Welcome to Planet Days, a five-minute roundup of the latest climate news and what it means for our Planet. If this was forwarded to you, smash that subscribe button:
Last week, deadly rains pounded southeastern Brazil, the Biden administration had another up-and-down week, and a new report warned of record power plant pollution in the coming years.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Monday, January 10
Last seven years are hottest on record
The numbers are in, and 2021 was again a record-hot year for the Planet. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2021 was the fifth-hottest on record. The last seven years, meanwhile, were the warmest seven on record “by a clear margin.”
The numbers align closely with independent analyses out this week by NASA, NOAA and Berkeley Earth, which all found that 2021 roughly tied for sixth-hottest year ever observed. The Planet is now 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than the start of the industrial era.
“Science leaves no room for doubt: Climate change is the existential threat of our time,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “Eight of the top 10 warmest years on our planet occurred in the last decade, an indisputable fact that underscores the need for bold action to safeguard the future of our country — and all of humanity.” The Associated Press has more.
US emissions surge
When it comes to climate, the United States isn’t doing us any favors. New numbers from the Rhodium Group find that America’s greenhouse gas emissions rebounded 6.2% last year. What drove the surge? Two words: coal and cars.
Emissions from coal power plants jumped 17% last year, due to a combination of high natural gas prices and the fluctuation of the international oil market. Meanwhile, as the country reopened, the transportation sector jumped 10%, largely from more cars and trucks on the road.
The New York Times covered the report. And in Planet Days this week, we took aim at the car industry.
The costly, deadly impacts of climate
The costs of burning fossil fuels are adding up — in money and in lives. In the U.S., weather and climate events caused 20 billion-dollar disasters last year, totaling $145 billion and killing 688 people, according to a new NOAA report.
Headlined by an active hurricane season, western wildfires, and deadly tornadoes, 2021 was only two shy of 2020’s record-breaking 22 billion-dollar disasters. Adjusted for inflation, the year was also the third-costliest. NPR has more.
A separate report by Munich Re found that natural disasters cost $280 billion globally last year, with Hurricane Ida and Western Europe’s flash floods clocking in as the costliest. Deutsche Welle has that story.
Tuesday, January 11
A record-hot ocean
All this heat doesn’t bode well for the ocean. Last year, global ocean temperatures were the hottest on record. It’s the sixth consecutive year that’s happened, a trend that points to one obvious culprit: human-caused climate change.
"The oceans will continue to warm until net carbon emissions go to zero,” study co-author Michael Mann told Axios. “Ocean warming is destabilizing Antarctic ice shelves and threatens massive (meters) of sea level rise if we don’t act."
Arctic infrastructure at risk
Speaking of destabilizing ice shelves, melting Arctic permafrost could destabilize polar and high-altitude infrastructure, in turn threatening sustainable development, according to new research.
The Arctic region is warming at least three times faster than the global average, and the frozen ground is thawing with it — shifting the land surface and releasing stored carbon. As climate change rages on, approximately 120,000 buildings and nearly 25,000 miles of roads are located in areas with high potential for thaw of near-surface permafrost by 2050. The Washington Post has the story.
Thursday, January 13
Down Under heats up
As tensions over an unvaccinated tennis star in Australia heated up, so too did the country. Onslow — a remote coastal town in Western Australia — hit 123.3 degrees Fahrenheit this week, tying Australia’s hottest temperature on record.
Also in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures in Buenos Aires hit 106 degrees, straining power grids and leaving 700,000 people without electricity. Other parts of Argentina were 25 degrees higher than average. Climate change makes events like these more likely and extreme. Earther has more.
The 10 least-reported crises
The ongoing pandemic rightfully took up a lot of air time over the last year. But as CARE International points out in their annual report, many overlooked humanitarian crises deserved media attention.
From Burundi to Zimbabwe, 10 countries were hit hard by overlooked crises, including those made worse by climate impacts. In total, an estimated 235 million people worldwide needed humanitarian aid last year.
“The world’s poorest are bearing the brunt of climate change — poverty, migration, hunger, gender inequality and ever more scarce resources — despite having done the least to cause it,” Laurie Lee, CEO of CARE International UK, told The Guardian. “Add Covid-19 into the mix and we see decades of progress towards tackling inequality, poverty, conflict and hunger disappearing before our eyes.”
Bonus
Remembering the greats
Over Christmas and New Years, three great naturalists died. Thomas Lovejoy, Edward O Wilson, and Richard Leakey were all honored by The Guardian last week, as dozens of readers responded to a callout about their legacies. Read the responses.
For more, Brandon had the pleasure of interviewing Lovejoy in 2019.
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam