One of the attributes I have always admired of engineers, scientists, and consultants is that they are not intimidated by big urgent problems, but instead are inspired by confronting them head on. They often run towards the challenges made visible by bad news, not turning away or becoming depressed by it all. Many appear most excited and hopeful when analyzing the sources of problems and innovating new solutions to address them. I see this often in my fellow PLM Green collaborators.
That said, we know that the public at large and political leaders often ignore the biggest problems in front of them – or become too easily distracted by topics that are less important – until they are forced to do so. Unfortunately, history reminds us that this reckoning often happens too late when many of the less painful options are already off the table.
We also know that while people can make sound decisions based on what is factually true and morally just, too many businesses and political organizations will not do so until they have exhausted every other easier or less expensive option. Others may only act when they can no longer resist or deny market forces, financial costs, legal risks, or regulatory pressures which threaten their survival.
This is the current state of addressing climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. The consequences of these growing emissions have been known for decades. As we routinely bear witness in the Climate Change Chronicles news digests, the predictions by climate scientists of harm from global warming are coming true right now in front of our eyes, minds, and hearts.
I wish it was not so, but small incremental changes by individuals are no longer sufficient to ward off the most dire consequences such as exceeding the Paris Accord temperature limits (now happening) or catastrophic nonlinear reactions from breaching global climate tipping points. This includes the melting of Antarctica glaciers, thawing of Boreal forest permafrost, loss of Amazon rain forest, die off of coral reefs, collapse of Greenland ice sheets, and slowing of the Atlantic Ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation. All of these are underway to some extent.
Now, rapid emergency-class systemic changes at a global scale are needed to compensate for mankind doing too little when we had the time. That may mean some of us should panic if that is what it takes to incite the urgent changes needed during this decade that climate scientists tell us is the most critical one for emissions to not just peak and plateau, but start to decline. The history of climate change is being written right now by our generation, not some future generation we can punt it all off to.
While global greenhouse gas emissions are thankfully slowing, we are not yet on a trajectory for emissions to reverse themselves as they continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, now peaking over 425 ppm (an increase of nearly 50% from preindustrial times). Despite all the astonishing green energy progress made in recent years, especially in solar and wind, the societal bill from past carbon emissions is already baked in and now coming due. While future generations will bear the burden of this, there is no region of the planet that is not now experiencing human suffering, economic losses, and degraded ecosystems due to climate change, all which could have been avoided if we had acted earlier, listening to disturbing news from climate scientists.
So as you scan the latest Climate Change Chronicles to see what news good and bad you may have missed last month, do not despair! Instead, be energized with a greater sense of mission that this is THE decade our PLM profession is needed the most to lead the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon, circular economy through greener products, processes, and systems. If you agree, we invite you to join the PLM Green Global Alliance in making a difference, starting with participation in our LinkedIn Group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12304531/.
Last month, June 2024, was the 13th consecutive month of record global heat with the average temperature 1.2 deg F above a 30-year average. It has now been a full year since the Paris Accords threshold of 1.5 deg C has been consistently exceeded.
On July 23, the European Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that global temperatures hit the highest levels in recorded history, breaking a record just set last year. Temperatures were above normal on every continent with over 500 locales experiencing record high temperatures. Scientists believe that this year may be the warmest year for the past 120,000 years.
(Image credit is from Copernicus Climate Project at https://climate.copernicus.eu/new-record-daily-global-average-temperature-reached-july-2024)
Cities across the U.S. from east to west reported all-time records, including 120 deg F in Las Vegas, 112 in Agness, Oregon, and 106 deg in Morrisville, North Carolina. Some 36 million people across the country were under an excessive heat warning. Visitors in western national parks fell ill to the heat, with some fatalities reported.
On the July 4th holiday, over half of the U.S. population, some 175 million people, faced extreme heat. Scientists are warning that this is the new normal that the country is still ill-prepared to deal with. In this early summer heat wave, overnight temperatures are also setting record highs, often not dipping below 90 degrees, providing little cooling relief to people, animals, and infrastructure.
The extreme heat has caused disruptions to the nation’s transportation infrastructure of passenger and freight railroads. Equipment, steel rails and their beds, power supplies, and the people maintaining them are all suffering in high temperatures. Thousands of delays have been reported and hours lost due to heat.
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the entire world is unprepared for extreme heat and billions will suffer with hundreds of thousands of heat-related deaths that could have been avoided.
