What’s the plan?

How are we going to solve the climate crisis?

At Everment our goal is to help people understand what’s happening to the climate and take action. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, and we’re in it as long as it takes. We hope you’ll join us in fighting for our planet’s future.

How does supporting Everment fix the climate? We take an all encompassing approach. When you support us you’re supporting a host of organizations and solutions. These include environmental sustainability groups, activists, carbon offset / carbon capture technology companies, biotech companies, and more.

Let’s be honest, the climate situation is not in a great state. But, the good news is that’s far from being too late. We need to take action and fast though. We’re on course for some very rough years if we don’t do anything and let ourselves keep pace with the current carbon output. If we let it go long enough, it’ll become a permanent disaster, which is why the sooner we take action the better our future will be.

Gene editing to survive climate change

To ensure cows have a better chance of survival in a future with intense climate change heat waves, scientists have successfully edited a bovine’s genomes using the popular CRISPR technique to change the animal from having black and white patterning to grey and white.

CRISPR genome editing resulted in successfully transforming this calf’s black patches to grey. Crown Research Institute AgResearch

This novel approach hopes to improve the livestocks’ ability to survive in a changing climate environment. You can learn more about this particular cow and the genome editing process here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2256097-cattle-are-being-gene-edited-to-help-them-survive-climate-change/

As impressive as it might be, we can’t help but ask is this going to be enough to help their survival, and is it even the right approach to begin with? If the goal is to increase survivability, shouldn’t we want to reduce the carbon footprint? Perhaps reducing cows’ methane emissions would do more for us than changing the cow’s spot colors. We’ll be watching this space closely to find out what’s next.

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Each month at Everment we contribute to our partner organizations taking on climate change. If you’d like to join us, please visit our website Everment.co to learn and contribute. Every little bit goes a long way in helping us achieve our climate goals.

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Covid-19 Collapsing Fossil Fuels, Spiking Renewable Demand

The worldwide pandemic has caused the largest decrease in fossil fuel emissions ever recorded. In the wake of the fossil fuel industry’s 70 year shock, renewable energy demand never stopped, and seems to have more momentum than ever, according to the world’s energy experts.

The Internal Energy Agency has stated that carbon emissions are expected to drop by 8% this year because of the outbreak, totaling the same CO2 output as all of India.

The reason for renewables’ resilience is due to low cost to operate, and zero transportation costs. They’re also not being holden to the oil market and the oil rich nations’.

For those that don’t know, nations in the middle east like Saudi Arabia have massive reserves of oil they can hold back, restricting supply, in order to drive up the price. The opposite is also true to drive prices down. Since those countries can pump a barrel for a few dollars, anything above that is all profit. States like Russia and the US are reliant on oil selling above ~$40/barrel because their extraction, refinement, and transportation costs are so much higher. If a Saudi Arabia wants to put the US shale producers out of business, reducing competition, they flood the market with supply, dropping the price dramatically, and still turn a profit. Sustained low oil prices means eventual bankruptcies & collapsing economies in Russia’s case. When the squeeze is over, they can restrict the supply again, sending prices sky high and recoup all their lost profits.

So far projections are that the US will see a 9% decrease in demand for fossil fuels while the EU will see an 11% drop. Full lock downs have shrunken the demand for energy by 20%, while partial lockdowns have seen less of a dramatic pull back.

The International Energy Agency said, “The impact of the crisis on energy demand is heavily dependent on the duration and stringency of measures to curb the spread of the virus.”

The 8% reduction is “roughly equivalent to the annual emissions reductions needed to limit warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures”, according to climate news website Carbon Brief. In order to reach the goal set out by the Paris Climate Agreement, we would have to reach similar cut backs in emissions every year this decade. Unfortunately, the IEA stated the drop in demand wasn’t likely to last.

“If the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis is anything to go by, we are likely to soon

Dr Birol stated: “Resulting from premature deaths and economic trauma around the world, the historic decline in global emissions is absolutely nothing to cheer.” 

“If the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis is anything to go by, we are likely to soon see a sharp rebound in emissions as economic conditions improve. But governments can learn from that experience by putting clean energy technologies – renewables, efficiency, batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture – at the heart of their plans for economic recovery.”

“Investing in those areas can create jobs, make economies more competitive and steer the world towards a more resilient and cleaner energy future,” he concluded.

Our hope is to see renewable energy companies take advantage of the dramatic change in oil demands, using the fossil fuel industries’ weakness as a wedge for expanding renewable sources. It’s the smart bet, the resilient bet, and more practically, a multi-pronged hedge against the multi decade long disaster that will dwarf Covid-19.

Florida Keys Set for $100 Million Restoration

The NOAA is funding the regrowth of seven reefs along the Florida Keys using polyps grown on shore and transplanted to the reef locations. According to the Tampa Bay Times, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would like to regrow seven reefs deemed ‘iconic’ along the Florida Keys.

This is very exciting news! It’s been a long time since we’ve had some positive developments regarding coral reefs, but as of right now, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is planning to revive some of the affected reefs.

The chain of reefs off the South Florida coast has fallen on hard times with the current coverage only 2 percent of its former peak. Those same reefs used to have coverage over 30 percent, sometimes up to 40 percent. The reefs help protect and maintain Florida’s fishing and tourism industries.

The decline of the reefs is due to several causes that include climate change, and water quality. Climate change causes several major problems for reefs. When water temperatures change too much, the algae that live inside the corals flee. This is known as ‘bleaching’, and it means the coral no longer has that algae as a food source. More powerful and more frequent storms give the reef less time to recover. Ocean acidification also causes slower reef regeneration. With the combination of these three factors, reef coverage has dropped off significantly from where they once were.

Example of coral reef bleaching in Austrailia. File Credit: marineconservation.org.au

There are 7 ‘iconic’ reefs set to receive the $100 million funding. From north to south they are: Carysfort Reef, Horseshoe Reef, Cheeca Rocks, Sombrero Reef, Newfound Harbor, Looe Key Reef, and Easter Dry Rocks.

These reefs were deemed ‘iconic’ because they are most popular with divers and snorkelers.

The restoration project’s first phase is intended to last 5 to 7 years and cost $97 million. In this phase faster growing corals will be planted first from polyps grow in tanks on land. These corals have the unique ability to regenerate an entirely new coral from a broken piece in a fraction of the time it takes a coral to grow from scratch.

The second phase of the project is going to last another 10 to 12 years with the eventual goal of restoring 25% of the coral back.

Tom More, NOAA’s lead on coral restoration efforts says “I think success, for me, is going to be when we have people that come to dive on these reefs, come to snorkel on these reefs and get in and go to one of these sites and hop out of the water and say, ‘Wow that looks a lot better than it looked five years ago,’”

The hope is to bring back economic value lost when the reefs were lost, and restore the biodiversity. Jessica Levy, a manager for the restoration program says “I feel for the industry. There’s a lot of economic value on our coral reefs and I understand it’s scary to admit how bad it is, but glossing over it doesn’t do anyone any favors. It’s only going to get worse if we don’t admit that there’s a reason restoration is needed.”

To better understand the coral regrowth process, watch how scientists are breeding corals that can better survive the onset of climate change in the short clip from Vice.

World First: Fully Electric Commercial Flight Completed

The worlds first fully electric commercial test flight was completed in Vancouver, Canada. The plane that completed the record first journey was a 62 year old refitted six seater aircraft. The pilot, Greg McDougall, took off from Vancouver and flew for just under 15 minutes.

The aircraft has a fully electric 750 horsepower electric motor. McDougall was quoted as saying his company made history by moving aviation into the “electric age.”

Our congratulations go out to Doug and his team at Harbour Air. This is a fantastic first step to electrifying the air. Engineers have struggled for years to get a battery’s energy density high enough for commercial flight. We’re finally seeing some of the come to fruition. While this plane certainly wont be displacing any large scale operations tomorrow, it’s the incremental steps that lead the world to better outcomes.

The li-ion batteries used on the plane were estimated to get around 100 miles (160 km) of range. Harbour Air are hoping to electrify the rest of their fleet which flies 300 daily fights.

Cranfield Aerospace Solutions based in England is another company working towards the goal of electric flight. However, they’re a few years away from first flight, estimating their commercial flight program could start as early as 2023. Here’s another demo of some of Cranfield’s other projects. We’re very excited to see what they come up with, and we’ll be watching this space closely.

The EU (except Poland) agree to be carbon neutral by 2050

This is great news for the whole of Europe. It’s too bad Poland was not in on the agreement, but let that take nothing away from the achievement.

“We have reached an agreement on climate change, it is very important, it was crucial, for Europe to show strong ambition” – EU Council President Charles Michel

This 2050 commitment was an important goal in following the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

So how has Europe decided to actually accomplish this? Well, the participating countries will need to cut their carbon emissions from fossil fuels and find other ways to offset their remaining emissions. This is still a bit vague on how they plan on actually accomplishing their missing, but at least its a big step in the right direction to figuring it out.

Why was Poland left out of the deal? Well since Poland gets 80% of it’s energy from coal, it knew it was going to be a bumpy economic ride going forward if you can’t burn that coal. Since Poland would be most affected by the deal, the other EU countries decided Poland would get a deal to be exempt from the 2050 goal despite the bloc countries providing funding to meet the targets.

Angela Merkel told reporters “There is no division of Europe into different parts, but there is a member state that still needs a bit more time.”

We’ll be waiting to see more details about the plan to get all of Europe inline to slow to 1.5 – 2 degrees C pre-industrial target.