Climate Change Causes the US Billions of Dollars in Taxes

Santa Rose Fire

Climate change has caused devastating hurricanes and storms alone in this year. In the past decade, storms, droughts, and wildfires arose because of climate change and now Americans are paying to repair the damages in tax dollars. In the past decade, $350 billion have been spent on disaster relief programs, aid and insurance to reverse the effects of the damages. This does not include the three hurricanes this year alone that have been the worst yet. According to the Chicago Tribune, the federal government does not plan for these costs accordingly, and instead refer to costs that arose because of climate change as “high risk”. To manage the risks of climate change, the government needs to take into account the data that scientists have presented that prove climate change is worsening, and install programs and enact laws that can reduce the effects of climate change. Senator Cantwell, a Democrat on the Senate Committee on energy and Natural Resources requested stats from the GAO that very accurately link consequences of climate change on the economy and our tax dollars. With the appointed environment adviser at the White House, Kathleen Hartnett White, claiming the fossil fuel industry has only improved the standard of living of Americans, tax dollars will continue to rise as a results of a worsening climate change unless immediate action is taken to prevent such repurcussions

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-climate-change-gao-report-20171023-story.html

https://twitter.com/SabrinaMHC2001/status/922813089803833344

Water and Urban Sustainability: Inspiration from Butterfly Wings and Spiders

It is not uncommon for scientists to look at nature and the natural world to find solutions for Earth’s everyday challenges including the scarcity of water. With the increasing demand for local food production, scientists and engineers need to concoct a new way for water to de distributed. A group in New York City referred to as NexLoop has invented a way to distribute water by mimicking the way a cribellate orb weaver spider webs collects fog from the air. This invention is named AquaWeb. Instead of relying on groundwater to water farms, the prototype collects rain and fog water to water outdoor and indoor farms, like greenhouses.

Researchers in the California Institute of Technology have found a way to mimic the way in which rose butterflies absorb light. They have created film solar cells that are two times more efficient at absorbing light that traditional solar cells. The butterfly’s wings contain nano holes that make the wings lighter and better for absorbing light. The order of the wings were crucial for this effect so scientists studied the wings under a microscope to better mimic them for their prototype. By recreating solar panels with this new technology, twice the amount of light can be absorbed and for longer periods of time. By redistributing water using rain water, that usually goes to waste and stormwater waste or runoff, and creating a way to increase the amount of light energy solar panels can absorb, this can lead to an increase in local food production. 

http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/product_service_design_innovation/sustainable_brands/trending_spiders_mushrooms_butte

https://twitter.com/SabrinaMHC2001/status/922814996416954368

Climate Change and Politics

Especially now, climate change has been an important and surprisingly controversial topic in today’s time, with large populations of people denying the existence of global warming and the harmful effects it will cause on our world. This issue has been an ongoing battle for years and years, since scientists noticed and began to understand the potential impacts of the alterations being imposed upon our Earth. However, politics and science do not always align in their opinions on what should be considered priority. Award-winning political cartoonist, Mike Keefe, created a cartoon for The Denver Post in 2010, one that continues to be relevant today, according to the decisions being made by our current political leaders.

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North Atlantic Winds Could Power the Whole World

Wind energy is a renewable source that can help achieve sustainability in our society. However, there are many complications that impede this idea to come to life. This article from Anthropocene Magazine gives new innovations and discoveries involving this  energy source that can improve the finer points of implementing wind energy into our society’s needs. Harnessing the power of the wind to create energy is nothing new. However, “the first offshore wind farm in the US, off the coast of Rhode Island, went online last year”(Anthropocene).  Scientists are pushing to see the boundaries that oceanic winds can play in creating a reliable and renewable energy source. There are many ways that overseas wind farms are safer, more potent and reliable. The massive power of the North Atlantic winds, and the North Atlantic current  carry dramatic changes on the lands in the area. The winds and the deep and shallow currents work together to bring the warm weather to that North Atlantic. It is time we started using the resources we have had for so long to create a sustainable society to live in.

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2017/10/wind-farms-in-the-north-atlantic-could-power-the-whole-world/

Britain spent ‘twice as much on overseas fossil fuels as renewables’

The UK has spent more than twice as much overseas support on fossil fuels projects as on renewable ones so far this decade, according to research commissioned by the Catholic aid agency Cafod.

