More setbacks on carbon emissions and more back-and-forth in the courts. But, you can help the environment with a quick spin.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we start with unpleasant news on the climate front: Emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States shot up in 2018, even though a near-record number of coal plants closed during the year. Our colleague Brad Plumer reports that the estimated 3.4 percent increase was the largest in eight years.
As we’ve written in the past, the earth’s average temperature has already risen by one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since the beginning of the industrial age, and the consequences of warming by 1.5 or two degrees Celsius are potentially grim. But the world is on track to blow past those numbers.
In the case of the new United States estimates, extra oil and gas heating during a relatively cold winter and spiking emissions from factories, planes and trucks help explain the jump. The deeper message is clear: Closing coal plants won’t be enough to rein in planetary warming.
Calls for action may be increasingly urgent, but the partial government shutdown has put the brakes on some of the science that helps track phenomena like climate change. And while the Trump administration does not fully accept the science of global warming or the need to address the problem, young, progressive new members of Congress are pushing for a “Green New Deal” that is getting attention now that Democrats control the House of Representatives.
Whether the aborning plan goes anywhere is yet to be seen. This is Washington, after all.
Ups and downs in climate cases
The fight over climate change isn’t just playing out in Congress and the executive branch; it has also made its way into American courts on many fronts.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge brought by Exxon Mobil to blunt an investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey. Ms. Healey, a Democrat, is demanding documents from the oil giant in her investigation of the company’s statements and actions concerning climate change.
“The attorney general’s office has the authority to investigate Exxon’s conduct toward consumers and investors, and we are proceeding,” said Chloe Gotsis, a spokeswoman for Ms. Healey. “The public deserves answers from this company about what it knew about the impacts of burning fossil fuels, and when.”
A similar investigation in New York led to a lawsuit filed last year claiming the company committed fraud against shareholders and lied to the public. Exxon, which has argued that the investigations are politically motivated, declined to comment on the latest development.
State and local governments, too, are suing fossil fuel companies to recoup the costs of climate change. And Democratic state attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over its efforts to roll back environmental regulations, including many that were designed to counter climate change.
But one of the most interesting lawsuits over climate change has stalled. A coalition of young people is suing the federal government, asking the courts to make the Trump administration take action to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Justice Department has worked to derail the trial, which was scheduled to begin in October in Federal District Court in Eugene, Ore.
Last month the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed to hear an appeal by the Justice Department that could significantly narrow the case or even get it thrown out. The judge in Eugene who would preside over the trial, Ann Aiken, has delayed it while the issues are sorted out.
The young people’s lead lawyer, Julia Olson, said in an interview that the courts had so far shown a willingness to allow the case to go forward and let the facts play out. “We need judges to stand up to the power of the executive branch of government,” she said.
Legal analysts are unsure of those prospects. “It is possible that the trial will never happen,” Michael Burger and Jessica Wentz wrote recently on Columbia Law School’s Climate Law Blog.
One thing you can do: Go in circles
Like me, you may have recently watched the holiday comedy “Elf,” starring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf. One of Buddy’s many discoveries on his first trip to New York City is a revolving door. Round and round he goes, childlike glee on his face.
Buddy may have been onto something. Revolving doors are not only more fun than their swinging alternatives, they’re also more energy efficient.
“When you open a door, a lot of air goes in and out, and a revolving door helps with keeping that more stable,” said Rini Paiva, vice president for selection and recognition at the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which has a museum in Alexandria, Va. “It’s a very convenient way to move people in and out of the building without having to keep a door open continuously.”
That means more heated air can be kept inside during the winter, and cooled air during the summer, reducing energy use.
But when students at M.I.T. studied foot-traffic patterns at a campus building in 2006, they found that only 23 percent of people chose the revolving door over nearby swinging doors. (Not everyone can use revolving doors; they’re usually inaccessible to people in wheelchairs, for example.)
The students calculated that if everyone used the building’s revolving door, it would save 14.6 tons of carbon emissions annually — the amount generated by heating five households. Multiply that across all the revolving doors in the world, and the energy savings could be significant.
An early revolving door appeared in an 1881 German patent, issued to a person named H. Bockhacker for the Tür ohne Luftzug, or “draft-free door.” But the design didn’t initially catch on.
By 1888, though, Theophilus Van Kannel had secured an American patent for a similar, three-paneled “storm-door structure” that became the flagship product for the Van Kannel Revolving Door Company.
The new doors not only helped control the climate inside a building, but they also kept dirt and fumes out. “It was really the dawn of the idea of buildings being bigger,” Ms. Paiva said. “It really helped to facilitate making those kind of buildings practical.”
In 2007, Van Kannel was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. It had been more than a century since his original invention, yet his basic design has remained largely unchanged.
Some buildings now direct people toward the revolving doors. If that’s your building, great. Keep following the instructions and you’ll make a small difference every day. If not, don’t forget to channel your inner elf — with a little less spinning.
