The Weekly Anthropocene, April 17 2024
Cambodian mangroves, a Swiss legal win, leopard seals in New Zealand, solar in the Ivory Coast brings hope for West African clean energy, ocelots in Texas, skyscrapers go dark to save birds, and more!
Cambodia
A historically in-depth biological survey explored the remote southwestern mangrove forests of Cambodia in 2023, using over 50 camera traps, line transect surveys, and extensive in-person live sampling to catalog the wildlife of the Peam Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary and neighboring Koh Kapik Ramsar Site. The survey team’s recently released report reveals a treasure trove of biodiversity, with at least 700 species (likely many more!) present. The report tallies 74 fish species, over 150 bird species, 352 insect species, at least 16 bat species, and 25 non-bat mammal species, including “the critically endangered Sunda pangolin, the endangered long-tailed macaque, hairy-nosed otter and large-spotted civet, and the vulnerable fishing cat.” The mangroves also provide a range of valuable ecosystem services to humans, from carbon sequestration to protecting coastlines from storms and providing a safe breeding ground to renew populations of several fish species vital to Cambodians’ food security. A great reminder of the richness of the majestic gem-laden mosaic that is Earth’s biosphere!
Switzerland
Setting a landmark legal precedent, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favor of the petition brought by the Swiss activist group KlimaSeniorinnen, or “Senior Women for Climate Protection,” who had argued that Switzerland’s failure to cut emissions faster was a violation of a state’s duty to protect its people (in their case, from extreme heat, which is particularly threatening to seniors). This is both the first time an international court has ruled on climate change at all, and, critically, the first decision confirming that countries have a legal obligation to protect their people from its effects. The court did not order any specific response from Switzerland, writing that responding to issues of the magnitude of climate change was a matter for legislation. Nevertheless, this is a landmark moment in climate-related law: arguably the first real victory for the “climate impacts as a human rights violation” strategy in years of efforts. At least in Europe, the ruling will likely provide further legal impetus to speed up emissions reduction even further (EU power sector emissions have nearly halved since 2007). Great news!
“The Court found that the [European Convention on Human Rights] encompasses a right to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life…The Court found that the Swiss Confederation had failed to comply with its duties (“positive obligations”) under the Convention concerning climate change.”
-European Court of Human Rights (summary)
New Zealand
An innovative new study from New Zealand is using three automated programs to comb through a huge database of citizens’ pictures and identify individual leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) by the unique pattern of spots on their fur. Leopard seals are normally found on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic pack ice, but have been showing up a lot in temperate New Zealand lately, with over 200 distinct individuals identified. It’s unclear how many there are, what brought them to New Zealand, or what they’re doing when there, but it may be linked to climate change as the Antarctic warms. Fortunately, they’re doing well in New Zealand, growing comfortable in human-dominated coastal areas without causing conflict and quickly inspiring local fans!
Cote d’Ivoire
The West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire is investing in solar power in a big way! Just recently, the country inaugurated its first grid-scale solar farm in April 2024. With 37.5 MW of electricity-generating capacity, it’s the largest ever built in West Africa, and work is underway to expand it to 83 MW by 2025. Construction on a second 52 MW solar farm elsewhere in Côte d'Ivoire is set to start in Q2 2024.
But that’s not all! The Ivorian government has announced plans to build twelve additional solar farms (on top of the two already started!) spread across the country, with a total capacity of 678 MW. Two should be complete in 2025, three in 2026, and the remaining seven by 2030! International financing from Germany among others will help support this clean energy investment.
All of these together add up to about the same amount of capacity as one large American or European solar farm, but will be a big boost for the emerging economy of Côte d'Ivoire, which has only around 2,250 MW of total capacity from all sources. This will help continue the country’s nascent developmental success story; the World Bank reports that access to electricity rose from just 34% of Ivorians in 2011 to around 94% in 2020. (Keep in mind “access to electricity” can mean “one lightbulb plus one phone or radio charge point,” so there’s lots of need for more electricity to raise Ivorians’ standard of living!)
