Climate Archives - BeyondKONA

IRA; insightful energy policy, eyes wide shut

June 8, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

In 2023, there was a group who thought that the Biden admin (with the passage of the IRA) could direct large portions of IRA funding to ensure a Red State clean energy economy with IRA-funded projects, and in exchange, enlighten hearts and minds. The flow of IRA funds into targeted and local investments in southern states held the promise for some to change minds (for the better), thus turning Red states into several shades of Green.

Considering the short window of opportunity for change the IRA offered, Democrats gambled this would all work in their favor come the next election cycle and validate what some saw as wishful thinking, and not the political reality of the moment. Directing IRA funds into Red states only diluted the IRA’s narrow window of opportunity in transitioning the nation off its costly fossil fuel dependency and the geopolitical reality.

At the time some of us saw the red state strategy to be wishful policy thinking, its reasoning was flawed from the get-go. An earlier New York Times article; “In Georgia, Republicans Vote to Kill Green Jobs and Face Little Fallout” offers a case-in-point that validates this concern, with a Georgia solar recycling company’s plan (Solarcycle) to hire 1,200 people upended by Republicans in Congress.

Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill has stopped the Solarcycle factory in its tracks. The legislation, which passed the GOP-controlled House this past week and is now being debated in the GOP-controlled Senate, and would essentially eliminate the essential tax breaks that companies have been planning and counting on to build new wind and solar projects, electric vehicle battery factories and more. Republicans in the House voted to get rid of the clean energy subsidies in order to pay for Mr. Trump’s billionaire-targeted income tax breaks, even if it meant hurting investments in their own districts.

In its current form, the Trump party bill would abruptly end most of the Biden-era bipartisan federal tax credits for zero-to-low carbon sources of electricity like wind, solar, batteries, and geothermal. Repealing those clean energy credits could increase the average family’s energy bill by as much as $400 per year within a decade, according to several studies published this year.

It’s sad (and alarming) to see the IRA, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a national clean energy enabler to see its essential public policy mission abruptly ended without merit or reason, but not unexpectedly. The IRA’s mission is being disrupted and corrupted by Trump Inc., as this case-in-point story illustrates.

A Lost Opportunity

Looking back, IRA money should have been funneled into blue and purple states (especially California with its massive economy, this clean energy market leader is qualified to be an economic driver likely to produce a much greater ROI result in the nation’s investment towards an economic win, and certainly more than many other states less experienced in clean energy projects and deployment.

Certainly, IRA investments in CA (representing the 4th largest economy in the world) is a much better national catalyst and strategy in leading the nation into a clean and self-sufficient energy economy, than expecting to seduce and otherwise convert Red States with IRA funds, no matter how reasonable that may have sounded at the time to some political pundits and strategists. However, changing embedded cultural beliefs extending back to the Civil War, and placing Big Oil in its place and no longer in the nation’s driver’s seat on energy policy, is indeed a wishful political strategy. In this case, it was the loss of a once in a lifetime national opportunity to transition America into a clean and sustainable energy economy, and a proactive national climate policy represented best by the Inflation Reduction Act (aka clean energy initiative).

No doubt, President Trump (the oil-gas-coal guy) and the money interests funding him are seeing their wildest dreams come true, in part defined by the Project 2025 playbook and their complete control over Congress. Their eyes, however, are shut to clean energy opportunities, instead they are focused on business-as-usual as the world is rapidly changing. Closed to the costly present and future consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow, the question is no longer who is paying for the climate bill, but how much and when.

A united and strengthened blue and purple state clean energy economy, especially one driven by science and supported by sustainable and equitable policies is needed now more than ever, as each minute on the climate clock clicks down to zero hour. The unfilled promise of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its enabling transition of the nation into a clean energy economy may no longer worry or threaten energy interests invested in the deep and dirty energy past, especially when the GOP controlled Senate concludes its business on the subject this week.

Sustainable energy technologies, and the cost-effective economics they offer consumers and society overall (politics aside) a proven pathway forward in an increasingly hotter world. But, this all still comes down to the question of how best to mitigate rising climate costs, impacting everyone, regardless of wealth or who we vote for to solve our national and global problems.

Altogether, the IRA was designed to enable a clean and sustainable energy economy, and so far it has been successful as national policy; advancing reliable, compatible, and sustainable clean energy options in balance with consumers’ pocketbooks and the planet.

More than 80% of the world’s reefs hit by bleaching

April 25, 2025/2 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

World’s Reefs Hit by Worst Global Bleaching Event on Record

Hawaii’s reef system is again in the crosshairs of global heating

The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.

Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.

Coral reefs are known as the rainforests of the sea because of their high concentration of biodiversity that supports about a third of all marine species and a billion people.

But record high ocean temperatures have spread like an underwater wildfire over corals across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, damaging and killing countless corals.

The 84% of reefs exposed to bleaching-level heat in this ongoing fourth event compares with 68% during the third event, which lasted from 2014 to 2017, 37% in 2010 and 21% in the first event in 1998.

Even reefs considered by scientists to be refuges from the ocean’s rising levels of heat have been bleached, Dr Derek Manzello, the director of Coral Reef Watch, said.

“The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted, including purported thermal refugia like Raja Ampat and the Gulf of Eilat, suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour from coral bleaching and its ramifications,” he said.

Many areas have seen bleaching in back-to-back years, including the world’s biggest reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, where last week authorities declared a sixth widespread bleaching event in just nine years.

