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Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

Federal officials on Tuesday proposed adding the tricolored bat, a microbat native to eastern North America, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Why it matters: The tricolored bat is one of the bat species affected by a deadly fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease, caused by an invasive fungus, has killed over 90% of its population in under 10 years, according to a study released last year.

How it works: The fungus thrives in cool, humid conditions and typically kills bats hibernating in winter in caves, abandoned mines and tunnels.

It grows on the bats' skin and wakes them when they should be hibernating, causing them to expend their winter fat reserves and starve to death.

What they're saying: The Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday the fungus is responsible for the deaths of "millions" of bats, "which unfortunately means surviving bats are more vulnerable to other stressors, such as human disturbance and habitat loss."

The big picture: The tricolor bats' range includes almost all of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains, the southern portion of Canadian provinces east of the Great Lakes and portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Nicaragua.

The fungus was first documented in the U.S. in New York in 2006, and, as of 2021, was found in 35 states and seven Canadian provinces, while white-nose syndrome had been confirmed within 12 North American bat species.

Bats promote biodiversity in ecosystems and are crucial for pest control, pollinating plants and commercial crops and dispersing seeds, according to the National Science Foundation.

Go deeper: Monarch butterflies are now considered endangered

Federal agency seeks protections for bat species decimated by fungus

The tricolored bat is one of the bat species affected by a deadly fungal disease called white-nose syndrome.

A person holding a tricolor bat at a bat rescue center in Mertztown, Pennsylvania, in August 2018.

A person holding a tricolor bat at a bat rescue center in Mertztown, Pa., in August 2018.

Animals

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Generate

Axios Generate

A new climate software firm that's announcing itself to the world on Tuesday says it has a competitive edge that other companies lack.

The big picture: Climate Alpha, which just raised a $4 million seed round, uses AI and machine learning to tell customers where to invest and move to in light of climate change and other factors.

Other firms focus on where to avoid, says its founder and CEO, Parag Khanna.

Driving the news: Climate impacts like sea level rise and extreme weather events will interact with socioeconomic trends and other developments to make places more or less desirable places to live.

Zoom in: Climate Alpha uses software to consider as many drivers as possible that could affect real estate values in a warming world.

The result, Khanna told Axios, is a guide to where businesses, governments, individual homeowners and others should invest for a more resilient future. 

Other companies right now are focused on identifying climate risk, rather than adaptation opportunities, he said.

Climate Alpha's customers and partners include the homebuilder Lennar and asset manager BentallGreenOak.

Between the lines: Climate Alpha's models include all U.S. ZIP codes, with different algorithms for each property type.

The company forecasts real estate values for every year out to 2040 under various climate scenarios.

Through a partnership with Mastercard, cities may use Climate Alpha's "Resilience Index" platform to prioritize where to spend resilience grants and funds for public housing, Khanna said.

Of note: The company began as research for Khanna's latest book, "Move: The Forces Uprooting Us," and spun out of another of his ventures, FutureMap.

What they're saying: "The climate analytics industry has been focused on telling people where they'll need to sell, but not where they should buy," Khanna told Axios via email.

One advantage to his company's approach, he says, is that it incorporates factors far afield from climate.

"Risk analytics alone don't predict consumer behavior, otherwise nobody would move to Miami or Phoenix," he said. Its models include other relocation influences, such as affordability and tax rates.

Yes, but: Climate Alpha is predicated on a bet that proactive relocation can keep Americans a step ahead of the climate.

However, this rests in part on the rate of global warming being manageable.

Nasty surprises, such as tipping points, lurk within the climate and are difficult to model.

In addition, growing inequality could limit America's resilience.

Lastly, a big wild card will be how the millions of climate refugees worldwide will affect geopolitics.

Climate Alpha wants to guide real estate through climate change

The company is looking at finding climate adaptation opportunities, not just risks.

Illustration for a for sale sign in the middle of a body of water

Climate change

The skyline of Manhattan in New York City.

