Pipeline firm gets $3.3-million fine for worst California oil spill in 25 years

A pipeline company was fined nearly $3.35 million Thursday for causing the worst California coastal spill in 25 years.

A judge issued a fine and penalties against Plains All American Pipeline for a 2015 spill that sent 140,000 gallons of crude oil gushing onto Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. The spill from a corroded pipeline blackened popular beaches for miles, killed wildlife, and hurt tourism and fishing.  https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pipeline-spill-refugio-beach-fine-20190425-story.html

Article courtesy of The Los Angeles Times by The Associated Press

World’s second largest emperor penguin colony ‘disappeared overnight’ with thousands of chicks wiped out

The world’s second largest emperor penguin colony is believed to have been effectively wiped out overnight, with thousands of chicks drowning after an ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed.  https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/emperor-penguins-deaths-sea-ice-collapse-climate-change-antarctic-a8885641.html
Article courtesy of The Independent by Harry Cockburn

Solar Energy Capacity in U.S. Cities Has Doubled in the Last 6 Years

Solar power capacity has more than doubled in 45 of America’s 57 largest cities over the past six years, according to a recent report by the non-profit Environment America Research & Policy Center. And one-third of U.S. cities as much as quadrupled their photovoltaic capacity, including New York City, Seattle, and Dallas.  https://e360.yale.edu/digest/solar-energy-capacity-in-u-s-cities-has-doubled-in-the-last-6-years
Article courtesy of YaleEnvironment 360 By E360 Digest

How China’s ‘Unicorns’ Shook a Bicycle Town

WANGQINGTUO, China — This farm grows bikes, by the looks of it. Hundreds of blue and mint-green bicycles stand in rows on this field in Wangqingtuo, the small community that calls itself “bicycle town.” Only the occasional caretaker and a pen of bleating goats watch over them as they rust.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/business/china-bike-sharing-unicorns.html
Article courtesy of The New York Times by Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li

OCEAN WAVES ARE GETTING BIGGER AND CLIMATE CHANGE APPEARS TO BE TO BLAME

Extreme ocean winds and waves have become more common over the past three decades, according to scientists who warn climate change could be causing the trend.

A team of experts at the University of Melborne looked at around 4 billion observations of wind speed and wave height captured by 31 satellites between 1985 and 2018.  https://www.newsweek.com/ocean-waves-are-getting-bigger-and-climate-change-appears-be-blame-1405672

Article courtesy of Kashmira Gander

Americans Are Among the Most Stressed People in the World, Poll Finds

Americans are among the most stressed people in the world, according to a new survey. And that’s just the start of it.

Last year, Americans reported feeling stress, anger and worry at the highest levels in a decade, according to the survey, part of an annual Gallup poll of more than 150,000 people around the world, released on Thursday.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/americans-stressful.html

Article courtesy of The New York Times by Niraj Chokshi

'Air bear' flight to Russian Arctic returns polar bear who drifted 400 miles south on ice

An “air bear” helicopter flight has returned a polar bear to the Russian Arctic after he drifted more than 400 miles south on an ice floe. Fishermen ran into the two-year-old male bear last week near Tilichiki, an isolated village in the Kamchatka region on Russia's Pacific coast. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/23/air-bear-flight-russian-arctic-returns-polar-bear-drifted-400/

Article courtesy of The Telegraph News by Alex Luhn-Moscow

Winter Is Coming — But Not For NYC’s Rats

By some measures, New York is the second most rat-infested city in the United States, and the problem has gotten worse in recent years. Data show that in 2010, just over 10,500 rat complaints were made to the city’s 311 complaint line, but seven years later, complaints had nearly doubled, hitting more than 19,000 at the end of 2017. But it took a while for officials to investigate the role of rising temperatures in the population boom.  https://nexusmedianews.com/winter-is-coming-but-not-for-nycs-rats-e5484767f613
Article courtesy of Nexus Media by Molly Taft