Australia’s other World Heritage-listed reef along the Ningaloo coast in Western Australia has seen its highest levels of heat stress on record in recent months.

Scientists on the other side of the Indian Ocean have reported bleaching in recent weeks affecting reefs off Madagascar and the east African coast, including South Africa’s World Heritage iSimangaliso wetland park.

Dr Britta Schaffelke, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and coordinator of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), said the event was unprecedented. “Reefs have not encountered this before.”

“With the ongoing bleaching it’s almost overwhelming the capacity of people to do the monitoring they need to do,” she said. “The fact that this most recent, global-scale coral bleaching event is still ongoing takes the world’s reefs into uncharted waters.

Scientists in north and central America, including Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico, were among the first to raise the alarm after record ocean temperatures saw extreme bleaching in the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2023.

Corals can recover from bleaching if temperatures are not too extreme, but surveys done in the months after the event have begun to paint a picture of widespread coral death.

After the extreme heat of 2023, Coral Reef Watch was forced to add three new threat levels to its global bleaching alert system to represent the unprecedented heat stress corals had faced.

Melanie McField, the founder of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative in the Caribbean, said reefs had fallen quiet across the world.

“Bleaching is always eerie – as if a silent snowfall has descended on the reef … there is usually an absence of fluttering fish and an absence of the vibrant colours on the reef,” she said. “It’s an ashen pallor and stillness in what should be a rowdy vibrant reefscape.”

Dr Valeria Pizarro, a senior coral scientist at the Perry Institute for Marine Science that works on reefs in the Bahamas and Caribbean, witnessed extreme bleaching in the Bahamas in July 2023. She said “in a blink of my eyes” shallow reefs became white landscapes, with widespread death among staghorn corals used in restoration projects. Spectacular sea fans and soft corals died quickly. “It was like they were melting with the heat, world leaders need to really commit to quitting fossil fuels, and to switch their country’s investments into clean energy and make it a reality”, she said.

Rising sea levels accelerate; Hawaii remains vulnerable

March 19, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

“The rate of global sea-level rise is telling us something about what to expect at most coastlines around the world.”

— Josh Willis, sea-level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Foreground

A NASA led Interagency Sea Level Rise taskforce recently provided up-to-date sea level rise findings and projections based on tidal gauge locations, including Hawaii, forecasting sea-level rise out and into the year 2050.

The report’s projections are based on data compiled in a recently released NOAA-led interagency report. The study, published in Nature, combines data from 230 regional estimates and confirms that human-caused atmospheric warming is driving a rapid glacier retreat and corresponding sea level rise and expansion through rising global temperatures.

The report includes sea-level flood modeling and projected impacts to exposed coastlines with low-lying development, most specifically, the islands of Maui, Oʻahu, and Kauaʻi.

The study, however, failed to include sea-level rise impacts and associated flooding for the islands of Hawaii, Molokai, and Lānai, nor for some harbors or other back-bay areas throughout the state. Additional studies and funding would also be needed to include the annual high wave flooding for those areas previously omitted from the study.

Background

Since 2000, glaciers outside Greenland and Antarctica have lost about 270 billion tons of ice per year, a rate more than a third higher than in the previous decade.

The global glacier meltdown now underway feeds not only sea levels, but glaciers also serve as a freshwater reservoirs for millions of people, buffering against droughts and sustaining ecosystems. The glacier meltdown further threatens the disappearance of vital water supplies, increases sea level rise, and thereby the risk of coastal flooding. Even small rises in sea level can displace millions, exacerbating climate migration and economic instability.

Scientists stress that the extent of future glacier loss hinges on global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and warn that a continuing rise in fossil fuel emissions will continue to push the world into unchartered territory – up to half of the world’s glacier ice will be lost by 50-75 years if the rate of global emissions continues to rise unabated. Policy makers who ignore the science, do so at everyones peril.

Long-term observational data from local tide gauge stations show sea level is rising and increasingly impacting Hawaii’s archipelago.

Hawaii and other tropical Pacific sites will experience sea level rise that is 16% to 20% higher than the global average.
Last Year, the world’s oceans rose 35% more than anticipated, with record-high temperatures driving the surge, according to a NASA-led study. Global sea levels rose by 0.23 inches in 2024, exceeding the projected 0.17 inches, largely due to ocean warming.

While melting ice sheets have been the dominant factor over decades in rising sea levels, last year’s rise was driven mainly by thermal expansion, an increasing cause and effect phenomenon associated with rising global temperatures and tied to rising fossil fuel emissions.

Coastal cities, particularly in the U.S. Southeast, are experiencing even greater sea level increases, leading to more frequent flooding. Yet, Hawaii, an island state, is certainly not immune to effects of rising sea levels as the data already indicates.

Rising sea levels and warming oceans are reshaping coastlines placing millions at risk.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands due to rising temperatures, coastal cities face increasing threats from flooding, erosion, and extreme weather.

Warmer oceans are fueling stronger hurricanes, making storms more destructive and unpredictable.

The consequences are already visible

Coral reefs, which support vast marine ecosystems, are experiencing widespread bleaching due to warming, disrupting fisheries and the livelihoods that depend on them.
Scientists warn that some warming-driven changes may be irreversible within a human lifetime.
And, as the oceans continue to absorb excess heat, the long-term implications on weather patterns, sea life, and global coastlines mean certain and established effects including increasingly erratic and stronger storms couple to rising sea levels altogether point to a call to action – a remediation and solution-driven response, which is especially true for the residents of Hawaii, as well as the rest of the world.

