welcome to reality trivia
environment
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Albert Einstein
Aug 22, 2019
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
THANKS TO THE GREED AND IGNORANCE OF THE POLITICAL LEADERS, OIL, GAS , CHEMICAL, AND PESTICIDE INDUSTRIES THE HUMAN RACE IS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES.
*articles*
*Suppressed federal report shows how Trump water plan would endanger California salmon
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Plutonium found in Colorado soil at five times higher level than acceptable radioactive level
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Gas Field Next Door
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Two-Mile Dead Zone Confirmed in Chesapeake Bay Due to Warm, Wet Weather
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How a little known government board decimated Gulf Coast fisheries
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘Gold over life, literally’: How Trump forced reversal on mining project EPA Scientists warn could destroy ecosystem(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Alaska records warmest month ever in July with coastline barren of sea ice
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Republicans block effort to save the Great Lakes from invasive Asian carp
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump is trying to kill electric cars but will kill jobs and the climate instead
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*IPCC leaked report: Going vegetarian and controlling land use are key to climate crisis
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CLIMATE CHANGE: THOUSANDS OF PACIFIC WALRUSES HAVE TURNED UP IN ALASKA AHEAD OF SCHEDULE AFTER RECORD-BREAKING TEMPERATURES(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA Inspector General wants to know how something like this was OK’d
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Biodegradable plastics have existed for decades. So why aren't they mainstream?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Fecal bacteria found at more than half of US beaches last year, report says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA-funded research shows US air pollution linked to more than 30,000 deaths
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Berkeley became first US city to ban natural gas. Here's what that may mean for the future
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s drilling leases on public lands could release 4.7B metric tons of carbon – more than all 28 EU countries emit in a year(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Corporations can legally put carcinogens in our food without warning labels. Here's why
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Radical Republicans Want To Finish Off An Endangered Fish
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*USDA indefinitely suspends honey bee tracking survey as states get approval to use bee-killing pesticide(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
Suppressed federal report shows how Trump water plan would endanger California salmon
By BETTINA BOXALLSTAFF WRITER - LA Times
AUG. 21, 2019 5 AM
Federal officials suppressed a lengthy environmental document that details how one of California’s unique salmon runs would be imperiled by Trump administration plans to deliver more water to Central Valley farms.
The July 1 assessment, obtained by The Times, outlines how proposed changes in government water operations would harm several species protected by the Endangered Species Act, including perilously low populations of winter-run salmon, as well as steelhead trout and killer whales, which feed on salmon.
But the 1,123-page document was never released.
Two days after federal scientists submitted their review, called a biological opinion, a regional fisheries official pulled the document and replaced the team that wrote it with a new group tasked with revising it, as The Times reported in July.
Had the opinion been adopted and released, it would have interfered with efforts to ramp up irrigation deliveries to powerful California farm interests with ties to the Trump administration. The revision, critics say, is another example of the administration intervening to weaken environmental protections and reverse the findings of federal scientists.
In the report, the National Marine Fisheries Service unequivocally concludes that increasing water deliveries would likely jeopardize the continued existence of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, threatened spring-run Chinook and threatened Central Valley steelhead, as well as endangered Southern Resident killer whales that dine on salmon.
The proposed changes in California water operations “will produce multiple stressors” on winter-run salmon “that are expected to reduce survival and the overall fitness of individuals,” the agency wrote.
Harmful impacts include warm river temperatures lethal to fish eggs and newly hatched salmon; low flows in the Sacramento River and more salmon deaths at the giant government pumps that send supplies south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Winter-run Chinook salmon are particularly important among California’s salmon runs because they exhibit a life-history strategy found nowhere else in the world,” the scientists noted.
Adults leave the ocean and migrate upstream in the winter and early spring. During the summer, they historically spawned in cold, spring-fed rivers and streams in Northern California. But the fish lost access to those spawning grounds after the federal government constructed Shasta and Keswick dams on the upper Sacramento River in the 1940s.
That, coupled with the destruction of flood plains and other habitat, sent the fabled run on a long downward spiral. Now only a few thousand of them typically return to California every year to swim upstream to spawn below Keswick, which regulates flows out of Shasta.
Despite spending millions of dollars on hatchery operations, fish screens and gravel bed restoration, federal water managers have fallen far short of meeting a long-standing congressional goal of doubling the natural production of anadromous fish in Central Valley rivers and streams.
Of over 165 species that the marine fisheries agency protects under the Endangered Species Act, California’s winter-run Chinook “is considered one of just nine species that are most at risk of extinction in the near future,” the agency wrote.
The extinction risk has increased since 2007, in part because warm-water releases from Shasta during the state’s severe drought cooked salmon eggs and newly hatched fish. In 2015, 96% of the eggs and fry died.
Revision of the July 1 biological opinion is “unquestionably an effort to subvert the best available science,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which represents commercial fishermen.
“Literally before our eyes, we’re seeing science suppressed by monied political interests,” he argued.
Paul Souza, the regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife director who is coordinating work on the salmon opinion and a separate one for delta smelt that his agency is conducting, rejected claims that the July 1 assessment was suppressed. It was a draft that needed more work, he said.
“We have no final documents yet,” he said. “I know there are a lot of conversations about politics. But that’s a misunderstanding of the fact. We’re working with career professionals, scientists and leaders in Sacramento and making sure we do everything in our power to conserve the fisheries that we care deeply about and also meet water supply needs.”
Souza said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the Shasta operations, has agreed to maintain higher May 1 levels of the reservoir, increasing cold water reserves for salmon. The bureau will also adhere to what Souza called “smarter” delta pumping restrictions based on the real-time location of fish.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Trump proposal to increase water deliveries is the Westlands Water District, a sprawling irrigation district on the arid west side of the San Joaquin Valley led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers. In 2018, the district’s biggest crops were almonds, pistachios, canning tomatoes and cotton.
Westlands and other districts that depend on water supplies from the delta have bitterly fought Endangered Species Act restrictions for delta smelt and migrating salmon that have restricted their deliveries.
Water users argue that fishery agencies pay too much attention to fresh water flows in the delta and the rivers that empty into it — and too little attention to other environmental stressors, such as exotic predators, that have contributed to the fish crisis.
Critics of the act now have a major ally, Interior Sec. David Bernhardt. Before joining the Trump administration, Bernhardt was a partner in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a top-grossing law and lobbying firm that sued Interior four times on behalf of Westlands. Bernhardt was a lobbyist for Westlands and personally argued an appeals case challenging salmon protections.
He is leading efforts to implement a 2018 Trump administration directive to develop plans for “maximizing water supply deliveries” from the federal Central Valley Project, which operates Shasta Dam and reservoir and sends irrigation water to Westlands.
Releases from Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir, are not only vital to CVP deliveries to the state’s agrarian middle, they are critical to maintaining river flows and cool water temperatures for fish.
That conflict is a focus of the July 1 biological opinion, which found that under the Bureau of Reclamation’s proposed water operations, salmon would lose needed reserves of cold water, as well as flows to sustain important floodplain habitat.
“Each freshwater life stage will be harmed to some degree by the [proposal], with extensive lethal impacts expected to eggs, fry, and juveniles,” scientists concluded.
If the new team delivers a less critical assessment of the Trump proposal, it will not be the first agency reversal on California fish protections.
In 2004, under the George W. Bush administration, federal biologists concluded in draft documents leaked to the media that delta water operations would jeopardize populations of winter-run Chinook and Central Valley steelhead. A few months later, a final opinion reversed that finding, opening the door to increased exports.
The Commerce Department inspector general later faulted the fisheries service for not following agency guidelines designed to ensure “the quality of the biological opinion.” A series of lawsuits followed, ultimately resulting in tougher protections for delta smelt and salmon — which the Trump administration now seeks to undo.
RELATED: Revealed Emails raise ethical questions over Trump official's role in gas project
The July 1 assessment, obtained by The Times, outlines how proposed changes in government water operations would harm several species protected by the Endangered Species Act, including perilously low populations of winter-run salmon, as well as steelhead trout and killer whales, which feed on salmon.
But the 1,123-page document was never released.
Two days after federal scientists submitted their review, called a biological opinion, a regional fisheries official pulled the document and replaced the team that wrote it with a new group tasked with revising it, as The Times reported in July.
Had the opinion been adopted and released, it would have interfered with efforts to ramp up irrigation deliveries to powerful California farm interests with ties to the Trump administration. The revision, critics say, is another example of the administration intervening to weaken environmental protections and reverse the findings of federal scientists.
