The Paris Climate Agreement: What Just Happened?

On June 1st President Donald Trump announced that the US was withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. His reasons centered around the idea that our committal meant an unfavorable outcome for the American economy. Trump stated that he represented the “citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” and stated that the deal benefitted France over the US.

One important thing to note is that the Paris Climate Accords have no method of enforcement. The agreement is simply a promise to commit to limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. This is accomplished by a series of goals set individually by country. The agreement is an opportunity for the nations of the world to convene and discuss reasonable methods of environmental protection. Every country excepting Syria and Nicaragua signed on in 2016. Now America joins those two.

What does this mean for the planet? It does not help matters that the US is the second greatest polluter of the world’s nations. If America does not prioritize carbon emission reduction, it sets a poor precedent. Previously, the US had committed to reducing its emissions by 27% by 2025. Now that the president no longer considers this goal to be a national priority, government funding toward emission reduction efforts is at stake. Under former President Barack Obama, the US was projected to reach only half its goal. But now, the US is likely to fall even further from it.

Support for withdrawal was outlined in a letter signed by 22 GOP senators. The letter expressed concern that the agreement would withhold the president from completely rescinding the Clean Power Plan, one of his campaign promises. The plan, created under the Obama administration, instituted regulations on fossil fuel emissions of power plants for the first time. The American Energy Alliance also opposed the deal, stating that these regulations are responsible for hindering economic growth.

On the other hand, there has been a fair amount of opposition to this decision; even some coal industries advocated for the agreement. Companies such as Cloud Peak Energy Inc and Peabody Energy Corp agreed that their voices in the annual conferences were necessary to ensure a reasonable transition from fossil fuels. They could also advocate for less environmentally damaging processes (for example, carbon capture and storage technology) that would not obliterate the coal industry as a whole.

Since the decision, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has formed a coalition that will adhere to the goals set by the US preceding the withdrawal. The initial letter of intent was signed by over 1,200 mayors, governors, college/university leaders, businesses, and investors. Bloomberg plans to send a report to the UN detailing America’s subnational efforts. This is all to say, individual initiatives can still contribute to the goals of the Paris Agreement, regardless of national participation.

Sources:

https://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_9656_the_state_of_the_paris_agreement_n.jpg

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/531056661/5-things-that-could-change-

when-the-u-s-leaves-the-paris-climate-deal?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170601

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-coal-idUSKBN1762YY

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/republican-senators-paris-climate-deal-energy-donations

https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-republican?ID=C53346A2-0FCE-4D76-A586-A87AA50CBFA5

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/reduce-emissions/what-is-the-clean-power-plan#.WTsEGvryu2w

http://americanenergyalliance.org/paris-agreement/

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448348/michael-bloomberg-climate-change-group-paris-agreement-still-happening

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/10296/economics/top-co2-polluters-highest-per-capita/

Published by Deerfield Academy's science journalism magazine Focal Point. Click here for the full article.

How to Read In the Era of Fake News

Note: the author wrote this speech to read aloud at a school meeting following President Trump's Inauguration.

The question cards set out in the Dining Hall pre-election said something very apt. At the bottom corner of every card, there was some small text saying something to the effect of “Which party do you support? Not sure? Ask your parents!” I thought that was funny. But there’s actually a lot of truth in this statement. I find that party loyalty is highly dependent on your upbringing. If you grew up in a more liberal family, you’re likely to share your parents’ liberal views. As liberals tend to be democrats, they’ll lean towards the Democratic Party. But party loyalty is much more deeply rooted than we make it out to be. Our conservative or liberal stances are often connected to our worldviews, sometimes to our most closely held beliefs, and this can be inhibiting.

Changing one’s viewpoint from conservative to liberal or vice versa is uncommon and pretty jarring for everyone involved. Conservatism and Liberalism are more than just schools of thought. What do you know except your convictions and your beliefs, those which are often embedded withinone of these schools of thought? I know it makes up a large part of my identity and my friend group too. So naturally, we become defensive in the event that our identity is attacked, and will immerse ourselves in resources that support our convictions.

The media does a stupendous job of supporting this. News sources will be labeled either right leaning or left leaning, depending on what they report or how they report it. In separate spheres of influence, we look to our own perceptions of the world, disregarding the other side to an issue because their bias does not agree with our own. What we should do instead is recognize the bias in all news sources, not just the “other one,” and then make an informed conclusion. Only then can we extract the facts from the phony. And that’s all-inclusive; I’m definitely not great at it either. But in order to do so, we have to be willing to put ourselves in each other’s shoes. So of course we need to approach conversations with the intent to understand rather than attack. Because as far as I’ve seen, neither side really does understand. Why are people protesting the president-elect? Conversely, why has he garnered so much support? These are the questions we need to ask each other.