Trump; wrong about US energy crisis

March 13, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Why the Trump administration is wrong about an energy crisis in the US, according to experts

The U.S. was breaking records for the most fossil fuels ever drilled under President Biden, Trump’s predecessor. In 2023, the Biden administration produced 12.9 million barrels per day, breaking the record set in 2019 at 12.3 million barrels, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For the last several years, the U.S. has been the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world.

The Trump administration has been attempting to spark the idea of a looming energy crisis in the U.S., but those claims couldn’t be further from reality, according to several experts who spoke to ABC News recently.

Immediately upon taking office for his second term, President Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency,” claiming that leasing, development, production, transportation, refining and generation capacity of energy in the U.S. is “far too inadequate” to meet the nation’s needs.

Trump’s appointees have followed suit on the political messaging. Lee Zeldin, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced the agency’s spearheading of “Powering the Great American Comeback. The initiative includes a pillar to “restore American energy dominance,” which claims will lower energy bills for Americans as well as allow the country to “stop relying on energy sources from adversaries.”

But there isn’t even the slightest hint of a domestic energy crisis, especially when compared to actual crisis events that occurred in 1973, 1979 and 2022.

“Prices for gasoline are mid-range over the last, say, 20 years,” Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin’s Energy Institute said. “There’s plenty of supply. We’re not having major electricity outages. We’re not having lines at gas stations.”
“There’s no crisis or emergency by any conventional standard or use of the word,” Noah Kaufman, a senior researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy”.

With oil prices remaining steady, the oil and gas industry may not even be incentivized to drill more, the experts said.

As of Tuesday, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, the key benchmark for oil prices in the U.S., was about $66 per barrel — “not crazy-high,” Kaufman said. “And they’re not going to increase drilling if they lose money by doing so.”

The world doesn’t need more oil, despite Trump’s suggestions that the U.S. is not producing nearly enough, the experts said. The U.S. may be the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, but global demand is falling — with countries in Europe and Asia decreasing their use of fossil fuels as renewables such as wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles, eat away at the demand for fossil fuels.

“It’s cheaper and more energy secure for them to use renewable power,” Nemet said.

Trump’s attempts to bring oil and gas back to the forefront will set the U.S. behind compared to other G2 countries and their climate goals, experts said. China and Europe are rapidly developing renewables as their primary energy. “We’re doing nothing like that here”.

The Trump administration is “disingenuously” using the rhetoric of an energy crisis to promote fossil fuels, speed the permitting of extraction projects and justify the bypassing of environmental reviews, David Konisky, a professor of environmental politics at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, told ABC News.

The messaging of an energy emergency is also the administration’s attempt to defend its ideological goals of deregulation and reversal of Biden-era efforts to address climate change.

A lot of the momentum for solar, wind and other clean energy sources in recent years came from tax credits and other policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, along with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, both passed during the Biden administration. Trump promised during the campaign to rescind all unspent funds from the IRA.

While there may be no shortage of fossil fuels in sight, climate scientists and international communities continue to warn of the climate consequences we are increasingly facing with the worldwide production and consumption of fossil fuels — which remains the primary cause of global heating.

Global Fire Sale

March 13, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

Within the first few short weeks of President Trump’s second go at being President he already has severely damaged the government’s ability to fight climate change, upending American environmental policy with moves that could have lasting implications for Hawaii, the nation, and the planet.

The flurry of Trump actions has stretched the limits of presidential power, and notably:

Trump has gutted federal climate efforts
Rolled back regulations aimed at limiting pollution and given a major boost to the fossil fuel industry
Abandoned efforts to reduce global heating, even as the world has reached record levels of heat that scientists have determined is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels. Every corner of the world is now experiencing the effects of these rising temperatures in the form of deadlier hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts, and species extinction.

To achieve such a wholesale overhaul of the country’s climate and environmental policies in such a short time, the Trump administration has reneged on federal grants, fired federal agency workers en masse, and attacked longstanding environmental regulations.

Trump’s EPA moves to dismantle climate and pollution rules

The Trump administration is also engaged in sweeping efforts to roll back decades of environmental regulations, targeting air quality standards and emissions rules, as well as climate policies that have governed and guided U.S. industrial standards.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under administrator Lee Zeldin, is reconsidering dozens of regulations, including the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health, which underpins current climate policies.
Other targets include air pollution limits, rules restricting coal ash contamination, and Biden-era vehicle emissions standards aimed at boosting electric and hybrid car adoption.
Environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers vow legal challenges, warning that these rollbacks could have severe health and climate consequences.

The move comes as the Trump administration has embarked on a broad dismantling of climate and environmental policy across the federal government. The E.P.A. did not detail in its filing the specifics of its planned rewrite, and Molly Vaseliou, an agency spokeswoman, and that the agency would not comment beyond the filing.

Why this matters:

The Trump administration’s latest EPA overhaul is a gut punch to decades of environmental safeguards, and a significant step toward completely redefining the purpose of the agency. Under Zeldin, the Trump administration’s EPA is taking a wrecking ball to emissions rules, air quality protections, and even the legal backbone of U.S. climate policy. If they succeed, they won’t just be unraveling Biden-era policies — they’ll be reaching back to undo the fundamental science-based regulations that have supported public health by keeping air and water cleaner for decades.

Government climate data quietly removed as Trump administration reshapes policy

Since Donald Trump returned to office, thousands of federal climate and environmental data sets have been deleted or altered, raising concerns about transparency and public access to critical information.