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

A U.S. appeals court on Monday heard arguments on minimum airplane seat size rules that a flyer advocacy group says is necessary for passenger safety, per Reuters.

Driving the news: The Justice Department said the Federal Aviation Administration's "examination of existing evidence has not yet demonstrated a safety need for minimum seat dimensions" but that the agency is continuing to examine the issue, Reuters reported.

But FlyersRights.org, an advocacy group, argued that without the court's intervention, the FAA will "continue to treat the statutory requirement as a low priority that it can ignore indefinitely, despite Congress’s express direction to the contrary."

What they're saying: "Currently there are no minimum seat dimensions," Michael Kirkpatrick, a lawyer for FlyersRights.org, said according to Reuters. 

"Maybe they're going to codify the current seat dimensions and status quo for all conditions required for safety, then maybe there'll be a challenge on the merits," he said. "But the point here is that there is no regulation now on seat pitch, width or length."

Background: In 2018, Congress directed the FAA to issue new rules on minimum dimensions for passenger seats after a notice and comment period.

Although passed the deadline, the FAA asked for public comment last month and has already received nearly 12,000 comments. The comment period closes Nov. 1.

FlyersRights.org did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

U.S. appeals court hears argument on airline seat size rules

There are no minimum seat dimensions currently.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Twitter lost a key data center that went offline due to the extreme heat wave in California last week, CNN reports.

Why it matters: Major social media platforms largely rely on these data centers — facilities that house computers, servers and storage systems — to keep their services running. Another outage may result in Twitter going dark for some of its users.

Details: The outage led to a full shutdown of Twitter's physical equipment at the Sacramento location, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

"On September 5th, Twitter experienced the loss of its Sacramento (SMF) data center region due to extreme weather. The unprecedented event resulted in the total shutdown of physical equipment in SMF," wrote Carrie Fernandez, Twitter's vice president of engineering, in the memo.

As a result, Twitter is in a "non-redundant state" as of Friday, according to the memo.

Its data centers in Atlanta and Portland remain operational, but if another one goes offline, "we may not be able to serve traffic to all Twitter's users," Fernandez said.

What they're saying: "There have been no disruptions impacting the ability for people to access and use Twitter at this time," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

Our thought bubble, via Axios' Andrew Freedman: Climate change poses risks for the physical underpinnings of the Internet, including the data centers that require large amounts of energy for cooling. 

The California heat wave that began on Aug. 30 and lasted through Sept. 10 broke more than 1,000 warm temperature records in the West. It set an all-time high temperature of 116°F in Sacramento, where weather records go back to 1877.

The intrigue: The outage is timely given that Twitter's systems and security will be in the news this week as the whistleblower Peiter Zatko testifies in Congress on Tuesday.

Zatko, who served as Twitter's head of security until he was fired in January, has alleged that the company misled regulators about its efforts to protect Twitter from security threats.

His whistleblower complaint claims that executives withheld crucial data about insufficient protection for user data and the number of breaches Twitter has experienced.

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Twitter loses key data center due to extreme heat in California

Another outage may result in Twitter going dark for some of its users.

Photo of Twitter's blue bird logo on the exterior of a building

Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. Photo: Nina Riggio/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Twitter

Data privacy

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Big Tech

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Wildfires, droughts, and extreme heat waves are raging through Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East and Asia as we head into the heat of fall.

The big picture: A heat wave and coinciding drought in China have no precedent in modern weather records, given the heat's severity and duration. 

Alaska, Siberia and even London have all seen wildfires. 

Severe droughts have also whiplashed into floods in the Southwest and Central U.S., with the dry soil leading to flash flooding, since it cannot absorb high levels of rainfall.

At least six 1,000-year rainstorms struck the U.S. within a month, from Dallas to Kentucky to Death Valley, Calif., causing deadly flash flooding.

Climate change studies have shown that hydrological extremes at both ends of the spectrum — heavy precipitation and drought — are likely to be more common and intense as the world warms. 

Through the lens: These photos show the real life impact of increasing temperatures worldwide.

In photos: A summer of drought and fire

Wildfires, droughts, and extreme heat waves have been raging.

