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The Government Is Worried About These Biological Weapons

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Source: Dr_Microbe / Getty Images

Russia accused the United States of secretly supporting a biological weapons program in Ukraine at the U.N. Security Council meeting in March. The U.S. strongly denied the claims. There were concerns this would be used as a pretext for Russia’s own use of chemical or biological warfare in Ukraine. Since then, the Kremlin has continued to spread such claims — but provided no proof — culminating last week in Russia requesting a formal hearing of violations of the U.N. Biological Weapons Convention

The convention, which went into effect in 1975, prohibits the development, production, stockpiling or otherwise acquisition of biological weapons. Nearly universally adopted, 184 countries signed the agreement – and for good reason. 

Biological weapons are designed and used to spread pathogens or toxins that can harm or kill humans, animals or plants. The consequences of their use can be severe and unpredictable, potentially resulting not only in illness and loss of life across populations, but also food shortages, environmental catastrophe, economic harm, and widespread fear. 

Not confined to national borders, these effects could spread beyond their intended target and lead to global devastation. 

Still, the international ban on biological weapons offers no guarantee of compliance. A report issued by the U.S. State Department as recently as 2019 raised concerns that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia – all parties to the BWC – are potentially flouting some of the terms of the convention. Some of these countries are recognized to be some of the most corrupt in the world. 

Non-state actors, including terrorist groups, could also potentially employ the use of biological weapons. In 2001, letters laced with anthrax were sent through the U.S. mail, infecting nearly two dozen people and killing five. The suspected perpetrator of what is remembered as the worst biological attack in U.S. history was a biodefense researcher with the U.S. government who took his own life before he was brought up on charges. 

Government organizations, including the Department of Defense and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still consider biological weapons a potential threat to the United States. Using data from government reports and medical journals, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 25 biological weapons the U.S. government is worried about. 

The weapons on this list are ordered in terms of their priority classification by the CDC – from third highest to highest. The highest priority bioweapons are those that are easiest to transmit and have the highest potential for public harm and social disruption. (Also see, the world’s most dangerous chemical weapons.)

Click here to see which biological weapons the government is worried about.

Click here to see our detailed methodology.

Here’s how Big Oil might enter clean energy; plus, Egypt’s climate summit draws protests

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Source: Equinor ASA

In today’s issue:

— Big oil smells profit in offshore wind
— Is Egypt the best place for a climate summit right now?
— General Motors takes aim at EV mass market with a $30,000 electric vehicle
— Clean energy job hiring rises above pre-pandemic levels

We wrote last month about how oil companies, flush with cash, were eyeing renewable energy companies in Europe as part of a way to diversify into clean energy without having to build it themselves. Now we’re getting some more insight into what they’re looking at, courtesy of Wood Mackenzie.

In a report, summarized by Oilprice.com, analyst Akif Chaudhry uses a new metric to show that the cash margins for offshore wind energy can exceed those of deep-water drilling, which are traditionally the highest margins for oil production.

The theory goes that big oil companies can use their existing offshore facilities to more cheaply transition to wind energy in a way that would hedge against declines in oil production and help Big Oil diversify into clean energy. Many climate activists are skeptical that Big Oil is serious about clean energy, but we have always maintained that when the costs of renewables get to the point where there is more profit in them, then even the biggest polluters will stand up and take notice.

As we wrote last month, with market values down on some of the biggest European renewable energy companies, and oil profits up, the typical mergers and acquisition cycle favors takeover bids sooner rather than later in the sector. True, there are many political considerations, especially in regulation-crazed Europe.

But as more offshore wind leases are offered by governments in Europe, and in the U.S., they are attracting more offers, even from big oil companies. At some point perhaps soon, consolidation in this industry will become a trending strategy.

More insights below . . . .

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

Cities That Will Grow the Fastest in the Next Few Decades

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Source: Michael Warren / iStock via Getty Images

The population of the United States is forever shifting, with changing birth and death rates as well as immigration and migration patterns. The result is that while some parts of the country are stagnating or losing people, others are growing rapidly, a trend that is likely to continue in the coming years.  

 The U.S. population continues to move away from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and Southwest. From 2010 through 2020, the U.S. population increased by 7.4%, but in states like Florida, Texas, Nevada, And Utah, the population grew at about double the pace. Over the coming years, these trends will largely continue, according to one data firm. The firm also projects that in a number of metropolitan areas, populations will grow by 50% or more, and in a few places they will more than double. 