In short:

Around 2,000 records have disappeared from Data.gov since January, including tools tracking climate risks and environmental concerns.
The Biden-era Climate and Economic Screening Tool and the EPA’s E-Screen were quickly removed, but researchers managed to preserve copies.
Legal challenges are emerging, with groups suing federal agencies to restore missing public health and climate resources.

Key quote:

“When you start taking down this information, changing how issues are described and doing so in misleading ways, really, what it is, is censorship and propaganda.”

— Eric Nost, geographer, University of Guelph

Trump’s EPA also moves to roll back chemical safety rules

The Trump administration is pulling back on Biden-era rules that required chemical facilities to adopt stronger safety measures against disasters and public health impacts. The rollback would affect nearly 12,000 facilities producing and otherwise handling hazardous chemicals. “Chemical explosions force entire neighborhoods to evacuate. First responders have died rushing into disasters they weren’t warned about. Workers have suffered burns, lung damage, and worse, all because companies cut corners to save money”, according to Adam Kron, attorney at Earthjustice.

Millions of Americans live near hazardous chemical sites, and past disasters have shown how devastating explosions and leaks can be. Industry groups argue these safety measures are expensive and do little to prevent accidents, but with climate-fueled storms and wildfires threatening industrial sites more than ever, the timing couldn’t be worse.

Why this matters:

More than 130 million people live within three miles of sites that handle hazardous chemicals that were covered by the Biden-era rule, the E.P.A. has estimated. A 2020 Congressional Research Service report said that a “worst-case scenario” accident at any of 2,000 of the most hazardous sites could endanger 100,000 people or more.

EPA cancels $20 billion in climate grants amid legal battle

The Environmental Protection Agency has revoked $20 billion in climate grants issued under the Inflation Reduction Act, escalating a legal fight over the program’s future and presidential authority to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin cited unsubstantiated claims of fraud and misalignment with the agency’s new science-denial priorities as reasons for terminating the grants, though no specific cases of fraud were identified.

The decision affects multiple recipients, including Climate United Fund, which has sued to access funds held in a Citibank account that the Trump administration froze.
Democratic lawmakers argue the move is politically motivated and undermines a congressionally authorized program meant to finance clean energy projects vital the national response to global heating impacts.

“Zeldin and Trump are spreading lies in a last-ditch effort to terminate the climate bank because the truth is it will help households save money and deploy clean energy — exactly what Big Oil is afraid of.”

— Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts

Why this all matters:

The funding cuts in question could have sweeping consequences for climate and clean energy initiatives, particularly those aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions and assisting economically disadvantaged communities. Many of these projects, established under the Biden administration, rely on federal grants to support renewable energy development, efficiency upgrades, and pollution reduction efforts.

Beyond the immediate impact on climate initiatives and programs now well underway, the outcome of this legal fight could set a precedent for how future administrations manage federal funds, raising critical questions about the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches.

For communities and industries that depend on these grants, the uncertainty Trump has created adds yet another layer of complexity to an already shifting and politically-driven transactional landscape.

Solar Energy, Criticized by Trump, Claims Big U.S. Gain in 2024

March 12, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

According to a new industry report released this week, the addition of solar energy capacity to the national grid system in 2024 represented the greatest gain from any single energy source (clean and dirty energy combined) in more than two decades – thank you President Biden.

The report, produced by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie, a research firm, determined that over 50 gigawatts of new solar generation capacity was added last year to the national grid, far more than any other source of electricity.

The report data was released a day after the Trump appointee U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, strongly criticized solar and wind energy on two fronts. Wright, speaking to a room full of fossil fuel stakeholders at CERAWeek, an annual energy conference held in Houston, explained falsely that solar and wind power cannot meet the growing electricity needs of the world, and that their use was driving up energy costs. Both statements were contrary to the facts. Especially in terms of solar energy’s unprecedented contribution in lowering energy production costs and to lowering ratepayers use costs associated with the clean energy source.

Wright went onto claim, without foundation or facts, that “Beyond the obvious scale and cost problems, there is simply no physical way wind, solar and batteries could replace the myriad uses of natural gas.” Mr. Wright, was previously chief executive of an oil and gas production company before Trump appointed him to the role of U.S. energy secretary.

Solar energy and battery storage systems have also gained significant market adoption momentum in recent years and may not be easily thwarted, and certainly not by a present administration bent on resurrecting 1950’s energy policy solely based on a fossil fueled economy.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which is part of Mr. Wright’s department, said last month that it expected solar and batteries to continue leading new capacity installations to the U.S. electricity grid this year. Proponents of clean energy celebrated the milestone for solar power as the world moves to increase electricity production to meet the needs of energy-hungry data centers to support the growth of artificial intelligence, and address escalating of global climate impacts. “There’s substantial agreement that in order to do that, we have to have enough electricity, and there are facts that show that the fastest way to do that and the cheapest way to do that is through the deployment of solar and storage,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive of the solar association, said in an interview at CERAWeek.

During the event’s panel discussion, the leader of one of the nation’s largest utility companies acknowledged solar’s ability to deliver new electricity generation quickly and cheaply.

Trump Cuts Harm Agricultural, Science, and Consumers Pay the Bill

February 25, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

In the first days of the new administration, President Trump has suspended various congressional-approved Federal funded reporting systems linked to climate science and environmental protection. Even long established NASA and NOAA reporting assets covering climate reporting in general, and more specifically direct global heating impacts and prediction have been targeted by Trump. Accompanying these sweeping changes are a set of administration priorities designed to restrict access, eliminate information, and restrict agency reporting resources designed to serve the greater public interest.

