Planet Week: Biden’s win brings climate action to the White House
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, Norway heard a suit against Arctic drilling. Air pollution was linked to higher COVID-19 death rates. And Shell got absolutely roasted on Twitter.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Sunday, November 1
Typhoon Goni, 2020’s most powerful storm, slams into the Philippines
On Sunday, Typhoon Goni slammed into the Philippines with a force comparable to a Category 5 hurricane. By the end of the week, Goni had affected 1.2 million people and killed at least 10, leaving a path of destruction and devastation behind — in some areas, the storm damaged 90% of towns it hit.
Goni’s winds peaked at 195 mph, making it the Earth’s most powerful storm in four years. But this strength wasn’t an anomaly. The storm’s rapid intensification before it made landfall was partially due to warmer waters in the South Pacific, an occurrence made more likely by climate change. The New York Times tracked the storm.
Tuesday, November 3
How Jeff Bezos aims to save the Planet
Back in February, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos pledged to commit $10 billion, more than 7% of his net worth at the time, to fight climate change — and we’re now getting a clearer look at his plans, thanks to reporting from The Atlantic.
After negotiations this summer, Bezos’s Earth Fund is prepared to give grants, ranging from $10 million to $100 million, to nine environmental organizations in the United States, including the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World Wildlife Fund.
All the recipients are 501(c)3 nonprofits, which means they can’t endorse politicians or appear partisan. If Earth Fund keeps this track, organizations like the Sunrise Movement, which endorses the Green New Deal and Democrats, may not get a slice of the pie.
US leaves Paris Agreement
In a move that was in the works since 2017, the United States became the first country to leave the Paris Agreement. Nearly 200 countries signed the agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
The U.S. continues to spew more greenhouse gas emissions per than any country not named China. But while countries like China, as well as Japan, South Korea, and the European Union, have made ambitious climate pledges this year, the U.S. has gone the opposite direction, deregulating emissions standards and failing to pass significant climate legislation.
The move may be short lived, though. The same day the U.S. left the Paris Agreement, Joe Biden promised to rejoin it on his first day in office. Read more at NPR.
Hurricane Eta rips through Central America
On Tuesday, Hurricane Eta smashed into Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm brought with it sustained winds of 140 mph and torrential downpour, causing storm surge, flooding, and mudslides across Central America. At least 57 people died, according to the AP.
Now a tropical depression, Eta has turned eastward. Though its structure has been shredded, its core remains intact, and it’s likely to gain strength as it heads over warmer waters toward Cuba and South Florida, reports The Washington Post.
Eta is the 28th named storm this year, a record for the Atlantic hurricane season. As climate change continues to warm the ocean and air, hurricanes will become more frequent and intense.
Wednesday, November 4
Iceberg heads toward South Georgia
A massive iceberg that broke off of Antarctica’s peninsula in July 2017 is now headed toward the island of South Georgia, home to a rich ecosystem of penguins, seals, krill, and whales. While it’s possible the mass could break apart or change course, scientists fear if it doesn’t, it could cause cascading devastation in wildlife populations.
“This is basically an area that’s completely thriving with wildlife,” Geraint Tarling from the British Antarctic Survey told Deutsche Welle. “The island has globally significant populations of penguins and seals… Enormous numbers that if they were not there anymore, there would be severe declines in quite a few species.”
Thursday, November 5
Food is driving climate change
If the world’s food system — with its focus on meat and mismanagement of food waste — continues as is, it will add nearly 1.5 trillion tons of greenhouse gases over the next 80 years, according to research published in the journal Science.
That amount of emissions would easily push us over 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the 2060s, even if the world stopped burning fossil fuels. But that doesn’t mean we all have to go vegan: If almost everyone ate the recommended number of calories based on their age, for example, it would cut 450 billion tons of greenhouse gases. The Associated Press has the full story.
Saturday, November 6
Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States of America
On Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden was declared the 46th president of the United States, making Kamala Harris the nation’s first woman vice president and Donald Trump the first one-term president in nearly 30 years.
Striking a somber, pragmatic tone, Biden delivered his victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware, calling for unity and an end to “this grim era of demonization in America.”
Biden will come into an office with the most ambitious climate plan of any U.S. president, a welcomed relief after four years of rampant deregulation and climate ignorance and denial. But just how much he’ll be able to do, especially with a Republican-controlled Senate, is still up in the air.
In two posts for Planet Days, we break down the election results — first exploring the U.S.’s falling stature at the international climate table, then arguing why a central theme of Biden’s campaign, patience, must now be applied to climate action.
Bonus
Chameleon lost then found
It took over 100 years, but researchers have finally rediscovered the evasive Voeltzkow’s chameleon in its natural habitat of northwestern Madagascar, CNN reports. The discovery offers hope in a time where up to 1 million species are at risk of extinction.
“Our planet is probably facing the beginning of an enormous extinction of species, often referred to as the ‘sixth mass extinction’,” researchers from Germany and Madagascar wrote in a report. “Rediscoveries of ‘lost’ species are very important as they provide crucial data for conservation measures and also bring some hope amidst the biodiversity crisis.”
See you next week,
Brandon and Sam