ominous rise in atmospheric methane, Trump elected, eastern Spain gets a year of rain in a day, the greening of Antarctica

The concentration of methane (CH4) in the atmosphere has been rising steadily since around 2007, and even faster since 2020. This has many climate scientists concerned, as more of this powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will mean accelerated warming. While many had assumed the methane increase was due to higher production and use of natural gas (which is primarily methane), The Washington Post reports on a new study that suggests natural microbial activity as the main new source of methane to the atmosphere. While there are different ways natural methane production from microbes could be increasing, this new finding supports the idea that the world is passing a tipping point where more methane warms the world and this accelerates further microbial methane production. This would be very bad news if it turns out to be true. As one scientist put it: “You can turn a wrench in an oil and gas field to quench methane emissions, but there’s no wrench for the Congo or the Amazon.”

Reuters reports that scientists recently warned in a letter to the Council of Nordic Ministers about an approaching tipping point in the Atlantic ocean, where the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slows or stops. “A collapse of the ocean-current system would increase cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, raise Atlantic sea levels, drop precipitation over Europe and North America and shift monsoons in South America and Africa, according to the United Kingdom’s Met Office.” The scientists urged aggressive action to transition away from fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In Code Red: Time to Tip the Climate Odds in Our Favor, I argued that, for us to address the climate problem, we will need to reach a social tipping point, where climate action becomes a moral and social imperative. Unfortunately, the election of Donald Trump indicates that the United States is moving in the opposite direction. Salon quotes climate scientist, Peter Kalmus: “Trump and Project 2025 have pledged to expand fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, which is a worst-case scenario for irreversible global overheating. Unfortunately, a majority has voted for climate chaos and that’s what they’re going to get.”

Trump will likely withdraw us from the Paris Agreement again (his previous withdrawal stimulated my first blog post, We Will Always Have Paris). As The New York Times notes, the election “signals to other nations that the new leadership of the richest country in the world, which is also history’s largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, is dismissive of the economic opportunities of transitioning to cleaner technologies.” The Times also notes that Trump’s team is preparing executive orders that will eliminate federal agency priorities for environmental justice, and possibly even move the Environmental Protection Agency out of Washington in an effort to weaken it. They will also reduce the size of National Monuments lands in the West to make it easier to drill for fossil fuels.

It is important to realize that environmental and economic conditions are very different than during Trump’s first term, and so the political calculus of these proposals will change. The cost of renewable electricity has plummeted, and there is growing clarity worldwide regarding the impacts of climate change. This means Trump’s expected actions will isolate the United States internationally. China has become the leader in zero-carbon technologies, including EVs, and is exporting its products around the world. If the United States retreats from this market, it will cement China’s dominance. Trump has said he wants to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) but, according to The Washington Post, red districts have received three times as much IRA funding as blue ones. Factories making EVs, batteries and solar panels have appeared in Georgia, Arizona and the Sun Belt, leading several House Republicans to ask Speaker Mike Johnson not to repeal the law.

Support in the United States for climate action was also evident in the election, where state and local propositions were passed. Inside Climate News reports that “at least five of six ballot measures related to climate change resulted in what most environmentalists consider wins.” Several new members of Congress are strong proponents of climate action. However, Republicans eliminated Democratic control in the state houses of Michigan and Minnesota, which have been leaders in state action on climate change.

The latest “rain bomb” to drop was in eastern Spain, where The Guardian reports that a year’s worth of rain fell in eight hours. The flooding was so fast and fierce that many were trapped wherever they happened to be when the storm started, and over 217 people are dead as of this writing. The photo of cars washed up into a pile like a bunch of gravel is worth pondering, as are the satellite images of the region before and after the deluge. The New York Times describes the shock of the region’s residents, many of whom are frustrated by the lack of warning from the government and continued efforts to deny climate change. In The Guardian, a Spanish member of Parliament describes the negligence of the regional government before and after the storm. At present, the largest non-war deployment of police and the military in Spanish history is underway to support recovery efforts.

Anthropocene Magazine reports on a new method for extracting lithium from salty brines that holds promise for reducing the cost of this element. Lithium is currently essential for batteries. “Lithium producers currently mine the metal by evaporating lithium salt-laced brines in giant ponds. This takes a year, requires a lot of land, and generates waste.” Because of this, some companies have moved to an electrochemical process that removes lithium from the brines. Researchers estimate that the new method “should cost about $3,500 – $4,400 per ton of lithium from brine, while today’s typically costs about $9,100.”

The New York Times notes that “the top 10 percent of motorists in the United States drive an average of about 40,200 miles per year and account for roughly one-third of the nation’s gasoline use. Persuading more of these ‘gasoline superusers’ to go electric would lead to a much faster reduction in emissions.” Many of these drivers are tradespeople, or low-to-middle-income Americans who have been pushed out of cities by rising housing prices. For these drivers, the higher upfront costs of an EV are a real barrier, along with concern (whether real or perceived) about the difficulty in charging the car.

YLE News reports that hurricane-force winds were recorded for the first time ever in southern Finland: “the windstorm knocked down two 400-kilovolt power line poles, [resulting in] unprecedented damage to part of Finland’s main electricity grid.” iNews UK reports record-breaking temperatures were recorded in Scotland.

I have been lucky enough to visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Antarctic Peninsula. While both are at approximately 70° of latitude, the green tundra of the Refuge contrasts sharply with the rock and ice of the Antarctic. Inside Climate News reports that, in a sign of a warming world, the Antarctic Peninsula is beginning to green-up with moss, algae and lichen. The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 2.5-3.0 million years ago, the fossil record shows that there were beech trees in Antarctica.

The Washington Post visits a startup company in England that has a process to make low-carbon cement using waste from steel manufacturing. This is an enormously important research/commercialization effort, as cement is responsible for about 8% of global emissions, roughly quadruple that of the entire aviation industry. The startup is one of several firms working on this problem.

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