From increasing weather disasters to sea-level rise to the accelerating global meltdown of polar ice caps, global heating and associated extreme weather impacts are altogether challenging historic weather assumptions, and have become increasingly costly to society, commerce, and the global environment.

Long established and vital science-based Federal programs ranging from research to reporting serve as essential policy and planning tools for both government agencies, Congress, the private sector, and certainly the American people.

Approved by Congress and overseen by various key science-based Federal agencies, from the Environmental Protection Agency to NASA, NOAA, and other key Federal agencies serving a vital public interest role as science-based information provisioners, each now face increasing degrees of censorship, blocking to varying degrees their scientific missions and factual challenges to present day administration dogma.

In the meantime, funding, approved by Congress and overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, had been blocked since January, after President Trump took power, when he immediately ordered a targeted pause and review of all climate and clean energy programs which threaten his fossil fuel revival agenda. Programs managed by the EPA have had their funding blocked, previously approved by bipartisan Congress and overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency.

America’s newly installed President Trump ordered on day-one of his administration a pause and review of all climate and clean energy programs, especially those which challenge his political agenda and false assumptions about a hotter climate now rewriting weather and seasonal climate assumptions.

Trump’s public policy and pronouncements also ignored factual scientific findings, common sense, and the dangers and consequences of increasing levels global heating emissions from the burning and economic dependency on fossil fuels. All this comes from a president whose personal and public mission is to reverse the global progress and transition to a clean energy economy.

Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites

Climate data and guidance disappeared from US Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, which is important and useful to farmers for business planning. Farmers and environmental groups sued the Agriculture Department on Monday over its scrubbing of references to Climate Change from its website.

The department had ordered staff to take down pages focused on Climate Change on Jan. 30, according to the suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Within hours, it said, information started disappearing. That included websites containing data sets, interactive tools and funding information that farmers and researchers relied on for planning and adaptation projects, according to the lawsuit.

At the same time, the department also froze funding promised to businesses and nonprofits through conservation and climate programs. The purge then “removed critical information about these programs from the public record, denying farmers access to resources they need to advocate for funds they are owed,” it said.

Wes Gillingham, president of the board of Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, said that farmers were just heading into planning for the summer growing season. He said taking information down because of a “political agenda about climate change” was senseless. “Right now, because of climate change and because of what farmers are facing in terms of extreme weather events, we need every piece of available information we can get,” he said. “If we don’t have access to that, we’re not going to make it.”

Trump Targets Research, Scientists

At the annual gathering in Boston this past week of one of America’s oldest scientific societies, the discussions touched on threats to humankind: runaway global heating, artificial intelligence, toxic “forever chemicals,” and the even eventual end of the universe.

But the most urgent threats for many scientists were the ones aimed at them, as the Trump administration slashes the federal scientific work force and cuts back on billions of dollars in funding for research at universities.

“Angst and anxiety and, to a certain extent, grief,” is how Sudip Parikh, who leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the organization hosting the conference, summed up the mood on Saturday.

Scientists worry that the most far-reaching administration changes are still to come, affecting the cornerstones of public research funding impacting the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Together, the two US agencies fund thousands of projects each year, supporting hundreds of thousands of researchers and other workers at institutions in every state. The agencies provide the financial backbone for American efforts to treat cancer, address rising sea levels, advance quantum computing and much more.

Two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to end its freeze on federal grants authorized by Congress. On Feb. 10, one of those judges, Judge John J. McConnell Jr., said in Rhode Island federal court that the White House was defying his order by withholding funds.

Other agencies are starting to unfreeze funding. On Thursday, the Department of Agriculture announced it was releasing a “first tranche” of $20 million in conservation spending for farmers that had been authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which contained tens of billions of dollars in climate grants.

USAID, a key agency and tool serving US foreign policy goals

The mission of USAID includes an important global role; stability. That role extends to climate resilience in both developing and developed parts of the world. Heat, drought and floods are growing security risks, Western defense officials say, feeding instability and violence that proves costly to US interests. Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global heating are ensnared in the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D.

One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in the strategic port city of Basra, Iraq, where dry taps had caused violent anti-government protests. U.S.A.I.D.’s oldest program, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, ran a forecasting system that allowed aid workers in places like war-torn South Sudan to prepare for catastrophic floods last year.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was established on November 3, 1961, making it 63 years old as of February 23, 2025. The agency was created by President John F. Kennedy through the Foreign Assistance Act, which aimed to consolidate various foreign assistance programs under one umbrella to enhance the efficiency of U.S. aid efforts during the Cold War

The fate of these programs remains uncertain.

The Trump administration has essentially sought to shutter the agency. A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order. On the ground, much of the work has stopped.

A Hotter World; more extreme consequences; more political denial

January 11, 2025/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

The Earth is about 4 1/2 billion years old. During that time the planet has experienced 5 major climate-changing events of global proportion, each accompanied by 5 major global extinctions events.

Most people are focused on the noise of their modern daily lives. Macro subjects like global heating, species losses, wars, and the social and economic impacts of these threats to the status quo are generally left to so-called subject matter experts, that is, until events strike home.

Bloomberg reported early today the potential cost of the Los Angeles area fires (presently destroying large swaths of Southern California) are now projected to range between $135 billion to $150 billion in property and other economic losses.

By comparison, the total damage and economic loss from the unprecedented 2023 Maui wildfires has been estimated to range between $13 billion and $16 billion. These hugh property losses, in each case, do not consider costs measured in personal tragedy to individuals, families, and businesses victimized by ever-increasing and catastrophic events linked to global heating.