Embers blow off a burning tree during the Fairview Fire near Hemet, Calif., on Sept. 6.  Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty  Images

Extreme weather

A new assessment of tipping points within the climate system concludes that far more stringent emissions cuts are needed, compared to the most ambitious current plans.

Why it matters: The new study, published Friday in Science, finds tipping points lurking much closer to the present level of warming, and that the Paris Agreement's most stringent warming target of 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels could trigger four of them.

These would include the abrupt thawing of permanently frozen soil that rings the Arctic and the die-off of warm-water coral reefs.

Context: The study defines a tipping point as when changes in a large part of the climate become self-perpetuating. Not every tipping point immediately affects the planet, and some are only felt regionally.

Still others — like the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could take centuries to fully play out.

The big picture: The new study is a more complete but sobering read compared to a similar paper published in 2008, since it adds new tipping points to the list and concludes that at least four of them, including the abrupt thawing of permanently frozen soil that rings the Arctic, are likely to be set off at 1.5°C of warming.

"Current policies leading to [about] 2 to 3°C warming are unsafe," the study states.

Zoom in: The researchers put forward the idea of a tipping point early warning system, which could combine remote sensing, such as satellite measurements, with computer modeling and deep learning techniques.

Perhaps that way, alarms could be sounded before irreversible, harmful changes are set into motion.

What they're saying: "Since I first assessed climate tipping points in 2008 the list has grown and our assessment of the risk they pose has increased dramatically," said study co-author Tim Lenton, of the University of Exeter, in a statement.

"We now need to trigger positive social tipping points that accelerate the transformation to a clean energy future. We may also have to adapt to cope with climate tipping points that we fail to avoid, and support those who could suffer uninsurable losses and damages."

What's next: Scientists will discuss the new work and more today through Wednesday at a three-day conference at the University of Exeter.

On the agenda at this gathering: "Positive tipping points," which are socio-economic steps that could help accelerate society's transition away from fossil fuels.

A new effort is launching to look at concerns over "cascading risks" that tipping points pose, where there's a chain reaction of sorts.

The new work is called the "Tipping Points Model Intercomparison Project", or  “TIPMIP." It too is on the conference program.

The bottom line: In the 20 years since the first tipping points assessment came out, some have become nearly inevitable.

It's clear from this new paper and the broader research on this topic that without dramatic emissions cuts in the interim, we can't allow another 20 years to pass before we take another in-depth look.

World risks runaway Antarctic ice melt if Paris targets not met

World at risk of triggering multiple tipping points

Climate tipping points study provides clearest warning yet

The study strongly argues for limiting warming to lowest-possible level of Paris targets.

Illustration of a hand tipping over a stack of thermometers.

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Farmers and researchers are experimenting with installing solar panels over active agricultural land in an emerging field called agrivoltaics.

Why it matters: As the world seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels, solar power will indisputably be part of the post-carbon energy mix. 

Yet there's only so much land that can be effectively converted to single-use solar production, so dual-use projects like agrivoltaics are getting a closer look.

For farmers — many of whom are facing an uncertain future as the climate changes — the hope is that "farming" for solar power can be an additional money-maker.

How it works: Solar panels installed over farmers' crops generate electricity that can then be sold to an energy supplier and fed into the power grid for community use.

Crops that thrive in the shade — think leafy greens like kale and lettuce, or root vegetables like radish and beets — are protected from harsh direct sunlight.

Plants, meanwhile, naturally give off water vapor that can help cool solar panels from below, improving their efficiency. 

State of play: U.S. agrivoltaic pilot programs are afoot in:

Rockport, Maine, where University of Maine researchers are studying the impact of solar panels installed over 11 acres of blueberry farmland.

Grafton, Massachusetts, where farmers are working with University of Massachusetts academics to figure out which crops perform best under solar panels' shade.

And Longmont, Colorado, home to Jack's Solar Garden, which considers itself the country's largest commercially active site for agrivoltaics research.

