Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
Tesla's electric car factory was operating as usual Tuesday, despite a San Francisco Bay Area multi-county "shelter in place" lockdown. 
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
Scoop.it!
California has suffered some destructive earthquakes in the last few decades but much bigger quakes are possible. These maps show some scenarios.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The coming quake will have huge implications (and ultimately opportunities) for sustainability. But as with all such disasters, we need to have a plan in place before hand to lay out a path forward.
Scoop.it!
Ordinarily conservative utilities are throwing everything they can into reducing these risks.
Scoop.it!
An exhaustive new study focusing only on heat-related damage predicts that by 2099, even with economic growth and adaptation, 1.5 million more people world-wide will die each year because of increased temperatures.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Not surprisingly, wealthier places fare better: in Houston, each additional day averaging 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), relative to a “normal” day of 20 degrees, raises the annual death rate by 0.5 per 100,000 people. In Cairo, which is as hot as Houston but only one-tenth as rich, a hot day is nearly 10 times deadlier. More surprising, temperate places fare worse, because they aren’t used to heat: in Seattle, a hot day is seven times deadlier than in Houston because fewer homes have air conditioning and people spend more time outdoors.
The study uses these relationships to project the effects of global temperatures rising four degrees Celsius by 2099, which is the scientific consensus of how much temperatures will rise if no steps are taken to slow carbon emissions. Without the benefits of growth and adaptation, mortality rates would rise by 125 per 100,000 people, or 14 million additional deaths. Factoring in rising incomes, that drops to 44. Incorporating adaptive behavior, such as staying indoors, it drops further, to 13, roughly 1.5 million people. The impacts are highly uneven. Mortality actually drops in temperate, rich cities such as Oslo because they experience fewer dangerously cold days, and their affluence minimizes the harm of hot days. It rises sharply in places like Mogadishu, Somalia, that, despite being used to hot days, aren’t rich enough to withstand the extremes. Within the U.S., mortality drops in the relatively cool northern plains but rises in the southeast. The toll goes beyond death. Adaptation avoids some deaths but soaks up money and effort that can’t go toward other things such as dental care and vacations. These costs ought to be factored into the effects of climate change. Regulators evaluating new safety rules routinely express human lives in dollar equivalents. The study’s authors do the opposite, expressing the costs of adaptation in death-equivalents. This raises the net impact on mortality to 35 per 100,000, or roughly 3.9 million lives. Using dollars instead of deaths, the study concludes the heat-related costs incurred by one additional metric ton of carbon dioxide is $39, far larger than existing estimates of around $1.50, according to one popular model, says Mr. Greenstone, who helped developed estimates of the social cost of carbon under President Barack Obama.
Scoop.it!
Filipino government body gives 47 ‘carbon majors’ 45 days to respond to allegations of human rights violations resulting from climate change
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Wow! This an amazing development. We have heard of small island nations doing so, but for a major country like the Philippines to take this step is huge.
I suspect this first round will not go very far, but the writing seems to be on the wall for large scale carbon emitters who seem to be resisting reducing emissions.
Scoop.it!
I was in Munich as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry when Chernobyl exploded. Below is the letter I wrote to friends in San Diego on May 1, 1986... ...I’m writing to give you
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is a great piece of history. It shows that we often seem to have problems relating timely data to decision makers when the crisis in question is large in scale. We have seen very similar responses during the Deepwater Horizon, Fukushima, etc.
Scoop.it!
A heat wave that’s forecast to bear down on the Los Angeles region this weekend is likely to bring not only a heightened threat of wildfires but also a spike in medical emergencies.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Thank you climate change deniers and failed leaders who think that tacking climate change is a "waste" of energy and time. Although, I suspect the people that will die in this heat wave and the ensuing waves of heat stress over the coming decades won't be so appreciative.
Scoop.it!
From
grist
More than half of the wastewater injection wells being used by frackers in the state are within 10 miles of a recently active fault.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The data from Ohio is quite concerning. Not being a tectonic expert, I am not sure of their data. But in quick overview, the stories that started emanating from the Buckeye State about two years ago certainly seem to suggest that messing with injection wells to the magnitude that modern dense tracking operations do is not a great idea.
But no need to worry. We here in California NEVER have earthquakes.
|
Scoop.it!
With “The 2100 Project: An Atlas for A Green New Deal,” the McHarg Center tries to visualize how the warming world will reshape the United States.
Scoop.it!
The latest Countdown report from the medical journal Lancet lays out the risks ahead, from the womb to adulthood.
Scoop.it!
Fifteen and a half months after one of the most destructive wildfires California has ever seen wreaked historic havoc on Wine Country, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. no longer has to wonder whether it will be blamed for the blaze. State investigators on Thursday cleared PG&E equipment of starting the Tubbs Fire, which incinerated more than 5,600 buildings and killed about two dozen people after it ignited late Oct. 8, 2017 and raced from Calistoga into Santa Rosa. The fire was caused by “a private electrical system adjacent to a residential structure,” according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
After nearly 16 months of investigation, California officials announced Thursday that the most devastating of the 2017 Wine Country fires was sparked by private electrical equipment on a rural property near Calistoga - a finding that leaves Pacific Gas and Electric Co. blameless. As staff writer J.D. Morris reports, the announcement "provides a long-awaited measure of clarity for beleaguered PG&E." Investors sent shares of PG&E up nearly 77 percent before trading was halted Thursday afternoon.
Scoop.it!
Samantha Bee skipped recapping Donald Trump's latest feuds and devoted Wednesday night’s entire episode of “Full Frontal” to climat
Scoop.it!
A new survey of "Best Drivers" ranks Los Angeles and Glendale among the absolute worst. And the survey includes more than 200 cities.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
What drives drivers to drive poorly? Clearly training is part of it, but frustration and lack of social cues and reinforcement to drive responsibly are part of it. I wonder if anyone has done a experimental test of reducing the amount of cars on the road (via more public transportation, more bike lanes, etc.) and then examine the per capita vehicle accident rate.
Anyone?
Scoop.it!
In a 20-page report released on Monday, the Pentagon details its strategic blueprint to address climate change.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The Pentagon is integrating climate change threats into all of its "plans, operations, and training" across the entire Defense Department, signaling a comprehensive attempt to tackle the impacts of global warming. In a 20-page Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap released on Monday, the Pentagon details its strategic blueprint to address climate change, calling it a "threat multiplier" that has the power to "exacerbate" many of the challenges the U.S. faces today, including "infectious diseases and terrorism."
See also: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/220575-pentagon-unveils-plan-to-fight-climate-change
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121352495
Scoop.it!
A 55-gallon drum of nuclear waste, buried in a salt shaft 2,150 feet under the New Mexico desert, violently erupted late on Feb. 14 and spewed mounds of radioactive white foam.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
For my money, the waste issue is the largest challenge with nuclear power production. Our general inability to administratively deal with this (e.g. know what materials were in the exploding barrel), the childish political NIMBY arc we are only too familiar with, and the growing realization that the devil is literally in the logistical details when it comes to safety and security of transuranic waste is crushingly disappointing.
I understand why some have called for an increased reliance on nuclear power in this era of growing carbon emissions, but none of those advocates seem interested in addressing the issues at Yucca Mountain, WIPP, etc. or at least feel that this side of the ledger is less problematic than global carbon emissions increasing.
see also:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/14/3038814/yucca-mountain-wipp-wasteland-battle-entomb-nuclear-waste
and the most recent congressional activity:
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/211890-house-rejects-bids-to-abandon-yucca-mountain
|