In the report, the National Marine Fisheries Service unequivocally concludes that increasing water deliveries would likely jeopardize the continued existence of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, threatened spring-run Chinook and threatened Central Valley steelhead, as well as endangered Southern Resident killer whales that dine on salmon.
The proposed changes in California water operations “will produce multiple stressors” on winter-run salmon “that are expected to reduce survival and the overall fitness of individuals,” the agency wrote.
Harmful impacts include warm river temperatures lethal to fish eggs and newly hatched salmon; low flows in the Sacramento River and more salmon deaths at the giant government pumps that send supplies south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Winter-run Chinook salmon are particularly important among California’s salmon runs because they exhibit a life-history strategy found nowhere else in the world,” the scientists noted.
Adults leave the ocean and migrate upstream in the winter and early spring. During the summer, they historically spawned in cold, spring-fed rivers and streams in Northern California. But the fish lost access to those spawning grounds after the federal government constructed Shasta and Keswick dams on the upper Sacramento River in the 1940s.
That, coupled with the destruction of flood plains and other habitat, sent the fabled run on a long downward spiral. Now only a few thousand of them typically return to California every year to swim upstream to spawn below Keswick, which regulates flows out of Shasta.
Despite spending millions of dollars on hatchery operations, fish screens and gravel bed restoration, federal water managers have fallen far short of meeting a long-standing congressional goal of doubling the natural production of anadromous fish in Central Valley rivers and streams.
Of over 165 species that the marine fisheries agency protects under the Endangered Species Act, California’s winter-run Chinook “is considered one of just nine species that are most at risk of extinction in the near future,” the agency wrote.
The extinction risk has increased since 2007, in part because warm-water releases from Shasta during the state’s severe drought cooked salmon eggs and newly hatched fish. In 2015, 96% of the eggs and fry died.
Revision of the July 1 biological opinion is “unquestionably an effort to subvert the best available science,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which represents commercial fishermen.
“Literally before our eyes, we’re seeing science suppressed by monied political interests,” he argued.
Paul Souza, the regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife director who is coordinating work on the salmon opinion and a separate one for delta smelt that his agency is conducting, rejected claims that the July 1 assessment was suppressed. It was a draft that needed more work, he said.
“We have no final documents yet,” he said. “I know there are a lot of conversations about politics. But that’s a misunderstanding of the fact. We’re working with career professionals, scientists and leaders in Sacramento and making sure we do everything in our power to conserve the fisheries that we care deeply about and also meet water supply needs.”
Souza said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the Shasta operations, has agreed to maintain higher May 1 levels of the reservoir, increasing cold water reserves for salmon. The bureau will also adhere to what Souza called “smarter” delta pumping restrictions based on the real-time location of fish.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Trump proposal to increase water deliveries is the Westlands Water District, a sprawling irrigation district on the arid west side of the San Joaquin Valley led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers. In 2018, the district’s biggest crops were almonds, pistachios, canning tomatoes and cotton.
Westlands and other districts that depend on water supplies from the delta have bitterly fought Endangered Species Act restrictions for delta smelt and migrating salmon that have restricted their deliveries.
Water users argue that fishery agencies pay too much attention to fresh water flows in the delta and the rivers that empty into it — and too little attention to other environmental stressors, such as exotic predators, that have contributed to the fish crisis.
Critics of the act now have a major ally, Interior Sec. David Bernhardt. Before joining the Trump administration, Bernhardt was a partner in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a top-grossing law and lobbying firm that sued Interior four times on behalf of Westlands. Bernhardt was a lobbyist for Westlands and personally argued an appeals case challenging salmon protections.
He is leading efforts to implement a 2018 Trump administration directive to develop plans for “maximizing water supply deliveries” from the federal Central Valley Project, which operates Shasta Dam and reservoir and sends irrigation water to Westlands.
Releases from Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir, are not only vital to CVP deliveries to the state’s agrarian middle, they are critical to maintaining river flows and cool water temperatures for fish.
That conflict is a focus of the July 1 biological opinion, which found that under the Bureau of Reclamation’s proposed water operations, salmon would lose needed reserves of cold water, as well as flows to sustain important floodplain habitat.
“Each freshwater life stage will be harmed to some degree by the [proposal], with extensive lethal impacts expected to eggs, fry, and juveniles,” scientists concluded.
If the new team delivers a less critical assessment of the Trump proposal, it will not be the first agency reversal on California fish protections.
In 2004, under the George W. Bush administration, federal biologists concluded in draft documents leaked to the media that delta water operations would jeopardize populations of winter-run Chinook and Central Valley steelhead. A few months later, a final opinion reversed that finding, opening the door to increased exports.
The Commerce Department inspector general later faulted the fisheries service for not following agency guidelines designed to ensure “the quality of the biological opinion.” A series of lawsuits followed, ultimately resulting in tougher protections for delta smelt and salmon — which the Trump administration now seeks to undo.
RELATED: Revealed Emails raise ethical questions over Trump official's role in gas project
Plutonium found in Colorado soil at five times higher level than acceptable radioactive level
August 20, 2019
By Sarah K. Burris - Raw Story
Why is there plutonium in the soil of a national wildlife refuge that is five times higher than the rate that demands a “clean up?” It’s a question Colorado state health officials are examining Tuesday after their soil sample readings showed 264 picocuries-per-gram found in Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
The Denver Post reported the findings of the radioactive substance, but toxicologists at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said they don’t believe “there is an immediate public health threat.”
The site explained that the standard for toxic cleanup of the Rocky Flats plants was 50 picocuries per gram.
“We do believe that further sampling and analysis is needed to assess what this elevated sample may mean for long-term risks, and whether it is an isolated instance or a sign of a wider area of relatively high contamination,” said the department’s director of hazardous materials, Jennifer Opila. “We are taking the sample result seriously because it is much higher than previous samples in the vicinity and higher than the cleanup standard.”
The testing came after the toxic substance was discovered last weekand scientists sought further tests. That’s when they learned the dangerous degree they were dealing with on the public land.
The area was the site where triggers for nuclear weapons were made for over 40 years.
Citizens are already starting to worry and they fear the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer in the business of keeping people safe.
“I want our fellow citizens around the Denver area to finally wake up and realize that the federal government is not watching your back on this area,” Nick Hansen, co-founder of Rocky Flats Downwinders told Denver7. “It’s the federal government who caused this problem. It’s the federal government who supposedly cleaned it up.”
Bill Ray, executive director of the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, also told Denver7 that a second test that was done showed a lower level. The “inconsistent testing results from one soil sample” is now posing questions to the viability of the tests and what could be going on in the area.
You can read more at The Denver Post.
The Denver Post reported the findings of the radioactive substance, but toxicologists at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said they don’t believe “there is an immediate public health threat.”
The site explained that the standard for toxic cleanup of the Rocky Flats plants was 50 picocuries per gram.
“We do believe that further sampling and analysis is needed to assess what this elevated sample may mean for long-term risks, and whether it is an isolated instance or a sign of a wider area of relatively high contamination,” said the department’s director of hazardous materials, Jennifer Opila. “We are taking the sample result seriously because it is much higher than previous samples in the vicinity and higher than the cleanup standard.”
The testing came after the toxic substance was discovered last weekand scientists sought further tests. That’s when they learned the dangerous degree they were dealing with on the public land.
The area was the site where triggers for nuclear weapons were made for over 40 years.
Citizens are already starting to worry and they fear the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer in the business of keeping people safe.
“I want our fellow citizens around the Denver area to finally wake up and realize that the federal government is not watching your back on this area,” Nick Hansen, co-founder of Rocky Flats Downwinders told Denver7. “It’s the federal government who caused this problem. It’s the federal government who supposedly cleaned it up.”
Bill Ray, executive director of the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, also told Denver7 that a second test that was done showed a lower level. The “inconsistent testing results from one soil sample” is now posing questions to the viability of the tests and what could be going on in the area.
You can read more at The Denver Post.
The Gas Field Next Door
Living Amid Old Storage Wells at Risk of Leaks
By Susan Abram, Fair Warning - DC Report
8/17/19
More Americans than previously estimated live within a city block of aged, underground natural gas storage wells, some more than a century old and most of them lacking modern designs to prevent major leaks, according to researchers from Harvard University.
