Planet Week: Biden unveils sweeping (green) infrastructure plan
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Last week, wildfires across Nepal deteriorated air quality in its capital, Kathmandu. The EPA dismissed dozens of Trump-appointed science advisors. And another sandstorm blanketed Beijing.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Monday, March 29
Biden’s offshore wind push
President Joe Biden’s got his eye on the horizon. On Monday, Biden launched several initiatives to boost offshore wind power, reports CNN. The initiatives aim to create more than 44,000 jobs in offshore wind by 2030 and add another 33,000 jobs in areas supported by offshore wind.
“President Biden has declared very clearly that when he thinks of climate, he thinks of people and jobs — good-paying, union jobs,” Gina McCarthy, Biden’s national climate advisor, said in a statement. “Nowhere is the scale of that opportunity clearer than for offshore wind.”
In Planet Days, we’ve previously written about how the U.S. is falling behind on offshore wind, despite its falling price.
Cherry blossoms peak earliest in 1,200 years
For people living in D.C. and Japan, early to mid-April is usually all about cherry blossoms — but this year, Japan’s Kyoto cherry blossoms peaked on March 26, the earliest date in 1,200 years of records. The news reveals a disturbing trend.
“Since the 1800s, warming has led to a steady trend toward earlier flowering that continues to the present day,” Benjamin Cook, a research scientist at Columbia University, told The Washington Post. “Some of this warming is due to climate change, but some is also likely from an enhanced heat island effect due to increased urbanization of the environment over the last couple of centuries.”
Tuesday, March 30
Economists: Carbon cuts are worth the cost
A new survey of economists found that, by and large, they agree on one thing: The world must take action on climate change. Without action, the economists project that the world could lose $1.7 trillion a year by 2050, rising to $30 trillion a year by 2075.
Among the responses, several numbers stand out: 74% of respondents think we needed “immediate and drastic action” on climate, while 76% agree that climate change will likely affect the growth rate of the global economy. A whopping 89% said climate change will exacerbate income inequality between high-income and low-income countries.
“People joke about how economists can’t agree on most things,” Derek Sylvan, one of the authors of the survey, told Reuters. “But we seem to find a pretty strong level of consensus [on the economic importance of climate action].”
Invest in clean energy over fossil fuels
Speaking of money, it may be wise to steer clear of fossil fuel investments, according to a new report by Carbon Tracker. The report finds that between 2012–2020, investors spent $640 billion in fossil fuel shares — over that time, however, these investments have lost $123 billion, or about 20% of their value.
Meanwhile, clean energy is a hot buy. Over that same period, investors spent $56 billion in renewable energy stocks, which gained $77 billion in value. Long story short: Wall Street may want to ditch fossil fuels for renewables sooner rather than later. Earther has more.
Wednesday, March 31
Biden unveils sweeping (green) infrastructure plan
Last week, Biden unveiled his American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion bill aiming to transform the nation’s infrastructure. Speaking in Pittsburgh, the president called the plan a “once-in-a-generation investment in America.”
Though labeled as a jobs plan, the bill would be a significant win for climate action. Let’s unpack a few of the greenest highlights:
Transportation. Biden proposes to spend $174 billion on electric vehicles (EVs), which includes building 500,000 electric charging stations, electrifying bus fleets, and offering incentives to make and buy American-made EVs. He also proposes a combined $165 billion to improve and expand mass transit.
Electricity. Biden’s plan would accelerate the transition to clean energy, investing $100 to upgrade the electric grid and creating a national standard that requires utilities to power buildings and homes with a certain amount of renewable energy, a rate that would increase over time.
Buildings. The plan calls for $213 billion to “[p]roduce, preserve, and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy-efficient, and electrified housing units,” as well as upgrade schools, hospitals, and child-care centers.
Research. Biden calls for $180 billion to advance climate-related research, which includes $50 billion to the National Science Foundation, $40 billion for lab upgrades, and $35 billion for research to address climate change.
The next step will be getting this plan through Congress, a challenging task, as conservatives are already banding together to fight the bill. As we wrote in Planet Days last week, the success of the infrastructure plan, therefore, comes down to politics as much as policy.
For more, USA Today has a handy visual tool that breaks down spending by sector, Volts offers a deep dive, and Vox gives us the TL;DR.
Tropical forest loss up 12% from previous year
Our forests keep falling. Last year, the world lost more than 10 million acres of tropical forests — equivalent to an area the size of the Netherlands, according to new analysis by World Resources Institute. That’s up 12% from the previous year.
The trend is largely driven by agriculture, as forests are clear cut and burned to make room for crops, as well as climate change, which leaves trees drier and more vulnerable. And because trees are a key carbon sink, the situation also spells disaster from a climate perspective.
“Those dense forests can be hundreds of years old and store significant amounts of carbon,” Rod Taylor, director of the forest program at World Resources Institute, told Grist. “Losing them has irreversible impacts on biodiversity and climate change.”
Thursday, April 1
Climate change hurts food production
We tend to talk about climate change as a future problem, but it’s already affecting everything, including global food production. Since 1961, productivity has slumped by 21%, a new report finds.
Advances in technology, fertilizer use, and global trade have mitigated this loss, so we’ve generally kept pace with population growth (though, with increasing disparity between rich and poor nations). But as global temperatures continue to rise, we will likely fall far behind. Fast. The Guardian has the full story.
Bonus
Penguins take on the big city
Three penguins walk into a popular Chicago restaurant. But they’re in no mood for jokes, reports Travel + Leisure Magazine. Instead, they’re part of a plastic-reduction campaign, put on by the city’s Shedd Aquarium.
The campaign aims to unite Chicago restaurants in pledges to reduce single-use plastics, which have spiked during COVID-19 as more eateries focus on takeout. Since much of this plastic waste ends up in our waterways and oceans, penguins have a lot of stake in the game. Watch the video on Choose Chicago’s Instagram.
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam