When Stephen Conley, an atmospheric scientist and pilot, saw an emissions indicator skyrocket in his Mooney TLS prop plane, he knew he had found a significant methane leak. His gas-detecting Picarro analyzer indicated he was flying through a plume of gas escaping at 900kg per hour. The colorless, odorless gas was enough to cover a football field to a height of 20 feet in a single day. But this flight wasn’t over the highly publicized Aliso Canyon in Los Angeles; Conley was circling the Bakken Shale, a rock formation in western North Dakota that has been aggressively pumped for oil and natural gas.
Climate Urgency
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US ‘likely culprit’ of global spike in methane emissions over last decade — The Guardian
Wind, Sun and Fire — The New York Times
Last year was the hottest on record, by a wide margin, which should — but won’t — put an end to climate deniers’ claims that global warming has stopped. The truth is that climate change just keeps getting scarier; it is, by far, the most important policy issue facing America and the world. Still, this election wouldn’t have much bearing on the issue if there were no prospect of effective action against the looming catastrophe.
2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say — New York Times
Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world. “The whole system is warming up, relentlessly,” said Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
As planet warms, the world’s lakes are heating up even faster — The Washington Post
Climate crisis won’t wait for world leaders — The News & Observer
Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Africa is set to Burn — Media Advisory from Friends of the Earth Africa
The Paris draft agreement says its purpose is to limit global warming to ‘well below’ 2 degrees and to ‘pursue efforts’ to limit it to 1.5 degrees. But it cuts all links with the means of doing this and in reality puts the world on track for 3 to 4 degrees warming. That means 5 to 8 degrees warming for Africa with terrible heatwaves, droughts and floods.
Amid Paris Climate Talks, Duke’s Giant Gas Expansion under Fire — News Release from NC WARN
As Paris negotiators seek to avert irreversible global climate disruption, the nation’s largest carbon-polluting utility has been steaming full-speed backward with a climate- and economy-wrecking plan to greatly expand the burning and piping of fracked and conventional natural gas. Today NC WARN and The Climate Times openly pressed Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good to slow down, to weigh the evolving science and economics of natural gas, and to realize that she must share such critical decision-making with the people of North Carolina.
Letters to the future: Will we finally tackle climate change? — INDY Week
NC WARN is honored to be among the voices in this special issue of INDY Week. Letters to the Future is a national project involving more than 40 alternative weeklies across the United States in which authors, artists, scientists and others draft letters to future generations of their own families, predicting the success or failure of the Paris climate talks—and the future that followed.