Be smart: Farms' fundamental purpose has always been converting the sun's rays into energy. That energy has historically taken the form of calories — but agrivoltaics makes it possible for farmers to diversify their energy output, says Chad Higgins, an associate professor at Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"Do they want to create electrons in the form of electricity? Or do they want to create calories in the form of food, or a mixture of both? What's the most profitable for them? What's best for them, given their available other resources?" 

Yes, but: Some farmers are skeptical, mostly due to practical concerns. It can be hard to drive a tractor in and around a bunch of solar panels, for instance.

The upfront cost of installing lots of solar panels can be prohibitive — although some states, like Massachusetts, are experimenting with financial incentives. 

That's trickier than it might sound — if producing solar power becomes dramatically more profitable than growing crops, and lots of farmers switch mostly or fully to solar, food shortages could follow.

Whether it makes sense for a farm to add solar also depends on whether there's an electric substation nearby. The further a substation, the more energy is lost in transmission — meaning it won't be economical to sell power into the grid.

What's next: As researchers and early adopters figure out the best crops, tools and techniques to use — and more state, local and national governments support agrivoltaic efforts — expect to see lots more solar panels over the world's farmland in the coming years.

Go deeper: California is throwing some shade at its water crisis

Farming for crops — and for solar power

Research into "agrivoltaics" could lead to vast fields of panels shading crops of kale and beets.

A staff member works on a potato field under solar panels

A worker at an agrivoltaic farm in Chiba, Japan. Photo: Toru Hanai/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Solar power

Dozens of large wildfires covered the U.S. West in smoke over the weekend, triggering air quality alerts across the region.

Why it matters: Wildfire smoke, especially when it coincides with high temperatures, can be hazardous to the health of humans even hundreds of miles away from the actual fire because it carries harmful microscopic particles that can trigger inflammation in the lungs.

Smoke hanging in the air near South Lake Tahoe, California, on Sept. 9. 

Smoke hanging in the air near South Lake Tahoe, California, on Sept. 9. Photo: Stef Kight/Axios

Threat level: A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal last year said that at least 33,000 people around the world die from pollution caused by wildfire smoke every year, though a disproportionate number of those deaths occur in Central and South America.

The study said the groups most at risk are children up to 9 years old and people over 80 years old.

By the numbers: At least 92 large wildfires or complex fires had burned nearly 728,000 acres in seven states as of Sunday, according to the latest data from the National Interagency Fire Center. 

The big picture: Air quality alerts were in place across much of Washington, Oregon and Idaho on Sunday.

Zoom in: In Washington, authorities ordered evacuations over the Bolt Creek Fire, which has burned across some 7,600 acres. It's one of 14 large blazes burning in the state.

The Cedar Creek Fire that's triggered the evacuation of over 2,000 people in the Oakridge, Westfir, and High Prairie areas and destroyed nearly 86,000 acres, is one of 10 large wildfires burning in Oregon, per the NIFC. It was 0% contained as of Sunday.

Meanwhile, the destructive Mosquito and Fairview Fires were among 11 large fires burning in California. 

Cal Fire reported wet weather from Tropical Storm Kay helped containment efforts in the deadly Fairview Fire, near Hemet, to 49% Sunday. It's burned over 28,300 acres.

Thunderstorms in the state did not reach the Mosquito Fire, near Foresthill, and it remained 10% contained after razing more than 46,500 acres, per Cal Fire.

What we're watching: Air quality conditions were improving on Sunday night and were expected to continue to clear out by Monday afternoon, according to the NW Clean Air Agency.

Of note: Nearly 49,700 fires have burned over 6.6 million acres across the U.S. so far this fire season, well above 10-year averages for previous seasons, per the NIFC.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

Smoke blankets U.S. West as wildfires rage, raising health risks

At least 92 large wildfires are burning across the U.S. West.

A NOAA satellite image showing smoke across the Western U.S. on Saturday.

A satellite image showing smoke across the Western U.S. on Saturday. Photo: NOAA/NESDIS/STAR

Tuesday's energy & environment stories