Greenland Is Falling Apart

Since 1972, the giant island’s ice sheet has lost 11 quadrillion pounds of water.  https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/how-much-ice-has-greenland-lost-climate-change/587431/
This article coutesy of The Atlantic by Robinson Meyer

Air pollution: smog, soot is worst in California

California's reign as the U.S. state with the worst air pollution continues, with Los Angeles again the nation's smoggiest metro area, according to a new report released Wednesday.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/24/air-pollution-smog-soot-worst-california/3551734002/
Article courtesy of USA Today by Doyle Rice

Flood survivors are identifying the root causes of repeated flooding

Sea-level rise is inundating coastal cities, where “sunny-day flooding” is now a thing. Rising seas contribute to high-tide flooding, which has grown by a factor of five to 10 since the 1960s in many U.S. coastal communities — and that trend that is expected to accelerate in the future.   https://ensia.com/features/flood-survivors-victims-organize-for-change/
Article coutesy of Ensia by Lauri Mazur Editor of the Island Press Urban Resilience Project

NHL to purchase carbon offsets to counter playoff air travel

The National Hockey League said on Monday it would purchase carbon credits to offset airline emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases during the Stanley Cup playoffs. For the first round of the playoffs, which has the highest number of teams traveling and is currently underway, the NHL will offset more than 465 metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to taking 99 cars off the road for one year.  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-icehockey-nhl-offsets/nhl-to-purchase-carbon-offsets-to-counter-playoff-air-travel-idUSKCN1RY1JB
Article courtesy of Reuters by Rory Carroll

Remember Harvey? Houston remains unprepared for the next big flood

In 1914, upon completion of the Houston Ship Channel, city leaders organized a massive carnival on the scale of Mardis Gras, which involved hundreds of revelers riding decorated floats down Buffalo Bayou.  https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Remember-Harvey-Houston-remains-unprepared-for-13710325.php?cmpid=opn
Article courtesy of Houston Chronicle by The Editorial Board

Electric vehicles are the road to the future

The Coalition's scare campaign against electric vehicles (EVs) is hypocritical and Luddite but the bright side is it might, at long last, start a meaningful debate about the role the transport sector can play in cutting carbon emissions.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/electric-vehicles-are-the-road-to-the-future-20190410-p51cte.html
Article courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald

While Congress does nothing, New York City passed its own climate legislation

New York City passed groundbreaking climate legislation, including the largest mandated pollution reduction in any city in the world, just ahead of Earth Day. “Future generations will look back at this moment and they will think of this as one of the most important bills,” Bill Lipton, the director of the Working Families Party, told the crowd at City Hall. “We are starting to turn a corner.”  https://massivesci.com/articles/green-new-deal-new-york-climate-mobilization-act-align/
Article courtesy of Massive Science by Greta Moran

Startup Nikola Bets Hydrogen Will Finally Break Through With Big Rigs

Hydrogen has been a promising but elusive vehicle fuel for half a century, powering a range of fuel cell cars and SUVs but never quite solving cost and efficiency snags and lack of fuel stations that make it less attractive than batteries for zero-emission vehicles. The problem isn’t the technology, argues the founder of Arizona startup Nikola Motor, but that big trucks are a much better choice for hydrogen.   https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/04/14/can-a-15-billion-bet-on-fuel-cell-big-rigs-be-a-game-changer-for-hydrogen/#3901d6b1fe4c
Article courtesy of Forbes by Alan Ohnsman

Arctic is warmest it's been in 10,000 years, study suggests

Researchers studied permafrost samples in the Yukon near the Dempster Highway and determined that temperatures in the Arctic today are almost 2 C warmer than at any time in the past 10,000 years.

The temperatures recorded today are even higher than the previous highs believed to have occurred during the early Holocene period, about 9,900 and 6,400 years ago, when Earth's axis was tilted more strongly toward the sun, the report states.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-warmest-in-10000-years-1.5094392?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

Article courtesy of CBC News Written by Alex Brockman, Interview by Qavavao Peter