Climate Break

The Carbon Cost of Aviation Transportation is a leading contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, with air travel playing a significant role. In the United States, the transportation sector accounted for 29 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. Commercial airplanes and large business jets contributed ten percent of U.S. transportation emissions, and three percent of the nation’s t...

What’s the state of air quality in Ghana? Over the last century, environmental pollution and air quality have been worsening in Africa. An estimated 28,000 deaths in Ghana and 780,000 deaths across the continent each year are associated with poor air quality. The World Health Organization found air pollution in 2020 to be the second highest risk factor for premature death in Ghana. Vehicle emissio...

What are Paleo Valleys?  Paleo Valleys were created at the end of the last ice age by melting glaciers that carved into the sediments deposited in the Central Valley. When the glaciers receded, high-velocity meltwater carried sediments and grain material into the valley. These sediments are extremely porous, and the permeability means they can absorb 60 times more water than surrounding clay. Beca...

What are motorcycle taxis?  Motorcycle taxis are indispensable in East Africa and other developing countries. In large cities  experiencing unplanned growth , agile moto-taxis can navigate congestion while transporting millions of people. In Rwanda, more than half of all vehicles on the road at any moment are motorcycle taxis. But gasoline-powered motorcycles are not cheap: fuel is expensive, main...

What is a Prescribed Burn? Prescribed burns “reduc[e] excessive amounts of brush, shrubs, and trees, encouraging the new growth of native vegetation, and maintaining the many plant and animal species whose habitats depend on periodic fire,” according to Smokey Bear . Prescribed burns are conducted by intentionally igniting a fire on a day with very little to no wind in the forecast, in an area wit...

What are solar windows?   Solar windows, also known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), are windows that generate electricity from sunlight.  They are typically made with thin, transparent layers of photovoltaic material that can capture and convert solar energy into electricity while still allowing light to pass through, so as to avoid sacrificing visibility .  Solar windows are an emerg...

Youth-Led Climate Litigation Worldwide, litigants are turning to the courts as a forum for fighting climate change, filing lawsuits against governments in an attempt to force climate action. Plaintiffs in these lawsuits are often children and young adults, who represent those most affected by government climate inaction. A notable early example of youth-led litigation related to climate change was...

What are Climate Change Disclosure Labels? Highlighting the link between a product’s consumption and its carbon footprint could potentially alter harmful consumer behavior that contributes to climate change. Similar to how warning labels on cigarettes changed the smoking habits of some users, placing climate change disclosure labels on gas pumps could introduce discomfort that serves as an effecti...

What is a cool surface? Cool surfaces are roofs, walls, or pavements that are generally light-colored and highly reflective. When sunlight hits a white surface, its rays bounce off the surface rather than being absorbed, and are reflected back into space. Darker surfaces tend to absorb sunlight, trapping heat. Cool surfaces release this heat back into the atmosphere and space.  What are the benefi...

Peninsula Clean Energy Peninsula Clean Energy is a community choice aggregation (CCA) founded in 2016 that serves about 310,000 customers in San Mateo County and the City of Los Banos. Peninsula Clean Energy has focused on increasing renewables since beginning service, setting higher targets for renewable energy procurement than those mandated by California under the Renewable Portfolio Standard (...

History of Republican Environmentalism The history of Republican environmentalism spans decades. On January 1, 1970, just a few months before the very first Earth Day, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law. NEPA created a program to review and require government agencies to take into consideration the environmental impacts and consequences of their actions or...

What is Community Choice Aggregation? Community Choi ce Aggregation (CCA) is a system that allows local governments to purchase power directly from an energy supplier other than the existing utility. This means that while the existing utility continues to deliver the power, the CCA buys and generates the power itself , potentially from renewable sources. CCAs continue to pay fees to the existing u...

