Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Not on the list? Subscribe here or in the box below.
Today we’ll start in California, where snowpack levels are the highest since 1982 and electric vehicle adoption is improving public health in certain neighborhoods. We’ll also look at a radical, if bipartisan, proposal for the future of American farming.
🔥 Plus: How smoke makes wildfires worse.
How adding stickers to windows can help save birds
Adding decals to the outside of glass windows could save millions of birds per year, a new study has found.
More than a billion birds die every year from hitting windows, according to the study, published on Thursday in the journal PeerJ.
This number can be significantly reduced by adding design elements to make windows more visible to birds — like patterns or stickers on windows, the authors wrote.
The study tracked the behavior of zebra finches speeding down flight tunnels toward one of two different name-brand window films designed to warn away birds.
One window film drove up birds’ tendency to avoid the glass by 47 percent, while the other increased their avoidance by 39 percent.
But the scientists found that these interventions only worked when placed on the outside of windows. Sticking them on the inside was easier but virtually useless.
“People must apply decals and films to the external surface of their windows to benefit the birds,” said John Swaddle, a professor of conservation at William and Mary
“We want people to know this as we want their time and money to be well spent—protecting the birds we all love,” Swaddle added.
California snowpack deepest in four decades
California’s snowpack levels are at their highest point in four decades, after a series of severe storms deluged the region last month, according to state water officials.
Setting records: The total “snow water” accumulated has risen to 33.7 inches, or 205 percent of the average for this time of year, the California Department of Water Resources announced on Wednesday.
These results, tabulated from 130 electronic snow sensors statewide, are outpacing the 1982-83 season that previously set the record.
But nothing’s certain: The agency warned that “two months still remain” until state snowpack usually peaks and that “every day it does not rain or snow, the conditions are drying.”
“California has always experienced some degree of swings between wet and dry, but the past few months have demonstrated how much more extreme those swings are becoming,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.
Where’d the water come from? Nine storm systems known as “atmospheric rivers” battered California over a three-week period starting in late December, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.
- During these storms, 80 percent of full seasonal snowpack was deposited in California.
- Statewide, the precipitation accumulated over those three weeks amounted to 11.2 inches, or 46 percent of a full year.
Waiting it out: The Department of Water Resources acknowledged that the storms provided “a significant boost” to California snowpack, following the driest three-year period on record.
- But if the Golden State returns to dry weather over the next two months — which occurred last season — the significant early snowpack could disappear.
- Periodic bouts of precipitation over the next few months will be critical to achieving the biggest water supply benefits from the snow and rain that has already fallen.
Continue to conserve: Despite the welcome wet weather thus far, the agency stressed that Californians should continue to use water wisely and actively conserve it.
“While today’s results are good news for water supplies, we know from experience how quickly snowpack can disappear if dry conditions return in the months ahead,” Nemeth said.
To read the full story, please click here.
EV-heavy areas of Calif. see public health improve
Neighborhoods in California with higher electric vehicle (EV) adoption rates are experiencing both better air quality and improvements in public health, a new study has found.
Clearing the haze: For every additional 20 zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) per 1,000 people at the zip code level, there was a 3.2 percent drop in asthma-related emergency room visits, according to the report, published in Science of the Total Environment.
- The authors also identified a small but suggestive reduction in levels of nitrogen dioxide.
- Nitrogen dioxide is a gaseous pollutant that has long contributed to “the reddish-brown haze characteristic of smoggy air in California,” per the state’s Air Resources Board.
EVs up, ER visits down: The University of Southern California researchers compared data on total ZEV registration, air pollution levels and asthma-related emergency room visits across the state from 2013 through 2019.
- In California, the ZEV umbrella includes full battery-electric, hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, according to the Air Resources Board.
- As EV adoption increased within a given zip code, local air pollution levels and emergency room visits also dropped, the authors found.
Combining datasets: The authors said they first obtained data on ZEVs from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and tabulated the number registered in each zip code.
- Then they acquired data from the Environmental Protection Agency on levels of nitrogen dioxide and zip code level asthma-related visits to the emergency room.
- Lastly, they calculated the percentage of adults in each zip code who held bachelor’s degrees, as educational attainment levels are often used to identify a neighborhood’s socioeconomic status.
Disproportionate results: ZEV adoption was substantially lower in zip codes with poorer rates of educational attainment, according to the study.
- For example, a zip code in which 17 percent of the population had a bachelor’s degree experienced an annual increase of about 0.70 ZEVs per 1,000 people.
