[GWSG] Fossil fuels vs. kids; Holland's plans; AMOC decline; new city group; PPA freedom; peak fossil fuels approaches

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of burning fossil fuels, both for the pollution it produces and for the climatic effects.  http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2016/june/fossil-fuels-children-health-air-pollution-climate-change   Ignoring the purpose of avoiding catastrophic climate change, protection of children would itself be a compelling motive to cease burning fossil fuels as quickly as we can.  http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2016/june/opinion-the-case-for-a-child-centered-energy-and-climate-policy



2.  Storm surge barriers and floating buildings are part of Holland's strategy for dealing with rising seas.  Thanks to Brian Paradise for the story.  http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-20/sea-levels-rise-rotterdam-floats-top-example-how-live-water



3.  A new paper based on modelling Greenland's meltwater since 1990 finds no evidence that the recent slowdown of the AMOC is not due to natural variation.  Stefan Rahmstorf stands by the finding in his 2015 paper that the recent slowdown is "unprecedented in the past millennium," and so may well be the result of our fossil fuel use.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/20/a-huge-science-debate-is-brewing-over-whether-weve-messed-up-the-atlantic-oceans-circulation/  The AMOC has declined in strength by over 20% this century.  https://www.wunderground.com/blog/lpaocean/us-east-coast-sea-level-and-the-gulf-stream   The AMOC decline is thought to play a major role in the present anomalously high rate of sea level rise along the US east coast.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/01/why-the-u-s-east-coast-could-be-a-major-hotspot-for-sea-level-rise/



4.  The EU-based Covenant of Mayors and the UN-backed Compact of Mayors have joined in an alliance representing 600 million people for mutual support in climate action.  The new organization is the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.   http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/22/michael-bloomberg-global-covenant-links-600m-people-and-7000-cities-fight-against-climate-change



5.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ruled that the nation's 905 electric cooperatives and 830 municipal utilities may buy renewable power from qualifying independent producers so long as the power is at least at or slightly above the price of power from their currently contracted producer.  That opens up a 400 gigawatt renewable market, and spurs producers toward renewable energy.  http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_06_21_new_ruling_opens_up_400_gw_renewables_market



6.  Bloomberg New Energy Finance finds that we are nearing peak fossil fuels and that the demand for fossil fuels in all sectors will decline dramatically in the next decade.  By 2027 it will be cheaper to build new wind and solar facilities than to run existing coal and gas generators.  The report finds that market forces will be a significant help but that we will still need controls on fossil fuel emissions if we are to deal with climate problems.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/we-ve-almost-reached-peak-fossil-fuels-for-electricity  ?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20160623/e3da5d6b/attachment.html