In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, Prof. Christopher R. Knittel explains why electricity bills in Massachusetts can be so high and how to address the issue. “State law requires Massachusetts to cut greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels by 50 percent by 2030 and by 85 percent by 2050,” writes Knittel. “In short, we need to replace gasoline and natural gas with electricity. But how we price electricity is making this effort to address climate change harder."
MIT scientists have uncovered evidence that wildfire smoke particles can lead to chemical reactions in the atmosphere that erode the ozone layer, reports Margaret Osborne for Smithsonian Magazine. “From a scientific point of view, it’s very exciting to see this brand new effect,” says Solomon. “From a planetary point of view… it would be just tragic to have mankind screw up solving the ozone hole by deciding that we’re going to [allow] a lot more of these fires if we don’t mitigate climate change.”
Carlos Casanovas MS ’14 co-founded X1 Wind, a startup that has developed a floating wind turbine prototype, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Floating wind is set to play a vital role supporting the future energy transition, global decarbonization and ambitious net-zero targets,” says Casanovas.
Researchers at MIT have predicted that without improvements in hardware efficiency, energy consumption and emissions from autonomous vehicles could be “comparable to that of data centers today,” reports Sarah Wells for Popular Mechanics. “In order to reduce the future carbon footprint of AVs, scientists will need to make the computing systems of AVs, including smart sensors, far more efficient,” writes Wells.
Researchers from MIT have found that wildfire smoke can activate chlorine-containing molecules that destroy the ozone layer, writes Donna Lu for The Guardian. “The question in my mind is: is the man-made chlorine going to get … diluted and destroyed out of the atmosphere faster than global climate change is going to increase the frequency and intensity of this kind of fire?” says Prof. Susan Solomon. “I think it’s going to be a race.”
Axios reporter Jacob Knutson highlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds the smoke released by major wildfires likely reactive chlorine-containing molecules in the atmosphere, delaying the recovery of the hole in the ozone layer. The researchers developed a model that found smoke released by Australian wildfires “chemically depleted between 3% to 5% of the total ozone column in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes in June and July of 2020.”
New Scientist reporter James Dinneen writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds the smoke from Australian wildfires “may have enabled hydrochloric acid to dissolve at higher temperatures, generating more of the reactive chlorine molecules that destroy ozone.” Research scientist Kane Stone explains that “satellite observations showed chemistry that has never been seen before.”
MIT scientists have found that the Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 unleashed remnants of chlorine-containing molecules in the stratosphere, expanding the ozone hole and suggesting that more frequent wildfires could threaten the ozone hole’s recovery, reports Dyani Lewis for Nature. “It’s like a race,” says Prof. Susan Solomon. “Does the chlorine decay out of the stratosphere fast enough in the next, say, 40–50 years that the likely increase in intense and frequent wildfires doesn’t end up prolonging the ozone hole?”
New York Times reporter Thomas May spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s chamber opera “Overstory Overture,” based on Richard Powers’s novel “The Overstory.” May notes that Machover “has developed novel approaches to electronics and is a trailblazer in the applications of artificial intelligence to music.” Of his desire to create an operatic adaptation of Powers’s book, Machover explains, “I’ve always wanted to write a theatrical work with many strands that come together in an unusual way.”
Researchers from the MIT Center for Real Estate Research and elsewhere have found that high carbon dioxide levels can contribute to students achieving lower scores on standardized tests, reports Brandon Kochkodin for Forbes. “Poor air quality is a widespread issue that seems to affect the bulk of the student population,” says Prof. Juan Palacios.
MIT researchers have found that air pollution can impact the performance of chess players, reports Sharon Udasin for The Hill. "With just a modest rise in pollution levels, the researchers saw that a player’s probability of making an error increased by 2.1 percentage points,” Udasin writes.
Prof. Juan Palacios speaks with The Guardian reporter Helena Horton about how air pollution can lead to more mistakes in chess players. “We find that when individuals are exposed to higher levels of air pollution, they make more mistakes, and they make larger mistakes,” says Palacios.
An MIT study has found that the wide spread adoption of self-driving cars could lead to increased carbon emissions, reports Rima Sabina Aouf for Dezeen. “The study found that with a mass global take up of autonomous vehicles, the powerful onboard computers needed to run them could generate as many greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in operation today,” writes Aouf.
A new study by MIT researchers finds that “the energy required to run computers in a future global fleet of autonomous vehicles could produce as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world,” reports Sharon Udasin for The Hill. The researchers found that “1 billion such cars, each driving for an hour daily, would use enough energy to generate the same amount of emissions that data centers do today.”
Prof. Steven Barrett speaks with New York Times reporter Paige McClanahan about the pressing need to make air travel more sustainable and his research exploring the impact of contrails on the planet’s temperature. “Eliminating contrails is quite a big lever on mitigating the climate impact of aviation,” said Barrett.