- On the other hand, a neighborhood in which 47 percent of the population had a bachelor’s degree had an annual increase of about 3.6 ZEVs per 1,000 people.
Closing the ‘adoption gap’: Recognizing this “adoption gap” could help restore environmental justice in communities that have been disproportionately affected by pollution and related health issues, according to the authors.
To read the rest of the story, please click here.
VIRTUAL EVENT INVITE
Charging Ahead: EV/AV Summit; Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT
Reps. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), DoE’s Michael Berube, Auto Drive America’s Jennifer Safavian, ChargePoint’s Pasquale Romano and more join The Hill’s second annual EV/AV summit to explore the barriers to EV adoption, the future of autonomous vehicles and the critical infrastructure needed to make them both a reality. RSVP to save your spot.
Subsidize human food, not animal feed: poll
Seventy-eight percent of Americans polled in a recent survey said that they want federal farm funding to prioritize food for people over feed for livestock.
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and the farm advocacy group Farm Action published the survey of 1,000 people on Thursday.
Policy shift: The survey is part of a campaign to reverse American food policy — with these subsidies being one of its most contentious issues.
“The United States is really in a crisis when it comes to food and agriculture,” Farm Action president Joe Maxwell told The Hill.
Misaligned incentives: Farm Action contends that existing farm subsidy programs support an unsustainable and unhealthy American diet and food system.
- Plant-based diets reduce both climate disruption and chronic disease, according to Johns Hopkins.
- But most federal subsidies don’t go to those foods, another report from Farm Action found.
By the numbers: Only 4 percent of American farm subsidies go to fruits and vegetables, according to the previous report.
- 30 percent of subsidies go to produce feed crops for dairy, eggs and meat
- 12 percent goes to support the production of biofuels
- 13 percent goes to food grains — like rice, corn and wheat — to feed people
Bigger issues: Farm Action sees the subsidies as part of a broader and more worrying trend. The advocacy group worries that the national farm system is losing the ability to produce its own healthy food.
“The narrative in Washington, D.C. continues to be about how we’re going to feed the world,” Maxwell said. “The truth is, we don’t feed ourselves.”
How smoke worsens fire
Smoke from wildfires can change the weather and make fires even worse, a new study has found.
The study, published on Thursday in Science, emphasized how smoke from large wildfires disrupts the weather patterns of entire regions — driving blazes to more destructive heights.
Case study: The team of scientists had a rare chance to observe this relationship in action when the enormous August Complex fire broke out in Northern California in 2020.
- That fire was a conflagration formed as lightning ignited four smaller — though still large — wildfires, which converged throughout the month of August.
- The composite wildfire would burn for four months, rampaging across more than a million acres, according to the Forest Service.
Smoke, heat and shade: Their findings showed how the smoke generated by the August Complex fire played a significant role in fueling its growth.
- The smoke pouring off the fire created a thick, dense layer of floating soot that trapped heat even as it blocked sunlight from reaching the ground.
- The shading impact was so intense that it dimmed the sun, cutting California’s solar production by up to 30 percent, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research found.
Layers combine: This combination of a hot atmosphere and shaded ground created an unstable thermal layer cake of heat.
- As the hot smoke rose rapidly along the broad fire front, it pulled in powerful east-blowing winds — which fed the growing fire, producing more smoke.
- That, in turn, led to the formation of new weather patterns that intensified the winds — drying the land beneath into tinder, and further stoking the fire.
For more on these findings — and how this dynamic differs in monsoon-prone Southeast Asia — please click here.
Thursday Threats
Residents of fast food-dense neighborhoods contend with increased stroke risk, Biden administration water rules face Republican pushback and scientists identify a new link between air pollution and anxiety.
Living near a ‘food swamp’ could raise stroke risk: research
- Adults ages 50 and older who live in fast food-dense environments may be at heightened risk of stroke, preliminary research from Columbia University has found. Residents of such neighborhoods had 13 percent greater odds of stroke than those who lived in areas with healthier choices, the authors observed. Read the full Hill story here.
Biden administration’s water rules face GOP threat
- Senate Republicans are trying to repeal recent Biden administration rules that defined which U.S. waters get federal protections, our colleague Rachel Frazin reported. The regulations, which would require permits for activities that could damage protected waters, are seen as a middle ground between those of the Trump and Obama eras.
Air pollution linked to anxiety, depression
- Long-term exposure to air pollution raises risks of anxiety and depression, a study in JAMA Psychiatry has determined. These findings bolster a growing body of research correlating air pollution with other psychiatric or neurological diseases, CNN reported.
Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for more and check out other newsletters here. We’ll see you tomorrow.