What is nuclear fusion? Nuclear fusion produces energy by fusing atoms together. Atomic cores (nuclei) merge together to form a heavier—though unstable—nucleus, releasing mass to regain stability. This mass release corresponds to an energy release, given Einstein’s equation E=mc2, which says in part that mass and energy can be converted into each other. The sun, along with all other stars, uses nu...

Climate change is increasing flood risk worldwide.   Climate change is intensifying flood risk around the world, with potentially devastating consequences for communities and infrastructure.  As the planet gets hotter, the atmosphere's capacity to hold water vapor increases, leading to more frequent and intense precipitation events in certain regions.  Extreme rainfall events can overwhelm stormwa...

Existing Carbon Tariffs Subsidize Polluting Industries According to new international environmental economic research , most countries’ existing trade policies implicitly subsidize carbon pollution. That’s because many polluting industries, like oil production, face lower tariffs and fewer non-tariff barriers to trade (NTB) than industries selling finished products to consumers. In other words, ca...

Climate Change Exacerbates California’s Wildfires Nearly all of California’s landscapes are naturally fire-dependent or fire-adapted , and this beneficial relationship with fire allows ecosystems to maintain healthy functions and promotes biodiversity. However, high-intensity wildfires disrupt this relationship and cause detrimental damage to these ecosystems as wildfires impact tree regeneration,...

Carbon Sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide to slow the pace of climate change. There are two major types of carbon sequestration: geologic and biologic. Geological carbon sequestration injects carbon dioxide captured from an industrial or energy-related source into underground geologic formations. Biological carbon sequestration ref...

Food Waste is a Global Problem with a Big Carbon Footprint One-third of all food produced is wasted every year – approximately 1.3 billion tons . The UN Environment Program estimates that 3.3 billion tons of CO2 are emitted annually from the resources used to produce wasted food. In the United States alone, 133 billion pounds of edible food, valued at $161 billion , is wasted every year.  Replate’...

What is Carbon Farming? Carbon farming refers to a wide range of agricultural practices that increase carbon sequestration in soil, vegetation, and forests. Conventional agricultural practices often release carbon, but traditional farming practices, permaculture, agroecology, regenerative, and organic farming practices can instead create carbon sinks. As plants photosynthesize, they remove carbon...

Why Community? It’s easy to feel despair about climate change and environmental destruction. But despair can make it hard to forge connections and take action. According to emotion researchers, hope means believing that you have the power to improve problems, rather than ignoring them. One possible source of hope? Community building events, where diverse groups of activists can find common ground....

What is “green” hydrogen? Green hydrogen is an industry term for hydrogen produced using renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power through a process called electrolysis , where an electric current splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. It's also known as renewable or zero-emission hydrogen. It is a clean and sustainable alternative to hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, which generates...

Oysters' Role in Living Shorelines Oysters can serve as an important environmental solution to shoreline restoration. Oyster reefs can provide habitat for hundreds of marine species, improve water quality (as an adult oyster can filter up to fifty gallons of water a day), and protect against erosion and storm surges. Oysters also help stabilize sediments and wave energy, which reduces coastal eros...

Induction-Range Stoves: Gas stoves have recently been in the news as a source of harmful pollutants in the home and generators of greenhouse gas. The adoption of energy-efficient induction-range stovetops could offer a solution. Induction cooktops use electromagnetism to generate heat from directly within cookware, preventing the levels of energy loss seen in conventional gas or electric cooktops....

How do Climate Change and Agriculture Affect Drinking Water? Throughout the US, agricultural and livestock runoff are some of the largest contributors to drinking water pollution, especially in heavily farmed states like California and Iowa. As part of farming, producers use pesticides and fertilizers which, without strategies like cover cropping, can run off and enter the water stream, leading to...

What is the GeoGrid? The Geo Grid is a network of heating pumps that harnesses the geothermal energy stored under the Earth’s surface to heat and cool buildings. It operates through a network of pipes that go deep into the ground and connect houses to each other. These pipes are filled with water, which brings the constant underground temperature up to the Earth’s surface, and into the buildings....