As
the year ends, The New York Times asked reporters who have focused on
climate change, global warming and the environment to choose the news
they reported on that was the most memorable. These are their
selections, ranging from sea level rise to the phenomenon of "rolling
coal" to local actions to confront a warming planet.
From One Hottest Year Into the Next
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| Clockwise from top left: flooding in Alexandria, Va., in June; a house raised on temporary supports in Norfolk, Va.; flooding in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in May; drought conditions at Lake Purdy in Alabama in October. Credit Clockwise from top left: Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times; Eliot Dudik for The New York Times; Eranga Jayawardena, via Associated Press; Brynn Anderson, via Associated Press |
The year in climate news began with a theme that is growing familiar: word that 2015 had been the warmest year on record, just beating out 2014.
The
immediate cause in both cases was a powerful climate pattern, known as
El Niño, in which the tropical Pacific Ocean poured an enormous amount
of heat into the global atmosphere, disrupting weather patterns
on every continent. But scientists said the back-to- back heat records
would not have occurred without an underlying trend of global warming
caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
That physical reality does not seem to be making much of an impression in the United States Congress,
where a large number of lawmakers continue to claim that the warming
trend is somehow not real, or is even the product of a global scientific hoax.
But in the real world, the effects are starting to be felt as never
before. As land ice melts the world over and heat absorption causes
ocean water to expand, the sea level is rising. Coastal communities from
Norfolk, Va., to Miami are being forced to reckon with the consequences.
A
small detail: Tidal flooding is becoming so common that towns are
posting "No Wake" signs on the streets, where vehicles driving a little
too fast through a foot or two of seawater can send damaging waves
crashing against nearby property.
The
extreme burst of global temperature records waned late in the year as
the cooler La Niña weather pattern replaced El Niño in the tropical
Pacific. But even so, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in November that 2016 would most likely beat 2015 to become the record-warmest year, the first time such a global temperature record will have been set three years in a row. — Justin Gillis
Countering Denial by Being Nice
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| Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times |
How do you talk about climate change during a presidential administration that denies it's happening?
President-elect
Donald J. Trump has called climate change a hoax, and he has declared
he will try to reverse the Obama administration's environmental efforts
on matters ranging from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to the landmark Clean Power Plan, intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But while administrations change, one thing appears to be stable: Most Americans already know that climate change is real and that human activity since the Industrial Age is the major cause. Polls by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
found that more than half of those surveyed said that global warming is
real, and only one in five disagree. But these same surveys show that
Americans tend to rank the issue rather low in their priorities of
urgent need for action.
The
question for those trying to fight climate change, then, is how best to
build on the degree of agreement that already exists and to encourage
action by governments, businesses and individuals. For a very long time,
these issues have been hashed out in fiery arguments between those who
deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate science and those
who try to explain the science and the reasons for strong measures. I
dealt with that important question in an article about Katharine Hayhoe,
a climate scientist at Texas Tech University who uses a gentle approach
to reach the large number of Americans who are in the potentially
persuadable middle. There is room for every kind of discourse, from
raucous to gentle, when it comes to telling Americans about warming. But
I came away from that piece with a thought that initially seemed banal,
but ended up feeling profound: niceness works. — John Schwartz
Local Responses to a Changing Global Climate
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| A house with solar panels in Ashton Hayes, England. Credit Elizabeth Dalziel for The New York Times |
Most
people who think that climate change is really happening also
acknowledge that humans have caused it. But getting people to actually
do something about it may be the next phase in the battle to prevent
catastrophic warming.
Over
the course of the last year, I've spoken with people in different
communities around the world who are trying to do what they can to make a
difference, even if they can't see the effects.
In a small village in the English countryside, residents have been working for 10 years to make their community carbon neutral
— they've insulated their homes, hung laundry out to dry and installed
solar panels. Part of their success has been in their approach: This
should be fun, and it should involve all of us, because all of us stand
to benefit from staving off the worst effects of climate change.
They
have tried to connect the global problem of climate change to normal
life, because it's not always about the melting polar ice caps or
apocalyptic drought. Yes, climate change is about those things, but it
is also about the ways that life in the 21st century makes most people,
especially those in the developed world, part of the problem.
How are your own habits connected to larger environmental problems? How much power are you still using even when you've switched off your devices? How many plastic bottles of water do you drink every week, and how does that affect the environment and other people around you?
In
the wake of the Paris agreement, most countries are involved in the
fight against climate change. And while governments and power companies
may make the most difference, what the rest of us — all seven billion of
us — are doing matters, too. — Tatiana Schlossberg
Engines of Environmental Backlash
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| An Illini State Pullers event at the McHenry County Fair in August in Woodstock, Ill. Credit David Kasnic for The New York Times |
If there is one phenomenon that epitomizes the contempt for regulations —
particularly those designed to protect the environment — among some
Americans, it might be "rolling coal."
It's
a fad among some diesel truck owners who soup up their engines and
remove their emissions controls to belch black smoke at pedestrians,
cyclists and even unsuspecting Prius drivers.
And
depending on whom you ask, the fad is a juvenile prank, a health
hazard, a stand against rampant environmentalism or a brazen show of
American freedom. I've seen rolling coal called the "open carry" of the
anti-environmentalism movement.
