Global demand for electricity grew by 2.2 percent in 2023 after a 2.4 percent growth rate in 2022. China, India and several countries in Southeast Asia experienced rapid growth in electricity demand in 2023, while advanced economies posted significant declines.

Global electricity demand is expected to rise at a faster rate over the next three years, growing by an average of 3.4 percent annually through 2026. The gains will be driven by an improving economic outlook, which will contribute to faster electricity demand growth both in advanced and emerging economies.

Electricity demand will be supported by the ongoing electrification of the residential and transport sectors, as well as a notable expansion of the data center sector.

Data center electricity usage will double by 2026, due to power-intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining. Data centers consumed 460TWh in 2022, a figure that could rise to more than 1,000TWh by 2026, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan. Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10–50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building. The US is home to 33 percent of the world’s data centers, where energy consumption is expected to rise from 200TWh in 2022 to 260TWh in 2026, some six percent of all power use across the country.

In Ireland, data centers could account for 32 percent of all power consumption by 2026 due to a high number of new developments. This compares to 17 percent in 2022. Calls to limit the number of new data center projects in Ireland because of their energy use were rejected by the Irish government last year.

Electricity demand in data centers is from both computing (40 percent) and cooling (40 percent). The remaining 20 percent is consumed by related IT equipment. Market trends, including the incorporation of AI into software programming across a variety of sectors, increase the overall electricity demand of data centers.

Search tools like Google could see a tenfold increase of their electricity demand when fully implementing AI.

When comparing the average electricity demand of a typical Google search (0.3 Wh of electricity) to OpenAI’s ChatGPT (2.9 Wh per request), and considering 9 billion searches daily, this would require almost 10 TWh of additional electricity per year. Similar power demands will be required across the digital cloud. Hopefully, AI will help corporations, advocates and governments  improve measurement and increase resilience, while helping us use energy and resources more efficiently. Better data can promote better plans and better decisions.

“Updated regulations and technological improvements, including efficiency, will be crucial to moderate the surge in energy consumption from data centers,” the report’s authors said.

Meanwhile, electricity demand in China rose by 6.4 percent in 2023, driven by the services and industrial sectors. That figure is expected to slow slightly over the next few years thanks to the rapid deployment of solar electricity.

In 2023, India’s demand for electricity grew by 7 percent. We expect growth above 6 percent on average annually until 2026, supported by strong economic activity and expanding ownership of air conditioners. While renewables will meet almost half of this demand growth, one-third is expected to come from rising coal-fired power. Southeast Asia will see strong annual increases in electricity demand of 5 percent on average through 2026, due to strong economic activity.

Per capita power consumption in Africa even declined in recent years as the population grew faster than electricity supply was made available. Africa’s per capita electricity consumption in 2023 was half that of India.

“The good news is that tech companies are advancing alternative energy sources rapidly,” said Gary Chandler, CEO of Crossbow Communications. “Nuclear power and solar power are experiencing a renaissance on micro and macro scales.”

Read The Full Story About The Global Power Surge

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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Last year was the hottest year on record. Global heating breached 1.5C for full year for first time as January sets new record. Nine of the 10 hottest years have been recorded in the past 10 years, and all 10 have happened since 2005.

January 2024 was the warmest January on record globally according to multiple sources, including the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Here are some key points to remember. January marks the 8th consecutive month with record-high temperatures, highlighting a concerning trend of global warming.

There have been recent discussions about adding a new category to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS). Some experts argue that the current five-category scale doesn’t adequately reflect the destructive potential of the strongest hurricanes. There’s no official proposal yet, but potential characteristics include:

• Sustained winds exceeding 157 mph (252 km/h);
• Storm surge exceeding 25 feet (7.6 meters); and
• Unprecedented levels of damage and potential for loss of life.

Meanwhile, it’s not too late to take action to make our world more resilient in the face of climate change.

Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities. Cities are home to about 50 percent of the world’s population and they generate 80 percent of our planet’s greenhouse gases – the primary human contributor to global warming and climate change. As a result, many communities are experiencing increasing threats of fires, droughts, floods, severe weather, population displacement, and others. Community leaders and citizens around the world must be informed, motivated, coordinated and empowered to be part of the solution. Many communities and many innocent lives have already been lost.