The Trump Effect

As countries unveil new climate targets, and Donald Trump readies his return to the White House for a second term, Trump is already positioning 2025 as the year he overturns assumptions and actions now addressing growing climate impacts.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mark the return of one of the world’s most outspoken and ill-informed climate science deniers. In the role as president, Trump will have the bully pulpit all to himself.

Trump’s public track record is clear enough, he is living in a world of false narratives both past and present. Denying well established and conclusive scientific findings on the human causes and effects connected to present day global heating consequences is denying the truth, but this too is not a new role for Donald Trump.

While climate change did not play much of a role in this past year’s campaign, Trump’s likely actions in office this time around could be far more significant than in 2017. Back then, he announced the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the most important UN process to tackle global climate change. The agreement saw almost all the world’s nations – for the first time, agreeing to cut the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global heating.

Speaking in his New Year’s message, secretary-general of the United Nations António Guterres said that the world is witnessing a “climate breakdown – in real time”.

“We must exit this road to ruin. In 2025, countries must put the world on a safer path by dramatically slashing emissions and supporting the transition to a renewable future,” he said, stressing that …“it is essential – and it is possible”.

The new mission of the Trump round-two administration is the same as the first time around, push for a major ramp up of oil and gas exploration and production within the US, fuel a dirty energy market economy based on increasing consumption, roll back environmental protections, defund an emerging clean energy national economy, and impose heavy tariffs on electric vehicles and solar panels coming from China and other import markets Trump does not control.

“You are looking at, overall, a ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy,” Dan Eberhart, chief executive officer of oilfield services company Canary LLC told Bloomberg News. “You are going to see offshore lease sales, you are going to see pipelines move much quicker, you are going to see fracking on federal lands and a mindset that is focused on advancing big oil profits and removing environmental safeguards.

It is not yet clear if Trump can turn back the clock for coal, oil and gas, or curtail the growth of sustainable energy sources. For a start he faces both global and domestic opposition – also notably from within his own party, once laughingly referred to as the Gas Oil Pollution party.

President Biden’s singular outstanding accomplishment during his four year term was the passage and implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which ultimately may channel as much as $1 trillion of spending towards a national transition into a sustainable clean energy economy. To win over largely Republican states, Biden channelled a large portion of IRA funds into several key GOP states and districts, who have since conveniently joined a growing global clean energy economy.

“The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action,” said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief. “But it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonize the economy and meet the goals of the Paris agreement.”

In memory of President Carter … who was ahead of his time:

“No one can embargo the sun,” Carter once said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute our air or poison our waters. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”

Faintest Ray of Hope, as the World Burns

November 10, 2024/0 Comments/in Climate /by BeyondKona

elements of this story were previously published in the Guardian; Nov. 9th, 2024

Breaking records

Global carbon emissions are continuing to increase. Last year they reached a staggering 40.6bn tons, a record that is expected to be broken by the end of 2024. Atmospheric carbon levels are now more than 50% higher than they were in pre-industrial days. Hence that 1.5C rise. Unfortunately the world’s response to this disturbing worsening of atmospheric affairs has been painfully slow…

The heat is on

At last year’s Cop28 summit in Dubai it was agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Remarkably, this was the first time an international commitment to tackle, explicitly, the root cause of our climate crisis had been agreed. In other words, it has taken three decades of negotiations to get to the state where this fairly weak commitment could be accepted globally, even though it falls far short of the full-blooded phasing out of fossil fuels for which many countries and most activists have been pressing. The arrival of Donald Trump is unlikely to help their cause.

America

Trump’s victory in the US presidential election last week casts a particularly bleak shadow over the already gloomy preparations that are being made for this week’s Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. European Commision president Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron are among those not expected to attend and there is fear that the breakthroughs hoped for will not happen..

The ‘big hoax’

Into this arena strides Donald Trump, a man who has described climate change as “a big hoax”, and is expected to repeat the decision – made during his last presidency – to withdraw the US from the landmark Paris agreement when he takes office. “There is just the faintest ray of hope now that the world will limit global warming to 1.5C, but Donald Trump may extinguish it,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Boiling point

In contrast to the views of Trump, the UN secretary general António Guterres has been particularly outspoken in his warnings about the dangers that our planet now faces in the run-up to Cop29, talking of humanity committing “collective suicide” and accusing fossil fuel companies of having “humanity by the throat”. The era of global warming has ended, he has argued and “the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Tipping over

Alarm over Earth’s climate is based, in part, on researchers’ warning that the 1.5C rise in global temperatures – which the climate negotiators had hoped to avoid – is likely to be breached over multiple years by the end of the decade, while many other climate researchers fear that holding the heat down below a 2C rise is likely to prove impossible as well.

In such a scenario, major tipping points are likely to be passed. These will include the destabilisation of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, the abrupt thawing of the world’s permafrost regions, the collapse of the North Atlantic Ocean Circulation, and the massive die-off of tropical coral reefs. Widespread flooding will ensue and temperatures will continue to rise, while deadly droughts and storms will increase in frequency. Hundreds of millions of people – mostly those in developing nations – will find their homelands no longer habitable.

Follow the money

Trying to prepare for the climatic misery that threatens to engulf the world will form the main thrust of Cop29. A new finance goal to help developing nations create green energy systems and to help them adapt to a warming world is high on the agenda over the next fortnight’s negotiations.

