Matt Abele, director of marketing and communications at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, said one of the main reasons for the growth of solar in the 2010s was the compounded benefits of both state and federal tax credits.

A 35 percent state tax credit was passed in 1999, and the federal tax credit was expanded to 30 percent in 2005. As of 2021, the federal tax credit was 25 percent, and will be gradually reduced in the coming years. The North Carolina tax credit expired in 2017, but between 2005 and 2017, North Carolina residents were eligible for a 65 percent return on the costs of solar panel installation, making solar energy more accessible and popular throughout the state.

Policy Overview

Another influential policy was the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Standards (REPS), passed in North Carolina Senate Bill 3 in 2007. REPS created a renewable energy requirement for utilities and municipalities that further promoted the use of solar in North Carolina.

“I would say really the biggest and probably most instrumental piece of legislation here in North Carolina was Senate Bill 3,” said Abele. “It required investors in utility, like Duke Energy, and electric municipalities throughout the state to utilize a certain percentage of renewable energy within their generation mix.”

By 2017, North Carolina was the second state in the nation for solar advancement. But according to data collected by the Solar Energy Industries Association, the rate of solar installation in North Carolina peaked in 2017, and the state has since dropped to fourth in the nation.

Passed in 2017, North Carolina House Bill 589 (HB 589) included a wide range of programs intended to fuel the growth of the solar industry — some of these programs have been more successful than others.

Beginning in 2017, the rate of utility-scale solar installations in North Carolina decreased. However, the rate of residential solar installations increased steadily through 2020, the last complete year for which data was available, in large part because of the Solar Rebate Program established by HB 589.

According to the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, the amount of residential solar within Duke’s North Carolina territories more than tripled between 2017 and 2020.

Solar Certification

 As demand for solar panels in North Carolina has grown, more cities and municipalities are updating their zoning and development regulations to encourage installation of solar panels.

SolSmart is a national organization funded by the U.S. Department of Energy that certifies cities, communities and organizations for implementing optimal zoning, permitting, construction and development regulations. This certification aims to eliminate solar soft costs, which include costs created by complex permitting requirements. The updated zoning standards required by the designation process can streamline the process and signal to developers that the city is solar-friendly.

SolSmart partners with local organizations that act as advisors, providing guidance to cities as they update their policies and apply for SolSmart certification. The North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center is currently a SolSmart Advisor. David Sarkisian, senior policy analyst at the Center, said that cities are not required to partner with an advisor, but doing so can help streamline the application process.

“We’re doing baseline assessments for cities to figure out where they are on SolSmart requirements before they go into changing anything,” Sarkisian said. “We give them advice on possible changes to their zoning codes, and we can also hold trainings for city staff.”

At least 10 counties and cities in North Carolina have received SolSmart designations, according to the organization’s website.

Looking Forward

The most recent piece of energy-related legislation in North Carolina is House Bill 951, which was passed in October 2021 and was expected to have major implications for the renewable energy landscape in North Carolina.

Marshall Conrad, director of government relations at Strata Clean Energy, formerly known as Strata Solar, said that it’s too early to tell what the exact effects of the bill will be, but that it has the potential to increase the rates of utility solar installations in the state.

“The bill is wide open and leaves so much discretion to the [North Carolina] Utilities Commission to decide how we move forward,” Conrad said. “I think that’s both a positive and a negative to some extent.”

As of June 2021, the Bill had received criticism from several environmental groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Environmental Defense Fund. One of the primary concerns, according to an October 2021 article by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, is that although the bill sets important goals of carbon reduction and minimizing consumer costs, the language may not be specific enough to be enforceable.

“A lot of the onus was put on the Utilities Commission to determine next steps for implementation,” Abele said “It’s still to be determined how it’s going to affect the industry.”

Step into a store like H&M and you’ll be greeted by a seemingly endless amount of clothing. It’s enough to make anyone wonder how it could all be purchased and used, and the short answer is that a lot isn’t.

Add that to the amount of clothing people throw away each year, and you end up with heaps of unwanted garments sitting in landfills. The EPA estimated that 11.3 million tons of municipal solid waste textiles, the main source of which is discarded clothing, ended up in landfills in 2018.

Additionally, the fashion industry accounts for 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is on track to reach 25 percent by 2050. But several emerging technologies and models could help make clothing production more sustainable.