Unfortunately, few local communities have the ability to engage their citizens to develop a common vision around sustainability and resilience. Some need guidance on a collaborative process to achieve consensus. Others need help outlining the spectrum of actions that they can take to cut pollution, save energy, conserve water and promote health and sustainability. Other communities around the world already are in contingency mode and need help mitigating the impacts of climate change on their homes and businesses. For more information, visit Greener Cities.

Sacred Seedlings is a global initiative to support forest conservation, reforestation, urban forestry, carbon capture, sustainable agriculture and wildlife conservation. Deforestation generates about 20 percent of greenhouse gasses, which contribute to global warming and climate change. Deforestation also cripples our planet’s ability to filter carbon dioxide from our air. Destroying these carbon sinks threatens entire watersheds, endangered species and endangered cultures. According to the IPCC, “reducing deforestation and forest degradation rates represents one of the most effective and robust options for climate change mitigation.”

“Local stakeholders around the world are stepping up to defend vital ecosystems,” said Gary Chandler. “We are doing what we can to draw attention to their plights and plans. We have 15 projects ready to go in East Africa today.”

To learn more about our nature-based solutions that are shovel-ready, please visit Sacred Seedlings.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Global Warming Setting Records appeared first on Gary Chandler.

As a native of the American Southwest, I have noticed the impacts of global warming and climate change for the past 20 years, but the momentum and gravity of the situation today are alarming. Until the last decade, the threat has been moving at glacial speed.

Now, climate change is spreading rapidly and the impact is evident from coastal areas to mountaintops. The problems will continue to accelerate. Food and water supplies for millions of people is uncertain. Leadership is lacking to say the least.

In July 2009, a rare night-time tornado hit my neighborhood in the Denver metropolitan area. It blew out my windows with horizontal hail, tore down hardwood trees, ripped up the roof and more. I didn’t even have time to make into the basement. Toto and I just hit the floor in an interior hallway and covered our heads.

At the time, it was the most destructive storm in Colorado history. We were lucky to survive because it came without warning and it could have been much worse. The event changed my life for a decade plus. I still haven’t recovered financially or emotionally, yet I consider myself lucky. Millions of Americans are experiencing similar events on a daily basis today. It’s gut-wrenching to watch because I can relate to what they are experiencing and I know that thoughts, prayers and Band-aids will do very little to help the survivors. Meanwhile, global leaders and many corporations continue to move at glacial speed on solutions–solutions that won’t have much impact for years, if at all. It appears that all attempts at crisis aversion have been abandoned, while the world scratches its head about crisis management.

Summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are higher than they have been in 1,200 years.

Climate change has bumped up average air temperatures 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the region in just the past 100 years, which evaporates more water from streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, plants and soil.

The past year has been the driest or second driest in most Southwestern states since record keeping began in 1895. Almost 75 percent of the American West is experiencing severe drought, which puts more than 57 million people in harm’s way. While the West has long experienced boom and bust cycles of precipitation, climate change is increasing the volatility and intensity of these cycles.

While drought and dry weather occur and vary naturally in the region, the increasing temperatures pushing the American West over the edge are human in origin. Some scientists suggest that the word drought is no longer accurate, because it implies that the water shortages may end. According to their analysis, the added heat and winds from climate change supercharged the drying process, making the current drought the second worst in the last 1,200 years. The Colorado and Rio Grande rivers are trickling compared to their long-term averages.

Thanks to global warming, we can’t rely on the past to predict the future.

Human-caused climate change, in tandem with changes to the natural hydrological systems have shifted the baseline conditions so thoroughly that there is no way to return to what used to be considered normal. Farms and cities have begun imposing water restrictions.

Read the full story about global warming, climate change and the threat to life across the American West.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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You don’t have to be a climatologist to see the warning signs of global warming and climate change. Not only are the problems on the rise, they are accelerating. Most climate models are wrong because they don’t account for the escalation.

Earth’s climate has always changed naturally, but both the global extent and rate of recent warming are unusual. The recent warming has reversed a slow, long-term cooling trend, and research indicates that global surface temperature is higher now than it has been for millennia.

The signs of climate change are unequivocal at the global scale and are increasingly apparent on regions and communities. The high northern latitudes show the largest temperature increase with clear effects on sea ice and glaciers. The warming in the tropical regions is also apparent because the natural year-to-year variations in temperature there are normally small.

