“Forever chemicals,” also known as PFAS, are everywhere. They’re in our water, our soil and in everyday items like cookware, mascara or waterproof clothing.

And there’s mounting evidence that this family of thousands of synthetic chemicals can increase the risk of some types of cancer, developmental and fertility issues, and other health problems. So it makes sense to limit our exposure to them.

That’s easier said than done.

In this and future blogs here at Earth Watch, I am going to explore the nature of disruptive technologies happening in four major sectors of our economy: energy, transportation, food, and labor. A disruption in just one of these major sectors would be transformative. That this disruption is happening simultaneously across all four of these sectors is revolutionary.

Energy and raw materials are not scarce in any fundamental sense. The earth receives more energy from the sun in one hour that our entire civilization consumes in one year. Within the planet’s crust and oceans there are trillions of tons of almost every element we need.

As any new technology like solar, wind and batteries become more capable, public acceptance grows and shifts from skepticism to enthusiasm. A decade ago, we could not imagine we would have the green energy tools we have today with solar, wind and battery technologies. So as the cost and capability of the new technology improves, it attracts more investment. If the technology is able to scale as all three of these are able to do, the cost of implemention comes down, and it’s usage increases. At the same time, the older technologies os oil, coal and gas begin to decline.

Some of the worst carbon emission come from heavy industry, so it’s a welcome development to see U.S. Steel attempting to capture carbon. Last week the Department of Energy announced $6 billion in funds to help clean up some of most intensive greenhouse-gas industries, including $1.5 billion to transform iron and steel manufacturing, but U.S. Steel, one of the biggest American steelmakers was not among the recipients.

The University of Chicago’s School of Environmental Sustainability is working on a project to restore biological diverse wetlands at the Northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The research group is focused on combatting invasive plants that disrupt wetland ecosystems and crowd out native species. The project goal is to develop scalable management strategy for restoring high-quality habitats for birds, fish, and other wildlife.

The first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States came on line this January 2024. One turbine sends five megawatts of electricity to the New England grid. Now the owners say another four turbines are up and running off the Massachusetts coast. These turbines are sending 68 megawatts of electricity to the grid, enough to power 30,000 homes. Nine turbines have been installed so far, and a 10th is on the way. Once completed this project with consist of 62 turbines capable of powering 400,000 homes and businesses.

Recently, renewable energy projects across the country have found themselves tangled up in courts, with tribal governments and regulators over how and under what circumstances they are permitted on or near tribal lands. Many of these tribal land are located in the American Southwest or Midwest and are excellent places for the potential development of solar and wind development. But not so fast! A federal judge in Oklahoma ordered wind turbines be removed from tribal lands, ruling the developers had violated federal law by not seeking mineral rights from the tribes affected. In Arizona, two tribes and two nonprofits sues the Bureau of Land Management, to prevent and massive transmission project from going through their tribal lands. And tribes objected to putting wind farms in the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon coast.

There is a way you can make good use of your old clothing by donating it to Simple Recycling, a for profit recycler that is committed to offering residents the most simple and easy way to keep usable materials out of landfills. If you prefer to donate to a non-profit, check out DonateStuff.com.

An article in the Washington Post by Marta Vidal reports that a city in Portugal called Coruche is known as the “cork capital”. The practice of extracting the cork in the summer months is thousands of years old. It was practicted in the western Mediterranean by Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. It was used to make fishing gear, sandles, and many types of containers from jugs to barrels.

It’s hard to remember the name of this law, because it actually doesn’t have anything to do with inflation but everything to do with addressing the climate crisis. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the largest investment in clean energy in the history of the world. It is the first significant exceleration towards a pathway to netzero, as it is designed to decarbonize the US economy, shore up supply chains, and reduce dependence on China.

This optimistic documentary is narrated by Woody Harrelson and makes a strong argument for understanding and respecting the healing power of top soil which could offer a partial solution to the climate crisis. The film begins by pointing out that a handful of healthy topsoil has more living organisms in it than all the people who have ever populated our earth. It continues by exploring how tilling and plowing and the use of pesticides in industrial farming have led to increasing soil erosion and loss of top soils. They trace the resulting damage these traditional farming practice have on our ecology, health and climate.

The first step in a dam removal project began as crews opened a 16-foot-wide tunnel in the base of the Iron Gate Dam in Hornbrook, California. This marks the beginning of a decades-long effort to restore the Kamath River which winds for more than 250 miles through Oregon and California.

The Swiss company, Climeworks, is meeting this challenge to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air. In September 2021, a few months after IEA’s report came out, Climeworks switched on its first commercial-scale “direct air capture” facility, a feat of engineering came to be known as “Orca” in Iceland.

A grant program in the Inflation Reduction Act is spurring almost every state to make a climate plan.

As of today, less than half of all states have set forth targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Within two years, almost all of them will have climate goals.

Bill Gates is backing a new startup called Graphyte, located in Arkansas. It plans to open its operation this Friday, February 9, 2024. The facility relies on biomass matter like sawdust and farming waste. When these decompose they release a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. Graphyte plans to stop this decomposition process by drying the waste out, shaping it into bricks and burying the bricks in the ground for many years, thus keeping this carbon from being released into the atmosphere.

In the small town of Holyoke, Massachusetts, bulldozers have been removing a paper mill. The new ground on the banks of the Connecticut River will soon be home of a large industrial experiment. If it pays off, Paper City may soon become Clean Cement Capital. A startup, Sublime Systems has developed a process for producing cement without releasing any carbon emissions.

Researchers at the Rhodium Group have eleven answers.

The Biden administrations Inflation Reduction Act helps regulate carbon pollution from power plants and cars and trucks. Progressive states such as California, New York, and Illinois responded by passing tougher climate laws of their own. To reach the Paris Agreement goal of cutting carbon emissions in half at the end of this decade, where will America’s remaining greenhouse gas emissions come from? What should climate policy focus on next?

Robinson Meyer from HeatMap writes that “We’re back to emitting like it’s 1991 – even with a bigger economy.”

The first time since the beginning of the pandemic both America’s economy and carbon emissions moved in the right direction. America’s greenhouse gas pollution from energy and industrial activities fell by 1.9% in 2023 compared to the year before. It’s the first time in this decade that the U.S. has hit the mark of growing its economy and cutting its climate pollution at the same time.