As Winter Melts Away

Notes toward a eulogy for something I love

I don’t write that often about developments in the actual climate in these pages—it’s uniformly depressing, and it is the part we can do the least about. None of us has the power to change how much heat a molecule of carbon dioxide traps, nor can we alter how the jet stream reacts to changes in polar temperatures. All we can do is determine how much co2 and methane there is up there in the air—and so that’s what I concentrate on.

And yet the changes underway on our planet are now so extreme, and so remarkable, that sometimes we do need to stand back and simply gaze in awe and sadness. At my latitude (43.97 degrees north, or very nearly halfway between the North Pole and the equator) the changes in winter may be the most dramatic signs yet. And the most dramatic in my heart for sure, because winter is the time I love the most.

This year in North America has been about as close as we’ve ever come to a year without a winter—the geological obverse of 1816, the year when an Indonesian volcano put so much sulfur into the air that there was no real northern hemisphere summer. We’re the volcano now, and the gases we produce increase the temperature: it was 70 degrees in Chicago yesterday, in February—which was also the day that the Windy City decided to join other American cities in suing the fossil fuel industry for damages. But that was just one of a hundred heat records broken in the course of the day, from Milwaukee to Dallas (94 degrees). But it wasn’t a single day of heat—it’s been an almost unrelentingly warm winter, with by far the lowest snow coverage for this time of year ever recorded (13.8 percent of the lower 48 as of Monday, compared with an average of more than 40 percent) and with the Great Lakes essentially free of ice.

We can surmise that this year’s puny winter has something to do with the strong El Nino in the Pacific, but of course the far deeper problem is the ongoing warming of the earth—we’ve just come through the warmest December and January ever measured globally, and February seems certain to follow. There simply is a smaller supply of cold air in the Arctic than ever before. As the Washington Post put it on Tuesday:

The amount of cold air above the Northern Hemisphere this winter is near a record low, an unambiguous signal of the planet’s warming climate, according to a new analysis of 76 years of temperature data from about a mile above the ground.

The depleted cold-air supply means blasts of Arctic air generally lack the vigor of the past, while incursions of unusually mild weather — such as the one swelling over the central United States now — can be more frequent and intense.

The cold-air supply in the Northern Hemisphere is being evaluated using temperature data from about 5,000 feet high in the atmosphere. For about a decade, Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, has analyzed the size of the cold pool at this level — or the area of the hemisphere covered by temperatures at or below 23 degrees (minus-5 Celsius).

We are bleeding away the chill that is one of the hallmarks of our planet.

That comes with serious pragmatic consequences. In the high Arctic, previously unheard-of thunderstorms are melting ice faster than ever. As Ed Struzik reported last week from Greenland, “surface crevassing, which allows water to enter into the interior of the icecap, is accelerating, thanks to rapid melting. And slush avalanches, which mobilize large volumes of water-saturated snow, are becoming common: In 2016, a rain-on-snow event triggered 800 slush avalanches in West Greenland.”

Further south, those record winter temperatures let forests and grasslands dry out fast. That’s why Canada’s boreal forest burned at a record rate last summer, and it’s why huge blazes are driving Texans for cover today—the Smokehouse Creek fire in the Panhandle, which only started Monday, is already the second largest blaze in the state’s history; it forced the evacuation of the country’s biggest plant for disassembling nuclear weapons.

The higher latitudes need the annual rest that winter provides. It’s how these places—and the creatures in them—evolved. In Maine, which has the largest moose herd in the lower 48, ninety percent of calves died last winter because they were sucked dry by ticks that can now last all winter long. Biologists find moose with 90,000 ticks; they rub their hair off trying to shed the pests. “Ghost moose” is what they call these hairless beasts. You can’t have the earth that we’ve known without some cold at the north and south; it’s functionally required, a part of the Pleistocene.

It’s not functionally required that we be able to glide across the surface of the earth—but losing that is a deeply human cost, at least for some of us. Winter is the most whimsical season by far: nature releases friction for a time, and all of a sudden you can skim across the ground. I was in Minneapolis two weeks ago for the nordic skiing world cup race—the first held in the U.S. in a quarter century—and two days beforehand the first substantial snowfall of the Minnesota winter rescued the proceedings, letting 20,000 people come out for a stinging cold day to watch the fittest athletes on earth sail across the trail. This weekend I’ll be helping man the finish line here in Vermont as 700 little kids from around New England show up for the annual cross-country festival at our local ski area. Or at least I hope it will—it’s pouring rain this afternoon, and the forecast for race day is 55 degrees.

All of which is to say that the impact of the climate crisis is psychological as well as physical. The deepest patterns of our lives—the ways our bodies understand the cycle of the seasons and the progress of time—are now slipping away. The fight to slow the warming of the planet is the fight to save billions of people and millions of species, but it’s also the fight to hold on to profound beauty and profound meaning, not to mention sheer gorgeous powdery magic.

In other energy and climate news (and there is a lot!)

+A new lawsuit from the reliable folks at the Southern Environment Law Center takes aim at the U.S. Forest Service practice of setting a “national timber target” and then “getting the cut out” at all costs—even when those costs are ecological, and heavy.