Using satellite imaging, researchers estimate that 20,000 homes and about 53,000 people across six states live within 650 feet of natural gas wells.
Most of the homes are in suburban residential areas, researchers found. And many of the nearby wells lack the structural integrity to safely store highly pressurized natural gas.
“The question then becomes: is it acceptable that thousands of likely unsuspecting people should have to bear the risks of living on top of these aging, under-regulated systems that are doing a job they weren’t designed to do?” said Drew Michanowicz, lead author and research associate at the Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Michanowicz and his research team, whose study was funded in part by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, wanted to understand how many people were at risk of exposure to harmful air pollutants or explosions because of their proximity to underground storage wells. They focused on six states with large numbers of aging wells. Their method allows residents in these states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, New York and California – to see if their own homes are located near any of these wells.
About 80 percent of the wells in U.S. gas storage fields were completed in the 1970s or earlier. Built for oil production, they later were modified to store natural gas, according to a federal government report released in 2016.
But repurposing the old has created new safety concerns, the researchers say.
Wells Lack Modern Safety Features
Many older wells, for instance, have only one pipe for injections and withdrawals and lack a secondary blow-out prevention system needed for gas storage wells, which are subject to high-pressure injections, said the federal report by a Department of Energy task force.
Such high-pressure storage can create explosion hazards and, in a leak, the release of toxic compounds like benzene and formaldehyde, according to the Harvard research.
Failures can be catastrophic. In 2015, one of 115 wells in the Aliso Canyon storage field in suburban Los Angeles ruptured, sending nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane into the air and over nearby neighborhoods. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and, at high levels, can react with other compounds to form a toxic mix that can cause respiratory problems and headaches.
More than 8,000 nearby residents were forced to relocate, leaving their homes for months. Schools in the area were closed and children were sent to classrooms far from their neighborhood.
The ruptured well, originally constructed in the 1950s, had only one pipe and lacked safety valves. The scale of the leak is considered unprecedented.
The American Gas Association, which represents more than 200 local energy companies, did not comment specifically on the safety of older wells. But the association stated that the natural gas industry already goes above and beyond state and federal regulations and has collaborated with outside companies to design, operate and “ensure the integrity of underground storage for natural gas.”
The Aliso Canyon incident led Michanowicz and his team to examine the safety of gas storage fields. They estimate that two-thirds of the nation’s storage wells lack needed safety features.
Old Wells Concentrated in Four States
A majority of those repurposed wells are in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia, states where the Harvard researchers found that regulations on setback requirements between homes and underground storage fields are seldom enforced.
Long-term exposure to natural gas operations also has been associated with many illnesses. A University of Colorado study released last month found there may be a connection between mothers living near more intense oil and gas development and having children with congenital heart defects.
The massive leak from the Aliso Canyon storage field in northern Los Angeles continued for more than three months. During that time, Los Angeles County health authorities logged more than 700 reports from residents of health problems ranging from headaches and nosebleeds to other illnesses.
The federal task force created in response to the Aliso Canyon accident recommended taking older wells offline and further studying the cost and effectiveness of updating them with safety valves.
During his research, Michanowicz and his team found that while the industry is starting to provide information on wells that are plugged, leaking, repaired or tested for durability, little data exists on which old wells remain active. “There is currently no effective means to ensure compliance with safety standards,” according to Michanowicz’s study.
In California, regulations finalized in 2018 called for natural gas operators to prove that older wells are safe by modifying them with both primary and secondary barriers, according to the state’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources.
“Operators have to submit a work plan for bringing existing wells into compliance with the new standards,” said agency spokesman Don Drysdale. “The work plan must provide for all wells to be in compliance within seven years with minimum annual benchmarks.”
Environmentalists Want Swifter Action
That’s not soon enough, say environmental activists. “California’s underground gas storage wells are old and not properly maintained or monitored, making them ticking time bombs that endanger nearby residents,” said Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
Meanwhile, setback rules between homes and storage fields are seldom enforced nationwide.
In Ohio, more than 12,000 homes and over 30,000 residents are within 650 feet of an underground well. Michigan requires a 300-foot setback, one of the most stringent laws on the books, but there were more violations of the rule there than in all six states that Harvard researchers examined. In Pennsylvania, setbacks can be as far as 500 feet.
But all an operator has to do is get written consent from a homeowner and “they can put the wells where they want,” Michanowicz said.
“A lot of these homeowners don’t know what they are signing.”
Using satellite imaging, researchers estimate that 20,000 homes and about 53,000 people across six states live within 650 feet of natural gas wells.
Most of the homes are in suburban residential areas, researchers found. And many of the nearby wells lack the structural integrity to safely store highly pressurized natural gas.
“The question then becomes: is it acceptable that thousands of likely unsuspecting people should have to bear the risks of living on top of these aging, under-regulated systems that are doing a job they weren’t designed to do?” said Drew Michanowicz, lead author and research associate at the Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Michanowicz and his research team, whose study was funded in part by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, wanted to understand how many people were at risk of exposure to harmful air pollutants or explosions because of their proximity to underground storage wells. They focused on six states with large numbers of aging wells. Their method allows residents in these states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, New York and California – to see if their own homes are located near any of these wells.
About 80 percent of the wells in U.S. gas storage fields were completed in the 1970s or earlier. Built for oil production, they later were modified to store natural gas, according to a federal government report released in 2016.
But repurposing the old has created new safety concerns, the researchers say.
Wells Lack Modern Safety Features
Many older wells, for instance, have only one pipe for injections and withdrawals and lack a secondary blow-out prevention system needed for gas storage wells, which are subject to high-pressure injections, said the federal report by a Department of Energy task force.
Such high-pressure storage can create explosion hazards and, in a leak, the release of toxic compounds like benzene and formaldehyde, according to the Harvard research.
Failures can be catastrophic. In 2015, one of 115 wells in the Aliso Canyon storage field in suburban Los Angeles ruptured, sending nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane into the air and over nearby neighborhoods. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and, at high levels, can react with other compounds to form a toxic mix that can cause respiratory problems and headaches.
More than 8,000 nearby residents were forced to relocate, leaving their homes for months. Schools in the area were closed and children were sent to classrooms far from their neighborhood.
The ruptured well, originally constructed in the 1950s, had only one pipe and lacked safety valves. The scale of the leak is considered unprecedented.
The American Gas Association, which represents more than 200 local energy companies, did not comment specifically on the safety of older wells. But the association stated that the natural gas industry already goes above and beyond state and federal regulations and has collaborated with outside companies to design, operate and “ensure the integrity of underground storage for natural gas.”
The Aliso Canyon incident led Michanowicz and his team to examine the safety of gas storage fields. They estimate that two-thirds of the nation’s storage wells lack needed safety features.
Old Wells Concentrated in Four States
A majority of those repurposed wells are in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia, states where the Harvard researchers found that regulations on setback requirements between homes and underground storage fields are seldom enforced.
Long-term exposure to natural gas operations also has been associated with many illnesses. A University of Colorado study released last month found there may be a connection between mothers living near more intense oil and gas development and having children with congenital heart defects.
The massive leak from the Aliso Canyon storage field in northern Los Angeles continued for more than three months. During that time, Los Angeles County health authorities logged more than 700 reports from residents of health problems ranging from headaches and nosebleeds to other illnesses.
The federal task force created in response to the Aliso Canyon accident recommended taking older wells offline and further studying the cost and effectiveness of updating them with safety valves.
During his research, Michanowicz and his team found that while the industry is starting to provide information on wells that are plugged, leaking, repaired or tested for durability, little data exists on which old wells remain active. “There is currently no effective means to ensure compliance with safety standards,” according to Michanowicz’s study.
In California, regulations finalized in 2018 called for natural gas operators to prove that older wells are safe by modifying them with both primary and secondary barriers, according to the state’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources.
“Operators have to submit a work plan for bringing existing wells into compliance with the new standards,” said agency spokesman Don Drysdale. “The work plan must provide for all wells to be in compliance within seven years with minimum annual benchmarks.”
Environmentalists Want Swifter Action
That’s not soon enough, say environmental activists. “California’s underground gas storage wells are old and not properly maintained or monitored, making them ticking time bombs that endanger nearby residents,” said Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
Meanwhile, setback rules between homes and storage fields are seldom enforced nationwide.
In Ohio, more than 12,000 homes and over 30,000 residents are within 650 feet of an underground well. Michigan requires a 300-foot setback, one of the most stringent laws on the books, but there were more violations of the rule there than in all six states that Harvard researchers examined. In Pennsylvania, setbacks can be as far as 500 feet.