To determine the 40 cities that will have the fastest population growth over the next few decades, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed current metropolitan area population data and population projections data from Washington, D.C.-based firm Woods & Poole Economics, Inc., Washington D.C. Copyright 2022. Metropolitan areas were ranked based on the projected percentage change in population from 2022 to 2060. 

The 40 cities on the list are projected to grow in population by at least 50% by 2060. On the other hand, these are America’s disappearing small towns.)

The projections from Woods & Poole generally seem to assume the same trends of the past decade will continue. Of the 40 places on this list, 32 also ranked the top 50 for population growth between 2010 and 2020, based on decennial census figures. The metropolitan area with the largest projected population growth, the retirement community-centric metropolitan area of The Villages, Florida, had a nation-leading 39% population growth between 2010 and 2020. 

Florida has by far the greatest representation on this list, placing 10 of the 40  metropolitan areas on the list. Many of these metros, as well as some of those in other states, such as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, have had growing populations in part because the baby boomer generation continues to move to warmer climates to retire. 

Some of the other metropolitan areas with substantial projected population growth, such as Austin, Texas and Provo, Oregon, have relatively younger populations. These places owe their growing populations to growing economies, with each having undergone substantial growth in tech and professional sectors over the past decade. Should these places sustain their economic growth, they will likely have much larger cities by the second half of the 21st century. (These are cities with the strongest economies in 2022.)

Click here to see cities that will grow the fastest in the next few decades.

Europe’s politics lacking energy urgency as election season begins

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Source: Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The elevation of Liz Truss to UK Prime Minister this week comes against a background of dual energy and fiscal crises that are certain to raise the profile of the climate v. cost debate in the post-Boris Johnson era. Elsewhere in Europe, as it enters election season and a gas crunch this winter, the climate issue is largely a distant second or third to concerns about crime, foreign policy, and even fascism.

Sweden, home to Greta Thunberg, kicks off the season on Sept. 11 with elections to the 349-member parliament, or Riksdag, which will then elect the prime minister. The poll-leading Social Democrats have included a pledge to increase renewable energy in their plans while the Moderates want to push more nuclear power. To the extent climate has played a role it is to inflame tensions ahead of time, partly to do with a scandal involving a broadcaster accused by the right of altering weather map designs to exaggerate the impact of global warming.

In Switzerland, a host of referendums come to ballot on Sept. 25, with the only one tied to climate being on in Lucerne asking residents to vote on a plan to halve energy consumption by 2025 or accept a watered-down version. Slovenia has a presidential vote in October in which the rising Freedom Movement (formerly Greens), which did well in parliamentary elections last spring, just lost its candidate last week. And in Italy, which has elections on Sept. 25, the talk, as usual, is about fascism.

The lack of discussion of energy policy is surprising given the shortage of gas and oil expected as Russia withholds exports. It also undercuts Europe’s claim to be leaders in the fight against climate change, at least at the EU level. Perhaps because there is broader agreement on the need to transition to clean energy than in the U.S., it is less of a hot potato political topic.

In any case, this election season proves once again that even in a world collectively suffering from extreme heat, flooding and wildfires, all politics remain local.

— With additional research over the past few weeks by Madeleine Callaway, my niece and a Georgetown student.

More insights below . . . .

Zeus: Flying Candela’s electric boat across San Francisco Bay, the EV promise takes hold

. . . . Swedish electric boat maker Candela is seeking an early lead among more than 100 companies working on electric watercraft with a new model that uses battery-powered engines made by Polestar to create a flying sensation on hydrofoils. David Callaway takes one of the existing models for a test drive off of Sausalito. . . .

Read the full Zeus column

A selection of this week’s subscriber-only insights

. . . . What do Tunisian dates and California cannabis have in common? Drought. In about 25 years, there will be 2 billion more people on Earth, all of them needing nourishment. But the effects of global warming — droughts, heat, floods, pollution, etc. — are likely to make that difficult. Read more. . . .

. . . . When it comes to climate change, California has it all. Extreme weather. The largest number of EVs. And so on. And now, it has shown the good and the bad at dealing with power shortages, as the state grid struggled with unprecedented heat this week: A cell phone alert system that worked spectacularly well and a battery backup system that didn’t. Read more here. . . .

. . . . The world is in a double whammy — climate change is making the world hotter (leading to greater energy use) and the Ukraine war is leading to fuel shortages. From China to France to the state of California, politicians are resorting to tried and true ways to keep the power on while singing the renewables song. Here’s three examples of climate policy in a rapidly heating world. Read more here. . . .

Editor’s picks: Hurricanes? In California?

