In a surprise to nobody who has been paying attention, The New York Times reports on a United Nations assessment concluding that the world will not be able to prevent warming from exceeding a global average of 1.5°C. ‟A decade ago, most of the world’s countries agreed in Paris to try to limit global temperature rise to “well below” two degrees Celsius while aiming for the more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. But Wednesday’s 141-page U.N. report warned that the world is certain to breach that mark and should focus on finding ways to limit “overshoot” and eventually bring global temperatures back down.” Achieving the 1.5°C target now would require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a scale not feasible with current technology. The U.N. goes on to note that, with current policies, the planet will likely warm by 2.6°C (4.7°F) by the end of the century. This means extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts will intensify, and the risk of weakening or collapsing critical ocean currents rises. If the latter changes occur, the U.N. concludes, it will ‟reshape the world forever.”

Consistent with long-term projections of temperature rise, The New York Times notes that August 2026 has tied July 2023 for the hottest month ever recorded. The hot August made 2026 the warmest summer on record for both Western Europe and the contiguous United States. ‟Temperatures soared into the triple digits across the southern United States from California to Texas,” and South Korea recorded its highest temperature reading in modern history (108.5°F). August was also the hottest month ever recorded for the world’s oceans. ‟This extra warmth will spread to the rest of the planet in the months ahead, making the globe’s average temperatures likely to break more records through the end of the year and into 2027.”

The New York Times explains the recent proposal from the federal government to address declining water availability in the Colorado River basin. Under this plan, ‟communities and farms across Arizona, Nevada and California face potentially drastic cuts in the water they can use from the Colorado River over the next decade.” The Times reports that the state of Nevada has already sued the federal government, claiming the proposal unfairly burdens Nevada while not suggesting any mandatory water restrictions on the upper-basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

The New York Times describes the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a 330-mile system of canals that brings Colorado River water into Arizona. The CAP has supported ‟blossoming subdivisions, sprawling farmland and, in recent years, a powerhouse semiconductor industry. It supercharged Arizona’s economy and transformed Phoenix into one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities.” Arizona benefited from billions in federal support to construct the CAP, but in so doing agreed to, in a deep drought, put ‟the aqueduct among the first in line for cuts.” As a former water director for the city of Phoenix states, with regards to the CAP, “the chickens have come home to roost.” Arizona has also threatened to sue the federal government.

The New York Times explains the growth of cloud-seeding in an effort to find more water. ‟State agencies, water utilities, ranchers and ski resorts across the parched Western United States are increasingly spending millions each year on new ways to create more rain and snow. They’re betting on a growing body of research showing the interventions could squeeze at least a little bit more water from storm clouds.” Traditionally, cloud-seeding involved the use of silver iodide. ‟There’s been a flurry of companies developing new seeding materials that they say are cheaper and less toxic than silver iodide. Some are using drones to scatter them within clouds, rather than spreading them from airplanes or ground-based launch systems.” Understanding the success of any given cloud-seeding event is difficult. The state of Utah estimates that its extensive cloud-seeding efforts generate 6 to 12% more precipitation each year.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a new study that attributes lower snowpack and river flows to the emissions created by burning fossil fuels. ‟Climate change has reduced peak snowpack across 11 Western states by 36% between 2014 and 2024 while reducing the amount of water flowing in rivers and streams by 13%.” The study concludes that nearly half of these declines are due to the emissions of these large companies and the use of their products since 1950. ‟On the demand side, the study finds that climate change has increased irrigation needs in the West by 4% over the same decade, as crops have become thirstier and soils have gotten drier.” The decline in river flow is very obvious in Europe. The New York Times reports that the Danube, Europe’s largest river, is now facing record lows, as are the Po and Rhine.

Peter Gleick notes in The Guardian that the changes we’re seeing in the hydrologic cycle have been long predicted by scientists, but that it doesn’t have to be this way. ‟We know what needs to be done. No new technology needs to be invented to provide safe water and sanitation to the billions of people who still lack it. The cost of providing water to all and cleaning up the consequences of unregulated and uncontrolled water pollution is far less than the costs of failing to do so.”

An analysis in PV Magazine notes that ‟of the ~92 million acres of corn planted in the US each year, roughly 40 million acres (1.6% of the nation’s land) are primarily used to feed cars and raise the octane of gasoline. If this land were repurposed with solar power, it could provide around three and a half times the electricity needs of the United States, equivalent to nearly eight times the energy that would be needed to power all of the nation’s passenger vehicles were they electrified. However, if we were to transition this 40 million acres to solar+food (agrivoltaics) – we could still meet 100% of our electricity needs, and power a nationwide fleet of electric vehicles.” A key fact is that ‟solar panels produce roughly 200 times more energy per acre than corn.” While there are some variable estimates in solar production per acre, this is still a remarkable analysis that suggests our agrarian economy needs to be brought into the 21st century.

Canary Media visits rural North Dakota, where many residents have soured on wind-power development. While there have been many wind-power arrays installed in North Dakota over the last 20 years, making the state one of the wind-power leaders, the article talks to many people for whom the development has damaged the agricultural character of their communities. Part of the frustration is that wind-power leases are signed by absentee landlords. The Christian Science Monitor reviews the Trump Administration’s payments to companies for canceling offshore-wind projects, the cost to taxpayers and the legal responses of many states.

The New York Times reports that, in France, Italy and South Korea, solar panels are being placed along rail lines to generate electricity on land dedicated to another use. The panels are actually being placed between the rails, allowing trains to pass over them. These deployments are designed to be quickly removed for repairs (so train schedules don’t change) and to suppress weed growth, which reduces operating expenses for the railroad. This is yet another example of integrating solar-power production with other land uses, joining solar panels covering canals and panels placed in agricultural fields and on ranches.

< back to news+views