The Chronicle (through March 31, 2015)

 

CLIMATE

In 2014 for the first time in 40 years, annual worldwide CO₂ emissions did not rise. On March 13 the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that annual global emissions remained at 32 gigatonnes in 2014, unchanged from the previous year. The agency reported that except for 3 years when major economic downturns affected economic activity, global emissions have risen steadily during the 40 years it has been taking measurements. One factor might be decreased coal consumption by China as part of the effort to reduce pollution, but the IEA also mentioned weather and the relative price of oil, coal and gas as random contributors—along with some effort worldwide to use energy more efficiently. The report was accompanied by a strongly worded warning: IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said while the data was “encouraging,” this was “no time for complacency” and “certainly not the time to use this positive news as an excuse to stall further action.” bbc.com

On March 31, 2015, the Obama administration submitted its carbon-reduction plan to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), committing to reduce emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and to make best efforts to reduce by 28%. The submission, referred to as an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), is a formal statement of the U.S. target announced in China last year. Russia, the EU and Mexico are also among the thirty-three nations responding to date, leaving developing giants China, India and Brazil yet to file their plans in anticipation of the UN climate talks scheduled to conclude in Paris in December. A Paris accord, if achieved, would mark the first climate agreement to include developed and developing countries alike, not just wealthier nations such as the United States. INDC plans are not legally binding. whitehouse.gov, usnews.com

Federal policy in the U.S. increasingly recognizes the reality of climate change. On January 30 President Obama issued an executive order to address current and future flood risks and protect taxpayer investments in flood-prone areas. The amended flood risk standard requires federal agencies to expand managed floodplains from the current base flood level to a higher vertical elevation and its corresponding horizontal floodplain. This change expands the area of agency responsibility by requiring departments and agencies to avoid both long- and short-term adverse impacts associated with floodplain occupancy and modification. It also requires them to avoid direct or indirect support of floodplain development wherever there is a practicable alternative. The new regulations will protect high-cost public investments like reservoirs and waste treatment facilities, which have long-term operation, maintenance, and repair programs. cleantechnica.com

On March 12 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address climate change. Specifically, beginning in March 2016, states seeking preparedness money will have to assess how climate change threatens their communities. Most don’t have such plans because FEMA’s old 2008 guidelines didn’t require them. The policy doesn’t affect federal money for relief after a hurricane, flood or other disaster. coastalreview.org

On March 19 President Obama signed an executive order to cut the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent over the next decade. The administration will also push federal agencies to get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources like wind and solar energy. The fact sheet states, “Since the federal government is the single largest consumer of energy in the nation, federal emissions reductions and progress across the supply chain will have broad impacts.” The effort will save taxpayers as much as $18 billion due to energy savings. thehill.com

Individual U.S. states continue to resist the reality. In North Carolina, the state’s coastal science panel has altered its 2010 forecast of sea-level rise—again—in response to objections by coastal developers and Republican legislators. The original 2010 report warned of a 39-inch rise in sea level by the end of this century. The new version has seen the rise figure revised downward two times in the intervening years. A preliminary version in December 2014 predicted a faster rise in sea level for the northern Outer Banks—where primordial geological forces are causing part of the North American land mass to sink—than on the southern coast. Those numbers varied from a range of 4 to 8.5 inches at Southport to a range of 6.5 to 12.1 inches at Duck. The final version, to be released in draft form on March 31, 2015, looks just 30 years into the future and predicts a milder increase during that period, but still will show a marked difference in sea-level rise at four different points along the coast.

“There is a very strong message that sea level is rising,” says science panel chairwoman Margery Overton, a coastal engineering professor at NC State University. “And that in and of itself is a very important message to get across to this state.” newsobserver.com

In Florida, on March 8, 2015, several ex-state employees, as well as contractors, researchers and volunteers, were widely reported as saying they were told not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in any official communications, reports or emails. Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR) affirms that references to climate change in Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) reports and documents plunged after Republican Rick Scott was elected governor. Nevertheless, the Department of Transportation is studying how to accommodate sea-level rise in future road plans, and how to protect existing infrastructure. The state’s water management districts are modeling sea level rise projections. The DEP is managing the damage to the coasts and monitoring saltwater incursions into freshwater aquifers. They are preparing for the effects of climate change, while being careful not to use the phrase that might interfere with the execution of their duties. newrepublic.com

The United States is not the only country divided about climate policy. On March 27, 2015, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) reported that Turkey is spending US$730 million in subsidies for the coal industry, at a time when renewable energy is already cheaper than coal when external costs, such as health and environmental damage caused by burning coal, are taken into account. Subsidies for coal lock in coal power for another generation at least, and with the cost of wind and solar coming down rapidly, the investment is clearly contrary to Turkey’s commitment as a G20 country to phase out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies. The report is one of an ongoing series of papers by IISD’s Global Subsidies Initiative that quantifies and evaluates subsidies for fossil fuels. iisd.org

One of the consequences of climate change may be an increase in suffering from pollen allergies, according to Dr. Clifford W. Bassett, medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York. Why? The triggering seasons will last longer, rising CO₂ levels will cause plants to produce more pollen, and the pollen is likely to be more potent than ever before. weather.com

 

COMMUNICATIONS

On February 26 the Federal Communications Commission announced the Open Internet Order. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set rules guided by three principles: America’s broadband networks must be fast, fair and open—principles shared by the overwhelming majority of the nearly 4 million commenters who participated in the FCC’s Open Internet proceeding. The Commission warned that broadband providers have economic incentives that “represent a threat to Internet openness and could act in ways that would ultimately inhibit the speed and extent of future broadband deployment,” as affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The new Open Internet Order restores the FCC’s legal authority to fully address threats to openness on today’s networks by following a template for sustainability laid out in the DC Circuit Opinion itself, including reclassification of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. fcc.gov  The full text of the 313-page order plus 87 pages worth of comment from the FCC’s commissioners may be found at npr.org.