"Why
don't you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country. I will
continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid
eco-cars," one angry Illinois voter wrote to a local state
representative who has proposed a $5,000 fine on anyone who removes or
alters emissions equipment.
At
its core, rolling coal seems to me to be a symptom of a backlash
against the notion that we should seek to minimize the human footprint
on earth, for the sake of the environment.
It
is not the only such act. Since 2007, activists have drawn attention to
the environment with a call to switch off appliances worldwide during
an annual Earth Hour. But since 2009, the libertarian Competitive
Enterprise Institute — home base of Myron Ebell,
who Trump tapped for the transition at the Environmental Protection
Agency — has countered with Human Achievement Hour, a call to spend that
same hour keeping things on in defense of humankind's "basic human
right to use energy."
Still,
rolling coal goes too far even for some at the institute. Coal rollers
who use their trucks for harassment, as opposed to celebration, "aren't
being rebellious," said Michelle Minton, who is a fellow there. "They
are just being jerks." — Hiroko Tabuchi
A Costly Effort to Make Coal Cleaner
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| The Kemper County coal power plant in Mississippi. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times |
In the deeply poor, rural county of Kemper, Mississippi, there is a project to build a first-of-its-kind power plant using technology that has been heralded as the answer to many of our climate change woes.
A poster child for the promise of so-called clean coal,
the troubled plant has occupied a central role in the Obama
administration's plans to counter climate change. The technology the
plant is supposed to showcase is also at the center of President-elect
Trump's vision for many of our energy and environmental challenges.
Producing
roughly 45 percent of the emissions that cause climate change, coal is a
dirty fuel source. Yet the world still relies on it for power. The
Kemper project was supposed to provide a model for a new version of
carbon-capture technology that could be replicated around the world.
But
the Kemper power plant is more than two years past deadline and more
than $4 billion over budget. The plant's owner faces credit downgrades,
multiple lawsuits and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
The investigation of this project
unveiled an almost Shakespearean tale. In one arc we followed the
prevailing public perception of the project as it shifted from hope to
skepticism. In another arc we saw an engineer's personal journey from
project pitchman to plant whistle-blower. Along the way, we watched a
steady upward creep in the project's cost, shifting explanations the
company and regulators gave for delays, and a growing intensity in the
warnings from workers on site.
It
all added up to more questions than answers: Did the plant's owner
intentionally mislead the public, investors and regulators about the
cost and timetable of the project? Why have 23 of the poorest counties
in the country been saddled with costs connected to the most expensive
power plant in American history? Can clean coal be replicated and built
affordably and quickly enough to make it worth the investment? These
questions remain. — Ian Urbina
California's Drought Is Not Over
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| Erin Stacy was among the scientists measuring the snowpack in Yosemite in California in April. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
Parts
of California were relatively wet last winter, leading to a much larger
snowpack in the Sierra Nevada than the year before, along with rising
optimism that the state might eventually see an end to severe drought
conditions that have lingered for four years.
But
when I visited Yosemite National Park in April for an article about the
snowpack, high spring temperatures were already melting it quickly. And
there were other worrisome signs of the effects of climate change —
more rain and less snow at higher elevations.
Since
then, California has seen some improvement. Only 21 percent of the
state is in "exceptional" drought, down from 45 percent a year ago, as
reported by the U.S. Drought Monitor, and there are even areas in the northwestern part of the state that are drought free.
But
California is still in the grip of a prolonged drought, and the outlook
— for the state and more broadly for the Southwest — is not promising.
Forecasters say that in the short term, drier conditions may return this
winter because of the weather phenomenon called La Niña. But it is the
long-term situation that should be sobering for anyone who lives, or is
thinking of living, in the region. Scientists say climate change has
increased the risk of megadroughts, long dry periods that could make the
current drought seem mild by comparison. — Henry Fountain
Climate Change and NASA's Mission on Earth
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| Participants during NASA's Icescape mission in the Arctic Ocean in 2011. Credit NASA/Reuters |
It is not easy to find out what's happening in the Arctic Ocean. If you
have a few months to spare, you can board an icebreaker and chug across a
small section of the sea, taking measurements. Alternatively, you can
pore through the images of the North Pole that have been captured by
satellites over the past few decades.
Those images
tell a startling story. While month-to-month measurements can be jumpy,
the overall trend has been clearly heading down. Last month, satellites
measured the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice for November since
satellites started keeping records in 1979.
Global
warming is a driving force behind this change. As we pump more carbon
into the atmosphere, scientists warn that the Arctic will lose even more
ice. In a matter of decades, scientists estimated this year, the Arctic Ocean may become ice-free in the summer.
The
disappearance of Arctic ice is already having a huge impact on the
ocean's ecosystem. In November, a team of scientists published a new analysis of satellite data,
finding that the ocean has been increasing its production of algae by
some 47 percent since 1997. Scientists suspect that the size and timing
of this bloom is altering the entire Arctic food web, and they're now
gathering data to find out what exactly is happening.
This
study was carried out as part of NASA's Earth Science program, using
data largely supplied by NASA's satellites. Shortly after the it was
published, reports came out that President-elect Trump's advisers are
pushing to shut down NASA's study of our own planet.
If
we let our Earth-monitoring satellites wink out, the planet will not
stop changing. The only thing that will change is our own ability to
understand the Earth. — Carl Zimmer
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