Climate Point: Antarctic melts, Sierra snows

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate change, energy and the environment. My name's Janet Wilson, and I'm writing to you from Palm Springs, CA, where it's pretty drippy this week.

Another place that's dripping a whole lot more is Antarctica, where glaciologists from UC Irvine have discovered that the massive continent is losing ice at a rate six times faster than in the 1980's, per Doyle Rice in Paste BN. Lead author Eric Rignot says the melt so far is "just the tip of the iceberg." As the ice sheet continues to melt away, a 10-foot global sea rise is possible by century's end, he said. The solution, as recommended by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, isn't a surprise: Stop burning fossil fuels from power plants, cars and other sources, which release greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere and oceans and pump up temperatures.

Given the spectacular lack of action to bring down emissions, perhaps it's no surprise that a New England Journal of Medicine study this week finds an earlier World Health Organization estimate of 250,000 deaths by 2050 from climate-related causes is probably extremely low. As Jen Christensen with CNN notes, due to climate change-related food shortages alone, the world could see a net increase of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050. Climate change could force 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 and poverty makes people more vulnerable to health problems.

Let's get to the point. Here are some other things you might want to know.

MUST READ STORIES:

Good news on another cold front: A series of winter storms across California were expected to dump up to two feet of snow on the Sierra mountains this week, bringing the critical snowpack to 100 percent levels. As Joshua Yeager with the Visalia Times-Delta reports, that's good news for Central Valley farmers who count on a healthy snowpack as a giant water storage facility of sorts, delivering spring meltwater to thirsty crops and recharging groundwater levels that a historic drought has left severely over-drafted. But forecasters warn that the Central Valley will need several average-to-wet years to fully recover. In fact, 75 percent of the state remains designated as official drought zones.

Speaking of draining aquifers dry, Ian James of the Arizona Republic delivers a great piece on one family farmer trying to hang on in water-starved Borrego Springs, CA. The town, which gets no imported water, offers a window into the near future for huge swaths of the American Southwest, with climate change raising temperatures and overuse tapping out much of Colorado River and State Water Project supplies. 

Wake up and smell the coffee: About 60 percent of the world's wild coffee species are at high risk of extinction due to climate change, a new study suggests, as Rice reports in Paste BN. That includes the popular commercial arabica and robusta. According to the new research, coffee bean plants are facing a wide range of threats, from increasing droughts to faster spreading fungal pathogens as temperatures rise.

ENERGY IMPACTS:

Utilities across the US have admitted to leaking toxic chemicals from coal ash ponds into groundwater and must now clean it up, as Sarah Bowman with the Indianapolis Star informs us. In Indiana, which leads the nation in number of coal ash ponds, that news comes as a beacon to those who live around the sites of current and former coal-fired power plants. Six coal power plants in Indiana have submitted plans for capping ponds that hold 40 million cubic yards of ash — enough to bury a popular stadium under 800 feet of toxic ash. "The trigger has been pulled for mandatory clean-up," said Lisa Evans, senior counsel at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law group. 

PG&E, the nation's largest power provider, says it will file for bankruptcy in the face of mounting debt, including up to $30 billion in potential insurance claims from victims of devastating fires that may have been sparked by the utility's aging power lines and other equipment. Wildfires are expected to grow worse as the climate dries and warms across the West. Lights will stay on, but as Paste BN'S Ben Tobin finds, departed CEO Geisha Williams will receive a severance package of approximately $2.5 million. What's that they say about the door not hitting you?

In a grim twist, the bankruptcy could now slow California’s efforts to fight climate change, per Sammy Roth at the Los Angeles Times. The Golden State has dramatically reduced planet-warming emissions from the electricity sector, largely by requiring utilities to increase their use of solar and wind power and fund energy efficiency upgrades for homes and businesses. Lawmakers recently set a target of 100% climate-friendly electricity by 2045. But those government mandates have depended on PG&E’s Pacific Gas & Electric unit and other utilities being able to invest tens of billions of dollars in clean energy technologies. Those investments could be in serious jeopardy.

POLITICAL CLIMATE:

It’s been a wild week in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, on his third day on the job, asked for the resignations of all South Florida Water Management District board members in connection with their backing of the powerful Florida Crystals sugar company. The State Senate would have to remove any board members who refuse. It was one of many related developments aimed at cleaning the Everglades and other waters of choking blue-green algae that TCPalm’s Tyler Treadway and Ali Schmitz tracked in several pieces. 

Much of the government remains shut down, but two Interior Department agencies are preparing to OK more oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters, as Alan Neuhauser with US News reports. The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Ocean Management ordered employees back to work to resume processing applications for oil and gas drilling permits and lease sales, even as national parks remained closed, most federal food inspections were halted and some 800,000 federal employees went without paychecks. 

And EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s confirmation hearing went forward too, chronicled by Paste BN's Ledyard King. Democrats angered by the Trump-run EPA's rollback of mercury emissions standards, revamped clean water regs and a retreat from a climate change agenda gave Wheeler an earful, but he's expected to be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate.

AND ANOTHER THING:

Finally, a sad tale from the California desert, where a long-thriving bighorn sheep population is experiencing a severe die-off. I teamed up with Desert Sun colleague Kristin Scharkey to talk with experts who are seeing the deaths first-hand about what might be felling the bighorns. Feral cattle and sheep from another herd are possible culprits, but more likely is infection by domestic goats set loose to graze on public lands. 

Somehow the unpaid federal scientists figured out a way to update the weekly carbon dioxide emissions counts. The numbers aren't good, but thank you.

That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me on Twitter @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox here.