But all an operator has to do is get written consent from a homeowner and “they can put the wells where they want,” Michanowicz said.
“A lot of these homeowners don’t know what they are signing.”
Two-Mile Dead Zone Confirmed in Chesapeake Bay Due to Warm, Wet Weather
Updated: Aug 15, 2019 5:39 AM PDT
By Amy Lu - WBOC16.com
CAMBRIDGE, Md.- Warm weather is welcomed by many in the summer, but mix that with lots of rain, and it's a bad outcome for the Chesapeake Bay.
Earlier this year, University of Maryland scientists predicted a 2 cubic mile large dead zone, an area with no oxygen, would form in the waters of the bay. They were right.
In late July, Maryland's Department of Natural Resources confirmed it found that 2-mile dead zone significantly worse than what they've found in years past.
Scientists say it's a combo of intense heat and freshwater pollution that's caused the abnormally large dead zone, wreaking havoc for some bay-area watermen, including Queen Anne's County waterman Dennis Anthony.
Anthony says it takes days to catch just a bushel of crabs and nearly half a day to find crabs to catch. Time, he says, is running out.
"The numbers are extremely low," Anthony said. "It seems like this dead zone is a wall where they won't come through. It's very minimal and it's almost August. The season is already three quarters of the way over for us."
Watermen say the culprit: lots of freshwater from the rain this year, flowing through the Conowingo Dam and driving down salinity levels.
Rob Newberry of the Delmarva Fisheries Association says more must be done to stop what's happening at the Conowingo Dam as well as the wastewater pollution from entering the bay.
Scientists also say the rising temperatures have heated bay waters, adding to the dead zone and potentially harming an entire ecosystem that relies on oxygen to breathe.
"July is even worse than what was initially predicted," Dave Nemazie, a coastal scientist at the University of Maryland of Environmental Science, said.
But Nemazie says he's hopeful improvements to stopping pollution and wastewater will continue to help the bay.
"There's absolutely hope for the bay. The bay is very resilient. We've seen a lot of improvements," Nemazie said.
Earlier this year, University of Maryland scientists predicted a 2 cubic mile large dead zone, an area with no oxygen, would form in the waters of the bay. They were right.
In late July, Maryland's Department of Natural Resources confirmed it found that 2-mile dead zone significantly worse than what they've found in years past.
Scientists say it's a combo of intense heat and freshwater pollution that's caused the abnormally large dead zone, wreaking havoc for some bay-area watermen, including Queen Anne's County waterman Dennis Anthony.
Anthony says it takes days to catch just a bushel of crabs and nearly half a day to find crabs to catch. Time, he says, is running out.
"The numbers are extremely low," Anthony said. "It seems like this dead zone is a wall where they won't come through. It's very minimal and it's almost August. The season is already three quarters of the way over for us."
Watermen say the culprit: lots of freshwater from the rain this year, flowing through the Conowingo Dam and driving down salinity levels.
Rob Newberry of the Delmarva Fisheries Association says more must be done to stop what's happening at the Conowingo Dam as well as the wastewater pollution from entering the bay.
Scientists also say the rising temperatures have heated bay waters, adding to the dead zone and potentially harming an entire ecosystem that relies on oxygen to breathe.
"July is even worse than what was initially predicted," Dave Nemazie, a coastal scientist at the University of Maryland of Environmental Science, said.
But Nemazie says he's hopeful improvements to stopping pollution and wastewater will continue to help the bay.
"There's absolutely hope for the bay. The bay is very resilient. We've seen a lot of improvements," Nemazie said.
fools in charge!!!
How a little known government board decimated Gulf Coast fisheries
August 13, 2019
By Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
A federal commission whose longest-serving member is an EPA-hating Arkansas farmer appointed by former President Jimmy Carter helped make decisions that decimated the gulf’s seafood industry this year.
Toxic algae closed all 21 of Mississippi’s beaches after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a Louisiana spillway, pouring more than 10 trillion gallons of freshwater laced with fertilizer, pesticides, sewage and other pollutants into the Mississippi Sound.
The influx of freshwater in the brackish Mississippi Sound damaged oyster, blue crab and shrimp fisheries. Blue crab harvests were down about 25% and shrimp down about 40%.
“Our natural and economic resources have been damaged and will continue to be damaged long after the Bonnet Carré spillway is closed,” said Delbert Hosemann, the Mississippi secretary of state.
The seven-member Mississippi tells the Corps when to open the four floodways on the Mississippi River.
The commission was created by Congress in 1879 and includes three civilians, two of whom must be civil engineers. The commission president is Maj. Gen. R. Mark Toy,an Obama appointee, who became president in July.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and the state’s representatives asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to declare a federal fisheries disaster.
Farther out in the gulf a dead zone is created each year from algae growth fueled by fertilizer from farms. The dying algae decompose, sucking the oxygen from the water which becomes toxic. The dead zone this year is larger than the state of Hawaii.
The Bonnet Carré spillway, 33 miles upstream from New Orleans, diverts water to Lake Pontchartrain to protect New Orleans from flooding. The spillway was built from 1929 to 1931 after the Mississippi River flood of 1927, one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history.
None of the civilian members of the Mississippi River Commission live in Mississippi although the commission is based in Vicksburg, Miss. The longest-serving member is Sam Angel, the third generation of his family to run a cotton gin business in Arkansas. The other civilian members are civil engineers James Reeder of Memphis, Tenn., who was nominated by Trump in 2018 and Norma Jean Mattei of Metairie, La., who was nominated in 2012 by former President Obama.
Angel, a critic of the EPA, said in 2017 that that first thing Trump should do is get rid of the EPA, calling it “the worst agency for business for maintaining the waterways.”
The commission was criticized in 2011 for its reluctance to open another floodway, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri, which caused millions of dollars in unnecessary damage to Cairo, Ill., and nearby communities. One of the commissioners at the time was R.D. James, a New Madrid farmer who owned land in the floodway. James now leads the Corps’ civil works division which oversees levees.
The Corps opened the Bonnet Carré spillway twice this year and had it open for a record 123 days.
Mississippi politicians wanted the Corps to open another floodway,the Morganza spillway east of Lafayette, La., to reduce the amount of water going through Bonnet Carré. The Corps made plans to open the Morganza but postponed them as hurricane Barry approached.
Toxic algae closed all 21 of Mississippi’s beaches after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a Louisiana spillway, pouring more than 10 trillion gallons of freshwater laced with fertilizer, pesticides, sewage and other pollutants into the Mississippi Sound.
The influx of freshwater in the brackish Mississippi Sound damaged oyster, blue crab and shrimp fisheries. Blue crab harvests were down about 25% and shrimp down about 40%.
“Our natural and economic resources have been damaged and will continue to be damaged long after the Bonnet Carré spillway is closed,” said Delbert Hosemann, the Mississippi secretary of state.
The seven-member Mississippi tells the Corps when to open the four floodways on the Mississippi River.
The commission was created by Congress in 1879 and includes three civilians, two of whom must be civil engineers. The commission president is Maj. Gen. R. Mark Toy,an Obama appointee, who became president in July.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and the state’s representatives asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to declare a federal fisheries disaster.
Farther out in the gulf a dead zone is created each year from algae growth fueled by fertilizer from farms. The dying algae decompose, sucking the oxygen from the water which becomes toxic. The dead zone this year is larger than the state of Hawaii.
The Bonnet Carré spillway, 33 miles upstream from New Orleans, diverts water to Lake Pontchartrain to protect New Orleans from flooding. The spillway was built from 1929 to 1931 after the Mississippi River flood of 1927, one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history.
None of the civilian members of the Mississippi River Commission live in Mississippi although the commission is based in Vicksburg, Miss. The longest-serving member is Sam Angel, the third generation of his family to run a cotton gin business in Arkansas. The other civilian members are civil engineers James Reeder of Memphis, Tenn., who was nominated by Trump in 2018 and Norma Jean Mattei of Metairie, La., who was nominated in 2012 by former President Obama.
Angel, a critic of the EPA, said in 2017 that that first thing Trump should do is get rid of the EPA, calling it “the worst agency for business for maintaining the waterways.”