Climate models are important tools for understanding past, present and future climate change. They are sophisticated computer programs that are based on fundamental laws of physics of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land.

Climate models have improved and continue to do so, becoming better at capturing complex and small-scale processes and at simulating present-day mean climate conditions. This improvement can be measured by comparing climate simulations against historical observations. Both the current and previous generations of models show that increases in greenhouse gases cause global warming.

As scientists seek to refine our understanding of Earth’s climate system and how it may evolve in coming decades to centuries, past climate states provide a wealth of insights. Data about these past states help to establish the relationship between natural climate drivers and the history of changes in global temperature, global sea levels, the carbon cycle, ocean circulation, and regional climate patterns, including climate extremes.

Guided by such data, scientists use Earth system models to identify the chain of events underlying the transitions between past climatic states. For example, nights are warming faster than days, less heat is escaping to space, and the lower atmosphere (troposphere) is warming but the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) has cooled.

We understand climate change better now compared to when the IPCC started. The first IPCC report, released in 1990, concluded that human-caused climate change would soon become evident, but could not yet confirm that it was already happening.

Today, evidence is overwhelming that human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, including heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation, and tropical cyclones.

With much more data and better models, we also understand more about how the atmosphere interacts with the ocean, ice, snow, ecosystems and land surfaces of the Earth. Computer climate simulations have also improved dramatically, incorporating many more natural processes and providing projections at much higher resolutions. Since 1990, large numbers of new instruments have been deployed to collect data in the air, on land, at sea and from outer space.

IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) incorporates subsequent new evidence from climate science, including new and better representation of physical, chemical and biological processes. Although the report is sobering, answers begin with the truth.

Temperature is a key indicator of the overall climate state, and global surface temperature is fundamental to characterizing and understanding global climate change, including Earth’s energy budget. A rich variety of geological evidence shows that temperature has changed throughout Earth’s history. A variety of natural archives from around the planet, such as ocean and lake sediments, glacier ice and tree rings, shows that there were times in the past when the planet was cooler, and times when it was warmer.

While our confidence in quantifying large-scale temperature changes generally decreases the farther back in time we look, scientists can still identify at least four major differences between the recent warming and those of the past.

• It’s warming almost everywhere.
• It’s warming rapidly.
• Recent warming reversed a long-term global cooling trend.
• It’s been a long time since it’s been this warm.

These conclusions are based on evidence, including direct observations of recent changes in Earth’s climate; analyses of tree rings, ice cores, and other long-term records documenting how the climate has changed in the past; and computer simulations based on the fundamental physics that govern the climate system.

Long-term changes in other variables such as rainfall and some weather and climate extremes have also now become apparent in many regions. It was first noticed that the planet’s land areas were warming in the 1930s. Although increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were suggested as part of the explanation, it was not certain at the time whether the observed warming was part of a long-term trend or a natural fluctuation – global warming had not yet become apparent.

Since then, observed changes in key indicators point to warming over land areas. Oceans are warming. Changes also are evident over the cryosphere – the portion of the Earth where water is seasonally or continuously frozen as snow or ice.

Many aspects of the biosphere are changing. Ecosystems are collapsing. Over the last century, many land species have moved toward the poles and to higher elevations to escape the rising temperatures. Marine species are changing their ranges and migration patterns.

The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.

Warming dominated by past and future CO₂ emissions. Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

Many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming. They include increases in the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, marine heat waves, and heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions, and proportion of intense tropical storms, as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost.

With every increment of global warming, changes get larger in regional mean temperature, precipitation and soil moisture. Projected changes in extremes are larger in frequency and intensity with every additional increment of global warming.

Continued global warming is projected to further intensify the global water cycle, including its variability, global monsoon precipitation and the severity of wet and dry events.

Under scenarios with increasing CO2 emissions, the ocean and land carbon sinks are projected to be less effective at slowing the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The rates of CO2 taken up by the land and oceans are projected to decrease in the second half of the 21st century.

Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level.

Variations in solar and volcanic factors partially masked human-caused surface global warming during 1998–2012.

Since AR5, estimates of remaining carbon budgets have been improved by a new methodology first presented in SR1.5, updated evidence, and the integration of results from multiple lines of evidence. A comprehensive range of possible future air pollution controls in scenarios is used to consistently assess the effects of various assumptions on projections of climate and air pollution. A novel development is the ability to ascertain when climate responses to emissions reductions would become discernible above natural climate variability, including internal variability and responses to natural drivers.