The sums of money involved are eye-watering. Most estimates suggest that developing countries will need an additional $500bn to $1 trillion per year in climate finance from international sources. That’s at least five times as much as the $100bn commitment that is currently in place.

Gaslight

It remains to be seen how far these plans will progress at Baku over the next two weeks. Hopes of breakthroughs – already at a low level – have been further depressed by the disclosure that a senior official in Azerbaijan’s Cop29 team, Elnur Soltanov, was filmed discussing “investment opportunities” in the country’s state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor. “We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed,” he says.

Running out of time

The problem is that the world is running out of time, a point stressed by Johan Rockström, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “With Trump’s win, we now face, at best, a repeat of his last term’s climate inaction – a four-year pause we simply can’t afford in this critical decade.”

However, a more optimistic take on the situation was provided by Stern. “I was in Marrakech for the Cop22 summit in 2016 when the news came in that Trump had won the election,” he told the Observer. “We knew what that meant, but it was remarkable how strong was the resolve among delegates that we keep going. And we will keep going this time as well.

“His presidency will make life more difficult but we are not going to give up. That would be the worst possible option” said Lord Stern, chairman of the Grantham Research Institute.

Hurricane Helene; climate poster child

October 18, 2024/1 Comment/in Climate, Politics & Policy /by BeyondKona

— UPDATE (Oct. 18th 2024, originally published Oct 3rd) —

Officials called Hurricane Helene’s deadly rainfall and floods “biblical” and “generational.” But weather forecasters used another term: “once in 1,000 years.”

It is striking Hurricane Helene was actually the second of three back-to-back once-in-a-millennium storm systems striking North Carolina in a matter of days, and shortly thereafter to be followed by Hurricane Milton which made landfall in Florida on October 9, 2024, following Helene, which made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024.

Hurricane Milton devastated communities that were still recovering from Hurricane Helene. But the precursor of a set of three super storms was an unnamed tropical storm which was labeled once-in-1,000-year storm with rains swamping communities on the opposite side of the state, and inundating homes along the coast.

It’s a mistake to believe we’ll only see one of these storms within a lifetime and in a given place. That’s because of the supercharging effects of climate change on weather, contributing to the likelihood of catastrophic rains increases, said Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California Los Angeles.

—

After Hurricane Helene’s super heated energy ripped through the US Southeast this past week, the Harris and Trump campaigns saw things very differently as to the cause and effects of this unprecedented and climate-heated storm systems most recently demonstrated in the form of hurricane Helene; the latest example of the new climate-fueled weather reality facing the United States and the world.

Helene has left millions still without power in states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia. And days after Helene struck, the outside world still has only a rough idea as to the wholesale storm damage, harrowing escapes and still fully unaccounted loss of lives with homes, businesses and infrastructure fully destroyed.

It was a storm of unparalleled scale, ravaging the south-eastern end of the United States (a total of seven states). So far Helene has killed over 200 people with a death toll continuing to rise. The storm’s cost measured in damage and destruction has been estimated in the billions of dollars impacting public and private properties, and disrupting of commerce.

Politics vs. Climate Reality

It is has been a long road to belief and the need for an overdue public awakening since Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance” was first published in 1992.

Since that time, America has struggled between the polar opposites..of strong and compounding scientific climate evidence versus wishful thinking and outright denial. Based on scientific findings of the past 50 years a common climate cause & effect message has evolved and become somewhat finalized. This forward energy moved the needle of public opinion from the obscure to front page news. A meaningful climate response was (is) developing as policy – right now..

Over the past four years the Biden – Harris Administration has led on climate policies in synch with a national awakening that our planet is in trouble, and we’re directly responsible.

Directing US government agencies, President Biden’s one-term presidency took up the fight against global heating denial and previous executive inaction.

In the world today, fully obscured in media-politics are information outlets often commingling facts (news) with fiction and myth.

Overcoming partisan warfare, President Biden and his VP co-pilot Kamala Harris found a way forward with meaningful climate policies directed at the United States and the world.

The Biden-Harris administration’s climate work was translated into a signature moment for President Biden back August 2022. The president signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This achievement capped nearly two years of administration effort to pass sweeping bipartisan legislation addressing a growing climate crisis mostly ignored up that point by both political parties and previous administrations.

With passage of the IRA plan, the Biden-Harris team unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars directed at US clean energy projects which are advancing national technology development and innovation and creating with it a 21st century American economic renaissance.

Newly enacted regulations supporting the IRA climate legislation goals were also enacted and primarily directed at throttling planet-warming pollution from cars, methane blenching oil wells, and dirty-energy power plants. Together, represented well over half of all greenhouse gas emissions released by the United States.

Some of the resulting IRA policies were explicitly designed to be popular — winning over hearts and minds as tax breaks turned homeowners into solar enthusiasts and dollars flowed into US factories, and creating new 21st century jobs. However, historically and politically uncharacterized, a sizable portion of IRA funds are directed towards deeply red districts where voters are more likely than not to be skeptical of climate connected changes and disbelievers of bonafide climate science.

“We’ve been able to get an incredible thing done (IRA becoming law), and it’s just the beginning,” said Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, a group that advocates on behalf of America’s growing ranks of clean energy workers. “All of the hard work over the next 10 years by folks in the government and folks in the private sector is going to be what makes this an essential and successful economic transformation .”

Trump 2.0: no science or common sense, just politics

If elected in 2024, Donald Trump has promised a repeat performance of his first disastrous term in which he will yank the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord for a second time — if he wins the presidency again in November. Trump’s statement last Friday comes after years of Big Oil and their Republican minions preparing for this election moment going about updating their pro-pollution playbook while laying the groundwork for Trump the candidate to withdraw from the global agreement if elected.

