Elon Musk’s Personal Mouthpiece, Raging Arctic Wildfires—And A Simple Emissions Solution For Coal Plants

This week’s Current Climate, which every Saturday brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability. Sign up to get it in your inbox every week.

When you picture the Arctic in your mind, you probably have a visual about snow, ice and cold. But thanks to rising global temperatures, there’s another image you can add to your mental picture: wildfires. New research has shown that 2019 and 2020 were huge wildfire seasons for the Siberian Arctic, resulting in the destruction of 4.7 million hectares of land. The number of fires in these two years alone accounted for nearly half of the total burns to the area from 1982 to 2020. Scientists note that when the permafrost in this area burns, it releases a huge amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. This, they warn, could create a feedback loop where rising emissions lead to rising temperatures which lead to more wildfires and rising emissions. Earlier this year, researchers determined that the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, meaning we’re likely to see more big wildfire seasons in the area.

The Big Read

This Material Could Reduce CO2 From Coal Plants After Record Emissions Last Year, Study Finds

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology say that a material called aluminum formate could be used to scrub carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks before it even reaches the atmosphere, which accounts for 30% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study published Wednesday in the the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

Read more here.

Discoveries And Innovations

Rising carbon dioxide levels will cause crops to become less nutritious by cutting plants’ nitrogen concentrations, according to a new study, leading millions of people worldwide to face protein and mineral deficiencies as carbon emissions climb.

Connecticut-based startup Protein Engineering is working on genetically-engineered bacteria that can recycle textiles and mixed-plastic waste at scale.

Agricultural researcher Awais Khan is heading efforts to find new ways to breed apples that are resistant to disease to reduce the use of pesticide.