From a physical science perspective, limiting human-induced global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions. Strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CH4 emissions would also limit the warming effect resulting from declining aerosol pollution and would improve air quality.

The effects of substantial reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would not be apparent immediately, and the time required to detect the effects would depend on the scale and pace of emissions reductions.

This Report reaffirms with high confidence the AR5 finding that there is a near-linear relationship between cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the global warming they cause. Each 1000 GtCO2 of cumulative CO2 emissions is assessed to likely cause a 0.27°C to 0.63°C increase in global surface temperature with a best estimate of 0.45°C. This is a narrower range compared to AR5.

This quantity is referred to as the transient climate response to cumulative CO2 emissions (TCRE). This relationship implies that reaching net zero anthropogenic CO2 emissions is a requirement to stabilize human-induced global temperature increase at any level, but that limiting global temperature increase to a specific level would imply limiting cumulative CO2 emissions to within a carbon budget.

Estimated remaining carbon budgets are calculated from the beginning of 2020 and extend until global net zero CO2 emissions are reached. They refer to CO2 emissions, while accounting for the global warming effect of non-CO2 emissions.

Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the most important greenhouse gas emitted by human activities – would slow down the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. However, concentrations would only begin to decrease when net emissions approach zero, that is, when most or all of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year is removed by natural and human processes

Anthropogenic CO2 removal (CDR) leading to global net negative emissions would lower the atmospheric CO2 concentration and reverse surface ocean acidification (high confidence). Anthropogenic CO2 removals and emissions are partially compensated by CO2 release and uptake respectively, from or to land and ocean carbon pools.

CDR would lower atmospheric CO2 by an amount approximately equal to the increase from an anthropogenic emission of the same magnitude. The atmospheric CO2 decrease from anthropogenic CO2 removals could be up to 10 percent less than the atmospheric CO2 increase from an equal amount of CO2 emissions, depending on the total amount of CDR.

If global net negative CO2 emissions were to be achieved and be sustained, the global CO2-induced surface temperature increase would be gradually reversed but other climate changes would continue in their current direction for decades to millennia (high confidence). For instance, it would take several centuries to millennia for global mean sea level to reverse course even under large net negative CO2 emissions.

Achieving global net zero CO2 emissions is a requirement for stabilizing CO2-induced global surface temperature increase, with anthropogenic CO2 emissions balanced by anthropogenic removals of CO2.

Reducing the rate of increase in CO2 concentration would slow down global surface warming within a decade. But this reduction in the rate of warming would initially be masked by natural climate variability and might not be detected for a few decades. Detecting whether surface warming has indeed slowed down would be difficult in the years right after emissions reductions begin.

Reductions in GHG emissions also lead to air quality improvements. However, in the near term, even in scenarios with strong reduction of GHGs, as in the low and very low GHG emission scenarios, these improvements are not sufficient in many polluted regions to achieve air quality guidelines specified by the World Health Organization.

In summary, it is only after a few decades of reducing CO2 emissions that we would clearly see global temperatures starting to stabilize. By contrast, short-term reductions in CO2 emissions, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, do not have detectable effects on either CO2 concentration or global temperature. Only sustained emission reductions over decades would have a widespread effect across the climate system. Access IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report

To address these challenges, Gary Chandler has developed the following two initiatives:

Sacred Seedlings is a global initiative to support forest conservation, reforestation, urban forestry, carbon capture, sustainable agriculture and wildlife conservation. Sustainable land management is critical to the survival of entire ecosystems. 

Greener Cities is a resource for sustainable and resilient cities and communities around the world.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Climate Crisis Gaining Momentum appeared first on Gary Chandler.

As the world comes to grips with the threats associated with global warming and climate change, it’s time to connect more of the dots on the horizon. Neurodegenerative disease, for example, is the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. It’s been steadily rising for more than 50 years. It’s been mismanaged for more than 50 years, which has cost millions of lives. Today, millions more are caught in the crossfire of misinformation, disinformation and mismanagement.

Alzheimer’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Parkinson’s disease are more accurately defined as prion disease. We would all be better served if we connect the dots and refer to this collective scourge as prion disease. The different names are by design to help cloak the problem.

