to “neolution”—self-directed evolution where humans are offered the technological choice of intervention in their bodies, be that biohack DIY experimentation, gene editing, or whatever. We have one really strong science writer, Chris Roberts, and story consultant Cosima Herter is a science historian—we like a historical context. Eugenics runs through all of the science we’re doing. From Victorian times to the early Cold River Institute genealogical studies, all these eugenical movements thought they had a good intention: “If only we had the right kinds of people, we would improve society.” But what are the right kinds of people? You’re talking about immigration, all these hot-button topics. If you’re gay, straight, or bi. What’s right? What’s legal? What’s defined? And then you get in there and start messing with the genome—it’s like, “Ugh!”

That’s a pretty juicy side of the show for us. We always find something there to be mulling and putting forward in the show as an interesting take on science or ethics that we don’t have an answer for, but you put it on the table and because there’s always these two sides to it—cutting-edge science is a good thing, but how could it manifest otherwise?

MJ: The show also has a strong reproductive rights theme: One clone’s eggs are harvested without her consent. Another narrowly escapes having her ovaries forcibly removed. And the clones are monitored—usually by men. What are we to make of all this?

GM: Those are ethical things, and it certainly plays as a very strong feminist statement on our show, which is something lead actress Tatiana Maslany is passionate about. John and I always say that when we started with the concept of clones, we didn’t realize what a feminist statement it would become in terms of body autonomy. These things became very apparent to us as we dug deeper, and the show as a whole is very committed to those kinds of issues portrayed in their complexity.

MJ: Tatiana has formidable task of playing all these different clones. Which one is the most challenging for her?

GM: I think Rachel, because she’s stiff and formal and cold and powerful and corporate and all of that—the opposite of Tatiana. Certainly in the beginning Rachel was very foreign to her. I know that she loves playing Krystal, because it’s not the kind of role she ever gets offered. They’re all a challenge. We work really closely with her on who the characters are when they’re coming. We come up with something we might need for story, and then we’ll take it to Tat to talk character.

MJ: It sounds like you give your actors a lot of input.

GM: We do. Our core actors are real pros and they’re all very good at finding things that we don’t necessarily see in the script. We love to give a little bit of leeway for the actors to play at the end of scenes or to bring their own flair to the scenes. We give our actors and our directors a chance to do some of that. Certainly Tat has a lot of input. When we run into story problems in the writer’s room, sometimes we’ll jog down to set and see what Tat thinks one of her many characters might do in that situation. She’s always very good at coming at it from a character point of view.

MJ: Where did you find Tatiana, anyway?

GM: Due to the vagaries of financing, we had to cast a Canadian lead. We saw everybody in that age range in Canada! The show wasn’t going to happen unless we had buy-in from both Canadian and American networks. Luckily, it was unanimous that Tatiana could handle it. But it was only once we started to see those clone scenes put together that we were like, “Damn, she’s good.”

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This Actress Gets to Play Like a Dozen Clones on "Orphan Black"

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Unpacking climate change’s $2.5 trillion impact

by KelleKYUxqg Posted on April 5, 2016

Unpacking climate change’s $2.5 trillion impact

By on 5 Apr 2016commentsShare

Climate change is all about the Benjamins. Sign as many international climate agreements as you want, you’ve still got to scrounge up about $16.5 trillion for all those solar panels and seawalls.

But that’s just the first row on the climate change balance sheet. Not only does the world have to front a huge amount of money to solve the climate crisis, it’s putting trillions more at risk if it doesn’t — trillions that should be sitting in your pension or retirement fund.

A new study, published on Monday in Nature Climate Change, offers a new way to think about the financial risks of doing nothing.

The study’s authors, based at the London School of Economics and the research firm Vivid Economics, estimate that a business-as-usual emissions path would lead to expected warming of 2.5 degrees C by 2100. Under that scenario, banks, pension funds, and investors could sacrifice up to $2.5 trillion in value of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets. The worst-case scenario, with a 1-percent chance of occurring, would put $24 trillion (about 17 percent of global financial assets) at risk.