The eastern Caribbean saw its first major hurricane to occur so early in the month of June when named storm Beryl took only 40 hours to explode from a tropical depression into a Category 4 hurricane. Ocean waters, which were already warmer than they normally would be in September during the peak of the hurricane season, helped to fuel the storm.
After wrecking destruction across the Caribbean as a Cat 5 storm, Beryl came ashore near Houston, Texas, where millions were left suffering for days without electricity and air conditioning, causing the deaths of dozens. Local utilities were blamed for not being prepared for the new climate reality of major storms so early in the summer.
The sound of portable electricity generators is becoming more routine across the south in cities like Houston when extreme weather events happen, and it takes days if not weeks for power to be restored. It demonstrates the public health divide between those wealthier families that can afford generators and those poorer who cannot.
👍 The U.S. EPA awarded over $4B in grants to local and state governments along with nonprofit organizations working to address climate change. Some 67 metropolitan areas received $1M each to create climate action plans. These Climate Pollution Reduction Grants were part of the Biden’s Administrations historic IRA legislation.
The U.K.’s Climate Change Committee says the nation is not on track to hit its 2030 climate goals and that the new government must act faster. Britain is reported to have reduced its climate emissions by 4% last year with most of that coming from reduced coal in electricity production.
👍 Britain’s new Prime Minister Starmer has pledged to quadruple the country’s offshore wind capacity, which already provides almost a third of its energy, and move the country further away from dependence on oil and gas. However, he is facing resistance from hundreds of thousands of workers whose jobs are still dependent on the fossil fuel industry.
👍 After growing for decades, emissions from China may finally be peaking, bending the emissions curve into a relatively flat plateau. Just over half of China’s electricity comes from coal, and the country accounts about 60% of the world’s total coal use. Yet, about two-thirds of all new wind and solar plants under construction across the globe are now in China.
👍 The Biden Administration proposed a new OSHA rule to protect over 35 million workers from heat that would become the first federally mandated safety protection from heat. Under the regulation, employers would be responsible for developing response plans and training for heat-related illnesses that cause the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
Some outdoor construction workers in the south are already wearing wristband devices which monitor their body temperature and heart rate to prevent overheating. Other companies are altering work hours or providing cooling hats and vests filled with ice.
Flight crews and passengers alike are asking regulators to require that airlines meet minimum standards for cabin air temperatures, especially when aircraft are parked at the gate or waiting on a tarmac for takeoff permission. It is not uncommon for the auxiliary power units on aircraft to be inadequate at cooling a cabin on hot summer days, making a packed cabin feel more like an 80 or even 90-degree sauna.
Tourists are falling victim to heat-related illnesses and fatalities around the world. In June, six travelers died while visiting Greece when temperatures soared above 100 deg F. Medical professionals who study heat say it takes 1-2 weeks to acclimatize to heat stress, or even longer if someone has other health conditions.
There were over 100,000 heat-related visits to hospital emergency rooms last year in the U.S. Many ERs are expanding heat-illness training of their staffs as well as adding body cooling devices in their facilities. With temperatures across the western U.S. running 10-30 degrees above normal, this year’s early summer heat wave is likely to increase the ER visits.
👍 Some progressive cities like Miami are being proactive to guard against heat deaths of its most vulnerable residents, and doing so despite being in a state like Florida where political leaders largely deny the reality of climate change. As example, Dade County is giving away air conditioners and helping those in need get into cooling centers.
More people are reporting to emergency rooms with skin burns attributed to hot surfaces like sidewalks. With air temperatures across the Southwest routinely above 100 degrees, and often 110, the temperature of pavement can be dozens of degrees hotter. Children are especially vulnerable as playground equipment can reach temperatures of over 150 deg.
👍 More communities across the U.S. are standing up cooling centers, especially for their most vulnerable residents such as the elderly, low income, and homeless. An increasing number of centers are also accommodating both people and their pets, since many residents are hesitant to leave a hot home if they cannot bring their pets with them.
Scientists report that the Alaskan Juneau Ice Field, which has over 1,000 glaciers across 1,500 square miles, is melting away at twice the rate it did in recent decades. A quarter of its volume is said to have been lost since the late 18th century. Not only are warmer temperatures to blame, but also decreasing snowfalls which allows the ground to warm faster in a feedback loop.
The body of an American mountain climber in Peru was discovered as it emerged from melting ice and snow packs due to a warming climate. The climber had been missing for over 20 years after being caught in an avalanche. Mountain rescue organizations around the world are being told to prepare for finding more bodies that were once buried under the snow.
