Environment

NASA Starts Spotting Super Methane Emitters

- Adam Clare

Natural gas, AKA methane, is really bad for the planet, and since it occurs some places “naturally” we need to find these new sources to stop them emitting. A classic example of “natural” methane production is a garbage dump in which the organic compounds mix together and release natural gas, another example is cattle farming (cow farts).

NASA now has a satellite that can detect and therefore monitor these sources of methane. This is really important for two reason: it allows us to better model climate change since we can detect unaccounted for natural gas sources and the other reason is that we can then go and shutdown these previously unrecognized sources.

“Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed — quickly,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

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Green and other EMIT team members gave some examples of the instrument’s sensitivity during the Tuesday media call. For example, the instrument detected a plume of methane — also known as natural gas — at least 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) long in the sky above an Iranian landfill. This newfound super-emitter is pumping about 18,700 pounds (8,500 kilograms) of methane into the air every hour, the researchers said.

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Only a Small Number of People Need to Change to Avert Climate Destruction

- Adam Clare
private jet during sunset

You’re not the problem! The problem is the 1%.

Our global carbon footprint has risen dramatically since 1990, but only a few people are to blame for the worst of it. The wealthy have been increasing their carbon output without regard for anybody on the planet (or future generations). Reducing their carbon output is simple and easy, many ideas have been put on this very site. As always, we need politicians brave enough to stand up for the majority of people.

He finds that per-capita emissions of the top 1% of emitters in the world grew by 26% over 1990-2019. The top 0.01% saw an even larger rise of 80%. Meanwhile, the bottom half of emitters saw a more modest 16% increase in per-capita emissions. And the “lower- and middle-income groups of the rich countries” saw a drop in per capita emissions of 5-15%.

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Leaf Blowers Getting Blown Away

- Adam Clare

Leave your leaves alone! Leaf blowers, like lawn mowers, are counterproductive to a productive piece of land. If you want a better, healthier, garden next year then you should let leaves lie over winter instead of blowing them away (the same is true for lawns, but you probably don’t have a lawn anyway). If a healthy land isn’t why you stop using leaf blowers then you may find your local municipality banning them for a variety of reasons. Indeed, in Toronto’s mayoral race Gil Penalosa wants to ban them city-wide, just like any world class city already do.

The American Lung Association recommends electric leaf blowers over gas-powered ones because “old two-stroke engines like lawnmowers and leaf or snow blowers often have no pollution control devices. They can pollute the air even more than cars, though engines sold since 2011 are cleaner.”

According to a study from Washington University, in addition to air pollution, when heat and sunlight react with nitrogen oxides and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)emitted from combustion engines—such as gas-powered leaf blowers—ozone becomes a problem.

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Farm Fields of Solar Produce Bonuses

- Adam Clare
Solar panels on grass

In the UK the average person wants to get off fossil fuels, but the Conservatives in power want the opposite. Obviously this is not good, and it gets worse: the new PM Liz Truss wants to ban solar panels on farms, Conservatives clearly don’t understand how the world works.

The good news comes from research proving that agrivoltaics (agriculture + solar voltaic panels) are a boon to farmers. Solar panels on farms are good for revenue for farms, renewable energy, and the very crops farms are growing. Yes, solar panels on farm increase crop production!

“One study found certain peppers will have three times the production,” said Bousselot. “That’s a shocking number.”

As global temperatures rise, the panels can also help to conserve dwindling freshwater supplies by reducing evaporation from both plants and soil.

What evaporation does occur underneath the panels has the added benefit of cooling the PVs and boosting their electricity production, according to Randle-Boggis, a research associate at the University of Sheffield.

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Flooding a Slovakian Forest to Improve it

- Adam Clare

The good folks at Mossy Earth are flooding a forest in Slovakia, and it’s to protect the environment. You might think that flooding a forest would be a bad thing since we need forests to store carbon and clean the air; however, wetlands are far better at storing carbon than forests. Wetlands are wonderful for carbon capture and are even better as a habitat for many at-risk species. Whenever possible, we need to protect our wetlands (if you’re in Ontario let your anti-wetland Conservative MPP know you want wetlands saved).

This ambitious project aims to restore an area of degraded wetland by digging water channels that will reconnect the site to a nearby river. These channels will enable water to travel from the river to the core area of the wetland and restore a more beneficial flooding regime. The project will also remove encroaching woody vegetation that is outcompeting the native wetland plant communities.

Over time this intervention will:

  • create suitable conditions for the regeneration of the wetland plant communities;
  • suppress the expansion of non-native plant species;
  • create suitable habitat for a diversity of invertebrates, amphibians, birds and mammals;
  • and finally, sequester vast amounts of carbon.

Within the next two years, we will be supporting our partners Broz to create 650 meters of water channels to restore a 64ha wetland.

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