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Within their first moments of stepping inside Universal’s newly opened Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, visitors will realize there is something different about the space. Rather than the typical onslaught of gift shops and pavement that can usually be found right inside the gates of most theme parks around the world, Epic Universe’s grounds are unusually bucolic, with a dense canopy of trees, winding pathways, and lush landscaping. This meandering entrance space is named Celestial Park, and it’s a notable counterpoint to the theme park standard of densely packed commercialism. “[It’s] where we’ve put the ‘park’ back in theme park,” says Steve Tatham, Epic Universe’s executive creative director and lead designer. As Universal’s first major theme park in more than 20 years, it’s an attempt to reset expectations of the brandand of the amusement park experience. [Photo: Universal Studios] Epic Universe’s design ditches at least some of the conventional theme park model. “We focus on our guests and their experience, and we didn’t want it to have as much hardscape as some other parks. We wanted to have a lot more greenery,” Tatham says. There are 400,000 plants in Celestial Park, which serves as the connecting central space between four “worlds” of attractions in the theme park, including Super Nintendo World and The Wizarding World of Harry PotterMinistry of Magic. Rather than a space people simply pass through on their way to a ride, Tatham sees Celestial Park as an attraction in and of itself. “Some people want to come and just absorb the environment, so we wanted to create something for everybody,” he says. [Photo: Universal Studios] Celestial Park was envisioned as both a connective spine and a calmer respite from the rides and experiences in the rest of the theme park. The design of that space, and the design of Epic Universe as a whole, was inspired by the world’s fairs and world expos of the past, Tatham says. Citing examples like the architectural cornucopia of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago and the futurism-heavy 1939 New York World’s Fair, Tatham says Epic Universe’s design aspired to a grandness not often seen in typical theme parks. World’s fairs, he says, “had this really optimistic tone, a lot of Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecturewhich to me represents the optimism and the coming together of a community. We really wanted to capture that essence.” [Photo: Universal Studios] Of course, this is still a theme park, and part of an increasingly massive complex of Universal-owned attractions and accommodations in Orlando. Universal, which is owned by Comcast, is betting heavily on the future of theme parks by spending an estimated $7 billion on Epic Universe. It could feed into ongoing momentum; on a recent earnings call, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh noted that revenue from theme parks has tripled in the past decade, to roughly $3 billion in 2024. [Photo: Universal Studios] Celestial Park has many of the hallmarks of the theme park genre, including a roller coaster, a carousel, an interactive water feature, 11 dining options, and six retail outlets. But they’re more artfully integrated into the space than most of Epic Universe’s competitors, building on the theme park’s backstory of visitors transporting to new worlds through entrance “portals,” each of which is accessed by exploring through Celestial Park. “My focus always is on the story,” Tatham says. “That’s the foundation of any kind of design that we will do here, whether it’s architecture or rides or any of the elements that are in the park.” [Photo: Universal Studios] Offering some open-ended elements in Celestial Park builds on what customers have called for in new theme parks, according to Tatham. Universal’s guest research shows that while people like the increasingly tech-influenced ride-and-experience design happening in new attractions, they’re also clamoring for more parts of parks that they can actively engage with, not just passively ride or watch. “They really wanted us to be even more immersive and do things with physical sets and animated figures, and we’ve really responded to that in force,” he says. “When the guests come here, they’re going to see the kind of experiences they’ve been really itching to see.”