It’s worth looking at the broader context here as well. Even as solar keeps exponentially growing across the Americas, Europe, and the rising titans of Asia, it's had a lot of trouble taking off in most of sub-Saharan Africa, so this is an encouraging sign for the entire West African region and potentially a future model for others to follow. Also, Ivory Coast is the world’s leading cocoa beans exporter, and cocoa prices are very high right now due to disease and weather/climate issues. From a developmental economics perspective, we could see the nascent Ivorian solar boom as a commodity exporter building the conditions to diversify away from their beleaguered main cash crop by investing in infrastructure that could enable the spin up of electricity-hungry services and manufacturing industries. And unlike most historic examples, Côte d'Ivoire is able to take this step without suffering from increased air pollution from burning fossil fuels; we may be seeing a successful “leapfrog effect” example in the making! Great news.
"This is our country's first step in its transitional march towards clean energy."
-Mamadou Sangafowa Coulibaly, Ivorian Minister for Mines, Power and Electricity
United States
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reached a new safe harbor agreement with local landowners that makes possible the future reintroduction of ocelots on private lands southern Texas. Under the agreement, landowners within 31 miles of the planned reintroduction site will not have any land-use restrictions placed on them, in exchange for letting ocelots freely roam across their ranches and be monitored by researchers. Great work!
The Biden Administration’s EPA has set America’s first-ever National Drinking Water Standard for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (commonly known as PFAS, aka “forever chemicals”). All American public water systems must check for the presence of PFAS and inform the public of the results within three years, and if PFAS levels exceed new EPA limits, they must begin implementing solutions (for example activated carbon filtration) to reduce PFAS within five years. Another spectacular example of smart, science-based far-reaching progressive action!
“By reducing exposure to PFAS, this final rule will prevent thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of serious illnesses, including certain cancers and liver and heart impacts in adults, and immune and developmental impacts to infants and children.”
-U.S. EPA
In a recent wide-ranging meeting between the U.S. and Japanese heads of government1, President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida agreed to support plans for an Amtrak-led bullet train between Dallas and Houston, which would reduce travel times between the major Texan cities from over 3 hours by car to 90 minutes by train. This still-on-the-drawing-board “Texas Central High Speed Rail Project,” which if successfully built in future years will become the first high-speed rail in America, is now set to use the renowned Japanese Shinkansen bullet train technologies and expertise2. Awesome!
In recent years, Texas Audubon groups have spearheaded the rapidly growing Lights Out, Texas! campaign, which works to turn off large skyscrapers’ lights during key bird migration periods to reduce collisions. Illuminated skyscrapers are often fatal to migratory birds, which are attracted to the high-rise lights (possibly because it triggers their instinct to navigate by the stars) and then crash into the building and die. To counter this, the Lights Out campaign has now spread around the state, with a wide array of individual buildings and companies as well as 24 entire communities (including the major cities of Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso) signing on to abide by their migration-safety recommendations.
Relatively small and painless accomodations from humans can allow animals to thrive alongside our civilization. Another great example of emergent human/wildlife coexistence!
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have invented a way to manufacture acetaminophen (aka paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol and many other common painkillers) from trees instead of the current feedstock of fossil fuels. Their new process converts and extracts the precursor chemical p-hydroxybenzoate (pHB) from the lignin in poplar and palm trees’ cell walls, and is reportedly cheap, efficient, and scalable to large-scale “biorefineries.” Yet another victory for human ingenuity in the global transition away from fossil fuels!
And researchers at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania have invented an unprecedentedly efficient solar cell, with an atomically thin layer of a new “van der Waals…crystalline planar” material containing copper, selenium, germanium, and tin sulfide. Traditional solar cells have a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 100%, generating one electron for each photon received, but these new cells appear to have an EQE as high as 190%, potentially generating on average more than one electron for each photon. This tech is still very much at the lab stage and is far from commercialization, but it’s an incredibly exciting sign for the future. We are only at the very beginning of the clean energy-abundant Solar Age!
Quite a lot of interesting stuff happened at this meeting; another point agreed upon was for a Japanese astronaut to join a future NASA Artemis mission, eventually becoming the first-ever non-American to set foot on the Moon.
Another great issue. NASA should include KSA Korean astronauts in the Artemis moon landing(s)! Exciting news if the ECHR ruling but conservatives in the US Congress will fight any support here, citing sovereignty no doubt. Bur what a precedent nonetheless! High time for the high-rise black-outs! Ocelots in Texas? More climate migrants like those leopard seals in New Zealand. Go ivory Coast, Lehigh University researchers, Japanese bullet train technology coming here! Thanks, Sam for all the good news!
What do you think about the old growth forest situation in British Columbia?