Prions are a deadly form of protein. We all have healthy prions in our bodies. When prions become dysfunctional, all hell breaks loose. It’s the neurological equivalent of cancer, radiation poisoning and more all rolled into one.

Prion disease is described as a wasting disease that causes a loss of body mass and brain mass.

Prion disease is clinically known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). As the name suggests, TSEs are transmissible via bodily fluids and tissue (milk, blood, saliva, mucus, urine, feces, tissue and skin). What this means is that deadly prion contamination is building up in the world around us. Misinformation and mismanagement are making the problem worse.

A variety of factors can trigger prion disease, including genetics, neurotoxins (prion exposure) and head trauma. Prion disease consumes the mind and body. No two cases are identical. The tragedy is that prion disease is a pathway disease. Most pathways are being hidden and mismanaged. Prions are a real-world version of Pandora’s box.

All forms of prion disease are fatal. It appears that all forms of prion disease are infectious, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Unlike a virus or bacteria, a prion cannot be stopped. Prion disease is fatal. Prion disease is highly infectious. With every transmission, the prions involved mutate, migrate and multiply. Prions are the ultimate killing machine. Science, however, uncovers the smoking gun.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing prions and prion disease. President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research. 

Important reforms to policies to protect public health, however, have been elusive.

Prusiner’s most recent study confirms that Alzheimer’s disease is a prion disease, which means that millions of people with Alzheimer’s disease (and millions who died ahead of them) are highly infectious. Prion diseases are fatal, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) that affect humans and other animals.

“This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that amyloid beta and tau are both prions, and that Alzheimer’s disease is a double-prion disorder in which these two rogue proteins together destroy the brain,” said Prusiner. 

The prion pandemic impacts more than humans. Most, if not all, mammals are susceptible to prion disease. Mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease are part of the same pandemic. The prion pathogen has been building up in our food, water and communities for decades.

Prions are such a formidable threat that the U.S. government enacted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. The U.S. government initially classified prions as select agents that pose an extreme risk to food, water and public health. After reconsidering the regulatory threat to multiple industries, all prion regulations were dropped by governments around the world.

Read the full story about climate change, infectious waste and public health.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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By Gary Chandler, Greener Cities

The battle against climate change suddenly has a new champion amidst a stunning leadership crisis. Better late than never.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has emerged from the back of the pack to take the lead where other capitalists have been afraid to lead or follow. The world’s richest man committed $10 billion of his personal fortune to set up the new Bezos Earth Fund, which would support “scientists, activists, NGOs—any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.”

The announcement is light on details, but climate experts say it’s a massive investment and a tremendous opportunity that could give the warming planet a fighting chance. Hopefully, it will fund solutions, not meaningless studies and smokescreens.

Ten billion dollars is an unfathomable amount of money for climate change research and activism.

It dwarfs the $4 billion that 29 philanthropic organizations pledged to fighting climate change in 2018, in what was called the largest investment of its kind at the time. It’s so much money that it will likely be difficult to spend on existing researchers and organizations, as The Atlantic noted.

“It will shape the whole nature of the climate movement,” says Robert J. Brulle, a professor emeritus at Drexel University studying politics and the environment. “There’s going to be this mad rush of cash.”

Brulle’s research on spending by opponents of the climate movement helps put the Bezos Earth Fund into perspective. From 2000 to 2016, he found, electric utilities, fossil fuel companies, and the transportation sector collectively spent over $1.2 billion on climate change lobbying. Another study found that from 1986 to 2015, five of the largest fossil fuel firms together spent at least $3.6 billion on corporate promotion advertisements in the US.

It’s not just the amount that matters, but how Bezos team invest the money. As CEO of Amazon, Bezos hasn’t exactly led the charge on progressive corporate policies around climate change and the environment. The company has been criticized for years by environmental groups like Greenpeace over its business practices and lack of transparency; the nonprofit CDP told Bloomberg News last year that it was one of the biggest carbon emitters in the world outside the fossil fuel industry.

Thousands of Bezos’ own workers affiliated with the group Amazon Employees For Climate Justice have pushed for the company to do more to mitigate its enormous impact on the environment, including by staging a walkout.