This is the first time economists have put climate risk in terms the financial sector understands — and the picture isn’t particularly pretty. Let’s dive in.

Why is climate change so expensive?

Transitioning to a green economy will undoubtedly require a bunch of cash. The nonprofit advocacy group Ceres estimates that we’ll need about $1 trillion annually in investment to shift the world away from fossil fuels. But let’s put that aside for a moment, and talk about what happens if we don’t put up the money. What do we stand to lose?

Climate change can affect the economy in myriad ways; including the extent to which people can perform their jobs, how productive they are at work, and the effects of shifting temperatures and precipitation patterns on things like agricultural yields or manufacturing processes. These factors help determine our “economic output” — all the goods and services produced by an economy. Output is usually measured by tools like the Gross Domestic Product.

Back in October, a study published in Nature estimated that the world could see a 23 percent drop in global economic output by 2100 due to a changing climate, compared to a world with no climate change.

“Historically, people have considered a 20 percent decline in global Gross Domestic Product to be a black swan: a low-probability catastrophe,” said a coauthor of that study, economist Solomon Hsiang of U.C. Berkeley. Instead, he says, “We’re finding it’s more like the middle-of-the-road forecast.”

What other costs haven’t we been counting?

But economic output isn’t the same thing as asset value. There’s a difference between economics and finance, and the Nature Climate Change study targets the latter.

Let’s say a company makes chocolate bars. Climate change might mess with cocoa production or productivity of workers. Maybe some of the bars end up a lil’ melty and misshapen and nobody wants to buy them. All told, the company might see a drop in sales.

If the company’s output drops, that’s one thing. But you also have to think about these losses in terms of what the company’s board of directors has to tell its shareholders and lenders. These investors — the ones who made those chocolate bars possible in the first place, whether through buying stock or granting loans — are expecting returns on their investments (through dividends and interest). Lower output likely means lower returns for them.

Until Monday’s Nature Climate Change study, nobody had really quantified the climate-induced losses at this level. Economic output studies like Hsiang and his collaborators’ are about the actual gears of the economy: the stuff that’s being produced, the way it’s being produced, and the people that are producing it. The LSE and Vivid Economics study is about the money greasing the wheels and the people holding this money. Those are the people who really matter when it comes to a clean energy transition, because they’re the ones with the bank accounts to finance it.

What’s more, corporate boards are legally obligated to make sure those shareholders’ bank accounts look good. This idea — “fiduciary duty” — means that corporate boards and institutional investors like pension fund managers can (must!) take action to further the interests of investors.

Demonstrating the risk climate change poses to financial assets is a way to appeal directly to these responsibilities. For those of us interested in climate action, that’s a good thing.

So how does climate change put these assets at risk?

The authors of the new study write that climate change can affect the value of financial assets in two ways. First, it can just destroy them. If a hurricane wrecks a beachfront hotel, that hotel no longer produces financial value.

Second, climate change can reduce how much a given investment is worth. This point is a little more abstract. One of the things that Hsiang and his colleagues showed in October was that there’s actually an optimal temperature for economic productivity: about 55 degrees F. Any shift in average temperature above that threshold tends to result in less productivity from workers. If workers are less productive but investment levels remain the same, that means those dollars aren’t worth as much in a warming world.

The craziest thing about this argument is that it’s not just about the fossil-fuel industry — it’s about the whole financial sector. Plenty has been written about the potential losses that investors could incur due to continued faith in the fossil-fuel economy. The “stranded asset” argument says that as climate policy makes fossil fuels less and less likely to be burned, investors sitting on fossil reserves won’t be able to make a profit or sell them off.

By broadening this argument to include risks for effectively every investor under the sun, the authors have just turned up the heat on us all.

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Unpacking climate change’s $2.5 trillion impact

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The Startling Reasons Why Heart Attacks May Kill More Black People

by EstellaDavitt9 Posted on March 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Medical researchers have known for years that America’s leading cause of death, heart disease, kills people of color at a higher rate than it does white people. A new study out this week suggests that the reasons why may be much more heavily influenced by systemic issues, such as emergency room care, than previously thought.