The challenge in predicting consumer demands

A majority of apparel companies follow a push supply chain model, meaning that they produce goods based on anticipated consumer demand. In a push supply system, companies predict what consumers will want well while accounting for differing sizes, weather forecasts and more.

“There’s no way we can anticipate who will buy what in what color, what design, what size,” Byoungho Ellie Jin said. “There’s no way to identify the demand accurately.”

Jin is the Albert Myers Distinguished Professor of Textile Economics and Management at North Carolina State University. She studies innovation within the textile and apparel industry. Jin said compared to other industries, it’s a challenge to forecast fashion demands.

“Think about other products, like an automobile or computer; the size doesn’t matter and there’s not much color variation, not much fabric variation,” Jin said. “But in apparel — fabric, design and color — those should be all different.”

The fickle nature of clothing demands has led to fast fashion practices in which manufacturers produce a surplus of lower quality clothing. Not only do many items go unsold, but those that actually make it into consumers’ hands aren’t made to last.

Improving the fashion forecast

To improve forecasting and decrease waste, researchers are exploring artificial intelligence that can recognize patterns in a large amount of data.

“With AI, we can develop more detailed, more accurate demand estimation that will result in huge impacts on the environment,” Jin said.

Companies can use AI to look at data, like buying trends or best-selling items, to give real-time estimations on demand. Companies can do AI in-house or outsource it to businesses like True Fit, whose clients include Levi’s, Macy’s and Ralph Lauren.

Retailers also can avoid overstocking items by using augmented reality. Through AR technology, users can try on clothing without actually putting anything on.

Virtual reality, too, can provide feedback to stores about consumers’ shopping experiences. Jin said this could be especially useful for smaller businesses because VR could allow potential customers visit a store without leaving home. If shoppers see a store virtually and find it pleasant, they might be more likely to visit the actual premises.

Changing the Way We Produce Textiles

Researchers are also reconsidering how different fabrics are made, both in the materials used and the resources that production require.

For instance, some scientists suggest making clothing from textiles such as regenerated protein fibers that can be made from food waste.

A non-profit company based in North Carolina, Cotton Incorporated focuses on the supply chain. The company promotes research for sustainable practices in cotton production and new technologies for textile manufacturing.

Another innovation, 3D printing, has the potential to enhance mass personalization. Companies could employ this technology to print pattern pieces as needed, instead of cutting from regular fabric pieces, which creates unused scrap fabric.

Though still in experimental stages, 3D printing could localize manufacturing, shifting production back to the U.S. from overseas. It could also limit excess inventory by responding to customer demand rather than anticipating it ahead of the selling season. 

The Business of Sharing

Another practice that has become popular in multiple industries, including fashion, is collaborative consumption. Rather than typical sharing among friends or family, this model involves the renting, swapping, trading and borrowing of goods between strangers.

Apparel businesses using this model take the form of online fashion rental services, like Rent the Runway, and peer-to-peer platforms, such as Poshmark.

The collaborative consumption model has seen a lot of success, and researchers project that the online fashion rental industry will grow annually at a rate of about 10 percent, making it worth $1.95 billion by 2026.

One study showed almost 44 percent of U.S. adults were familiar with the concept of collaborative consumption, and 72 percent were willing to try it.

But collaborative consumption has potential pitfalls. Researchers have speculated that increased transactions — and thus, increased need for transport or packaging —  could eventually outweigh the benefits of decreased production.

Changing Consumers Want Changing Brands

Jin pointed out that buyers, especially younger ones, are beginning to focus more on the sustainability of their wardrobes. That attitude is part of what has sparked growth in rental service models, buying second-hand clothing and looking for expensive yet durable garments.

“The incumbent traditional retailers or apparel manufacturers who relied on traditional push supply chains — they need to reconsider their business model,” Jin said, “because consumers are very into sustainability and very concerned about saving the planet.”

“Fast Fashion” describes the second most polluting industry on earth after oil. Online stores such as Misguided and SHEIN sell clothing items at affordable prices, but the environmental cost is damaging.

Investing in fast fashion also means investing in its consequences. “We love to change our fashion, but this idea of changing fashion and fast fashion has created a real issue for textile waste accumulation,” said Sonja Salmon, associate professor in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science at North Carolina State University.

According to Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, the fashion industry is the second largest consumer of the world’s water supply and produces 10 percent of all of human-caused carbon emissions. Rapid distribution of clothing also comes at the cost of underpaying workers who suffer from generally poor working conditions.

