The federal government said late Tuesday that it has identified funding to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Food Program, which provides food assistance to about 1.2 million low-income people each month in Michigan, operating through February.

That’s good news, but operating dollars for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program — which provides monthly boxes of food for tens of thousands of senior citizens in the region — run out after this week. The government will continue to provide food for the senior meal program through February, but that won’t cover administrative costs.

Thanks to a large warehouse on its Detroit campus, Focus: Hope has about two months of food stored for the 44,000 seniors it provides with a box of food each month.

That store can sustain the senior food program into mid-March, Focus: Hope President and CEO Portia Roberson said, and the nonprofit, which operates on a $32 million annual budget, has some general fund dollars to cover the $230,000 it takes to operate the program each month.

“Obviously, that could not go on for a year. … the hope is we won’t have to go for an extended period of time,” Roberson said.

A more immediate concern: Federal employees who aren’t being paid during the shutdown are likely to need food assistance. Gleaner’s Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan is coordinating with United Way for Southeastern Michigan and 10 area pantries and food distribution sites to ensure those who need food while they wait for their next paycheck can get it.

There are an estimated 5,000-6,000 federal employees in the state, with the bulk of them in Southeast Michigan, according to reported estimates.

Those employees work for federal departments including the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gleaners President and CEO Gerry Brisson said.

This is the first week federal workers will miss a paycheck, but most people live paycheck to paycheck, “so we can’t have no response now,” Brisson said.

Gleaners has begun packing 1,000 food boxes with staples such as spaghetti and spaghetti sauce to get federal employees over the hump, he said. The boxes will be available starting Monday at 10 pantries/food distribution sites in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties.

Most people can make it for a week without a paycheck, he said, so “we think 1,000 boxes will be more than enough to get through the first wave,” with distribution expanded as needed.

The first wave of boxes will cost Gleaners $23,000.

“We have operating cash for emergencies, about 60 days of operating cash in the bank just for this kind of thing,” Brisson said.

“But there’s no question if the emergency lasts a long time, we’re going to have to go out and ask people to help us.”

United Way has agreed to serve as a referral point, directing federal employees who call its 211 health and human services hotline to the nearest pantry for a food box.

United Way’s 211 staff is prepared to offer that support, said Eric Davis, vice president of basic needs, health and outreach.

“The next couple of weeks I think we should be OK. But if it goes much larger than that, we’re going to have some serious problems … once the benefits start to diminish,” Davis said.

Child nutrition programs such as Women, Infants and Children, and other food assistance programs will also see funding into February and March.

“SNAP is the biggest concern. It is the biggest federal food program. All of the other food programs combined don’t do as much as SNAP,” Brisson said. In Michigan, the program has more recipients than any other entitlement program offered, outside of Medicaid.

Beyond food assistance programs, federal housing and rental subsidies are being jeopardized by the shutdown, “putting people at risk of losing their place to live at the coldest time of the year,” Gilda Jacobs, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, said in an emailed statement.

— Sherri Welch

Bell Helicopter unveiled their design for a full-scale air taxi, the Bell Nexus, at CES 2019, bringing us one step closer to the future of flying cars that humans have been looking forward to for almost 100 years.

Bypassing Traffic Congestion Altogether

The problem of urban traffic congestion is an old one and CES 2019 is full of companies trying to solve it. From shuttles to smart cities, the future of mobility is one of the biggest themes of CES 2019, but Bell Helicopter is taking their solution to traffic congestion vertical.

Just as architects in the early 20th century addressed the problem of land scarcity by building the first skyscrapers, Bell Helicopter believes that the solution to road congestion is to leave the road behind and take to the air.

“As space at the ground level becomes limited, we must solve transportation challenges in the vertical dimension,” says Mitch Snyder, President, and CEO of Bell Helicopter, “And that’s where Bell’s on-demand mobility vision takes hold.”

Building the Bell Nexus

Bell’s solution is the Bell Nexus, a full-scale vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) vehicle that Bell hopes will be deployed in cities around the world.

The Nexus uses a hybrid-electric propulsion system, utilizing six tilting, ducted fans to provide the required lift, the same kind of design that the company has made a signature in its other vehicles.

The Nexus is part of a larger collaborative effort with other familiar names in the industry, which they call Team Nexus. Bell will lead the overall design and development, as well as the production, of the Nexus VTOL systems.

Safran will contribute its hybrid propulsion and drive system to the project and EPS is providing the Nexus with an energy storage system.

Thales’s Flight Control Computer will serve as the Nexus’ hardware and software flight controls, with Moog providing flight control actuation systems and Garmin providing a vehicle management computer and integrating the Nexus’ avionics.

