Hey team, and welcome back to one5c! Sometimes it can be hard to see how big, seemingly intractable problems connect back to our own lives, but this week’s digest is a lesson in shifting that perception. What do Oscar nominees, government websites, and big tech like carbon capture have to do with you? Perhaps more than you think. Let’s discuss… —Corinne
|
WHAT WE'RE INTO THIS WEEK |
You can help safeguard federal climate data |
Within the first month of the second Trump administration, agencies have taken down at least a dozen web pages related to the climate crisis, limiting access to essential public health and climate science datasets. Without access to this information, “the work of scientists, civil society organizations and government officials themselves can grind to a halt,” policy scholar Eric Nost and research librarian Alejandro Paz recently wrote for The Conversation. The Public Environmental Data Partners—a coalition of nonprofits, archivists, and researchers keeping critical climate data publicly available—is at work preserving what they can by copying at-risk information onto public repositories and creating how-to guides on tracking government data that might go missing. They, however, need some help: You can nominate datasets for preservation, or even offer up your personal hard drives and cloud space to store downloads here. This checklist from MIT Libraries will hold your hand through creating your first backup.
|
Design challenge proves low-waste food is possible |
Food waste is a massive climate problem, which means it’s also an opportunity for improvement. The delicious kind. Companies and food retailers have a huge part to play, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Sustainable Food Trust recently released the results of their Big Food Redesign Challenge. In it, 57 organizations reworked or created more than 140 products, many of which reduce or reuse food waste that happens during production. Standout entries include cookies that use imperfect avocados and a baking flour that creates no waste at the mill. “Through intentional design choices, we can produce food that helps nature to thrive––unlike today’s current food system, which tends to make nature fit our needs,” Jonquil Hackenberg, CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, said in a press release. |
An early-warning system for climate tipping points |
Scientists know ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest are destabilizing, but what they don’t know is when systems are about to reach a tipping point––a threshold that leads to irreversible change. That’s why the U.K.’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) just allocated £81 million (about $102 million) to kick-start a program to forecast ecological catastrophes. Aria’s efforts will create decade-level alarms for two high-risk tipping points: the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which would trigger immense sea level rise, and of ocean currents in the north Atlantic, which would alter rainfall globally and threaten food supplies. “Through these systems, we can equip decision-makers with the data they need to confront the threat of abrupt climate change head on,” Gemma Bale and Sarah Bohndiek, two of Aria’s program directors, told The Guardian.
|
Only one Oscar film passes the ‘climate Bechdel test’ |
Of the 30 movies nominated for the 97th Academy Awards, only The Wild Robot, a DreamWorks animated film, passes the Climate Reality Check. The scoring system from nonprofit environmental consultancy Good Energy is modeled after the Bechdel-Wallace Test, which famously assesses female representation in media, and asks two key questions: Does the story reflect the fact that climate change exists? And is there at least one character that is aware of climate change? The Wild Robot follows a stranded robot who adopts a gosling on an uninhabited island, a plot that weaves in concerns about rising seas and a world marked by extreme weather. The firm first introduced the test in 2024, when three out of 31 Oscar-nominated films made the cut. You can stream The Wild Robot on Apple TV, YouTube, and other services.
|
|
|
RENEWABLES WILL OUTSHINE CARBON CAPTURE EVERY TIME |
When it comes to decreasing carbon emissions, renewable energy and carbon capture—aka trapping carbon from industrial fossil-fuel burning at the source—sometimes duke it out in the headlines. There are pros and cons on either side: Renewables produce little to no emissions but have high up-front costs. Carbon capture does remove CO2 at the source, but long-term storage options are uncertain. Plus, carbon capture has one thing that renewables don’t: It allows fossil-fuel interests to keep burning up emissions-heavy fuel with less guilt.
In a recent study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, researchers pitted these two options against each other to see how the approaches compare in terms of cost, human health, energy needs, and, of course, climate change mitigation—and the results are clear.
|
Renewable energy takes the gold every time |
To get at their answer, the researchers modeled out three scenarios: First, every country in the world replaces all fossil fuels with renewable wind, water, and solar energy. Second, the world goes all-in on carbon capture but continues to get the same amount of its energy from dead-dinosaur-related sources as today. Third, we all implement a combo of the two technologies.
Renewables proved to be the better choice across every metric. The renewables-only scenario completely eliminated deaths from air pollution (right now, 5 million die from air pollution each year). It reduced annual energy costs by 60%, and social costs (this accounts for expenses from energy, health, and climate) by 92%. It would only take six years for the cost of switching to renewables to be paid back by reductions in energy cost, results that are consistent with previous models. The payback period for social costs alone would be less than one year.
Switching to renewables and electrifying all energy also reduces the amount of juice needed to run the world. That’s in part because technologies like electric heat pumps and vehicles are more efficient than internal combustion engines, conventional air conditioners, and gas heaters and appliances. Making the switch also saves energy because it eliminates the need to expend energy extracting, transporting, and refining fossil fuels.
On the other hand, in either scenario involving carbon capture, air pollution is still an issue. Carbon capture also doesn’t trap non-CO2 greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2. These emissions pose serious health and climate risks on their own. Even going the combo route has a social cost between 9 and 12 times higher than using renewables alone. |
What this means for policymaking, and everyone at home |
The study represents extreme, all-or-nothing scenarios that are all-but impossible because of the amount of international cooperation such a global shift would require. Not to mention that many analyses say that implementing a range of climate solutions is the most likely way we’ll actually be able to limit global warming. But, the study still demonstrates just how much more worthwhile long-term investment in renewables is compared to carbon capture.
At the core of these findings is a truth we all know so well: To keep the bathtub from flooding, we’ve got to turn the tap off. “The only way to eliminate all air-pollutant and climate-warming gases and particles from energy is to eliminate combustion,” the authors write in the study. For policymakers, that means the priority must be phasing out fossil fuels.
For the average person, this study serves as a reminder of the importance of investing in renewables in whatever way you can—whether that’s by installing solar panels, purchasing your home energy from a green supplier, or supporting groups that finance wind, water, and solar projects, such as the Center for Sustainable Energy and the Environmental Defense Fund. Keep an eye out for greenwashing traps set by fossil-fuel interests. If it sounds too good to be true, like Audi using carbon capture to reach its carbon neutrality goals, it probably is.
|
Copyright © one5c. All rights reserved.
Logo design by Claudia De Almeida
Questions? Feedback? Contact the editors at one5c@one5c.com. |
|
|
|
|