Facing the Consequences

“The fashion industry needs to fundamentally change in order to mitigate the environmental impact of fast fashion,” said Greg Gangi, associate director for clean technology and innovation and teaching professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He said the current industry model of purchasing and disposing of clothes adversely impacts the world’s resources.

Clothing manufacturing requires textile dyeing that utilizes toxic chemicals that often end up in oceans and lakes. “The toxic substances in the wastewater from these factories contaminate the fresh water that we drink and in which animals live,” said Fushcia-Ann Hoover, a social-eological systems scientist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The production of fabrics also releases microplastics into the water.

Clothing brands use fabrics such as polyester or nylon that take years to biodegrade. These fabrics then turn into microplastics — tiny pieces of non-biodegradable plastic. A 2017 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester generate 35 percent of all microplastics in the oceans. As plastics degrade, they release chemicals such as bisphenol A or BPA. This chemical concentrates in fish tissues harming the food supply. “Plastic pollution is harmful because it travels through soil and water and can be consumed by wildlife, thus threatening the health of animals and humans,” said UNC-CH professor Gangi.

Energy-Intensive Process

Turning plastic fibers into textiles requires energy and petroleum-based products that release volatile particulate matter into the air. Supply chains require 10 times more energy to generate one ton of textiles than does the production of one ton of glass. Factories require electricity to wash, dry and dye the cloth. Shipping the garments often by ship and truck transport release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ships burn bunker fuel that contains 1800 times more sulfur than domestic vehicle fuel, making shipping a major energy-polluting component.  From processing yarn and fabricating textiles, to transporting and selling clothes to customers, fast fashion adversely impacts the environment.

Fast fashion also poses societal problems. A 2018 US Department of Labor report found evidence of forced and child labor in the fashion industry in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Philippines. The low cost and rapid pace of fast fashion mean supply chains often subcontract low- and middle-income countries for production. Gangi said marginalized communities – rather than consumers — bear the biggest burden of fast fashion habits.  Research shows that wages paid in some garment-producing countries remain too low to meet the basic needs of workers. In addition, workers face exposure to hazardous work environments.

Cost of Clothing Consumption

A review by the United Nations Environment Program and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation reported that 62 million metric tons of apparel were consumed globally. The report asserted that fast fashion accounts for more annual carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. The study forecast that fast fashion may contribute to a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions within a decade. Many clothes end in landfils as lower quality clothing degrades after only a few times being worn. Many people opt to discard clothes rather than donate them when they’re worn out or no longer trendy. This cycle poses public health and environmental dangers to local communities that are often the site of landfills that can release toxic air emissions and leach pollutants into groundwater.

Gone are the days when people would buy a shirt and wear it for years. Rapid production means that sales and profits supersede human welfare, said UNC professor Gangi. Taking steps toward advocating for a green-friendly fashion industry and becoming environmentally-conscious consumers can help slow down climate change.

This article has been translated from Spanish

Many of these impacts are already evident and will continue to advance in the future, with a foreseeable increase in the rate of desertification, the number of fires and floods, or the lack of resources such as drinking water or fertile soil for crops.

One of the areas most vulnerable to the climate crisis in Spain is the Mediterranean basin, a zone zero where droughts, the lack of fresh water and the rise in sea level will be felt, with an increase in the temperature of its waters, generating an impact that will hit this region in a particularly virulent way.

Since the 20th century, the temperature of our planet has risen by more than 1ºC, according to temperature analysis carried out since 1880 by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The Secretary General of the United Nations announced the red alert for our planet and, therefore, for humanity.

Data showed that 2020 was a historically warm year in the Iberian Peninsula, followed by August 2017. River basins in the Spanish northwest have been verging on alarming, unprecedented values, around less than 40% of their capacity, and those that usually suffer marked water stress, in the south and Mediterranean basin, sometimes hover around 10% of their capacity.

Another one of the most worrying effects of climate change in Spain is the possibility that the global sea level will rise by three meters between now and the year 2100.  If the sea level rises three meters, a large part of many coastal cities, such as Barcelona, Malaga, A Coruña or Santander would have floods regularly. Furthermore, coastal natural sites, such as Doñana, the Ebro river delta or the Rías Baixas, would probably disappear.