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Four years ago, GM set an audacious goal: By 2035, the automaker planned to go all-electric. The company says its still aiming for that target. But it simultaneously lobbied the Senate to end Californias ban on new gas car saleswhich was also supposed to go fully into effect in 2035. In theory, California’s policy should have supported GM’s transition. GM even recruited employees in the lobbying effort. We need your help! the company wrote in an email to staff, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability. The lobbying worked. Yesterday, the Senate voted to revoke an Environmental Protection Agency waiver that allowed California to set clean air rules that are stricter than national standards. (Congress arguably didnt have the legal right to revoke the waiver; more on that later.) In a statement, the company said, “GM appreciates Congress action to align emissions standards with todays market realities. We have long advocated for one national standard that will allow us to stay competitive, continue to invest in U.S. innovation, and offer customer choice across the broadest lineup of gas-powered and electric vehicles. [Photo: GM] GM CEO Mary Barra has said that the company believes in an all-electric future. The company, which began seriously investing in battery design in 2018, spent $11 billion on EV infrastructure between 2020 and 2024. It has a massive battery factory, co-owned with LG Energy, near Nashville, and another in Ohio, making thousands of battery cells per minute. Its racing to bring down the cost of batteries, the biggest factor in the overall cost of EVs. In the first quarter of this year, GM sold 31,887 EVs in the U.S., a 94% increase over its electric vehicle sales in the same period last year. Its now the second-largest seller of EVs in the U.S., quickly gaining on Tesla. The company plans to nearly double the number of EVs it makes this year compared to last. It has 11 models on the market, including the Chevy Equinox EV, currently the most affordable EV in the country. The popular Chevy Bolt, another affordable EV, will come back later this year. But the company argues that California’s clean car rule is moving faster than market demand. The rule sets targets that automakers have to hit each year. For model year 2026 cars, 35% of a manufacturer’s car sales in the state have to be zero-emission, or the manufacturer has to pay a fine. The target jumps up to 43% in 2027, 51% in 2028, and keeps going until new cars are 100% zero-emission by 2035. Last year, in California, around 25% of new cars registered in the state were electric. This year, as many buyers have veered away from Tesla, the percentage of EV sales could drop. GM declined to comment on whether it expects to hit the 35% target for model year 2026 cars in the state. [Photo: GM] Other states have followed California’s regulation, with the same annual targets: Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Those states have even lower percentages of EV sales now. Car companies say it would be unrealistic for them to immediately meet the targets for model year 2026 that those states require. Critics argue that if demand is lower than expected, automakers themselves bear some responsibility. “That’s like the kid who says, ‘Look, I didn’t study for the test, and it’s unfair that you’re giving me a bad grade,'” says Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, noting that GM has the best engineers in the world. They know how to make vehicles that meet standards and that are attractive to consumers. And they’ve chosen not to market their electric vehicles. . . . The auto industry in the United States spends $14 billion a year on advertising and other marketing. Very little of that goes to advertising electric vehicles.” EVs are facing other major challenges. The House just voted to phase out the $7,500 tax credits to buy or lease new EVs (companies that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs will be able to continue to qualify for the credits until the end of 2026; GM has already passed that limit). The House bill also ends a $4,000 tax credit for used cars that was introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act, and another tax credit for home chargers. Since EVs haven’t quite reached price parity with gas cars, the tax credits are crucial. Car companies are also facing steep costs from tariffs. A GM spokesperson said on background that the California rules could cost the company billions at a time when profits are already being squeezed by tariffsand that’s money that the company needs to continue to be able to invest in EV development to bring costs down. GM is still losing money making EVs, though costs are decreasing as production scales up and the technology continues to advance. The Senate vote on California isn’t definitive. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that Congress didn’t have the authority to overturn the waiver that allows California to make its own clean air rules. Waivers aren’t included in the Congressional Review Act, the law that the Senate used to revoke the waiver. (The CRA allows Congress to overturn recent laws with a simple majority vote; the waiver was also granted in 2022 and arguably would also not be considered recent.) “Congress doesn’t get to amend [laws] along the way by saying, ‘Oh, well, we really meant it to be this,” sys Becker. “It’s a Pandora’s box that they’re opening. If the CRA isn’t limited to rules, then you’ve opened the door as to what can be undone by the congressional actioncorporate mergers that are allowed by the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], cost-of-living adjustments by different agencies, offshore drilling permitswho knows how this will ultimately be used. And the Republicans will not always be in charge.” California could potentially sue. “That will result in uncertainty for the industry,” Becker says. “They keep saying they want certainty. And they’re getting rid of it by demanding that Congress use an illegal mechanism to undo protections for people with lungs.” Meanwhile, EVs are growing faster outside the United States. Globally, more than one in four cars sold this year is likely to be an EV. In China, more than half of new car sales last year were all-electric. In Norway, 97% of all cars sold last month were electric. As federal support reverses in the U.S., American automakers will fall behind.