The commission was criticized in 2011 for its reluctance to open another floodway, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri, which caused millions of dollars in unnecessary damage to Cairo, Ill., and nearby communities. One of the commissioners at the time was R.D. James, a New Madrid farmer who owned land in the floodway. James now leads the Corps’ civil works division which oversees levees.
The Corps opened the Bonnet Carré spillway twice this year and had it open for a record 123 days.
Mississippi politicians wanted the Corps to open another floodway,the Morganza spillway east of Lafayette, La., to reduce the amount of water going through Bonnet Carré. The Corps made plans to open the Morganza but postponed them as hurricane Barry approached.
It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains
Discovery raises new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth
Maanvi Singh in San Francisco
The Guardian
Tue 13 Aug 2019 01.00 EDT
Plastic was the furthest thing from Gregory Weatherbee’s mind when he began analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains.“I guess I expected to see mostly soil and mineral particles,” said the US Geologic Survey researcher. Instead, he found multicolored microscopic plastic fibers.
The discovery, published in a recent study titled “It is raining plastic”, is raising new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth.
“I think the most important result that we can share with the American public is that there’s more plastic out there than meets the eye,” said Weatherbee. “It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
Rainwater samples collected across Colorado and analyzed under a microscope contained a rainbow of plastic fibers, as well as beads and shards. The findings shocked Weatherbee, who had been collecting the samples in order to study nitrogen pollution.
“My results are purely accidental,” he said, though they are consistent with another recent study that found microplastics in France’s Pyrenees Mountains, suggesting that plastic particles could travel with the wind for hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers. Other studies have turned up microplastics in the deepest reaches of the ocean, in UK lakes and rivers and in US groundwater.
A major contributor is trash, said Sherri Mason, a microplastics researcher and sustainability coordinator at Penn State Behrend. More than 90% of plastic waste isn’t recycled, and as it slowly degrades it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. “Plastic fibers also break off your clothes every time you wash them,” Mason said, and plastic particles are byproducts of a variety of industrial processes.
It’s impossible to trace the tiny pieces back to their sources, Mason said, but almost anything that’s made of plastic could be shedding particles into the atmosphere. “And then those particles get incorporated into water droplets when it rains,” she added, then wash into rivers, lakes, bays and oceans and filter into groundwater sources.
Though scientists have been studying plastic pollution in the ocean for more than a decade, they can only account for 1% of it. Researchers know even less about the amount of plastic in freshwater and in the air, said Stefan Krause at the University of Birmingham. “We haven’t really started quantifying it,” he said.
Another unknown is whether it would be theoretically possible to flush all plastic out of the natural world, and how long that might take. “Even if we waved a magic wand and stopped using plastic, it’s unclear how long plastic would continue to circulate through our rivers waters systems,” he said. “Based on what we do know about plastic found in deep sources of groundwater, and accumulated in rivers, I would guess centuries.”
Animals and humans consume microplastics via water and food, and we likely breathe in micro- and nanoplastic particles in the air, though scientists have yet to understand the health effects. Microplastics can also attract and attach to heavy metals like mercury and other hazardous chemicals, as well as toxic bacteria. “Plastic particles from furniture and carpets could contain flame retardants that are toxic to humans,” Krause said.
Because we are all are exposed to hundreds of synthetic chemicals as soon as we’re born, it’s difficult to say how much longer we’d live if we weren’t exposed, said Mason. “We may never understand all the linkages between plastics and health.”
“But we know enough to say that breathing plastic probably isn’t good, and we should start thinking about dramatically reducing our dependence on plastic,” she said.
The discovery, published in a recent study titled “It is raining plastic”, is raising new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth.
“I think the most important result that we can share with the American public is that there’s more plastic out there than meets the eye,” said Weatherbee. “It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
Rainwater samples collected across Colorado and analyzed under a microscope contained a rainbow of plastic fibers, as well as beads and shards. The findings shocked Weatherbee, who had been collecting the samples in order to study nitrogen pollution.
“My results are purely accidental,” he said, though they are consistent with another recent study that found microplastics in France’s Pyrenees Mountains, suggesting that plastic particles could travel with the wind for hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers. Other studies have turned up microplastics in the deepest reaches of the ocean, in UK lakes and rivers and in US groundwater.
A major contributor is trash, said Sherri Mason, a microplastics researcher and sustainability coordinator at Penn State Behrend. More than 90% of plastic waste isn’t recycled, and as it slowly degrades it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. “Plastic fibers also break off your clothes every time you wash them,” Mason said, and plastic particles are byproducts of a variety of industrial processes.
It’s impossible to trace the tiny pieces back to their sources, Mason said, but almost anything that’s made of plastic could be shedding particles into the atmosphere. “And then those particles get incorporated into water droplets when it rains,” she added, then wash into rivers, lakes, bays and oceans and filter into groundwater sources.
Though scientists have been studying plastic pollution in the ocean for more than a decade, they can only account for 1% of it. Researchers know even less about the amount of plastic in freshwater and in the air, said Stefan Krause at the University of Birmingham. “We haven’t really started quantifying it,” he said.
Another unknown is whether it would be theoretically possible to flush all plastic out of the natural world, and how long that might take. “Even if we waved a magic wand and stopped using plastic, it’s unclear how long plastic would continue to circulate through our rivers waters systems,” he said. “Based on what we do know about plastic found in deep sources of groundwater, and accumulated in rivers, I would guess centuries.”
Animals and humans consume microplastics via water and food, and we likely breathe in micro- and nanoplastic particles in the air, though scientists have yet to understand the health effects. Microplastics can also attract and attach to heavy metals like mercury and other hazardous chemicals, as well as toxic bacteria. “Plastic particles from furniture and carpets could contain flame retardants that are toxic to humans,” Krause said.
Because we are all are exposed to hundreds of synthetic chemicals as soon as we’re born, it’s difficult to say how much longer we’d live if we weren’t exposed, said Mason. “We may never understand all the linkages between plastics and health.”
“But we know enough to say that breathing plastic probably isn’t good, and we should start thinking about dramatically reducing our dependence on plastic,” she said.
When your "leader" is a fool!!!
‘Gold over life, literally’: How Trump forced reversal on mining project EPA Scientists warn could destroy ecosystem
August 10, 2019
By Common Dreams - Raw Story
“This is one of the world’s most beautiful places, with a thriving salmon run, and now we’ll get some…gold.”
“Gold over life, literally.”
“If that mine gets put in, it would … completely devastate our region. It would not only kill our resources, but it would kill us culturally.” —Gayla Hoseth, Curyung Tribal Council/Bristol Bay Native AssociationThat was the succinct and critical reaction of Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein to reporting on Friday that President Donald Trump had personally intervened—after a meeting with Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy on Air Force One in June—to withdraw the Environmental Protection Agency’s opposition to a gold mining project in the state that the federal government’s own scientists have acknowledged would destroy native fisheries and undermine the state’s fragile ecosystems.
Naomi Klein✔
@NaomiAKlein
So Trump meets Alaska's governor in his airplane and agrees to push through a goldmine that had been stopped b/c it will devastate salmon habitat. This at a time that orcas are already starving death. Salmon carry entire ecosystems on their backs. Gold over life, literally. https://twitter.com/DrewGriffinCNN/status/1159962757883731974 …
Drew Griffin✔
@DrewGriffinCNN
Our latest on EPA being run by energy lobbyists and ignoring science. Sources: EPA lifted block on controversial mine after Trump meetinghttps://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/us/epa-alaska-pebble-mine-salmon-invs/index.html …
4:49 PM - Aug 9, 2019
Based on reporting by CNN that only emerged Friday evening, the key developments happened weeks ago after Trump’s one-on-one meeting with Dunleavy—who has supported the copper and gold Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay despite the opposition of conservationists, Indigenous groups, salmon fisheries experts, and others.
CNN reports:
In 2014, the project was halted because an EPA study found that it would cause “complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources” in some areas of Bristol Bay. The agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act that works like a veto, effectively banning mining on the site.
“If that mine gets put in, it would … completely devastate our region,” Gayla Hoseth, second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and a Bristol Bay Native Association director, told CNN. “It would not only kill our resources, but it would kill us culturally.”
When the internal announcement was made by Trump political appointees that the agency was dropping its opposition, which came one day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, sources told CNN it came as a “total shock” to some of the top EPA scientists who were planning to oppose the project on environmental grounds. Sources for the story, the news outlet noted, “asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.”