On June 1, 2017, newly elected President Trump announced from the Rose Garden that the United states will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, fulfilling a then 2016 campaign promise. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris global Climate Agreement effectively provided a significant blocking of meaningful actions to lowering and eliminating global greenhouse gas emissions, especially with the United States among the top three climate polluters and agreement signatories. It was no less than a major four year global set-back towards the social-economic clean energy progress already in motion within the United States, and certainly a roadblock to a global transition into clean energy economy … just as Big Oil planned it.

The Paris Accord signatories are a recognition of the serious threat Global Heating represents to everyone on the planet, as well as the unified response and roadmap to progress for the 195 member nations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in addressing what has become global threat — it was also an agreement which took more than over 10 years to finalize, and was (and is) based on the most credible scientific climate findings and political compromise among a diverse group of member nations creating the agreement.

The Paris Climate Accord also blurs the distinction between developed and developing countries, requiring all nations to submit plans for emission reductions in context to a global problem requiring a global solution. The United States is typically ranked as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, about 6 billion tons of CO2 per year, behind only China.

REPAIRING A PLANET IN DISTRESS

In addressing climate impacts as a national, as well as global problem, the Biden-Harris administration set-forth on day one of it’s administration to repair the national and global damage of Trump administration climate policies and actions in targeting previous climate reforms and withdrawing from the Paris Accord, which was followed by four years of chaotic swings in policy and national direction.

The day one priority for the then 2021 newly elected President Biden was for the United States to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord as soon as possible in it role previous leadership role as a full partner to the Accord. Following the restoration of the US leadership and participation in the global climate actions, the Biden-Harris administration focused their attention on transforming and restoring American leadership as a global clean energy leader and technology competitor.

The bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act was the crowning jewel in President Biden national accomplishments on climate, which placed national needs ahead of party politics, including an emphasis on deeply red southern states and districts — where voters are more likely to be skeptical of climate science and the connection to global heating changes now underway, as Hurricane Helene recently demonstrated.

Trump 2.0 vows to abandon the Paris Climate Agreement, and plans also plans to pull-out of the 32-year-old UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that underpins the entire structure of international cooperation against warming temperatures. There would be far-reaching and enduring impacts, and potentially sidelining US leadership and interests on climate talks for years to come, as was the case when Trump first took office in 2016.

IRA CLIMATE FUNDING IN JEOPARDY

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a significant piece of legislation signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, and another climate target by Trump 2.0.

The legislation allocates $369 billion for energy security and climate change programs over ten years. Key aspects of the IRA include:

Reduce the federal deficit to fight inflation
Invest in domestic (clean) energy production and manufacturing
Lower carbon emissions by approximately 40% by 2030
Reduce healthcare costs (also a driver of inflation)

The IRA provisions include tax incentives for clean energy projects, bonuses for investments in low-income communities and energy communities and extends and expands credits for energy-efficient home improvements and residential clean energy installations (many Hawaii business and residents are benefitting from the IRA).

Healthcare, like energy transformation, is a growing 21st century challenge

The Biden-Harris IRA bill also addresses key issues within Medicare by enabling the system to lower taxpayer and patient costs by allowing the system to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time – a most helpful action in light of aging population.The IRA also caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 annually, and extends Affordable Care Act premium subsidies through 2025. But the real ground breaking aspects of the IRA legislation are its climate-weighted national economic benefits of an emerging US clean energy sector.

The legislation has already spurred over $500 billion in private sector manufacturing and efficiency investments since its 2022 enactment, including approximately $240 billion in clean energy manufacturing.

The underlying economic and social goals, beyond the health benefits to society from a clean energy economy, is the IRA creating good-paying 21st century jobs in the emerging global green energy economy.

The 2024 Candidate Trump version has promised to redirect IRA away from climate-crisis focused funding, and to scrap IRA funding for clean energy — such a move will put at risk billions of dollars in grants and other support already earmarked — but not yet delivered — to clean energy ventures.

Trump 2.0 has pledged to “claw-back” IRA funding from national Climate programs and incentives already in progress.

Billions of dollars for climate and transitional clean energy funding dollars are at stake if Trump is elected in 2024. The Biden administration, aware of this risk, have been working to swiftly distribute climate money, putting much of it out of a new president’s reach. The Biden administration has further tried to pare back oil industry emissions of methane (a most potent greenhouse gas) and key by-product component of natural gas production and consumption through the IRA program.

The Trump camp has already stated they will “remake the EPA” and its environmental regulations and policies which get in their way of their big oil pro-pollution and fossil-fuel growth agenda, further placing air, water, and climate protections at risk.

The outcome of November’s election will go a long way to deciding what happens next — but not all the way. Investors, analysts and developers whose decisions shape the American energy transition are resolute: A victorious Trump can’t fully halt the country’s green shift.

Putting campaign rhetoric aside, it’s clear that the sweeping 2022 climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act has been built to withstand political attacks. Some IRA grant money has already gone out the door. IRA tax credits are now seeding factories in Republican strongholds, but reversals on climate change mitigation efforts and clean energy progress as foreseen in Trump’s vision and agenda – and if elected, Trump will return to a familiar theme of climate denialism as national policy.

Going backwards is not a an option for humanity or the United States. As Gore’s book pointed out, life on Earth is increasingly out-of-balance.