In that context, it’s easy to see Bezos’ commitment as a shrewd political move meant to pacify his workforce, or atonement for the environmental sins that made him the richest man in the world—a rank he would still hold even minus the $10 billion. Bezos had previously given relatively little of his fortune to charity, choosing instead to spend on efforts like Blue Origin, his space travel company. With one pledge, the CEO immediately joins the philanthropic ranks of tech titans like Bill Gates, who has donated over $45 billion through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It’s not clear if Bezos will be willing to fight the fossil fuel industry directly, which Amazon counts as an important customer. When Bezos announced an ambitious new plan for his company to reduce its carbon footprint in September, the CEO said Amazon’s cloud computing division would nonetheless continue working with oil and gas providers.

“Anyone who’s serious about taking on climate change has to be serious about taking on the fossil fuel industry, because they’re the ones blocking progress,” says Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist and the founder of the climate change organization 350.org. For the Amazon CEO to directly oppose his counterparts in another industry, McKibben adds, “That would require a kind of class betrayal on Bezos’ part—it will be interesting to see if he’s capable of it.”

Environmental experts have suggested that the Bezos Earth Fund should invest quickly in solutions that already exist today. Millions of natural gas furnaces across the country could be replaced with energy-efficient heat pumps, for example, or harmful gas leaks could be plugged. Forest conservation and reforestation also are easy steps that are part of the answer. Ending government subsidies to oil companies can level the playing field for alternative energy supplies. Where there is a will, there is a way forward. Answers begin with the truth and obstruction isn’t an option.

“If Bezos could focus $10 billion on critical technologies that are available right now, he could make them scale, he could make them cheap, he could make them widespread,” notes Foley. “Now is better than new.”

Leah Stokes, a professor studying climate and environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, hopes Bezos uses the funds to strategically involve governments, which Amazon would benefit from too. New public infrastructure projects could help to optimize its logistics networks for delivering packages, for example. There are also plenty of more fundamental benefits. “If you think about these big Silicon Valley companies, they’re all on the coast,” says Stokes. “They’re all going to be affected by sea level rise, that’s not going to be good for their corporations.”

Even as Bezos funds his initiative, Amazon has a strong interest in shaping the climate debate, so that whatever government response eventually emerges doesn’t injure its business. (To cover its right flank, last year the company co-sponsored the annual gala of a climate-denying think tank.) After all, Amazon’s constellation of servers has a massive carbon footprint, about the same as that of a wealthy European nation; the company is transforming global patterns of consumption, so that cheap goods can almost instantaneously arrive at any doorstep.

Even if Amazon aims to slash its own emissions, it’s creating an economy that seems likely to undermine its stated goal of carbon neutrality. A reasonable debate about planetary future would at least question the wisdom of the same-day delivery of plastic tchotchkes made in China. Then there are the policies that permit companies, like Amazon, to pay virtually nothing in taxes—revenue that would ideally fund, say, a Green New Deal. It hardly seems likely that the Bezos Earth Foundation will seek to erode the very basis of the fortune that funds it.

A skeptical response to the Bezos Earth Fund doesn’t preclude the hope that it will do real good. Michael Bloomberg’s climate philanthropy has played an important role in shutting down coal-fired power plants. And unlike Obama-era policy, Bloomberg’s efforts have proved difficult for the Trump administration to roll back. Perhaps Bezos will find similarly effective vehicles for injecting his money. Given the influence of the Koch brothers and the rest of the fossil-fuel industry, the political fight over climate policy is in desperate need of a bottomless benefactor.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

The post Can Bezos Deliver On Sustainability appeared first on Gary Chandler.

Sixty percent of the nation’s heavily polluted Superfund sites—nearly 950 of them—are at risk from the impacts of climate change, including hurricane storm surges and flooding that could spread their toxic legacies into waterways, communities and farmland, a new federal report warns.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office report, released Monday, describes the increased risk of toxic substances being washed out by flooding at sites across the country, as well as wildfire risks that could send health-harming pollutants airborne.

It recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the federal Superfund program, start providing clear, agency-wide instructions on how its officials should incorporate climate change into Superfund site risk assessments and response decisions. 

That would be a change for the current administration. Currently, the EPA does not include climate change in its agency-wide goals and objectives, preventing the agency from addressing the added risks at contaminated sites across the country as the planet warms, the report concluded.

“The Superfund program is not providing necessary resources and direction to regional officials that would help them assess and respond to site-specific risks due to climate change,” a dozen members of Congress, led by Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in response to the report.