According to CNN:
Four EPA sources with knowledge of the decision told CNN that senior agency officials in Washington summoned scientists and other staffers to an internal videoconference on June 27, the day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, to inform them of the agency’s reversal. The details of that meeting are not on any official EPA calendar and have not previously been reported.
Those sources said the decision disregards the standard assessment process under the Clean Water Act, cutting scientists out of the process.
The EPA’s new position on the project is the latest development in a decade-long battle that has pitted environmentalists, Alaskan Natives and the fishing industry against pro-mining interests in Alaska.
---
After being told that the decision was made, one EPA inside told CNN, “I was dumbfounded. We were basically told we weren’t going to examine anything. We were told to get out of the way and just make it happen.”
“Gold over life, literally.”
“If that mine gets put in, it would … completely devastate our region. It would not only kill our resources, but it would kill us culturally.” —Gayla Hoseth, Curyung Tribal Council/Bristol Bay Native AssociationThat was the succinct and critical reaction of Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein to reporting on Friday that President Donald Trump had personally intervened—after a meeting with Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy on Air Force One in June—to withdraw the Environmental Protection Agency’s opposition to a gold mining project in the state that the federal government’s own scientists have acknowledged would destroy native fisheries and undermine the state’s fragile ecosystems.
Naomi Klein✔
@NaomiAKlein
So Trump meets Alaska's governor in his airplane and agrees to push through a goldmine that had been stopped b/c it will devastate salmon habitat. This at a time that orcas are already starving death. Salmon carry entire ecosystems on their backs. Gold over life, literally. https://twitter.com/DrewGriffinCNN/status/1159962757883731974 …
Drew Griffin✔
@DrewGriffinCNN
Our latest on EPA being run by energy lobbyists and ignoring science. Sources: EPA lifted block on controversial mine after Trump meetinghttps://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/us/epa-alaska-pebble-mine-salmon-invs/index.html …
4:49 PM - Aug 9, 2019
Based on reporting by CNN that only emerged Friday evening, the key developments happened weeks ago after Trump’s one-on-one meeting with Dunleavy—who has supported the copper and gold Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay despite the opposition of conservationists, Indigenous groups, salmon fisheries experts, and others.
CNN reports:
In 2014, the project was halted because an EPA study found that it would cause “complete loss of fish habitat due to elimination, dewatering, and fragmentation of streams, wetlands, and other aquatic resources” in some areas of Bristol Bay. The agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act that works like a veto, effectively banning mining on the site.
“If that mine gets put in, it would … completely devastate our region,” Gayla Hoseth, second chief of the Curyung Tribal Council and a Bristol Bay Native Association director, told CNN. “It would not only kill our resources, but it would kill us culturally.”
When the internal announcement was made by Trump political appointees that the agency was dropping its opposition, which came one day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, sources told CNN it came as a “total shock” to some of the top EPA scientists who were planning to oppose the project on environmental grounds. Sources for the story, the news outlet noted, “asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.”
According to CNN:
Four EPA sources with knowledge of the decision told CNN that senior agency officials in Washington summoned scientists and other staffers to an internal videoconference on June 27, the day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, to inform them of the agency’s reversal. The details of that meeting are not on any official EPA calendar and have not previously been reported.
Those sources said the decision disregards the standard assessment process under the Clean Water Act, cutting scientists out of the process.
The EPA’s new position on the project is the latest development in a decade-long battle that has pitted environmentalists, Alaskan Natives and the fishing industry against pro-mining interests in Alaska.
---
After being told that the decision was made, one EPA inside told CNN, “I was dumbfounded. We were basically told we weren’t going to examine anything. We were told to get out of the way and just make it happen.”
Alaska records warmest month ever in July with coastline barren of sea ice
Average temperature for month amid Arctic heatwave was 58.1F (14.5C), nearly 1F above previous high set in July 2004
Oliver Milman in New York
The Guardian
Thu 8 Aug 2019 02.00 EDT
A heatwave pulsating through the Arctic helped push Alaska to its warmest month ever recorded in July, with the state’s vast coastline left completely barren of sea ice.
Alaska’s average temperature in July was a record 58.1F (14.5C), nearly 1F above the previous monthly high set in July 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Cities and towns across the vast US state, such as Anchorage, Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) and Kodiak all had their warmest month in 125 years of record-keeping.
This heat, 5.4F warmer than the long-term average for July, helped spur wildfires that shrouded much of Alaska in a pall of smoke and has now resulted in a remarkable melting away of shoreline ice.
There is now no sea ice within 150 miles of Alaskan shores, according to an analysis by the National Weather Service. The pace of ice loss is “unprecedented” in 40 years of satellite records, scientists said, with the Bering Sea, which separates Alaska from Russia, left completely ice-free.
The record-breaking warmth in Alaska is part of a broader heatwave that has swept the northern latitudes, with Greenland shedding a record 12.5 gigatons of ice into the ocean in a single day, Norway experiencing its joint hottest day ever and forest fires in Siberia tearing through an area as large as Belgium.
Scientists warned that the extreme conditions are consistent with the most pessimistic scenario where countries do little to constrain global heating by cutting planet-warming gases from cars, trucks and power generation.
“We are seeing record after record after record,” said Marco Tedesco, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, of the heat and melting episodes.
“It looks like the worst case scenario put forward by the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] could be an underestimate because we are seeing ice melting now that we expected 30 to 40 years from now. It’s alarming because it’s very fast-paced and the consequences are hard to predict.”
Arctic sea ice accumulates over winter before receding as temperatures start to rise in spring. The unusually hasty retreat of ice in 2019 has been prompted by persistent southerly winds, storms and high temperatures roiling both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Across the Arctic, July set a new record low for sea ice extent, at 2.93m sq miles.
“While we cannot directly compare one particular extreme year to climate change, the long-term trends are obvious – sea ice is declining and temperatures are rising,” said Zack Labe, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine.
He added: “Without a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will continue to increase the probability of extreme heatwaves around the world.”
The Arctic is heating up at about twice the average of the rest of the world, with the frigid polar region caught in a spiral where sea ice thins and melts away, opening up vast tracts of dark ocean that is more absorbent of heat, causing further warming.
The loss of ice causes numerous hazards for communities living in the Arctic, with many facing complete relocation. Meanwhile, the melting of glaciers in Greenland are a leading contributor to sea level rise that imperils coastal cities around the world via flooding.
Tedesco said that the pace of melting in Greenland this year is on track to break a record set in 2012, when a net 562 gigatons of ice was lost. This will probably raise the global sea level by more than 1mm. If Greenland’s entire ice sheet were to melt, the world’s oceans would rise by about 20ft.
“What’s happening in Greenland is exceptional and shows that the melting is not only increasing but accelerating,” said Tedesco.
“There are still cascading events we still don’t fully understand. We will see impacts on society and life as we know it.”
The unspooling of the Arctic’s environment will be just one consequence of global heating discussed at an upcoming UN climate summit in New York in September.
Governments will meet amid growing alarm over heatwaves, fierce storms, drought and food insecurity that have wracked countries around the world. Such concerns have sparked a global protest movement, headed by young activists such as the teenager Greta Thunberg, who is sailing to New York on a solar-powered boat for the UN summit.
“My concern is that Greenland will be forgotten because there will probably be a huge hurricane by then,” said Tedesco. “Momentum is gaining but there is clearly a strong need to take real action on this at a government level.”
Alaska’s average temperature in July was a record 58.1F (14.5C), nearly 1F above the previous monthly high set in July 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Cities and towns across the vast US state, such as Anchorage, Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) and Kodiak all had their warmest month in 125 years of record-keeping.
This heat, 5.4F warmer than the long-term average for July, helped spur wildfires that shrouded much of Alaska in a pall of smoke and has now resulted in a remarkable melting away of shoreline ice.
There is now no sea ice within 150 miles of Alaskan shores, according to an analysis by the National Weather Service. The pace of ice loss is “unprecedented” in 40 years of satellite records, scientists said, with the Bering Sea, which separates Alaska from Russia, left completely ice-free.
The record-breaking warmth in Alaska is part of a broader heatwave that has swept the northern latitudes, with Greenland shedding a record 12.5 gigatons of ice into the ocean in a single day, Norway experiencing its joint hottest day ever and forest fires in Siberia tearing through an area as large as Belgium.
Scientists warned that the extreme conditions are consistent with the most pessimistic scenario where countries do little to constrain global heating by cutting planet-warming gases from cars, trucks and power generation.
“We are seeing record after record after record,” said Marco Tedesco, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, of the heat and melting episodes.