Researchers found that California hospitals with the highest share of black patients exceeded emergency room capacity more frequently than other hospitals, which forces them to reroute ambulances carrying overflow patients to other medical facilities. The study, funded by the National Institute of Health and published in the medical journal BMJ Open, reviewed data on medical emergency services in 26 California counties serving nearly 30,000 patients between 2001 and 2011.

This rerouting process, known as ambulance diversion, can lead to life-threatening delays in treatment for time-sensitive medical emergencies like heart attacks and increases the likelihood that patients will die, the authors say.

“Cardiologists often say that time is muscle, or time is heart tissue,” says Renee Hsia, an ER doctor and professor at the University of California-San Francisco who co-wrote the study. “When you have a clot, every minute matters. Even if you don’t die right away, you have a poorer heart over the long term.”

The study found that both black and white patients whose nearest hospitals were affected by ambulance diversion were less likely to receive standard treatments and less likely to live beyond a year after their heart attack, compared with patients at hospitals that don’t divert ambulances.

While the study focuses on California counties, the issue likely affects other states as well, Hsia said.

This new research may help illuminate why the rate of deaths related to heart disease is 33 percent higher for black Americans than it is for the overall US population, according to American Heart Association figures. Other experts have documented a variety of reasons for this disparity, ranging from less access among people of color to insurance and consistent medical care, longer waits for emergency medical help from first responders, less knowledge about symptoms, and implicit bias among physicians.

Emergency room overcrowding is caused by a long list of issues, Hsia said, and gravely ill patients are a special challenge at busy hospitals because they require more care.

Each new patient—especially one with a critical condition like a heart attack—requires extensive staff attention and technological resources before and after a physician sees him or her. When a person with a heart attack arrives in a hospital’s ambulance bay, for example, they must be unloaded by paramedics, directed to a bed by a triage nurse, undressed by a technician or medical assistant, and taken to have blood drawn by a nurse, Hsia said. Then a radiology technician must take a chest X-ray and process and print it, while another nurse or technician needs to take an EKG.

“All of these things take time,” she said, adding that such patients have more specialized needs after they are diagnosed. “If the physician decides the patient needs treatment for a heart attack, they have to activate cath lab, and a clerk has to page all the staff that needs to come in. Then you need all those people to come in, and you need a transport team to take the patient to the lab.”

“Those are all the steps where you could see bottlenecks happen,” Hsia said.

The authors found that hospitals with the 10th-highest share of black patients experienced overcapacity more frequently relative to other hospitals, forcing them to reroute ambulances to the next closest facilities. The same trend held for emergency rooms serving at least twice as many black patients as other hospitals within a 15-mile radius.

Previous studies have found that hospitals serving areas with a relatively high share of black residents have other problems that may affect the care they provide. Such hospitals are more likely to experience money shortages, in part because they are more likely to rely on public funding. Also, their patients are more often uninsured or covered by Medicare or Medicaid—which typically reimburse bills at a lower rate than private insurers. The shortage in funding can in turn make it tough to compete with privately funded hospitals when hiring specialized medical talent, such as cardiologists.

“These are structural disparities that people can’t see but are very real,” Hsia said.

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The Startling Reasons Why Heart Attacks May Kill More Black People

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Which Cooking Oil Should You Use?

by EricCzwxojadq Posted on February 14, 2016

Almost every recipe starts with a splash of oil or a knob of butter in a pan, and you probably have a collection of slightly greasy, oil-filled bottles somewhere on a kitchen shelf. But not all of these cooking oils are made equal. Some are better for certain culinary tasks and have different environmental and even ethical impacts than others. Learn the differences and youll never look at cooking oils the same way again.

Olive Oil

There was a time when olive oil stayed within the Mediterranean region where three-quarters of the worlds olives are grown, but it has become one of the most popular oils in the United States, where 80 million gallons are consumed annually. The unfortunate result is that soil erosion has become a seriously problem because traditional agricultural practices cannot keep up with demand.