The Future of Air Travel?

According to Bell, the ‘Nexus’ name was chosen to represent the nexus of transportation technology that they’ve pioneered for 80 years and the convenience and comfort expected in urban transportation.

Finding a way to combine the unique logistics of air taxi services, especially in urban environments, and the safety of the passengers and those around the vehicle is a significant challenge, but Bell believes it’s up to the task; they were part of the effort that put men on the moon and brought them back to Earth safely, after all.

Others also believe in Bell’s vision. Uber has expressed serious interest in helping Bell bring the Nexus to market for use in their transportation ecosystem, giving Bell a unique opportunity to build up the market for short trip air travel.

“The industry has anticipated the reveal of our air taxi for some time, so Bell is very proud of this moment,” Snyder said. “We believe the design, taken with our strategic approach to build this infrastructure, will lead to the successful deployment of the Bell Nexus to the world.”

Whether the Bell Nexus is going to be the vehicle fills the space that helicopters and airplanes don’t—and in an affordable and accessible way for the masses—remains to be seen. But if their unveiling of the Bell Nexus at CES 2019 is any indication, Bell is doing everything it can to make it happen.

Norwegian’s plan to introduce free onboard Wi-Fi and new flights in Mexico and South America lead this week’s air travel news. 

This week low-cost transatlantic carrier Norwegian announced plans to introduce free Wi-Fi on its intercontinental flights, which the airline says would make it the first low-cost carrier with such an offering. The new Wi-Fi will be available on the airline’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and 737 MAX aircraft, with the first Wi-Fi-enabled Dreamliner having been delivered December 18, 2018. While the airline’s Basic package, which is free, will be fast enough for email, internet and social media browsing, the airline said, there will also be a Premium option with speeds fast enough for music and video streaming. 

Norwegian said that more than 50 percent of its Dreamliner fleet would offer in-flight connectivity by 2020, with the rollout of Wi-Fi to its 737 MAX aircraft to begin in mid-January. The new service will use the inflight connectivity platform from CabinConnect by Collins Aerospace to provide Internet access, as well as in-flight map and voice and messaging services. 

In new flight news, this week Swoop, a Canada-based low-cost airline, announced service into Puerto Vallarta’s International Airport with the addition of two new routes. The airline will operate service out of British Columbia’s Abbotsford International Airport twice weekly starting January 12. Twice weekly service out of Ontario’s John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport began January 8. Puerto Vallarta also welcomed a new flight from Sunwing out of Quebec City’s Jean Lesage International Airport on December 17, 2018; that seasonal route will operate every Monday until April 15, 2019. 

Elsewhere in Latin America, this week LATAM opened bookings for two new flights. A new route from São Paulo, Brazil, to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, will begin April 1, while a new Saturday flight on the airline’s São Paulo – Boston route will bring that route’s frequency to four to five times per week starting April 6. 

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Journalists at major Danish newspaper Politken will no longer be able to travel by plane for domestic assignments in an effort to reduce the broadsheet’s climate impact, according to reports.

In addition, restrictions are being placed on the company’s international air travel, with the paper’s staff permitted to travel by plane outside Denmark’s borders only when absolutely necessary and if such journeys are offset by contributions to credible climate initiatives, reports the Associated Press.

Politiken’s editor-in-chief Christian Jensen made the announcement on Sunday, explaining the paper’s travel section is also being revamped to focus on domestic, Nordic, and northern European destinations which are easily reachable by public transport.

The paper has recently launched its own online climate calculator enabling users to work out the average carbon impact of their air and road travel.

Headquartered in Copenhagen and founded in 1884, Politiken is one of Denmark’s three main newspapers along with Berlingske and Jyllands-Posten.

In comments reported by AP, Jensen said opinion polls in the country showed climate change was now the top issue for voters ahead of the upcoming general election in Denmark, which is set to take place in June.

Last year the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen set out plans to ban the sale of conventional petrol and diesel cars from 2030

It follows moves in neighbouring Norway to tackle aviation’s impact on the climate, with the government aiming for all domestic flights to be undertaken by electric aircraft by 2040, in addition to minimum biofuel requirements on airlines from 2020.

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Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States appear to be on the rise again after years of decline. The Rhodium Group this week released preliminary estimates showing carbon dioxide emissions overall surged 3.4 percent in 2018, with the transportation sector leading the way as the largest source of emissions for the third year in a row.

Interestingly, the bump in transportation emissions didn’t come from cars. Car travel increased compared to 2017, but gasoline consumption decreased. That’s in part because overall fuel economy in passenger cars is improving as engines become more efficient and electric cars become more popular.