Commenting on the new Open Internet Order, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee raised questions about whether senior Obama aides went to unusual lengths to engage independent regulators on the popular issue. As the Committee released samples of 1,600 pages of emails and other documents exchanged between the White House and the FCC, its chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, said, “A president should be able to weigh in, make his opinions known. I don’t have a problem with that. But this seems to be very one-sided.” FCC Chairman Wheeler told the House committee that keeping the White House up to date on FCC dealings isn’t unusual and that he won’t apologize for what he considers a transparent deliberations process. abcnews.go.com

On March 23, 2015, telecom companies filed a pair of lawsuits in an attempt to reverse the new Open Internet Order (net neutrality rules). US Telecom, which represents AT&T, Verizon, and other companies, and Alamo Broadband, a small Texas-based wireless Internet provider, filed suits contesting the FCC’s decision to reclassify broadband Internet access service as a public utility service. Industry observers say these are the opening shots in a long legal war against the controversial regulations. nationaljournal.com

Meanwhile, the technologies that distribute information regulated by the FCC continue to innovate. The fastest form of broadband technology for Internet service is fiber optic, a method of transmitting information by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optic communication systems have played a major role in the advent of the Information Age, but are only now becoming more cost-effective to set up than copper based networks such as DSL and cable. wikipedia.org Fiber-to-the-home or FTTH is coming closer to wide availability with deployments by Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber, which can reach speeds of 500mbps and 1gbps respectively. Experts say that even if typical broadband speeds become 1000 times faster in 20 years, a single existing fiber-optic connection can still support it. broadbandnow.com

Another wave in the innovation stream is coming in in the form of streaming video service. With fewer people and particularly fewer young people wanting to pay for cable or satellite TV service, Dish Network is launching Sling TV, a cheaper Internet TV service that starts at $20 and includes a slate of Disney and Turner Networks channels. The service is scheduled to be available in the coming weeks on a number of Internet-connected devices, including Android smartphones, tablets and PCs, Xbox One, Roku media streamers, Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, and iOS. Users can pay for a month at a time. cnet.com

The privacy case of Austrian law student Maximilian Schrems may eventually shape international regulations over online information—who owns it and who has access to it. Brought against Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the case is being heard in Luxembourg by the European Union’s highest court. His initial complaint was against facebook, whose European headquarters are based in Dublin, and was initiated before Edward Snowden revealed that the US National Security Agency was routinely intercepting data from emails, social media and telephones. Schrems maintains that companies inside the EU should not be able to transfer data to the United States under “safe harbor” protections—which state that US data protection rules are adequate if information is passed by companies on a “self-certify” basis—because America no longer qualifies for such a status. He states, “It would be necessary to demonstrate that this interception and surveillance of individuals or groups of individuals was objectively justified in the interests of the suppression of crime and national security and, further, that any such interception was attended by the appropriate and verifiable safeguards.” His legal case has been crowdfunded. theguardian.com

 

SHORTS

Solar Impulse is a solar-powered plane attempting to fly around the world. The journey began in Abu Dhabi on March 9, 2015, and reached Myanmar on March 24 after being held up by red tape for several days in India. Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard aren’t looking to revolutionize aviation with their solar-powered aircraft, but rather to bring a “spirit of innovation to the world on the ground.” They want to raise the profile of a suite of technologies on their aircraft—many commercially available today—that are critical to their around-the-world journey without using fossil fuels. cbsnews.com

Silk may provide a green means to boost battery performance. Lithium-ion batteries have enabled many of today’s electronics, from handheld gadgets to electric cars, but they require frequent recharging. Now scientists report in the journal ACS Nano that they found a way to process natural silk to create carbon-based nanosheets that could potentially be used in energy storage devices. The material can store five times more lithium than graphite and work for over 10,000 cycles with only a nine percent loss in stability. In commercial lithium-ion energy storage devices, carbon is a key component. Most commonly, graphite fills that role, but it has a limited energy capacity. To improve the energy storage, manufacturers are looking for an alternative material to replace graphite. The researchers used silk, a sustainable source, in a one-step method that they say can easily be scaled up. acs.org

Apple is reported to be working on an electric car that could be released by 2020. The company has been hiring key members of rival car manufacturers’ electric and new vehicle system teams. A former Ford executive and a former chief executive of Mercedes-Benz’s research and development are reported to be leading the project. The majority of the new Apple employees come from Ford, Tesla and battery technology company A123 Systems, which sued Apple in February for poaching its top engineers—and also those from other battery manufacturers including LG Chem, Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba and Johnson Controls. Apple declined to comment. time.com, theguardian.com

Rat proves superior to humans for locating buried landmines. The African giant-pouched rat, Cricetomys gambianus, is intelligent, blessed with a sense of smell to rival that of dogs, lives up to eight years, and—at an average weight of about two and a third pounds, is too light to set off pressure-activated anti-personnel mines. With those attributes, these animals are being used to detect landmines in Africa, where the rats are ubiquitous. The Belgian NGO Apopo in the southern highlands of Tanzania reports that a rat can search 200 square meters of land in just 20 minutes, whereas people using metal detectors would take five days to search the same area. Because they are nocturnal and very susceptible to sunburn, their delicate ears and tails need to be slathered with sunblock to protect them against skin cancer as they work under the tropical sun. theguardian.com