Furthermore, we have to remember that the media does not report on peace. When’s the last time you saw a headline reading: “NYC—Nothing went wrong today, we’re actually doing pretty alright.” Never! Because that’s not interesting! The pressure on journalists to find a captivating story can lead articles to become jarring and hyper sensationalized. A good article will capture your attention and incite an emotion. Unfortunately, the easiest one to get at is fear. You see reports of car accidents, terrorist attacks, and articles railing on presidential candidates. Journalists employ all types of bias to make their pieces more riveting and thus, increase viewership. This includes downplaying, emphasis, and selection biases. Along with the fact that free speech gives us free reign to post unfounded claims anywhere, we need to take all this into consideration upon reading anything. A recent study from Stanford University determined that 80% of students can’t distinguish real from fake news. So the average person gets most of their news online, and a large majority of them are highly susceptible to falsehoods. Regardless of the impact on the election, our focus needs to be on improving this specific type of literacy. That is, our ability to judge the credibility of a source and to maintain skepticism in everything we read. We cannot argue fact with fiction.

This election has taught me that we need to better our sense of empathy. We need to listen, especially to opinions that directly oppose our worldviews. We need to distance superficial party loyalty from our honest opinions, and emphasize the latter. We need to cast aside the feelings of reproach because they are not productive. And, most importantly, we need to learn how to read.

Dark Side of the Andromeda Galaxy

Welcome to the camp for the greatest of space nerds. This past summer I was accepted to Duke University’s astronomy, physics, and astrobiology field studies (run by their Talent Identification Program, TIP). Here students conducted independent research using resources from the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) Observatory. Briefly, we lived and thrived on campus at the institute. Amidst the steeping mountains and majestic forestry, 27 high school kids from around the country fervently worked out a semi-feasible research project to complete within two weeks’ time.

My team studied dark matter content in our neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). To do so, we first needed to calculate the velocity of the galaxy’s rotation. We used PARI’s 12-meter radio telescope, aiming at calculated points along M31’s major axis. There, the telescope took spectrum scans across a certain frequency range. These scans detect light emitted by hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe and every galaxy, so we can measure the emission peak’s shift as we progress across the galaxy.

Here’s what all that means:

The electromagnetic spectrum: how we characterize light waves

First, you need to know a little about the Doppler Shift. The Doppler Shift describes the alteration of a wave as its source changes position. Say you are standing by the side of a road. The pitch of a car’s engine seems to rapidly decrease as it zooms past you. As the car moves in one direction, it begins to catch up with its emitted sound wave. The wavelength of the sound wave gets crunched, increasing its frequency. Similarly, the wavelength on the trailing side gets stretched and decreases its frequency. Frequency is directly related to pitch, so you hear a higher pitch as the car approaches and a lower pitch as it departs.

In astronomy, we apply this same principle to light waves. If something is moving away from us, the wave of light coming from that object will be stretched, increasing its wavelength. This makes the light appear redder than it should. We call this a “redshift”. The same logic applies for light coming towards us, which we accordingly call a “blueshift”.

Lastly, you need to understand that where there is matter, there is a concentration of hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most basic of elements, and is present in all galaxies.

Each element emits characteristic wavelengths of light. One of the waves emitted by hydrogen has a frequency of ~1420 MHz. This is the HI (spoken “H-one”) emission line. Using the radio telescope, we detect light on and about this wavelength. The peaks of the graphs represent spikes in light emission. The shift in peak as we progress along the galaxy is due to red or blue-shifting.

Observe the leftward shift (redshift) in peak as the measurements progress along the galaxy’s major axis. Units along the y-axis are arbitrary.

On our graphs above, the y-axis describes intensity of emission and the x-axis describes frequency. So we’re viewing the galaxy as a single object. However, taking measurements across the galaxy yields a shift in HI emission peak, because of the Doppler effect I mentioned earlier. Galaxies rotate. As one galactic arm moves away from us, the other moves towards us. Thus, the peaks are redshifted or blueshifted accordingly.

The extent of the red/blueshift at either end of the object can be used to calculate rotational velocity. This can then be inserted into a mass equation involving rotational velocity, orbit radius, and the gravitational constant (G). This tells us how massive the galaxy has to be in order to have this velocity and orbit.

We then take a few given values having to do with luminosity, L(essentially brightness) for another mass equation. This returns a fair estimate of the mass of the galaxy’s observable matter. Subtract the amount of observable mass from the total mass and you have your unobservable mass (i.e. dark matter).

Our calculations estimated the dark matter content to be about 28x the mass of its observable matter, which is within reason of most estimates. This is approximately 1,200 billion times the mass of our sun. Pretty cool stuff.

The above graph describes the velocity of M31’s components as a function of distance from its center. As the galaxy is rotating, measurements indicate one side moving significantly slower than the other. This is due to the counteracting velocity of that side’s movement away from us. The reverse logic applies for the opposite side. Because we did not account for rotation, this downward trend is apparent.

Published in Deerfield Academy's science magazine, Door to STEM.