Change in the weather: From this past week’s record-breaking, extreme heat wave to the possibility that Hurricane Kay, or its remnants, could bring heavy rains, thunderstorms and flash flooding to Southern California, the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center are keeping an eye on California and the southwest.

Porsche, speeding toward IPO, adds new EV models

Sports icon Porsche, hand-in-hand with news of an imminent initial public offering, also is getting ready to bring on a second generation of its successful Porsche Taycan EV. That will be joined with an electric version of the Porsche Panamera, according to a report from UK publication Autocar. The publication says the moves are “part of a new ‘electrified luxury’ plan” for as many as six new electric models by the end of this decade. Both new EVs are based on a sporting version of the Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), which is being developed by Porsche. Volkswagen (XE:VOW) said this week it will pursue an IPO of up to 25% of its non-voting preferred shares in Porsche, which will be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The timeframe is late this month or early next, depending on market conditions, Porsche said.

Need for lithium collides with water stress

Increasing demand for lithium, a critical component on EV batteries, is resulting in mining operations in places that are dry. Extracting the material could pose a risk to water-sensitive regions where the metal is abundant, Taylor Kuykendall writes in a post for S&P Global Market Intelligence headlined CO2 reduction meets water-use tension in hunt for lithium. Kuykendall notes “Out of 435 active lithium-containing mining projects analyzed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 189 are in areas that are either projected to face medium to high water stress by 2030 or are in arid regions of low water use, as defined by the World Resources Institute. There are 23 projects in areas expected to face extremely high-water stress by the end of the decade, including areas of the Western U.S., South America and Australia.”

Words to live by . . . .

“The benefits of such actions will not be there to enjoy for all of us here today: We, none of us, will live forever. But we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children.” — Queen Elizabeth II, speaking to world leaders at COP26 last year on the urgency of action to fight global climate catastrophe.

By David Callaway

Highest Grossing Documentaries of All Time

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Source: Courtesy of Paramount Vantage

Truth is stranger than fiction, the saying goes, and the modern documentary often proves it. In the age of true crime and perennial content, documentary films have become more popular than ever before. However, don’t take that to mean the annals of history don’t give the genre its due. Looking back, many films touched on vital subjects and milestones, and many were also quite successful in doing so.

To determine the highest grossing documentaries of all time, 24/7 Tempo reviewed box office data from The Numbers, a subsidiary of Nash Information Services that provides financial data on movies. Feature-length documentaries were ranked based on inflation-adjusted domestic box office. Revenue was adjusted for inflation using historical ticket prices from the National Association of Theatre Owners. Data on box office, IMDb user ratings, and Rotten Tomatoes audience and critic ratings are as of August 2022. (Based on ratings, not gross, find out which are the 50 best documentaries of all time.)

The list of highest-grossing documentaries doesn’t account for recent releases that went (more or less) straight onto streaming platforms. Examples include everything from the 2017 Academy Award winner “Icarus” to 2020’s “My Octopus Teacher,” both distributed by Netflix. And while something such as 2015’s “Making a Murderer” certainly took the culture by storm, it likewise debuted on Netflix and in the form of a documentary TV series.

Where does that leave us? With a list of iconic documentary features that were first released in theaters. A number of these top-grossers come from filmmaker Michael Moore, who explores the various manifestations of capitalistic greed. There’s also a string of Disneynature documentaries, each highlighting a different group of animals such as monkeys or bears. The planet is quite diverse, to say the least, and so too are the documentaries that capture it. (Not documentaries, here are the worst movies based on true events.)

Here are the highest grossing documentaries of all time

Hawaii’s coal withdrawal will set early U.S. example on transition risk

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Source: wingmar / E+ via Getty Images

In today’s issue:

— Hawaii closed its last coal plant last week in a big bet that renewables growth can finally wean it off of imported oil.
— The Liz Truss era begins in the UK with an energy crisis and a potential financial crisis.
— The failure of climate talks in Indonesia last week bodes poorly for the upcoming COP27 summit.
— Rising costs and energy shortages are causing countries around the world to slide back toward, coal, oil and nuclear energy.

Ahead of this week’s unprecedented heat wave in California, my wife and I decamped to Maui for a few weeks, which — although paradise compared to San Francisco right now — is not immune to the drought and wildfires plaguing the rest of the world. And whose transition to renewable energy will provide an early risk lesson to the rest of the U.S.

Hawaii is a leader in the U.S. energy transition, having been the first state back in 2015 to mandate a complete switch to renewable energy, in its case by 2045. Just last week it closed its last remaining coal plant, an AES Corp. $AES plant in service since 1992, as part of this strategy.