“The lack of resources for regional offices is a direct result of EPA headquarters’ failure to embrace addressing climate change as a strategic objective,” the letter stated.

Of the nearly 1,600 national priority list Superfund sites not on federal land that were examined in the report, more than half are at increased risk from flooding or storm surge.

One example is a site in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with contaminated soil and groundwater from 27 unlined chemical waste lagoons stemming from more than 90 years of chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The site is in a 100-year flood zone and could be reached by the storm surge from powerful hurricanes. Heavy rains from Hurricane Irene flooded the site in 2011, though subsequent testing by EPA concluded no significant release of contaminants occurred.

Another example is the San Jacinto River waste pits near Houston. Dioxins, chemicals that can cause cancer and liver and nerve damage, were dumped in and near the San Jacinto River from paper mills in the 1960s. In 2010, the EPA required the paper mills responsible for the cleanup to install a temporary cap over the waste. Since installation, however, the EPA has observed repeated damage to the cap, including during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, damage that led to high levels of dioxins detected in the area.

More than 200 sites are at increased risk from wildfires, the GAO found. One example highlighted in the report is the Iron Mountain Mine site near Redding, California. Acidic runoff from the mine includes copper, cadmium and zinc that are toxic to fish and other aquatic life. In 2018, the Carr Fire nearly destroyed the site’s water treatment system, and fire was subsequently discovered inside a pipe leading into the mine that could have led to an explosion had it reached the mine.

The GAO also found that nearly 100 Superfund sites would be inundated if sea level rose by 1 foot.

Globally, sea level has risen 7 to 8 inches since 1900, and it is expected to rise another half foot to 1.2 feet compared to 2000 levels by 2050, according to the National Climate Assessment. In its report, the GAO also cites the National Climate Assessment’s warnings about how rising global temperatures exacerbate hurricanes, storm surges, wildfires and flooding.

EPA Responses

Investigators with the GAO, Congress’s watchdog, reviewed documents from federal agencies and interviewed EPA officials about the how climate risks were being assessed at Superfund sites at the request of members of Congress.

EPA officials in six of the agency’s 10 regions said they have not used climate change projections for flooding or rainfall in Superfund site assessments, according to the report.

Officials in Region 6, an area that includes Texas and several other surrounding states, told GAO investigators that they do not incorporate any potential impacts of climate change into their assessments.

Peter Wright, an assistant administrator for the agency, wrote in response to the GAO report: “The EPA strongly believes the Superfund program’s existing processes and resources adequately ensure that risks and any effects of severe weather events, that may increase in intensity, duration, or frequency, are woven into risk response assessments.”

What we have seen so far is “certainly just the beginning,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

“All the projections are that coastal storms and inland precipitation have nowhere to go but up, and that is going to steadily increase the number of Superfund sites that are vulnerable,” he said. 

Other contaminated sites that are not considered in the current report will also be increasingly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, Gerrard said. “There is a much larger universe of contaminated sites that could also be vulnerable.”

Read The Full Story About Climate Change and Toxic Waste

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist, has skipped school to strike on the steps of Stockholm’s Parliament building each Friday since August 2018 to demand government action on climate change. Students around the world have joined her campaign to spotlight the problems of global warming and government gridlock.

“Our future civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people who want to continue making enormous amounts of money at our expense,” Thunberg said.

The action is intended to put the spotlight on an issue that impacts all Americans, regardless of party affiliation. They will join some 700 similar actions across 71 countries to protest the failure of world leaders to address climate change.

“The youth of our world are calling for our politicians, parents, family, the older generations to stand with us,” Baines said. “We want a future, we want to have children. And what is the point of education if there’s not going to be a livable Earth?”

Baines pointed to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that leaders have just 11 years to take action to avoid catastrophic climate change, including the reduction of global carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Industry groups in Colorado have said recent moves to limit oil and gas production, a major contributor to climate pollution, would cost the state millions in tax revenues and jobs.

According to the report, most land regions are experiencing greater warming than the global average, while most ocean regions are warming at a slower rate.

Depending on the temperature dataset considered, 20–40 percent of the global human population live in regions that have already experienced warming of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Human influence on global warming and climate change has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.