“It looks like the worst case scenario put forward by the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] could be an underestimate because we are seeing ice melting now that we expected 30 to 40 years from now. It’s alarming because it’s very fast-paced and the consequences are hard to predict.”
Arctic sea ice accumulates over winter before receding as temperatures start to rise in spring. The unusually hasty retreat of ice in 2019 has been prompted by persistent southerly winds, storms and high temperatures roiling both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Across the Arctic, July set a new record low for sea ice extent, at 2.93m sq miles.
“While we cannot directly compare one particular extreme year to climate change, the long-term trends are obvious – sea ice is declining and temperatures are rising,” said Zack Labe, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine.
He added: “Without a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will continue to increase the probability of extreme heatwaves around the world.”
The Arctic is heating up at about twice the average of the rest of the world, with the frigid polar region caught in a spiral where sea ice thins and melts away, opening up vast tracts of dark ocean that is more absorbent of heat, causing further warming.
The loss of ice causes numerous hazards for communities living in the Arctic, with many facing complete relocation. Meanwhile, the melting of glaciers in Greenland are a leading contributor to sea level rise that imperils coastal cities around the world via flooding.
Tedesco said that the pace of melting in Greenland this year is on track to break a record set in 2012, when a net 562 gigatons of ice was lost. This will probably raise the global sea level by more than 1mm. If Greenland’s entire ice sheet were to melt, the world’s oceans would rise by about 20ft.
“What’s happening in Greenland is exceptional and shows that the melting is not only increasing but accelerating,” said Tedesco.
“There are still cascading events we still don’t fully understand. We will see impacts on society and life as we know it.”
The unspooling of the Arctic’s environment will be just one consequence of global heating discussed at an upcoming UN climate summit in New York in September.
Governments will meet amid growing alarm over heatwaves, fierce storms, drought and food insecurity that have wracked countries around the world. Such concerns have sparked a global protest movement, headed by young activists such as the teenager Greta Thunberg, who is sailing to New York on a solar-powered boat for the UN summit.
“My concern is that Greenland will be forgotten because there will probably be a huge hurricane by then,” said Tedesco. “Momentum is gaining but there is clearly a strong need to take real action on this at a government level.”
Republicans block effort to save the Great Lakes from invasive Asian carp
August 5, 2019
By Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
Republicans sat on a report for months about how to block Asian carp from our nation’s Great Lakes, but now environmentalists are hoping Congress approves money this year to fund preliminary work for a $778 million plan to stop the fish at a dam near Joliet, Ill.
Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is recommending the plan which includes building a channel with additional electric barriers, flushing lock systems and using underwater speakers to bombard the fish with noise.
“With the Asian Carp on the doorstep of our region’s most vital natural resource, we have a small window of time to stop this invasive species before it inflicts irreparable damage on our Great Lakes and our $7 billion fishing industry and equally important tourism industry,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
An appropriations bill approved by the House in June, H.R.2740,contains a $10 million increase in the Corps investigations account that could be used to fund preliminary work on the proposal. The bill passed 226 to 203 with all the Republicans and seven Democrats voting against it.
The American Waterways Operators, which represents the barge industry, gave $108,500 in campaign contributions to the representatives who voted against the appropriations bill. The Senate, where the barge industry’s PAC has donated $50,500 will now consider the bill.
Semonite is not recommending detaching Lake Michigan from waterways that flow from the Illinois River which researchers say has the highest concentration of silver carp on the planet. Five states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania – unsuccessfully sued the Corps to try to get it to close off a canal that acts like a superhighway for invasive species.
More than a century ago, Chicago rerouted its sewage through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal so the city wouldn’t dump it into Lake Michigan, opening a conduit between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin.
Asian carp can grow up to 4 feet long and 100 pounds and eat the food native fish depend on. The fish were brought to the United States to control algae in catfish ponds and waste-treatment plants in Arkansas and Mississippi. They escaped into rivers after flooding or were released and made their way up the Mississippi River.
Release of the Corps report was blocked for months in 2017 by Republicans and the Trump administration and released only after the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill to force its release. The original cost of the plan to block Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan was $275 million but now is projected to reach as much as $832 million.
The leading edge of adult bighead and silver carp is about four milesfrom the Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River near Joliet. Traces of DNA from Asian carp have been found in Chicago’s Lake Calumet, just 7 miles from Lake Michigan. Another type of Asian carp, grass carp, has been found in the lower four Great Lakes, and evidence suggests it is spawning in Lake Erie.
Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is recommending the plan which includes building a channel with additional electric barriers, flushing lock systems and using underwater speakers to bombard the fish with noise.
“With the Asian Carp on the doorstep of our region’s most vital natural resource, we have a small window of time to stop this invasive species before it inflicts irreparable damage on our Great Lakes and our $7 billion fishing industry and equally important tourism industry,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
An appropriations bill approved by the House in June, H.R.2740,contains a $10 million increase in the Corps investigations account that could be used to fund preliminary work on the proposal. The bill passed 226 to 203 with all the Republicans and seven Democrats voting against it.
The American Waterways Operators, which represents the barge industry, gave $108,500 in campaign contributions to the representatives who voted against the appropriations bill. The Senate, where the barge industry’s PAC has donated $50,500 will now consider the bill.
Semonite is not recommending detaching Lake Michigan from waterways that flow from the Illinois River which researchers say has the highest concentration of silver carp on the planet. Five states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania – unsuccessfully sued the Corps to try to get it to close off a canal that acts like a superhighway for invasive species.
More than a century ago, Chicago rerouted its sewage through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal so the city wouldn’t dump it into Lake Michigan, opening a conduit between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin.
Asian carp can grow up to 4 feet long and 100 pounds and eat the food native fish depend on. The fish were brought to the United States to control algae in catfish ponds and waste-treatment plants in Arkansas and Mississippi. They escaped into rivers after flooding or were released and made their way up the Mississippi River.
Release of the Corps report was blocked for months in 2017 by Republicans and the Trump administration and released only after the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill to force its release. The original cost of the plan to block Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan was $275 million but now is projected to reach as much as $832 million.
The leading edge of adult bighead and silver carp is about four milesfrom the Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River near Joliet. Traces of DNA from Asian carp have been found in Chicago’s Lake Calumet, just 7 miles from Lake Michigan. Another type of Asian carp, grass carp, has been found in the lower four Great Lakes, and evidence suggests it is spawning in Lake Erie.
thank the stupid people who elected this criminal!!!
Trump is trying to kill electric cars but will kill jobs and the climate instead
The global electric car boom can't be stopped, but Trump policies would insure U.S. workers miss out on it.
JOE ROMM - Thinkprogress
AUG 2, 2019, 8:00 AM
Two new analyses from Bloomberg this week make clear just how bad President Donald Trump’s policies are for the domestic electric car market and U.S. workers.
In the first report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) explains that Trump’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles would eliminate any federal requirement for carmakers to build electric vehicles (EVs). BNEF also explains that the deal Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW struck with California last week to avoid the full rollback will not undo most of the damage.
In the second, BNEF concluded that the rapid price drops in the cost of batteries that have driven the energy storage and EV revolutions this decade will continue for the next decade.
In short, while Trump can slow adoption of high-efficiency EVs in the United States, other countries — the E.U. and especially China — will simply keep adopting them so quickly that he cannot stop the global EV revolution.
Trump’s pro-oil moves ensure only that U.S. companies and workers are far less likely to be the major beneficiaries of this massive job-creating revolution.
Since his election, Trump has been working overtime to pay back his Big Oil backers — who have been major donors both to his campaign and to the Republican Party. Not only has he been pushing expanded drilling for climate-destroying fossil fuels, but he has also embraced policies that would increase U.S. dependency on oil.
Trump’s biggest effort to date is his plan to roll back President Barack Obama’s fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for new cars. That rollback would cost consumers nearly $100 billion dollars in missed fuel savings — a net cost to individual car buyers of $1,650 each (even after accounting for the higher vehicle cost) as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded in its final January “Determination on the Appropriateness” of the standards.
Rolling back the standards would also boost U.S. oil consumption by a stunning 1.2 billion gallons over the lifetime of the model-year 2022–2025 cars. It would also increase U.S. carbon pollution by 540 billion tons over that time period. But the EPA didn’t look at the impact on cars built after 2025 that would also be subject to the weaker standards, so we don’t know the full scale of the negative impact of Trump’s efforts.
