November 10, 2017
Wall Street Journal: "There is limited information about how these services affect travel patterns, but the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis has documented a 6% reduction in public-transit in major cities that use them."
“'We find that 49% to 61% of ride-hailing trips would have not been made at all, or by walking, biking or transit,' the researchers reported."
Others report that ride-hailing services are vital for getting to and from transit depots like BART.
November 02, 2017
Guardian: "The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased at record speed last year to hit a level not seen for more than three million years, the UN has warned."
"The last time Earth experienced similar CO2 concentration rates was during the Pliocene era (three to five million years ago), when the sea level was up to 20m higher than now."
October 29, 2017
New York Times: "Two of the frozen continent’s fastest-moving glaciers are shedding an increasing amount of ice into the Amundsen Sea each year."
"The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are among the most critical in the world. They are currently holding back ice that, if melted, would raise the world’s oceans by nearly four feet over centuries, an amount that would put many coastal cities underwater."
September 11, 2017
California Supreme Court: "With a 2 degree Celsius increase, disastrous effects become likely, including more extreme and more frequent severe weather, more wildfires, greater frequency of droughts and floods, rapid and higher sea level rise, and increased habitat destruction and extinctions. These environmental effects will undoubtedly lead to serious economic, political, and national security disruptions."
September 09, 2017
Journal of the American Planning Association: "Scholars have clearly established the conceptual basis for cities to treat curb space as a valuable commodity rather than a free good. They generally conclude that cities should set the right prices for curb parking because the wrong prices do so much harm. Where curb parking is underpriced and overcrowded, drivers cruise the streets hoping to find an open space. This cruising greatly increases traffic congestion: Ten studies conducted in eight cities between 1927 and 2011 found that an average of 34% of cars in congested downtown traffic were cruising for parking."
September 08, 2017
Sacramento Bee: "While California is making headway in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the rate of progress is slowing. Emissions fell by a scant 0.3 percent in 2015, the last year for which figures are available. It was one of the smallest year-to-year declines recorded since California enacted laws aimed at defeating global warming more than a decade ago, and calls into question the state’s ability to meet long-term goals for curtailing carbon."
"The chief culprit: California’s cars and trucks. After falling steadily since 2007, greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles increased by 3 percent in 2015, according to the California Air Resources Board. That meant the equivalent of 4.6 million additional metric tons of carbon spewed into the air, the agency said in a report released in June."
September 08, 2017
Federal Highway Administration: "New data released today by the . . . Federal Highway Administration show that U.S. driving topped 1.58 trillion miles in the first six months of 2017 – or more than 8,500 roundtrips from Earth to the Sun – continuing a streak of steadily increasing vehicle miles travelled that began in 2011."
September 08, 2017
Sacramento Bee: "Lake Tahoe’s famously clear waters continue to warm, and the surrounding forests face dire threats due to drought, disease and insects, according to the annual Tahoe State of the Lake report by researchers at UC Davis."
"Tree mortality in Tahoe’s forests has also increased drastically, with the number of dead trees more than doubling from 35,000 in 2015 to 72,000 last year due to the stress of the drought combined with attacks from insects and disease, according to the report. The problem was worst on Tahoe’s north shore, but forests on the east shore were also affected."
"Patricia Maloney, a researcher who is part of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at UC Davis, likens the trees to straws in the ground that compete to suck up the water."
“'We’re basically in a crisis,' she said about the large number of dead and dying trees in the Tahoe Basin. 'It all started with the drought. The trees become weakened and then they’re susceptible to attack by disease or insect infestation.'”
September 03, 2017
Nicholas Kristof: "Climate scientists are in agreement that there are at least two ways climate change is making hurricanes worse."
"First, hurricanes arise from warm waters, and the Gulf of Mexico has warmed by two to four degrees Fahrenheit over the long-term average. The result is more intense storms."
“'There is a general consensus that the frequency of high-category (3, 4 and 5) hurricanes should increase as the climate warms,' Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at M.I.T., tells me. Likewise, three experts examined the data over 30 years and concluded that Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger."
"Second, as the air warms, it holds more water vapor, so the storms dump more rain. That’s why there’s a big increase in heavy downpours ('extreme precipitation events'). Nine of the top 10 years for heavy downpours in the U.S. have occurred since 1990."
“'Climate change played a role in intensifying the winds and rainfall associated with Hurricane Harvey,' says Charles Greene, a climate scientist at Cornell. He notes that there’s also a third way, not yet proven, in which climate change may be implicated: As Arctic sea ice is lost, wind systems can meander and create blockages — like those that locked Harvey in place over Houston. It was this stalling that led Harvey to be so destructive."