The Weekly Anthropocene, April 12 2023
Sand cats in Morocco, the demographic transition in Africa, offshore wind progress in America, an ancient sea goddess in the Netherlands, and more!
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Morocco
A new study from renowned NGO Panthera offers the most in-depth information ever about the ecology of the sand cat (Felis margarita), a tough desert survivor known to hunt poisonous snakes. After radio-collaring 22 sand cats in the deserts of southwestern Morocco, the researchers were shocked to find that they had extremely large home ranges, comparable to those of big cats like leopards and tigers. The average home range size of sand cat males was found to be over 300 square kilometers (an area larger than the Bronx and Manhattan combined!) compared to under 10 square kilometers for the similarly sized and closely related African wildcats. The researchers speculate that this may be an adaptation to the harsh desert environment and perhaps even to climate change, as resources are sparse and thinly spread across the landscape. They also found very few scars, broken teeth, fresh wounds, or other signs of conflict, indicating that sand cats very rarely fight others of their species even when their home ranges overlap. It’s always fascinating to learn more about the creatures with whom we share Anthropocene Earth!
Sub-Saharan Africa
In one of the most important yet most underreported stories in the world today, the global demographic transition appears to have arrived in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fertility rates (children per woman, broadly) have dropped substantially in the past fifteen years, across countries ranging from Uganda to Guinea, thanks in large part to birth control becoming widely available and increased social and economic freedom for women to make their own reproductive choices. (See chart above from The Economist, and check out the full excellent article). Declines like these are good news because they tend to be correlated with a host of societal benefits. Spacing out births reduces risks to the mother’s health, and families with more working-age adults per child are more likely to be able to feed their children and send them to school. As climate change weirds the weather in Africa and the world, smaller, wealthier, and better-fed families will also be better able to survive a bad storm or lost harvest.
These shifts also have broader implications. As Africa is the region currently driving much of humanity’s population growth1, this means that the global human population in the mid to late 21st century will be substantially lower than researchers expected just a few years ago. The “population bomb” feared in the 1960s and 1970s has been decisively defused. Even the Club of Rome, which issued the highly influential 1972 “Limits to Growth” report2 warning of dangerous exponential population growth, now projects that the world population will peak at 8.8 billion before 2050. For a more in-depth look at the demographic transition and the history and potential future of human population growth, check out The Weekly Anthropocene’s deep dive article on the subject.
Clean Energy in America
The Rhodium Group, a think tank, forecasts [graphic] that the Inflation Reduction Act all on its own will lower US total greenhouse gas emissions to 32-42% below 2005 levels by 2030, and that we could approach the national Paris Agreement of 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 with additional actions (e.g. more EPA regulatory limits on fossil fuels, vehicles, and methane leaks plus new state-level laws).
This broadly aligns with a recent report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, discussed in a previous issue of this newsletter which forecasts US power sector emissions 84% below 2005 levels by 2030 due to IRA and BIL investments. Note this NREL estimate just covers the power sector, emissions generated by burning fossil fuels for electricity. It doesn’t include emissions from more slowly decarbonizing sectors like vehicles, agriculture, and industry, which is why the Rhodium Group’s whole-of-economy forecast is less dramatic). The Biden Administration has truly made a transformative investment to fight the climate crisis!
On April 6, Vice President Kamala Harris made a visit to the Qcells solar panel factory in Georgia to announce the largest community solar purchase in US history. Virginia company Summit Ridge Energy will be using 2.5 million American-made Qcells solar panels to build 1.2 gigawatts (1,200 megawatts) worth of community solar projects in Illinois, Maryland, and Maine, enough to power 140,000 homes and businesses across the three states. This is another great example of renewables progress made possible by Inflation Reduction Act funding!
Walmart announced that it will install new public EV fast charging stations at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations across the country, quadrupling their current network of 280 locations with EV chargers. This could substantially help America’s transition to EVs by reducing “range anxiety,” as 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart or Sam’s Club.
Offshore Wind in America
The Department of Energy has released new maps of the battery, solar, and offshore wind investments being made under the Biden Administration! The offshore wind one is above, and the other two are very much worth checking out (at least if you’re a maps and renewables fan like this writer!).
The Biden Administration has issued the first turbine installation clearance for a commercial-scale offshore wind farm in American history. The Department of the Interior on April 3rd cleared the 132-MW South Fork Wind project to begin constructing and installing turbines off the shores of Long Island, New York. Construction is now under way and should be completed summer 2023. This is a truly historic moment for American energy!
The first-ever US-flagged offshore wind turbine service operations vessel (SOV), the ECO Edison, is currently being built in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida shipyards and has just reached the 50% completion mark. Notably, being US-flagged means it’s compliant with the Jones Act, a notably burdensome federal regulation requiring US-flagged ships for many categories of domestic shipping. The first-ever Jones Act-compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel, the Charybdis, is also currently under construction, in Texas.
The Netherlands
During the time of the Roman Empire, the Celtic and Germanic peoples that lived in what’s now the Netherlands worshiped a goddess of the sea known as Nehalennia, whose stories faded over the centuries. Now, after a series of new archeological discoveries raised interest, Nehalennia is earning reverence once again; this time as the goddess of adaptation to sea level rise. A replica Nehalennia Temple has been built in the Dutch village of Colijnsplaat, on polder land reclaimed from the ocean. It serves multiple purposes as a historic and cultural monument, a tourist attraction and an active site of modern neo-pagan spirituality. (Here’s the temple website, in Dutch). An art exhibit elsewhere in the Netherlands uses Nehalennia as a symbol of nature-based adaptation to sea level rise.
This sort of religious-cultural development isn’t in this newsletter’s normal scope, but it’s pretty fascinating. The Anthropocene brings many unexpected changes in addition to the obvious ones, including the resurrection of a two thousand year old goddess.
Contrary to popular belief, China’s population is currently declining, in a little known but highly important shift.
The Limits to Growth report has a lot to answer for: it may have directly inspired both China’s brutal one-child policy and a period of forcible sterilizations in India. As The Weekly Anthropocene’s deep dive article on human population makes clear, our position is that government coercion on reproductive rights is always deeply immoral, whether the goal is to force people to have fewer children (as with the previous Chinese and Indian policies) or more children (as with historic attacks on reproductive healthcare in Romania and current policies in Hungary, Poland, and some American states). We’re welcoming the demographic transition news from Africa because it’s overwhelmingly caused by an increase in freedom and choice.