Climate Crisis AM 3/5/24 Modern Snow Making
A new UN study says the climate crisis is hitting women harder than it is men. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization released a report titled “The Unjust Climate – Bridging the Gap for Women in Agriculture.” The researchers who created the study said it included socioeconomic data from approximately 950 million rural people who live in 24 countries. This was combined with 70 years of weather information. Further, it looked at female-led households. The authors reported that national climate policy or climate change funds do not address these facts. The Guardian reported, “The difference, taken across the world’s low- and middle-income countries, adds up to about an extra $37bn lost to women from heat stress and $16bn extra from floods each year.”
Gas Prices —Concerns About $5 Per Gallon
Cold Weather —A Warmer Winter
The largest wildfire in Texas history, which has burned over one million acres and is still only partially contained, has been called a “terrifying” look at the future, according to Common Dreams. “Climate scientists have been have been warning that the Smokehouse Creek fire is a vision of what’s to come if the world doesn’t address the climate crisis.” The comments cited a UN study that claims wildfire could increase by 30% by 2050. The UN estimates may be an understatement based on the massive size of fires that burned in Northern Canada last summer and deadly fires recently in Hawaii and Chile. Over 100 people perished in each of these two fires.
Great Lakes Ice
The amount of ice on the Great Lakes continues to be at historically low levels as surface temperatures across the region have been at record highs for part of the winter. The NOAA reported low ice levels early in February. This continued into last week. Ice concentration on Lake Superior, the largest and northernmost of the Great Lakes, was less than 2%. Informed Comment reported, “While a lack of ice may bring disappointment for those looking to ice fish in the Great Lakes or visit ice caves near the coast, the lack of ice coverage also carries concerns for shoreline conditions, lake effect weather, and for various animal species in and around the Great Lakes.”
Warming weather in the winter has partially destroyed the ski resort industry. Snowmaking has been one of the few solutions. However, it can be expensive. New snowmaking machines are more energy efficient, which has helped the industry replace what warm weather has taken away. The energy efficiency is also good for the environment. According to The National Observer, “One obvious benefit is reducing the need to find people willing to schlep around a mountain in the dead of night when temperatures can dip into single digits. More importantly, automation allows resorts to ramp snowmaking up and down quickly, which is particularly useful as global temperatures climb.”