The Overseas Development Institute, which analysed the figures, found that 46% of Britain’s £6.1bn energy spending in developing countries between 2010 and 2014 went on oil, coal and gas-fired schemes, compared with 22% for renewable energy projects.

Overall, fossil fuel support increased by nearly £1bn this decade compared with the previous five years, with a staggering 99.4% of UK export finance support directed towards “dirty” energy investments.

Cafod called on the government to clarify how it would bring public support for overseas projects into line with climate commitments under the Paris agreement.

Dr Sarah Wykes, Cafod’s lead energy analyst, said: “To tackle climate change we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground and switch rapidly to renewable sources of energy.

“Yet the UK carrying on a business as usual spending pattern overseas in recent years suggests a huge inconsistency in policy and a missed opportunity to promote greater investment in renewable technologies, as the Department for International Development (DfID) has tried to do through its spending.”

While UK export finance uses public funds to bolster British exports, DfID’s energy spending – 32% of which went to renewables compared with 22% for fossil fuels – is intended as overseas aid.

The Importance of Technology for Sustainability and the Environment

Cities around the world, including our own New York City, have been referred to as “concrete jungles,” one of the only real associations to nature given to cities, along with having to battle with pigeons as you commute to school or work. Despite having small designated areas reserved for nature in parks, the city itself remains largely grey. Naziha Mestaoui, a light artist, has created a powerful statement through her creation of the “One Beat, One Tree,” a technological light art piece, in which she projects virtual trees onto cityscapes and a new virtual tree will bloom with every heartbeat of the viewer. In her statement regarding this magnificent art piece, she said, “‘I wanted to create an art piece using technologies to connect us to this immaterial value of nature… If we want technologies to reconnect us to nature, we just need to create it’” (Frank). Her statement represents the need to use innovations and technology to reconnect us to nature and to remind the world of the importance of our environment.

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October 16: “Climate Justice and Crises in the Caribbean”

 

Use the form below to indicate your interest in attending “Climate Justice and Crises in the Caribbean” at the Graduate Center on October 16, 6-8 pm. If enough students show interest, we can make arrangements to attend as a group. This form closes on October 14, 2017 at 5 pm.

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Water

We need to start taking care of our environment, if we want to take care of ourselves! Researchers have found plastic fibers in over 80 percent of the samples they have taken from water ranging from the United States Capitol building to the shores of Uganda’s Lake Victoria. These plastics are originating from all kinds of sources like synthetic clothes, tire dust, micro-beads, and plastic utensils. We need to change the way we recycle and dispose of plastic materials, to prevent from future water contamination!

https://inhabitat.com/plastic-fibers-found-in-over-80-of-tap-water-samples-from-five-continents/

 

The Importance of Harvesting the Wind Energy Potential Over Oceans

As humanity aggressively steps forward into the 21st century, our demands for energy have continued to skyrocket. Thus, the need for sustainable energy sources have become more critical than ever before, especially due to the detrimental effects of fossil fuel usage. New research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science indicates that the wind energy potential over oceans could theoretically power human civilization. However, this would require extensive portions of the world’s oceans to be covered with wind turbines. The installation and the maintenance of this project would be difficult and unlikely due to the volatility of ocean environments; the project could even alter climate conditions. Nonetheless, wind speeds over the ocean tend to be 70% higher than on land. Over some sections of the oceans, storms regularly transfer wind energy down to surface level from higher altitudes; this indicates that the amount of energy that can be captured with floating turbines is higher than that of land turbines. Although these ideas are merely theoretical, and are undermined by many practical and seemingly inevitable issues, they emphasize the importance of adopting alternative sources of energy in the future.

Greenland’s deltas are growing as coastlines recede around the world.

Scientists have noticed shorelines slipping away into the ever rising sea level. All the while, a change in the trend is being observed in Greenland. Despite being home to the worlds second largest ice sheet, the river deltas are growing here, while they are receding everywhere else. In findings published in the journal Nature, researchers observed that as glaciers melt the fresh water they produce picks up and deposits sediments along the shorelines.  Scientists were surprised that the ocean does not play a larger role in eroding the coast line; they found that Greenland’s deltas are shielded from the ocean’s waves by large, steep-cliffed fjords. Greenland’s glaciers have been experiencing increasing ice loss for three decades. The shifting coastline is a  reminder that Greenland’s ice sheet is changing in ways that may have consequences elsewhere in the world.