Even the U.S. Department of Defense considers climate change as a significant security threat. Climate impacts, including chronic flooding, drought and wildfires, will require increased maintenance and repair at U.S. military sites now and over the next 20 years. The DoD report also clearly recognizes the global nature of the challenges, including growing risks of climate-related humanitarian crises and the need for disaster relief.

So, why do we have such a leadership vacuum on Capitol Hill?

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, policies incentivizing investment in renewables would create three times as many jobs as industries producing electricity from fossil fuels, while boosting local tax revenues. Baines said renewables are a small portion of the overall energy sector in the U.S. today. But clean-energy jobs already outnumber fossil-fuel jobs.

“Think about how many more long-term net jobs will be created by transitioning to a 100 percent renewable economy,” she said. “Cutting air pollution can promote a healthier economy and healthier citizens.”

Of course, those concerned with the impacts of climate change also must keep deforestation in the spotlight. Deforestation contributes to global warming, while reducing the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Urban forests make our cities more resilient.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria have poured new fuel on the debate over man-made climate change. It’s unfortunate that there is even a debate at all. We are wasting critical time and resources as we seek to justify our overconsumption and our fascination with capitalizing on the misfortunes of others.

Houston will never be the same. Islands across the Florida Keys have been reduced to rubble. Puerto Rico is largely uninhabitable with lack of power, water and food. Residents of New York and New Jersey still haven’t recovered from hurricane Sandy. New Orleans is still suffering from the impacts of Katrina in 2005. Meanwhile, in the wake of each disaster comes the fraud and fleecing of innocent citizens in the danger zone and beyond.

Since global warming and climate change are beyond the grasp of the special interests and their disciples, let’s dissect the issue from a different perspective.

The issue really boils down to energy waste and air pollution. Those who deny global warming are blowing smoke up your skirt. They want you to think that air pollution is fertilizer. Without taxpayer subsidies of billions of dollars annually, free-market capitalism would drive energy policies and innovation vs. costly policies that promote inefficiency and waste (not to mention favoritism/fascism, which isn’t capitalism). Does that waste and market manipulation contribute to global warming?

Conduct an experiment. Turn on your car and close the garage.

CO2 builds up in the atmosphere just like it does in your garage. CO2 kills people and the planet.

Add global deforestation to the equation and we are staring at an ecological disaster and a public health disaster (deforestation is like turning off the exhaust fan in your garage). So, is it a good idea to waste energy and our only God-given home?

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications. He is the author of several books about health and environmental issues from around the world. He also is the author of the Language and Travel Guide To Indonesia.

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The future isn’t what it used to be. The lives of future generations are counting on more sustainable practices and policies.

Cities are home to about 50 percent of the world’s population, but they generate 80 percent of our planet’s greenhouse gases – the primary human contributor to global warming and climate change. As a result, many communities are experiencing increasing threats of fires, droughts, floods, severe weather, population displacement, and others. Community leaders and citizens around the world must be informed, motivated, coordinated and empowered to be part of the solution.

Gary Chandler has spent most of his career defending the planet and its underdogs.

Chandler promotes sustainability issues, including climate change, deforestation, biodiversity, sustainable cities. The concept of sustainable living is not new, but it is experiencing growing interest again because of rising energy costs, depleted natural resources, polluted natural resources, population growth, and concerns about climate change and diminishing resources.

At the local level, comprehensive and collaborative visioning and planning efforts, followed by numerous actions, will be a key to success. Civic leaders need guidance and resources to engage all stakeholders. They need role models, case studies, networks, mentors, financial assistance, and incentives to help them exchange experiences and resources.

The Greener Cities program can help minimize civic gridlock and promote rapid progress in our race for sustainability for future generations.

The Greener Cities program will feature two core components – a comprehensive and dynamic online portal and a prestigious international awards program. Both can be hosted in your city and produced in partnership with other stakeholders, which will help attract thousands of influential leaders to our host city each year. As a partner in the Greener Cities program, the host city will further position itself as the leader in international business and sustainability.

Chandler is a veteran communications strategist with more than 30 years of experience in marketing, public affairs and issue management. He has influenced public opinion and public policy around the world. He is a record-setting marketing strategist and an award-winning public affairs professional. In his spare time, he writes books about sustainability, natural resources and wildlife conservation.

Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications — an award-winning public affairs and government affairs firm. We specialize in public health and environmental issues. We serve the world.

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