Olive oil is monounsaturated, liquid at room temperature and starting to turn solid when chilled. It has high levels of antioxidants, which you can taste in its peppery flavor. Olive oil comes in different ranges of refinement. Extra-virgin is the most highly prized, with a deep green color and rich taste.

Lighter olive oils (anything thats not extra-virgin) are not nearly as healthy, since theyve been heavily refined into nothingness, as Melissa explains inthis post. Most sources say that lighter olive oil are better for frying because they have a higher smoke point, but some say extra-virgin is more stable due to high polyphenolic content and is therefore perfectly good for frying.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil has become the newest darling of the North American oil market. Solid at room temperature and liquid when heated, coconut oil is an easy vegan substitute for butter. It adds a wonderful and subtle coconut flavor to food.

Coconut oil is a saturated fat, which has long been maligned by health experts but is now being accepted as not deadly, perhaps even healthy. Saturated fats are not the nutritional enemy so much as excessive amounts of sugar and other refined carbohydrates. The BMJ even says that lowering our intake of saturated fat has paradoxically increased our cardiovascular risks (Huffington Post). Coconut oil, as with all saturated fats, keep you full longer, which means that a small amount goes a long way.

There are environmental impacts to consider, however, since the rapid increase in coconut oil demand has taken a toll on producers in Asia. UnfortunatelyFair Trade USA saysthat coconut farmers in the Philippines continue to live in poverty, despite the high cost of coconut products in the United States. Consumers should purchase onlyfair-trade coconut oilto ensure their purchase does not exploit the grower.

Vegetable Oil

Vegetable oil consists of oils such as safflower, sunflower, and soybean. These used to be staples in North American kitchens, together with animal fats, until olive oil arrived on the scenes in the 1980s. They have high smoke points, making them easy to cook with, and are produced in the United States and Canada.

There is a downside to vegetable oils. They have very little taste and little to no nutritional value. They contain high amounts of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, and the extraction process uses a range of industrial chemicals and highly toxic solvents, including hexane gas. These are oils that many people say were never meant for human consumption, as they were only invented within the last century.

If buying vegetable oil, opt for organic whenever possible. According toRodales Organic Life:

Almost all soybean oil, unfortunately, comes from GMO crops, which stunt genetic diversity and require increased pesticide use. On the other hand, according to the National Sunflower Association, sunflower seeds are all GMO-free due to fear of cross-pollination with the wild population and the strict ban on GMOs in Europe, one of the words top producers. As for safflower oil, while currently non-GMO, new field tests of GMO safflower crops began in 2015.

Palm Oil

Palm oil in a nutshell:Avoid whenever possible!Palm oil is the reason for vast environmental destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia, the worlds primary palm oil producers. Rainforests are burned and razed to make room for lucrative palm oil plantations, which destroys habitat for animals such as the orangutan, generates huge amounts ofair-polluting smoke, and results in peat-bog fires that cannot be extinguished for decades.

Since palm oil is an incredibly versatile saturated fat that appears in nearly 50 percent of the items in the supermarket, from food to hygiene products, there are efforts to make its production more sustainable through tighter regulations and seals of approval. While these efforts are good, relatively few producers have chosen to become sustainable, which means that the effects are not widely felt.

Palm oil is similar to coconut oil in that its semi-solid at room temperature and makes a good vegan alternative to butter; its basically a form of vegetable shortening, good for frying, too.

Canola Oil

Canola oil comes from Canada, where it was invented in the years following World War 2. Its name means Canadian Oil, Low Acid. It is similar to vegetable oil in its mild taste, high smoke point, and low levels of saturated fat, which results in many of the same concerns (see previous slide).

Rodales Organic Life reports: Sadly, 96 percent of canola produced in Canada is GMO, and the number is similar for the United States. That said, organic is available, and its definitely worth the higher price tag.