The American I.T. company Google had set a goal of becoming net zero by 2030. However, a new analysis finds it is far from accomplishing this as its emissions are increasing rapidly, not falling, now having risen by almost half since 2019. In better news, the company claimed that 64% of the energy used by its data centers was from carbon-free sources.
Most of the growing demand in I.T. is from data centers used to power cloud computing and AI. Some analysts predict that data centers will consume 8% of total U.S. energy usage by 2030. Policy experts warn that the grid is not growing fast enough to support such an increase.
👍 Amazon reported that it had reached a significant climate goal seven years earlier than planned. The company said that it had achieved 100% clean electricity, largely from solar and wind power. However, some analysts caution that Amazon needs to be more transparent in the accounting of where its clean energy is actually coming from.
Wildfire season has started early this year, following heat waves across the western US and Canada. The largest fire in California, the Park Fire, grew to burn over 350,000 acres, more than 500 square miles. Nearly half the town of Jasper, Alberta, burned as tens of thousands of residents and vacationers were forced to evacuate on short notice. The Canadian fires were so fierce at times that they created their own local weather, pyrocumulonimbus thunderstorms. Hazardous smoke was seen from satellites trailing deep into the western half of the U.S. for the second consecutive year.
Climate change is impacting American travel plans on the country’s great rivers. Cruises along the Mississippi River and the ports they visit are being negatively impacted when the river is either too low due to droughts or too high due to flooding. Those cruise lines and small river communities that invested in facilities to handle tourists are now said to be struggling.
With the sale of all electric vehicles slowing sharply, some American automakers are reported to be deprioritizing their manufacture. At least one EV plant is being retooled to produce large gas burning trucks. Just a few years ago, U.S. automakers were investing heavily with the expectation to soon produce over 1 million EVs annually which now appears unlikely.
👍 The slowdown did not stop the Biden Administration this month from offering car and auto part manufacturers across eight states some $1.7B in grants. The money will be used to help plants and their union workers with a transition to hybrid, electric, and hydrogen fueled vehicles.
Automakers may be hedging their bets just in case Republicans take back control of the White House and Congress. Former President Trump, who routinely calls climate change a hoax, has threatened to undo most of the progress in green energy to fight climate change made by the Biden Administration. At the Republican National Convention this month, there was little to no mention of climate change despite the risks to the American workers, families, and the economy. Instead, the party reiterated its pledge to support the production of more oil and gas with chants of “drill baby drill.”
The fossil fuel industry should need little help from policy makers these days as U.S. oil producers reported record profits due to high prices and growing demand around the world. The Texas Permian Basin alone produces nearly half of the country’s oil with production expected to grow by 50% by the end of the decade.
Carbon cowboys are reported to be creating questionable carbon credit projects across the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Hundreds of millions of dollars in carbon credit projects have been hatched and sold to corporations across the globe who want to give the appearance of becoming net-zero, often by greenwashing the truth. The global carbon credit market, valued at over $10B, is coming under increased scrutiny as to whether the credits result in the actual reduction of emissions.
Climate change increases the number of extreme rainfall events like those which occurred across Missouri and Illinois this month. Flood waters from flash flooding overwhelmed a dam in southern Illinois after the area received over 5 inches of rain. Many homeowners reported that they had no flood insurance nor could they acquire flood insurance since they were not located in a designated flood zone area according to maps created before climate change..
Citing losses from weather-related disasters, insurance companies continue to raise policy prices across the U.S. but in ways that defy explanation. Research has found that in states with little or no regulation, insurers may be charging prices far above what the level of risk justifies as they try to make up for weather-related losses in other regions. Previously, home insurers in the U.S. said they experienced over $15B of losses in 2023 with most of that from weather-related events.
There are now so many disasters occurring in the U.S. that there is a Disasters Expo tradeshow. This year’s show is in California and next year’s in Florida, the two states at the greatest near-term risk from climate change. Disaster preparedness, management, and recovery has become such a big business that is is now seeing private equity investors.
The United Nations International Office on Migration estimates that the world may see 1 billion climate refugees in the next 30 years. Most of these will be from the equatorial regions and the global south that will experience inhabitable rises of temperatures, changes in precipitation, disruption of agriculture, droughts, famines, and other tragedies due to a warming planet.
The month of July 2024 ended with the planet have experienced the four hottest days ever observed, causing climate scientists to fear that global tipping points may soon be breached. Over 2000 weather stations reported daily high temperature records.
Featured image is from Copernicus Climate Project at https://climate.copernicus.eu/new-record-daily-global-average-temperature-reached-july-2024 showing daily surface air temperatures.