The case centers around the Forest Service’s failure to properly study the massive environmental and climate impacts of its timber targets and the logging projects it designs to fulfill them. Each year, the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture set timber targets, which the Forest Service is required to meet through logging on public lands. In recent years, the national target has been set as high as 4 billion board feet – or enough lumber to circle the globe more than 30times. The already high target is expected to increase in the coming years.

These mandated targets create backwards incentives for the Forest Service. Forests on public lands provide a key climate solution by capturing and storing billions of tons of carbon. But rising timber targets push the agency to clearcut forests and log carbon-dense mature and old-growth forests. Logging these forests releases most of their carbon back to the atmosphere, worsening the climate crisis and undermining the Biden administration’s important efforts to protect old growth and fight climate change.

Meanwhile, an interesting new essay on why timber should also be on the sanctions list for Putin’s Russia

Russian Federation forests can make or break things for the future of humanity according to the FAO, as they make up around 22% of the Earth’s forests – and sequester far more carbon than was previously reported, according to scientists published in Nature. Russia’s vast boreal forests, also known as the taiga, are the largest forested region on Earth and the country is, perhaps consequently, the world’s largest timber exporter.

Oh, and seven elders—aged 67 to 86—managed to disrupt a timber sale in Washington last week, collecting the flagging from the boundaries of a controversial plot.

+”Instant fashion” is not a subject with which I am intimately familiar (fashion in general, truth be told), but Kenneth Pucker reports that it is taking an immense cost. His piece in the Harvard Business Review points out that the ascendant company in this realm, something called Shein, which offers more than a hundred thousand new styles every year

The perfect way to address consumers with short attention spans is to develop products with fleeting lifespans that are disposable and inexpensive. This ensures product obsolescence and affordability thereby creating space for consumers to react to their next impulse.

According to a recent study, Shein’s pricing of jeans, dresses, tops, outerwear, footwear, and accessories averaged 50% below H&M (and even further from Zara). Part of what enables Shein to sell $8 blouses and $9 dresses is their reliance on polyester. Almost two thirds of Shein’s garments are made of polyester, as compared to just 27% at Zara and 21% at H&M. Given that polyester can sell for considerably less than the price of cotton, this results in lower costs and prices.

Instant fashion’s popularity overlaps with the surge in plastic as a fashion input. Prior to 2000, natural fibers (such as cotton and wool) were the primary inputs to clothing. However, as fossil fuel producers have come under pressure from the growth of renewables, growth in plastic supply has proved a welcome offset with the fashion industry serving as a reliable customer. Cheaper, more readily available, and with some preferred properties (e.g. quick-drying, wrinkle-proof, durable, ability to “take” color, and more), synthetics have powered the growth of activewear and instant fashion.

While consumers have benefited from lower prices, the negative impacts of synthetics are an environmental scourge. Energy used to produce plastics is often fossil fuel-intensive leading to increases in carbon emissions. During a plastic garment’s useful life, it sheds microplastics into waterways that end up in the food supply, as do excess concentrations of hazardous chemicals. A recent Greenpeace investigation found that 15% of Shein’s products contain concentrations of hazardous chemicals that breach E.U. regulatory limits. Finally, it takes hundreds of years for cheap synthetic shoes and shirts to decompose, all the while emitting methane and further contributing to climate change. (It’s important to note that even producing clothing with natural, untreated fabrics impacts the environment; the most sustainable option is to produce and consume less.)

+For those interested in climate science, the venerable Kevin Trenberth has a useful new paper making the distinction between temperature increases, which is what global negotiations focus on, and the wild weather that they can drive.

The obsession with 1.5○C extends to arguments that the world may be able to overshoot the value and then return to it later, using some form of negative emissions. This is linear thinking and works only in the simple models used for this sort of exercise. How does one undo the huge thawing of permafrost that spews copious amounts of methane into the atmosphere as the carbon in soils decays? How does one undo a hurricane and its damage? How can the effects of a drought and resulting wildfires that flatten a forest be undone? How can Greenland be restored?

+The Evergreen Collaborative has produced a great new video on how electric utilities are often using ratepayer money to lobby against a clean energy transition. Warning: it will make you grind your teeth

+Good to see the Sunrise Movement springing back to life in many places: here’s the story from Oberlin College where—as in so many places—the pandemic took a tool on organizing.

Elsewhere in higher ed, the student senate at the University of Florida has passed a Green New Deal resolution, in what’s being described as a rebuke to Ron DeSantis (who’s had plenty of rebukes lately)

The mandate – which was unanimously passed – calls for sweeping campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis that include just transition, total divestment from fossil fuels, disclosure of the university’s financial ties within the private sector and a ban on receiving research funding from the fossil fuel industry.

This win by Florida students comes amid ongoing climate denialism in the state. Governor Ron DeSantis has cracked down on free speech at universities and shown support for the burning of fossil fuels. Additionally, the Florida legislature is advancing an energy resources bill that would delete mentions of climate change in the state law.

