Sustainable Arlington

Half a Loaf:  Lawmakers Vote to Keep Some Energy Funds Trump Would Cut

The House subcommittee’s bill would still kill ARPA-E but restores some funding for science and renewable energy. Budget writers in the House of Representatives said Wednesday they were willing to support some cuts to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, but they wouldn't approve all of President Donald Trump's proposed deep slashes to the Department of Energy's budget. The House Appropriations energy subcommittee met to mark up their bill for funding the department.  The bill represents the first time Congressional purse-string holders have formally clarified their priorities and is the first step in a long process, but it suggests that Republicans will support many of Trump's cuts to clean energy. Trump's proposal, released last month, calls for cutting the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E—the government's incubator for clean energy technologies—by 93 percent.  The House spending bill allocates nothing. The draft bill endorsed by the subcommittee sets the overall agency budget at $37.6 billion, giving it about $209 million less than in fiscal 2017, but $3.65 billion above Trump's request, according to Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the subcommittee's chairman.  The bill would have to be approved by the full Appropriations panel before going to the House floor and also would have to be reconciled with any action by the Senate. "Increases over last year are targeted to those areas where they are needed most—-to provide for our nation's defense and to support our nation's infrastructure," Simpson said.  "The bill recognizes the administration's effort to reduce federal spending and the size[…]

Concurrent Hot and Dry Summers More Common in Future

According to ... statistics ... extreme climate events, similar to the heatwave that affected large areas of western and central Europe in the summer of 2003, are only supposed to occur around every 100 years.  But as global warming pushes average temperatures higher, the frequency of several extreme weather events is set to increase, experts claim.Concurrent extremes more frequentPerhaps the statisticians need to check their figures.  Researchers have traditionally studied extreme climate events such as heatwaves and drought in isolation, producing separate forecasts of how frequently each one is likely to occur.  But when these extremes coincide -- a combination of hot and dry summers, for example -- their impact is far greater.ETH researcher Jakob Zscheischler and Professor Sonia Seneviratne from the ETH Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science have now calculated the probability of compound climate extremes, as the co-occurrence of severe heat and drought generally depends on the correlation between temperature and precipitation in the summer.  The results of their study have just been published in the academic journal Science Advances.Co-occurrence as much as five times greater than expectedIn their study, Zscheischler and Seneviratne have calculated that the combination of heat and drought is as much as two to four times more frequent than if these two extreme climate events are studied in isolation.  In America's mid-west, for instance, the probability of this combination occurring is even up to five times higher.Calculating the probability of these two extremes separately and then combining them is not the same as[…]

  Wednesday, June 28

Even Boeing-747 Tanker Jets Can’t Win Our Total War on Fires

The more effectively we suppress fires, the worse they become. As climate change makes the world more combustible, we need a new approach. Aerial fire fighting is a critical but expensive tool for managing wildfire.  Because wildfires will become more frequent and severe due to climate change there is no question we need aerial fire fighting technology – particularly helicopters and specially trained crews that can be inserted into remote areas.  But uncritical belief and investment in aerial fire fighting technologies alone is a road to fiscal ruin.  Thoughtlessly investing in aerial fire-fighting will not meet the formidable fire management challenges that are being amplified by climate change. A fraction of the US investments in aerial fire fighting redirected to preventative fire management, such as planned burning and strategic vegetation thinning, retrofitting poorly designed housing and training ground crews could yield a much bigger bang for the buck, as well as providing year round employment for rural communities.  The media optics of aerial drop of bright red fire retardant from a thundering fire bomber comes at considerable environment and social costs and engenders a dangerously false sense of security in a rapidly warming and more combustible world. Read more at Even Boeing-747 Tanker Jets Can’t Win Our Total War on Fires

  Tuesday, June 27