Instead, emissions from trucking and air travel helped contribute to the overall increase: Demand for both diesel and jet fuel increased about 3 percent in 2018.

On the one hand, this shows just how hard it is to bring down greenhouse gas emissions when the US economy is growing — growth was 3 percent in 2018. With that came more manufacturing, more power use, more travel, and, yes, more greenhouse gases.

But it’s also a clear sign of just how difficult it is to decarbonize the airline industry, for which surprisingly few low-carbon technologies or fuels have been developed so far. That said, there are steps airlines can take to modestly reduce their impact on the environment. And on this front, a recent report from the German nonprofit atmosfair shows that US-based airlines have fared poorly compared to air carriers in other countries, failing to take climate change as seriously as some of their competitors abroad.

Demand for air travel is surging just when our window to limit catastrophic global warming is closing

In 2018, the total number of air passengers increased in the US, with some periods of the year experiencing all-time high air travel volumes. Around the world, airlines carried 4.3 billion passengers in 2018, an increase of 38 million compared to the year before. Aviation accounts for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and that share is poised to grow.

The International Civil Aviation Organization anticipates that by 2020, global international aviation emissions are projected will be 70 percent greater than in 2005. By the middle of the century, they are slated to increase by upward of 700 percent. Every round-trip trans-Atlantic flight emits enough carbon dioxide to melt 30 square feet of Arctic sea ice.

But the planet needs to cut its emissions from today by more than half to get on a path to limiting global warming this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The world may only have until 2030 to reach that milestone.

However, it’s a bit tricky for conscientious fliers to figure out just how much they’re contributing to climate change.

“Car drivers are used to easy and absolute climate efficiency indicators: grams [of] CO2 per kilometer or gallons per mile,” according to a December report from atmosfair. “This is not the case for aircraft: Every plane has to take off [and] climb out to a minimum altitude, regardless of how far it goes after that.”

Since planes take a huge amount of energy just to get off the ground, shorter flights actually have a larger CO2 footprint per passenger per mile than longer ones, so their overall carbon intensity can be higher.

One also has to factor in the age of the aircraft, the type of aircraft, and the distance traveled. And aircraft emit more than carbon dioxide: They spew particles, nitrogen oxides, and sulfates. These compounds also trap heat and have an outsized effect on warming when they’re emitted at cruising altitude.

Accounting for all these factors, atmosfair indexed 125 of the world’s airlines. The rankings are also subdivided in to short-, medium-, and long-haul flights. The methodology accounts for meteorological conditions on routes, passenger load, cargo load, aircraft type, engines, and efficiency ground operations. Airlines are then awarded efficiency points and are then ranked.

US air carriers have a lot of room for improvement in cutting their carbon emissions

The overall highest-ranked airline, according to atmosfair, was United Kingdom-based TUI Airways because of their efficient aircraft and high occupancy rates.

The highest-rated US-based airline was Alaska Airlines, coming in at 22. The highest-ranked US legacy carrier is United Airlines, ranking 50th. All US air carriers slipped in the rankings compared to the year before, except for American Airlines, which ranked 58, rising from 66 in 2017. For country home to some of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, this is a dismal showing.

American Airlines’ fleet includes a combination of newer aircraft like the Boeing 737-800 and older, less efficient aircraft like the MD-80. The company has average to below-average occupancy on their shorter flights. “American Airlines still earns points compared to the previous year due to high occupancy on long-haul flights in combination with more efficient aircrafts,” according to the report. The company is aiming to retire its entire MD-80 fleet this year.

A big challenge for cutting emissions from aviation is that cleaner technology is still in its infancy. Fuel is the single-largest expense for airlines, so they have an incentive to use less fuel per passenger. That’s part of the appeal of new fuel-efficient aircraft like the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350. But airlines make money filling seats, so they want to encourage more air travel.

Right now, we have almost no alternative that can match jet fuel’s energy density — no battery is going to get an airliner across the Atlantic. The engines themselves are pretty much at their upper limit for fuel economy and performance, so there’s little room for improvement there.

There is talk of electric aircraft and hydrogen-powered engines, but those flights are decades away. Airlines are now experimenting with biofuels that can be carbon-neutral. The big hurdle right now is price, but if oil prices rise and if production costs come down, biofuels could become a viable way to decarbonize air travel. Manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing are studying new wing designs that save fuel and hybrid systems, like electric motors for taxiing aircraft on the ground. The US Department of Energy and the military meanwhile are researching biofuels.

Regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions from air travel would be a major step to spur more research on this front. The European Union has implemented some carbon rules for aircraft, but in the United States, the Trump administration is moving as far as possible from regulating greenhouse gases. That means the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.