Seventy five percent of Spanish soil is already in the process of desertification and it is predicted that twenty percent of what is safe today will be at risk in 50 years. Soil will be degraded in several regions, such as Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla La Mancha and the Levante coast, something that will affect both agriculture and natural ecosystems. The loss of fertile soil would increase the vulnerability of all species, including humans. It would create a major crisis in traditional agriculture, displacing many to cities, provoking a rise of the pollution levels in these areas and causing climate change to continue to feed back on itself.

Hazards caused by climate change will affect water resources, coasts, health, tourism, agriculture and livestock, energy and transportation. Many of these are urgent, such as the decreasing volume of river flows and reduced freshwater availability due to droughts. Related to this impact is the risk of reduced hydropower production due to changes in precipitation and temperature.

The most direct consequence of climate change for human beings regards to their health. There will be an increase in diseases that can make the leap from the animal world to humans. There will also be an increase in mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever, Nile fever and Zika fever. In addition, it points to the need for measures to be taken to counteract heat stress-related damage (increased mortality and morbidity.

Individual actions to limit the effects

At the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in December 2015, 195 countries adopted various targets to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate and adapt to the effects of global warming.

The Paris Agreement aims to avoid global warming of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to continue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Spanish citizens can adapt their activities and lifestyles to limit their impact on climate. Some easy actions include  using sustainable means of transport, choosing a green power at home and optimizing energy consumption.

This article has been translated from Spanish

Explaining a chain reaction is a very simple exercise. Just picture a long row of dominoes falling one after another. Or think about the ancient Chinese proverb, which states that “The slight flutter of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world.”

These wise and intuitive approaches are however often ignored in favor of an overwhelming and irresponsible presentism. The commonly known “butterfly effect” is widely assumed, but when it takes the form of various problems, attention turns elsewhere. This inattention is cultivated by multiple factors, but undoubtedly one of them is the incorrect perception of the magnitude of our actions.

In the case of climate change, when explaining a long concatenation of causes and effects, it is important to cover every single fact. However, a quick search through the news shows that regularly give updates on current environmental problems seems to disregard the facts for the whole picture. In this sense, a serious sentence like “Snow levels in the Pyrenees decrease by x centimeters this year,” should be completed as: “Snow levels in the Pyrenees decrease x centimeters this year, compromising the balance of its delicate ecosystem and directly threatening the local people, who lose crops and working hours in the tourist sector.”

The intensive research surrounding the Pyrenees speaks for the uniqueness of the region. Each of the “dominoes” is very well documented, thanks to the work of the Pyrenean Observatory of Climate Change (OPCC), whose reports ground part of this article.  The domino effect of which these pieces are part is not very encouraging: multiple localities, which are crossed by the mountain range, are jointly suffering the effects of an unstoppable and dangerous increase in the average temperature.

In the last sixty years, the average temperature in the Pyrenees has increased abnormally, by about 0.24 ºC per decade. The speed at which the temperature is rising is outrageous, even compared to past warming periods. The Pyrenean climate is the first victim of these extra degrees. Abrupt meteorological changes are affecting the mountain range. Despite the fact that the region still goes periods of more intense rainfall and snowfall, it is estimated that its snow cover could be reduced by half in the 30 next years, and it would melt from the ground one month earlier.

Effects on fauna and flora

In this context of meteorological turbulence and accelerated warming, native life bears part of the brunt. Biodiversity is suffering serious losses and some of the species are being depleted because they are unable to survive the wide range of hostile conditions that affect the mountain range.

In one of its latest reports, the OPCC indicates that the most sensitive animals, such as birds and amphibians, are becoming less abundant. In some cases, species are also suffering pysical alterations.

The most dramatic case is that of amphibians, like newts and frogs, which are very susceptible atmospheric variations. Amphibians are specifically sensitive to humidity, which is decreasing in the Pyrenees due to the scarcity of the Pyrenean boxwood, a native plant to the region.

The case of the Pyrenean frog is deeply concerning. This small amphibian, which is in danger of extinction, is prone to contracting ranavirus. An altered habitat, contaminated by human activity, favors the appearance of this virus among frogs. Recently, the Zaragoza aquarium announced the successful captive breeding of 250 frogs, of which 220 will be released. However, if conditions are still not favorable, they will suffer the same fate.

Flora is also suffering from the major changes in its habitat. As temperatures increase, animals that can move occupy higher altitudes to preserve their living conditions, but plants cannot follow the same technique. This throws the ecosystem out of balance.

In addition, plants are severely affected by the scarcity of snow, one of the first pieces of this domino effect. The lack of snow prevents plants from being properly insulated in winter, thus increasing the chances of their perishing. Another major problem for the flora is the presence of pests, which are attracted by the heat and usually more resilient than native species.