Lard

Animal fat used to a kitchen staple, before the hydrogenation process was invented for domestically grown vegetable oils and exotic oils were imported from faraway places.

Lard is rendered pork fat. The process of rendering slowly cooks down the fatty layer on the meat until it turns to liquid, then it solidifies at room temperature to an even, smooth consistency that can be used for cooking.

The once-maligned lard is making a comeback as a growing number of people opt for saturated fats that require minimal processing and come from locally raised sources, although many vegans and vegetarians take obvious issue with lard. If you do try rendering your own lard (which is very easy), you should try to buy the pork fat from a reputable, organic-fed and free-range source in order to have higher quality fat with which to cook.

Butter

Thebutter vs. margarine debatehas once again flipped in favor of butter, the age-old standby of every kitchen. It is considered a real fat, not one that is created by an industrial process with added chemicals, which makes it appealing to the growing number of people wanting to eat a more natural, minimally processed diet.

Butter is full of saturated fat (with only 65% saturated compared to coconut oils 90%), and it only takes a bit of butter to make a big difference in flavor and calories.

There are obvious implications for vegans when it comes to butter, since its an animal product. If you do eat it, its worth considering the source of the butter you buy and trying to get the highest quality, preferably butter made from grass-fed cows.

Written by Katherine Martinko. Reposted with permission from TreeHugger.

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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Which Cooking Oil Should You Use?

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Is Man-Made Noise Messing Up the Oceans?

by KatrinaSandover Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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We may imagine the bottom of the deep blue sea as a peaceful, quiet place—certainly compared with the blaring horns and chit-chattering radios of rush-hour traffic. But the ocean is filled with the sounds of undulating waves, marine animals calling out to one another, and, increasingly, the ceaseless din of human commercial activity. Over the past 60 years, our contribution to the undersea cacophony has doubled every decade, and much of that noise is generated close to the shore. Roughly 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers—or 62 miles—of the coast.

A new study in the journal Nature finds that all the racket from our ships and construction activities penetrates deep beneath the surface, not merely messing with the communications of undersea mammals but changing the very nature of life at the bottom. The researchers found that bottom-dwellers such as small clams and lobsters, which are crucial to the underwater ecosystem, alter their behavior when exposed to man-made noise. To put it simply, they don’t move around as much.

Here’s why it matters: These creatures are responsible for churning up sediment when they burrow into the seabed, thus increasing oxygen levels and distributing nutrients. Their waning activity, the study’s authors say, may impact seabed productivity, sediment biodiversity, and even fisheries production. “There has been much discussion over the last decade of the extent to which whales, dolphins and fish stocks, might be disturbed by the sounds from shipping, wind farms, and their construction,” co-author Tim Leighton, an expert in underwater acoustics at the University of Southampton in England, noted in a statement accompanying the paper. “However, one set of ocean denizens has until now been ignored…These are the bottom feeders, such as crabs, shellfish and invertebrates similar to the ones in our study, which are crucial to healthy and commercially successful oceans because they form the bottom of the food chain.”

And these kinds of creatures, unlike fish and dolphins, can’t simply relocate to escape the noise. To maintain healthy oceans, we humans might simply have to keep it down.

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Is Man-Made Noise Messing Up the Oceans?

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Maine Governor Warns That Drug Dealers Named "D-Money" Are Impregnating Young White Girls

by FletchePyh Posted on January 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage told a town hall audience on Wednesday that heroin use is resulting in white women being impregnated by out-of-state drug dealers named “D-Money.”

LePage was asked by an attendee what he was doing to curb the heroin epidemic in his state. “The traffickers—these aren’t people that take drugs,” he explained. (You can watch the exchange beginning at the 1:55:00 mark. “These are guys with that are named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these types of guys, that come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we that we’ve go to deal with down the road.”

State legislators may attempt to impeach the governor as early as next week, over charges that he threatened to block funding from a charter school if it hired a political rival.

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Maine Governor Warns That Drug Dealers Named "D-Money" Are Impregnating Young White Girls

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