But the closure will set a dramatic example for the rest of the country in coming months and years because delays in construction of the solar plants and battery storage facilities needed to replace the loss of coal will leave the islands more reliant on oil, which remains their primary energy source.

Supply chain woes and surging energy prices, like everywhere else, are slowing the ramp up to renewables, and therefore leaving the islands exposed to an energy crunch until they can wean themselves off oil, much of it from Alaska.

The lead story on the front page of the Honolulu Star Advertiser — the pulse of paradise as it calls itself — is about the elevated risk of wildfires in coming months amid forecasts for a weakened rainy season and high temperatures. Talk of water rationing on some islands is already widespread.

How Hawaii responds with needed investment in renewables to manage its transition will be an important blueprint for the rest of the country, as well as for the hundreds of island nations suffering the impacts of climate change already. At least for the next few weeks, I’ll give you my take when possible.

More insights below . . . .

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

US Airports Polluting the Air With Dangerous Toxins

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Source: kirkmonteux / iStock via Getty Images

The U.S. banned leaded gasoline for cars in 1996 with the Clean Air Act as a way to protect Americans from harmful lead poisoning. Yet tens of thousands of Americans are still exposed to the harmful byproducts of such fuels each year, because leaded fuel is still used in some piston-engine airplanes – more than 170,000 of them, according to climate activist group Earthjustice. 

Piston-engine planes are typically smaller aircraft with a propeller on the front, fitting just a few passengers. Such planes often fly out of smaller regional airports, as opposed to larger commercial planes used by most passengers. (Such planes are unlikely to fly out of the biggest airports in the world.)

These planes account for the vast majority of the lead released into the American atmosphere – thousands of pounds of it annually, particularly near airport – causing potentially harmful effects to the people living nearby.

To determine the airports with the most dangerous air, 24/7 Tempo reviewed an Earthjustice analysis of data from the Environmental Protection Agency on the airports with the most total lead emissions over the last year.

Click here to see the U.S. airports with the most dangerous air

A recent study found that children living within a half mile of a local airport had significantly higher lead levels in their blood than those who lived farther away. There is no known safe quantity of lead. Children who are exposed to lead may suffer lowered cognitive function, antisocial behavior, and other severe neurological effects, according to the World Health Organization. 

Most of the 30 airports with the highest total lead emissions are in Western states like California, Arizona, Colorado, and Washington. These airports, though smaller, are often near major cities, and their emissions contribute to bad air quality in places like Phoenix, San Diego, and Los Angeles. (These are America’s dirtiest cities.)

California’s climate conundrum: too many goals, too little electricity

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Source: gageskidmore / Flickr

California Gov. Gavin Newsom took another big step this week toward locking himself in as the climate candidate in the 2024 presidential election, pushing $54 billion through the statehouse in new spending on climate initiatives tied to electric vehicles and transit, fighting wildfires and shoring up the state electricity grid.

But even those admirable goals — meant to reduce the state’s emissions by 85% in the next two decades and following a landmark plan last week to stop sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — look dicey in the face of the state’s desperate need for more power right now.

As the dreaded heat dome settles in on us here in California this weekend, with temperatures expected to hit 110°F. in some places near Los Angeles, everyone is being asked to conserve electricity to avoid blackouts. Including, and get this, not charging electric vehicles.

It is an odd conundrum of our climate battle that even as we race to transition to electric-powered everything, we don’t have enough electricity to even start that migration. As part of Newsom’s climate plan, authorities agreed to keep the state’s only remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, open another five years past its original closure date of 2024 or 2025.

Newsom’s bet that climate will emerge in the midterms this year as a real election issue and be even bigger in 2024 looks increasingly smart as political calculus. Climate has already emerged in elections in Australia, Germany, and in northern Europe. But as California’s energy crisis demonstrates, the transition itself is going to be as messy as any election ever was.

More insights below . . . .

This is the real value of greenhouse gas emission estimates

. . . . Investors looking for stocks of companies that plan to reduce their emissions to net zero over the next 20 or 30 years are barking up the wrong environmental, social and governance (ESG) tree, according to Mark Hulbert. Citing a new European study on corporate disclosure and intentions, Hulbert reports that neither forward-looking intentions nor past estimates have any relevance at all as far as useful data is concerned, and that only past corporate disclosures — which the SEC is fighting to expand — have any productive potential for investors looking to see how serious companies are about decarbonizing. . . .

Read the full column

A selection of this week’s subscriber-only insights

. . . . These ragtop mini-EVs from China, being marketed there by GM, are just about the cutest thing ever. Will they come to America? Read more. . . .