Cameron Driggers, a first-year University of Florida business administration student and the executive director of Youth Action Fund, called the vote “a stunning rebuke of the ideology of climate denialism that DeSantis has championed”.

+Answering a common question, the excellent folks at IEEFA have a fine report on low-carbon passive index funds, which, what do you know, are getting better returns than fossil fuels. Meanwhile, stalwart divestment champions Clara Vondrich and Ellen Dorsey have a letter in the Washington Post making the case one more time! It’s all important, because as the Sierra Club points out in a big new study, your pension fund is very likely investing in massive carbon bombs.

+Keith Forman, with a comprehensive review of the best books for young kids that touch on climate change. Happily, it includes Naomi Klein’s classic How to Change Everything

+Here’s a staggering number: weather related disasters forced 2.3 million Americans from their homes last year. As the Times reports

More than a third said they had experienced at least some food shortage in the first month after being displaced. More than half reported that they had interacted with someone who seemed to be trying to defraud them. And more than a third said they had been displaced for longer than a month.

Hurricanes remained the most commonly cited cause of displacement, followed by floods and fires. Florida, Texas, California and Louisiana all had hundreds of thousands flee their homes.

+Some of the best new climate music in a long while: a heat pump crooning about keeping you warm all night. It’s Barry White meets Al Gore, from Berkeley musician Mike Roberts. “I’m your heat pump. When you want it hot, I’m hot for you. When you want it cool I’m cool with you, baby.” Listen here

+David Dayen, in the American Prospect, describes how the gas industry is trying to get around Biden’s pause on new LNG permits by going to Mexico. But as he points out, it may not work

You would think that building LNG export terminals in Mexico would get around more stringent U.S. regulatory guidelines, and that’s true in part. However, DOE, which regulates the export of the commodity gas (FERC regulates the physical facilities), ruled years ago that terminals sending U.S. exports abroad through Mexico would be subject to regulatory procedures as if they were U.S. terminals. No applicant challenged that premise, probably because it didn’t seem relevant. “Before January 26, getting DOE authorization was the easiest gig in town. They never said no,” Slocum said.

But on January 26, DOE announced the pause on new permits for 17 pending facilities. The re-evaluation, which takes into account the domestic natural gas market, global energy security, and environmental justice, is likely to take the rest of this year, if not beyond.

+The EU is close to passing a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which would

require companies to take action on their ecological footprint, addressing issues such as water pollution and emissions. By doing so, CSDDD becomes a key instrument in the global fight against climate change — an advocate for the preservation of our shared home.

Companies, often criticised for their relentless pursuit of profit at any cost, will now confront the inevitable shift towards sustainable and responsible business practices. CSDDD has the potential to mark the beginning of an era where financial success is intrinsically linked to a commitment to people and the planet.

+Now this is interesting: the Future Station Project is imagining what the gas stations of the future might look like, when we don’t need them pumping gas any more

+The Rainforest Action Network has figured out which insurers are backing the LNG export boom. The big names include AIG, AXA, Allianz, Chubb, Liberty Mutual, Lloyd’s of London, SCOR and Sompo

+Netflix and Drill: a comprehensive look at the way that Hollywood uses oil rigs and burly guys who man them as a shorthand for freedom and independence

Hollywood has long used the collective popular culture mental image of the oil and gas industry to establish field workers and wildcat drillers as mavericks, adventurers, rugged “salt of the earth” types, or down-on-their luck folks who can’t be tamed by civil society and strike out a living “in the patch.”

Another easy plot device is the “get rich overnight” trope where a person becomes fantastically wealthy after oil is found on their property.

The Top Ten examples include Armageddon, and Die Hard

+Michael Mann takes a well-deserved victory lap on NPR’s Science Friday, fresh off his victory over scurrilous attacks from climate deniers in a defamation lawsuit.

+The Biden administration has announced another $366 million for rural renewable energy projects, many on tribal lands

Wahleah Johns, the director of the department’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, emphasized the value of renewable energy to tribal lands, saying an estimated 17,000 homes in tribal communities lack access to electricity.

“These projects are really significant and helping to provide more energy security for rural and remote communities,” she said. “They are encouraging that energy sovereignty that tribes hold and making sure that you know lights are on for families in different places of Indian country.”

One of the selected projects, for example, will electrify 300 Native Americans’ homes for the first time, Johns said, while other projects will help offset particularly high diesel costs in Alaskan communities. 

+The Washington Post reminds us about the “other solar panel,” the one that heats water for your home

Studies have found the payback period can range from five to 15 years (or even two years in Hawaii). Systems last 20 years with modest maintenance, and have been known to operate for more than 30 years.

The economics can be especially attractive, says the Energy Department, if you’re financing them as part of a 30-year mortgage. That effectively adds a monthly cost of $8 to $17. If monthly savings are greater, a solar investment is immediately profitable. The DOE has a more technical calculator here.

+Bill Barron rode his bike 650 miles across Utah in 11 days, addressing 22 local meetings about the need for climate action. The video about it is occasionally sad (there really is a lot of misinformation out there in the world) but mostly hopeful—we clearly need more of this in our divided country