Planet Week: Tampa’s toxic leak
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, Shell’s oil production earned a profit for the first time since the pandemic hit. Officials warned the Western United States to brace for severe drought and a very active wildfire season. And GM rolled out its electric pickup truck.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Sunday, April 4
Tampa’s toxic leak
Last weekend, a former fertilizer plant’s reservoir began leaking wastewater contaminated by phosphorus and nitrogen. Unchecked, the leak could have burst through the earthen wall containing the wastewater, causing widespread flooding throughout Manatee County, just south of Tampa.
To avoid such a catastrophe, officials ordered the evacuation of 300 Tampa-area homes and began pumping millions of gallons of wastewater a day out of the reservoir and into Tampa Bay. Though that decision now poses environmental problems, as increased phosphorus and nitrogen levels can cause algal blooms that kill fish.
By Tuesday, evacuation orders were lifted, and by late Thursday, the flows of wastewater into the lake had dropped significantly, according to officials. Lawmakers are now proposing $200 million to clean up and close the reservoir, though how they do that remains largely unanswered. USA TODAY shows what went wrong.
Cyclone Seroja slams Indonesia
Early last week, Tropical Cyclone Seroja slammed into Indonesia and neighboring East Timor, bringing heavy winds and rainfall. The resulting landslides and flash floods killed at least 128 people, displaced more than 8,000 people, and damaged some 2,000 buildings, reports Reuters.
Climate change makes once-rare cyclones like these more common, while deforestation creates conditions ripe for landslides. Meanwhile, COVID-19 creates health concerns for evacuation centers fearing an outbreak.
Tuesday, April 6
CO2 is halfway to doubling pre-industrial levels
CO2 levels are at record highs. For the first time, the concentration of this heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere surpassed 420 parts per million, according to data from Hawaii’s Mauna Lab Observatory. That’s an important milestone, as it’s halfway to doubling CO2’s pre-industrial levels.
Should we continue on this path, temperatures will spike well beyond any climate goals, causing widespread suffering and death, disproportionately hurting already-vulnerable communities. Though these numbers are a warning sign, they don’t have to be a dead-end.
“We can’t avoid climate change — it’s already here,” Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at NASA, wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “[But] it’s still possible to escape the worst with smart policy that recognizes the scale of the threat and the need for quick action.”
Wednesday, April 7
Banks’ deep ties to fossil fuels
Financial institutions have made some serious pledges to help slow the climate crisis, but a new review finds that 77% of bank leaders worldwide have ties to “non-eco-friendly” organizations, like oil and gas corporations or trade groups that lobby against climate legislation.
Four U.S. banks — JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup — are even funding Northern Minnesota’s controversial Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. All four banks have recently issued net-zero pledges. HEATED has the story.
How Biden plans to pay for it
United States President Joe Biden seems keen to spend money to fight climate change (much of his $2 trillion infrastructure plan does just that). But now, many are asking, “How are we going to pay for it?” Last week, Biden started answering this question.
On Wednesday, Biden released his tax plan, which reverses Trump-era corporate tax breaks, increasing taxes on corporations from 21 to 28 percent and generating over $2 trillion in revenue over 10 years, reports The New York Times. The plan also includes provisions to tackle the climate crisis, replacing fossil fuel subsidies with clean energy incentives — Volts has more on that.
On a related note, Biden sent his first budget request to Congress on Friday. The green part of that budget, outlined by Axios, includes a $14 billion boost for climate initiatives, with focuses on “energy efficiency, resilience, environmental justice, and research and development.”
Thursday, April 8
Antarctic ice sheets on verge of collapse
Our icy South Pole is in trouble. If the Planet warms 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, more than a third of Antarctic ice shelves could be at risk of collapse, according to new research.
Such a scenario would release “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea. On the other hand, limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees rather than 4 degrees would halve the area at risk and could avoid significant sea-level rise. The Independent has more.
Friday, April 9
Unique island species at risk in warming world
A new study finds that 90% of endemic species — plants and animals that only live in one region — will face adverse climate impacts if warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius, reports Carbon Brief. The research also finds invasive species could benefit from a warming climate, leading to a drop in biodiversity as these invasive species overtake endemic ones.
“We would expect to have cascade effects that might change whole environments, and in the end, harm humankind through weakening of services that biodiversity brings us,” Mariana Vale, one of the paper’s authors, told The Guardian. “It would make a whole lot of difference to biodiversity worldwide if we could keep and reach the Paris agreement. It’s not a small difference, it’s a world of difference.”
Bonus
Cicadas = Bird baby boom
After 17 years underground, billions of cicadas in the Eastern U.S. will crawl out of the ground this spring to fly, sing, mate, and die. Though the species, collectively called Brood X, will only be active four to six weeks, they’ll give the ecosystem a boost: Predator species like birds will feast on the carcasses left behind.
“In response to this superabundance of food, a lot of the predator populations have outrageously good years,” Richard Karban, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis, told Scientific American. “But then the next year, and in the intervening years, there’s no food for them, so their populations crash again.”
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam