The news about climate has been pretty gloomy lately.

For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) warned that CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than its been in millions of years (421 parts per million in May). Put another way, humans have never experienced levels this high and, according to a Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist, “we are still racing at top speed towards a global catastrophe.”

And the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to knock the legs out from under efforts to turn things around. More on that another time.

For now, I’m thinking why not take this opportunity to share some news, some off the radar stuff that doesn’t make headlines but which seems appropriate to label as “good news.”

The Los Angeles city council has been busy. A councilman recently stated, “We are ending oil drilling in Los Angeles. We are moving to all-electric new construction. And we are building toward fossil free transportation.” Not pausing to rest on their laurels, they are also now considering following the lead of our neighbor city Petaluma to ban construction of new gas stations. The theory being why encourage the gas guzzlers? 

Meanwhile, here in our little energy conscious town, the city council has responded to drought conditions by banning residents from washing cars in our driveways. Water and energy are linked. It takes energy to pump, distribute, and provide clean water to our homes and businesses. Many of the gas stations in town will also wash our cars.  Wherever we get our cars washed, the job uses much less water than if we did it in our driveway.  

The Carlsberg beer company has also been working on sustainability, chiefly by brewing beer with barley grown organically using regenerative agriculture practices that improve soil health and promote carbon sequestration in the soil. Pretty good, right? But they’re not stopping there. According to a recent article, they are testing a bottle “made from wood fibers on the outside and plant-based polymers on the inside. The entire bottle is both biobased and recyclable with the exception of the cap” but they’re working on that. Moreover, the wood fibers come from a certified forest that plants two trees for every tree cut down. Sounds serious to me.

According to another recent article, scientists at Rutgers and Harvard have apparently developed a “scalable technology” using food waste and a heating device that resembles a hair dryer to create a “biodegradable, plant-based coating for foods.” This process effectively “shrink wraps” foods of any shape or size and is advertised as a “smart and green” alternative to plastic packaging. 

Speaking of plastics, according to another article, scientists have come up with a half-inch robot fish powered by a laser that can find and pick up microplastics from cracks and crevices in rivers and creeks. These microplastics are becoming ubiquitous in waterways. This tiny but potentially massively important development was reported in the journal Nano Letters, a forum for reporting original results on applied and emerging research in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The South China Morning Post has revealed a plan by that country to collect the sun’s energy in space and beam it to earth; sending solar power from space. The US Air Force is apparently looking into this as well. So far, just pie in the sky. Lots of potentially show-stopping technical issues to solve, but China’s goal appears to be a space station that is providing as much energy as a current nuclear power plant, and at affordable rates. Anybody else out there not enthusiastic about possible other uses for beams of concentrated energy from space?

  Meanwhile, back on planet earth, methane emissions from a variety of sources are a serious contributor to the climate crisis. More about this in a future article. For now, an article in the newsletter EcoWatch reports on an interesting development from down under in New Zealand. According to the article “In New Zealand, sheep (26 million) and cattle (10 million) outnumber people (5 million). All that livestock passes gas (from both ends) which means emitting more methane into the atmosphere.” So, what to do? “The country has proposed to tax farmers starting in 2025 for their livestock’s emissions.” 

There appears to be a carrot and stick process being negotiated, including incentives for adding seaweed to cattle feed. In 2020 Australian researchers found that replacing 3% of a cow’s diet with seaweed resulted in up to an 80% decrease in methane emissions. This was corroborated by UC Davis researchers in 2021.

Lastly, The Hill, a newsletter on Equilibrium/Sustainability, reported on the journey of a ship across the Atlantic. This was no ordinary ship. First, it was named The Mayflower Autonomous. Second, it departed from Plymouth England aimed for Plymouth Rock in the U.S. Third, it was powered by a “solar-driven hybrid electric motor” with a diesel backup generator.

Fourth, there was no one onboard. It was “steered by artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other technologies.” This was the first autonomous ship to traverse the Atlantic, and a possible look at the future though it’s hard to imagine a massive container ship powered by the sun, no mater how it’s steered. 

— John Mott-Smith is a resident of Davis. This column appears the first and third Wednesday of each month. Please send comments to johnmottsmith@comcast.net .