. . . . Out of sight, out of mind? Like tidal energy, geothermal power is often forgotten in the race for renewables. But it has a lot of positives: Constancy. Mostly visually non-polluting. But it’s very expensive to get it started. A new tool, though, may help with that issue. Read more here. . . .

. . . . Wind turbines have pretty much been the same as when they first were invented: a propeller-like appendage on a tower. But there are big issues with this ancient technology, especially when it comes to floating offshore wind power, vital to areas, like the West Coast, where the continental shelf drops away near the shore. A fascinating new invention, contra-rotating turbines, could solve that. Read more here. . . .

. . . . Did you know that agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gasses in the U.S. than the whole of the transportation sector? Yes, those cattle and pig belches — and other agriculture emissions — are a serious cause of pollution. Though way behind developments in EVs and renewables, things are beginning to be done. Read more here. . . .

Editor’s picks: Rare ‘triple-dip’ La Niña predicted, IRA Act bucks for green banks

WMO sees rare ‘triple-dip’ La Niña in 2022

The World Meteorological Organization says the current “protracted” La Niña event will last until at least the end of the year, becoming this century’s first “triple-dip“ La Niña, spanning three consecutive northern hemisphere winters/southern hemisphere summers. The UN’s weather agency said in an update this week, “La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific have strengthened as trade winds intensified during mid-July to mid-August 2022, affecting temperature and precipitation patterns and exacerbating drought and flooding in different parts of the world.” The WMO notes that La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure and rainfall. It usually has the opposite impacts on weather and climate as El Niño, which is the warm phase of the so-called El Niño Southern Oscillation. “However, all naturally occurring climate events now take place in the context of human-induced climate change, which is increasing global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather and climate, and impacting seasonal rainfall and temperature patterns,” the WMO said.

Green banking advocates eye federal support

Members of the financial industry are seeking federal funding for green banks to create a national nonprofit that could “jumpstart the clean energy market and help state and local banks,” Alison Bennett writes in a post for S&P Global Market Intelligence. The recent Inflation Reduction Act legislation included $27 billion for green banks through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Bennett notes in her post that “debate remains about whether that funding should be directed toward individual green banks, or should be used to create a national bank that could leverage capital and create financial products to generate more money for green banks nationwide.” The Green Bank Coalition and the American Green Bank Consortium, as well as some lawmakers, are pushing for the latter option, saying that direct grants would not be enough to help the industry provide funding across the board.

Words to live by . . . .

“In the years ahead, the only sustainable growth will be green growth. It’s a guarantee of jobs and prosperity for generations to come. It’s a massive opportunity.” — Nick Clegg, former UK deputy prime minister, now president for global affairs at Meta Platforms.

Callaway Climate Insights Newsletter

By David Callaway

Rich Countries With the Biggest Families

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Source: FG Trade / E+ via Getty Images

Family size varies greatly from country to country, depending not only on how many children a couple (or a single parent) decides to raise, but also on whether or not extended family members – typically parents or grandchildren – are part of the household. 

In general, wealthier countries tend to have smaller family sizes. The average individual in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, lives in a household of 6.9 people, according to Pew Research. The comparable average in Europe is 3.1. (These are the poorest countries in the world.)

To identify the rich countries with the biggest families, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the Family Database published by the 38-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The database breaks down the computations according to couple households with children, single parent households with children, and all households. Our list ranks the 15 countries with the largest mean average number of people for all households.  

Note that the time frame for the data is inconsistent among the countries covered. The data is from 2010 for Korea and Mexico (2010); 2011 for Australia, Canada, and Costa Rica; 2013 for New Zealand; 2016 for the U.S.; and 2015 for the remaining eight nations. The percentage of households with zero children also comes from the OECD Family Database and is for the same years, while total population comes from the World Bank World Development Indicators for 2020.

Of the 15 countries on the list, the U.S. has the “smallest” big families with an average of 2.5 people per household. Some 66.6% of households have no children, the second largest percentage after New Zealand at 67.0%. 

Click here to see the rich countries with the biggest families

The largest households of the top 15 can be found in Mexico, with an average of about four people in each household. Only 41.3% are childless. Interestingly, it is not among the 25 least expensive countries in which to raise a family. 

This is the real value of greenhouse gas emission estimates

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Source: sbeebe / Flickr

(Mark Hulbert, an author and longtime investment columnist, is the founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest; his Hulbert Ratings audits investment newsletter returns.)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — How much weight should you put on Occidental Petroleum’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2040?

Or Ford’s by 2050?

The answer, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Portfolio Management, is zero.

Nada. …

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

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