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In December 2022, Matthew Boyer hopped on an Argentine military plane to one of the more remote habitations on Earth: Marambio Station at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the icy continent stretches toward South America. Months before that, Boyer had to ship expensive, delicate instruments that might get busted by the time he landed. When you arrive, you have boxes that have been sometimes sitting outside in Antarctica for a month or two in a cold warehouse, said Boyer, a PhD student in atmospheric science at the University of Helsinki. And were talking about sensitive instrumentation. But the effort paid off, because Boyer and his colleagues found something peculiar about penguin guano. In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, they describe how ammonia wafting off the droppings of 60,000 birds contributed to the formation of clouds that might be insulating Antarctica, helping cool down an otherwise rapidly warming continent. Some penguin populations, however, are under serious threat because of climate change. Losing them and their guano could mean fewer clouds and more heating in an already fragile ecosystem, one so full of ice that it will significantly raise sea levels worldwide as it melts. A better understanding of this dynamic could help scientists hone their models of how Antarctica will transform as the world warms. They can now investigate, for instance, if some penguin species produce more ammonia and, therefore, more of a cooling effect. Thats the impact of this paper, said Tamara Russell, a marine ornithologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies penguins but wasnt involved in the research. That will inform the models better, because we know that some species are decreasing, some are increasing, and thats going to change a lot down there in many different ways. With their expensive instruments, Boyer and his research team measured atmospheric ammonia between January and March 2023, summertime in the southern hemisphere. They found that when the wind was blowing from an Adelie penguin colony 5 miles away from the detectors, concentrations of the gas shot up to 1,000 times higher than the baseline. Even when the penguins had moved out of the colony after breeding, ammonia concentrations remained elevated for at least a month, as the guano continued emitting the gas. That atmospheric ammonia could have been helping cool the area. The researchers further demonstrated that the ammonia kicks off an atmospheric chain reaction. Out at sea, tiny plantlike organisms known as phytoplankton release the gas dimethyl sulfide, which transforms into sulphuric acid in the atmosphere. Because ammonia is a base, it reacts readily with this acid. This coupling results in the rapid formation of aerosol particles. Clouds form when water vapor gloms onto any number of different aerosols, like soot and pollen, floating around in the atmosphere. In populated places, these particles are more abundant, because industries and vehicles emit so many of them as pollutants. Trees and other vegetation spew aerosols, too. But because Antarctica lacks trees and doesnt have much vegetation at all, the aerosols from penguin guano and phytoplankton can make quite an impact. In February 2023, Boyer and the other researchers measured a particularly strong burst of particles associated with guano, sampled a resulting fog a few hours later, and found particles created by the interaction of ammonia from the guano and sulphuric acid from the plankton. There is a deep connection between these ecosystem processes, between penguins and phytoplankton at the ocean surface, Boyer said. Their gas is all interacting to form these particles and clouds. But heres where the climate impacts get a bit trickier. Scientists know that in general, clouds cool Earths climate by reflecting some of the suns energy back into space. Although Boyer and his team hypothesize that clouds enhanced with penguin ammonia are probably helping cool this part of Antarctica, they note that they didnt quantify that climate effect, which would require further research. Thats a critical bit of information because of the potential for the warming climate to create a feedback loop. As oceans heat up, penguins are losing access to some of their prey, and colonies are shrinking or disappearing as a result. Fewer penguins producing guano means less ammonia and fewer clouds, which means more warming and more disruptions to the animals, and on and on in a self-reinforcing cycle. If this paper is correctand it really seems to be a nice piece of work to me[theres going to be] a feedback effect, where its going to accelerate the changes that are already pushing change in the penguins, said Peter Roopnarine, curator of geology at the California Academy of Sciences. Scientists might now look elsewhere, Roopnarine adds, to find other bird colonies that could also be providing cloud cover. Protecting those species from pollution and hunting would be a natural way to engineer Earth systems to offset some planetary warming. We think its for the sake of the birds, Roopnarine said. Well, obviously it goes well beyond that. By Matt Simon, Grist This article was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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