Planet Week: The last four years have been disastrous for the Planet
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.
First things first. If you live in the United States, please vote. Tomorrow is Election Day. Now onto the newsletter:
Last week, Exxon announced it would lay off 14,000 employees. Japan and South Korea both pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050. And Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in to the U.S. Supreme Court, undermining the future of climate action.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Monday, October 26
GM and Ford knew
Going back as early as the 1960s, General Motors and Ford knew that emissions from their cars fueled climate change, an investigation by E&E News found. Despite that, both companies lobbied against regulations that would have curbed emissions.
“Instead of shifting their business models away from fossil fuels, the companies invested heavily in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs,” wrote the investigation. “At the same time, the two carmakers privately donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming.”
The five-month investigation, based off dozens of interviews and hundreds of documents, showed that car executives ignored the findings of their own scientists linking car emissions to global warming. The investigation draws striking parallels between top auto manufacturers and ExxonMobil, which, according to a 2015 investigation by InsideClimate News and Los Angeles Times, also knew about climate change in the 1970s yet funded its denial.
Used cars are a pollution problem
At the same time richer countries are tightening car emissions regulations, they’re shipping old, dirty vehicles abroad, according to a new United Nations report.
Between 2015 and 2018, the U.S., European Union, and Japan exported 14 million used passenger vehicles, most of which went to developing regions, such as Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. These areas often have little to no car safety or environmental standards.
“What we found is not a pretty sight,” Rob De Jong, an author of the report, told The New York Times. “Most of these vehicles are very old, very dirty, very inefficient and unsafe.”
Tuesday, October 27
The last four years have been disastrous for the Planet
Election Day is tomorrow, and the results couldn’t be more important for the future of the Planet. A trio of investigations or analyses break down the deregulation decisions of the Trump administration and what to expect should Trump be reelected:
The Center for Public Integrity and Vox detailed the health hazards of recent Environmental Protection Agency rollbacks. Under the Trump administration, the EPA has lifted a number of pollution controls, leading to higher emissions of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and hazardous air pollutants. In its decisions, the EPA has largely ignored the health impacts of their deregulations in favor of cost saving.
InvestigateWest and Grist revealed that the Energy Department has blocked reports for more than 40 clean energy studies, stalling them or burying them in scientific journals that are not accessible to the public. Since the Energy Department drives investment decisions, its roadblocks have directly hurt climate action.
The Washington Post found that the Trump administration has weakened or eliminated more than 125 environmental regulations, with 40 more rollbacks in the works. The decisions have largely favored oil, gas, and logging industries, while weakening protections for wildlife.
Arctic tipping point
Frozen deposits in the Arctic Ocean have started releasing high levels of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times stronger than CO2 in its first 20 years, reports The Guardian.
The continental slope off the East Siberian coast, where the leaks are starting, contains large amounts of methane and other greenhouse gases — meaning it won’t run out anytime soon. And researchers fear this is just the beginning of a new climate feedback loop, one where global warming releases the deposits and the gases exacerbate global warming.
Wednesday, October 28
Hurricane Zeta strikes Gulf Coast
On Wednesday afternoon, Zeta slammed into Southeast Louisiana and then New Orleans as a Category 2 hurricane. The storm, which had winds of up to 110 mph, cut across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, leaving millions without power and throwing a wrinkle in early voting.
Zeta wasn’t expected to be this bad, but winds increased by 45 mph in the last 26 hours before landfall, an intensification that meteorologists linked to California wildfires and an Oklahoma ice storm, reports The Washington Post.
Zeta was the 27th-named storm in this year’s Atlantic hurricane season and the 11th-named storm to hit the continental U.S., the latter of which is a record. There’s still a month of hurricane season left.
Typhoon Molave crashes into Vietnam
Typhoon Molave struck Vietnam’s central coastline on Wednesday, killing at least 130 people and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.
The storm, the fourth in October, brought high winds and heavy rain that triggered landslides in neighborhoods where residents are already battling the worst flooding in decades. Rains continued into the weekend. Reuters has the story.
Protecting land and animals to prevent next pandemic
Investing in biodiversity won’t only save animals and plants — it will also save humans, according to a new report.
The link between habitat destruction and the rise in zoonotic diseases, or diseases spread from animals to humans, is undeniable. And without a real change in trajectory, our disrespect toward the natural world will make pandemics, like COVID-19, come more frequently.
“Without preventative strategies,” the report says, “pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, kill more people, and affect the global economy with more devastating impact than ever before.” Read more at National Geographic.
Bonus
Posters for a Green New Deal
Artists are using these times of political turmoil in the U.S. to advocate for something we desperately need: climate action. In hopes of motivating and mobilizing people, independent artists and designers came together to create Posters for a Green New Deal: 50 Removable Posters to Inspire Change.
“It’s about seeing a poster in someone’s window, thinking about its message, and then getting out to demand green jobs and common-sense legislation that addresses how essential our planet is,” Los Angeles-based-artist Brooke Fischer told The Sierra Club. “It’s when people are vocally demanding that politicians listen.”
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam