Climate Crisis AM 1.22.24 An EV Supercar
China EV manufacturer BYD has introduced the world’s first electric supercar. Released under the Yangwang brand, it may match the appeal of the highest-end Porsche. The YangWang U9 has an electric monster with 1,084 horsepower and 0-100 km/h acceleration in 2 seconds. The U9 is not just a competitor to high-end Tesla. It will be a challenge to Porche and high-end Mercedes and BMW sports editions. The question now is how many can be exported from China. Until now, BYD, which topped Tesla in global sales last year, has had little presence outside the country. The U9 will be priced at $150,000.
More on EVs: Ford’s dreams fall apart
Climate change has emerged again as a factor in the 2024 election. In New Hampshire, young members of the Republican party want their candidates to speak about changes needed to reduce global warming, according to NPR. The party has been seen as a home for “climate deniers.” Its next-generation appears to understand that the broad voter population is more likely to embrace those who want to protect the US from global warming.
Politics and Climate Change
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley, the last Republican challenger to former President Donald Trump, has decided to break with his view that climate change is a “hoax.” Inside Climate News pointed out that she had talked about the subject but had not walked the walk. In reporting on her views, one of its reporters quoted Haley, “We will speed up the permitting process, we’ll get our pipelines going, we’ll do the Keystone pipeline, we’ll export as much liquefied natural gas as we can.” The Keystone Pipeline was to be built to carry oil sands from Canada to Texas. It has been one of the major issues in the environmental battle between Democrats and Republicans and a focus of environmentalists.
Dragging nets along the seabed may release vast amounts of carbon dioxide. “Frontiers in Marine Science” published a report about the effects of fishing at the ocean’s bottom. Grist reports, “The study found that stirring up carbon-rich sediment on the seafloor releases some 370 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide every year, roughly the same as running 100 coal-fired power plants.”
Warming Snow
Snow packs in the mountains in the American West are being permanently destroyed by climate change. Writing in the journal Nature, experts reviewed 40 years of information on snowpack loss. They considered numbers from 160 Northern Hemisphere watersheds. Each time temperatures in the mountains rise 1 degree C, the melting accelerates and likely cannot be reversed. Alex Gottlieb, a Ph.D., part of the team that worked on the study, said, “It emphasizes the need to zoom out a little bit and take seriously the kinds of futures that might be coming down the road.”. The melting has been a cause of falling water tables in rivers that feed water to California, Nevada, and Arizona.