The boxwood of the Pyrenees or buxus sempervirens is a very rich and useful plant for life in the area, since it generates high levels of humidity. Humidity allows a large part of the flora of the Pyrenees to develop under the right conditions. Given the high presence and relevance of boxwood in the area, any condition that negatively affects this particular humidifier becomes a great threat to the ecosystem of the mountain range. Present in almost 80 % of the Pyrenees, the buxus sempervirens suffers the attacks of the Cydalida perspectalis: an invasive moth that feeds on boxwood.

Economic effects

All these problems may seem far away when talking about the Pyrenean frog or boxwood, but they are not the only victims of the effects of climate change in the Pyrenees. Climate change also has a significant socio-economic impact in the region.

Crops are less productive and susceptible to pests. The snow season, which attracts so much tourism and generates so many jobs, starts later and lasts less. Fluvial scarcity leads to less hydroelectric power, and the increasing extreme weather events –like foods or heat waves- can obviously have serious repercussions on the course of human life and infrastructure in Pyrenean localities.

How can the situation in the Pyrenees be mitigated? Scientific research is key to detect, treat and communicate the delicate situation of the border mountain range.

This article has been translated from Spanish

Concern about forest fires has been on the rise lately. It stands to reason that fire enhances global warming by destroying forests, since plants absorb greenhouse gases, while flames emit them.

Greenpeace has estimated that the volume of forest fire emissions is considerable, since it represents a quarter of that caused by the use of fossil fuels. However, there are difficulties in measuring this magnitude because some of the countries with the most fires – Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and several regions of Central Africa – do not have very reliable resources to make such measurements.

Other consequences of forest fires includes human fatalities, biodiversity loss, economic damage to the owners of burned areas, and the economic cost of putting them out, among others. On the other hand, the causes and prevention of fires are more complex and difficult to understand.

In Spain there are thousands of fires a year, but more than half of them are usually put down before they spread at all. Thus, the problem is not the number of fires, but the extreme virulence of a few: the so-called sixth-generation fires, which are those that burn the bulk of the hectares affected per year.

National Geographic points at three main factors that affect the spread of these macro fires: ignitions, the proximity and abundance of forests and drought. Of these three, only ignitions are the true causal factor, while the other two are aggravating factors, which can turn a modest fire into a catastrophic one, if both exceed a certain threshold.

The two aggravating factors work as communicating vessels: the drier a region is, the less forest it has. In this case, it seems that the most relevant factor is the abundance of forests. Disregarding the drought factor, however, would imply a lesser influence of climate change, a phenomenon related to increased drought, on the spread of fires.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the area of greatest fire risk is the northwest, which includes the coastal regions from San Sebastian to Lisbon, as well as Zamora, Leon and Orense. Almost two thirds of the fires occur in this region. These figures might seem striking, since the North of Spain hast the coldest and wettest weather in the country. It is precisely because of this humid climate, that the region has a lot of forests and is therefore an easy victim to forest fires.

Heat waves and human cause

According to National Geographic, when a region with a high mass of flora is affected by drought, there is a higher risk for macro fires. This is when heat waves come into play. If we look at the two worst years of the past decade in terms of fires, 2012 and 2017, there were heat waves when the most virulent fires occurred.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 96% of the fires are caused by human intervention, either through negligence or intentionally. A very small part of this portion comes from the hands of arsonists, people with a psychological disorder that causes them attraction to fire and its effects.

Another modest part, comes from revenge in disputes between landowners, but the greater part corresponds to practices such as the regeneration of pastures or the burning of stubble, the opening of areas to favor hunting or to scare off wolves and other threats. These practices are especially rooted in the Spanish northwest, but they also occur throughout the peninsula and the world in general.

The controlled use of fire is, a priori, beneficial to help various plant species to germinate or develop natural features, such as oak cork. This use, however, is no longer beneficial because it is either abused or used in a way that would work in a climate like that of the early twentieth century, but not in a climate like today’s, which is more unstable.

Fires are one of the many factors that enhance the greenhouse effect and, in turn, are enhanced by it, creating a vicious cycle that can worsen if left unchecked. But it should also be noted that there are other reasons, some of them more decisive, for causing fires. These reasons are particularly pronounced in the Iberian northwest, making it the peninsular area with the highest risk for sixth-generation fires.