And while the car companies themselves asked for relief from the deal they had made with the Obama administration, the bad publicity surrounding the full Trump rollback led many to negotiate a deal with California that preserved some of the benefits.
California has long held a waiver giving it the ability to set its own, tougher, fuel efficiency standards. And since the state has such a huge car-centric economy, these tougher standards have forced car companies to meet the state’s standards. At the same time, over a dozen other states now use California’s standards.
According to BNEF, if California’s new standards were “adopted nationally, it would require around half the EV sales share to close the gap between automakers’ performance and their targets,” compared to Obama’s original standards.
But most states don’t use the California standards, so they would use Trump’s instead, which requires no EV sales. And that means the total impact of the California standards would be to restore far less than half the EV sales that the Obama standard required.
Trump’s policies are therefore doubly tragic. First, his lower standards mean much higher carbon pollution in this country. Second, the EV revolution is unstoppable globally. So, throttling back the national EV market merely leaves U.S. car companies and workers lagging behind in the most important vehicle revolution in a century.
According to BNEF, from 2010 through 2018 the average lithium-ion battery pack dropped a remarkable 85% in price — and they predict “a further halving of lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour by 2030, as demand takes off in two different markets – stationary storage and electric vehicles.”
Electric vehicle sales are now seriously eating into internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales — and that trend is projected to accelerate in the coming years.
No wonder countries like China are investing so heavily in EVs, and putting in place much stronger fuel efficiency standards and EV requirements.
But just as Trump looks backward in his efforts to promote the climate-destroying fuels of the twentieth century, he also looks backward to promote the inefficient, highly polluting internal combustion engine cars of the last century.
That’s why killing electric cars will serve only to kill U.S. jobs and the climate.
In the first report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) explains that Trump’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles would eliminate any federal requirement for carmakers to build electric vehicles (EVs). BNEF also explains that the deal Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW struck with California last week to avoid the full rollback will not undo most of the damage.
In the second, BNEF concluded that the rapid price drops in the cost of batteries that have driven the energy storage and EV revolutions this decade will continue for the next decade.
In short, while Trump can slow adoption of high-efficiency EVs in the United States, other countries — the E.U. and especially China — will simply keep adopting them so quickly that he cannot stop the global EV revolution.
Trump’s pro-oil moves ensure only that U.S. companies and workers are far less likely to be the major beneficiaries of this massive job-creating revolution.
Since his election, Trump has been working overtime to pay back his Big Oil backers — who have been major donors both to his campaign and to the Republican Party. Not only has he been pushing expanded drilling for climate-destroying fossil fuels, but he has also embraced policies that would increase U.S. dependency on oil.
Trump’s biggest effort to date is his plan to roll back President Barack Obama’s fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for new cars. That rollback would cost consumers nearly $100 billion dollars in missed fuel savings — a net cost to individual car buyers of $1,650 each (even after accounting for the higher vehicle cost) as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded in its final January “Determination on the Appropriateness” of the standards.
Rolling back the standards would also boost U.S. oil consumption by a stunning 1.2 billion gallons over the lifetime of the model-year 2022–2025 cars. It would also increase U.S. carbon pollution by 540 billion tons over that time period. But the EPA didn’t look at the impact on cars built after 2025 that would also be subject to the weaker standards, so we don’t know the full scale of the negative impact of Trump’s efforts.
And while the car companies themselves asked for relief from the deal they had made with the Obama administration, the bad publicity surrounding the full Trump rollback led many to negotiate a deal with California that preserved some of the benefits.
California has long held a waiver giving it the ability to set its own, tougher, fuel efficiency standards. And since the state has such a huge car-centric economy, these tougher standards have forced car companies to meet the state’s standards. At the same time, over a dozen other states now use California’s standards.
According to BNEF, if California’s new standards were “adopted nationally, it would require around half the EV sales share to close the gap between automakers’ performance and their targets,” compared to Obama’s original standards.
But most states don’t use the California standards, so they would use Trump’s instead, which requires no EV sales. And that means the total impact of the California standards would be to restore far less than half the EV sales that the Obama standard required.
Trump’s policies are therefore doubly tragic. First, his lower standards mean much higher carbon pollution in this country. Second, the EV revolution is unstoppable globally. So, throttling back the national EV market merely leaves U.S. car companies and workers lagging behind in the most important vehicle revolution in a century.
According to BNEF, from 2010 through 2018 the average lithium-ion battery pack dropped a remarkable 85% in price — and they predict “a further halving of lithium-ion battery costs per kilowatt-hour by 2030, as demand takes off in two different markets – stationary storage and electric vehicles.”
Electric vehicle sales are now seriously eating into internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales — and that trend is projected to accelerate in the coming years.
No wonder countries like China are investing so heavily in EVs, and putting in place much stronger fuel efficiency standards and EV requirements.
But just as Trump looks backward in his efforts to promote the climate-destroying fuels of the twentieth century, he also looks backward to promote the inefficient, highly polluting internal combustion engine cars of the last century.
That’s why killing electric cars will serve only to kill U.S. jobs and the climate.
IPCC leaked report: Going vegetarian and controlling land use are key to climate crisis
Scientists in Geneva warn that cutting carbon emissions from cars and factories is not enough
Robin McKie
The Guardian
Sat 3 Aug 2019 13.00 BST
Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.
A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.
Humans now exploit 72% of the planet’s ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth’s growing population, the report warns. At the same time, agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, about half of all emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The impact of intensive agriculture – which has helped the world’s population soar from 1.9 billion a century ago to 7.7 billion – has also increased soil erosion and reduced amounts of organic material in the ground.
In future these problems are likely to get worse. “Climate change exacerbates land degradation through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, wind, sea-level rise and wave action,” the report states.
It is a bleak analysis of the dangers ahead and comes when rising greenhouse gas emissions have made news after triggering a range of severe meteorological events. These include news that:
•
*Arctic sea-ice coverage reached near record lows for July;
*The heatwaves that hit Europe last month were between 1.5C and 3C higher because of climate change;
*Global temperatures for July were 1.2C above pre-industrial levels for the month.
This last figure is particularly alarming, as the IPCC has warned that rises greater than 1.5C risk triggering climatic destabilisation while those higher than 2C make such events even more likely. “We are now getting very close to some dangerous tipping points in the behaviour of the climate – but as this latest leaked report of the IPCC’s work reveals, it is going to be very difficult to achieve the cuts we need to make to prevent that happening,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
The new IPCC report emphasises that land will have to be managed more sustainably so that it releases much less carbon than at present. Peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut to reduce methane production; while food waste will have to be reduced.
Among the measures put forward by the report is the proposal of a major shift towards vegetarian and vegan diets. “The consumption of healthy and sustainable diets, such as those based on coarse grains, pulses and vegetables, and nuts and seeds … presents major opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.
There also needs to be a big change in how land is used, it adds. Policies need to include “improved access to markets, empowering women farmers, expanding access to agricultural services and strengthening land tenure security”, it states. “Early warning systems for weather, crop yields, and seasonal climate events are also critical.”
The chances of politicians and scientists achieving these goals are uncertain, however. Nations are scheduled to meet in late 2020, probably in the UK, at a key IPCC conference where delegates will plant how to achieve effective zero-carbon emission policies over the next few decades.
The US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will have just had its presidential elections. A new Democrat incumbent would likely be sympathetic to moves to control global heating. Re-election of Donald Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax”, would put a very different, far gloomier perspective on hopes of achieving a consensus.
A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.
Humans now exploit 72% of the planet’s ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth’s growing population, the report warns. At the same time, agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, about half of all emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The impact of intensive agriculture – which has helped the world’s population soar from 1.9 billion a century ago to 7.7 billion – has also increased soil erosion and reduced amounts of organic material in the ground.
In future these problems are likely to get worse. “Climate change exacerbates land degradation through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, wind, sea-level rise and wave action,” the report states.
It is a bleak analysis of the dangers ahead and comes when rising greenhouse gas emissions have made news after triggering a range of severe meteorological events. These include news that:
•
*Arctic sea-ice coverage reached near record lows for July;
*The heatwaves that hit Europe last month were between 1.5C and 3C higher because of climate change;
*Global temperatures for July were 1.2C above pre-industrial levels for the month.
This last figure is particularly alarming, as the IPCC has warned that rises greater than 1.5C risk triggering climatic destabilisation while those higher than 2C make such events even more likely. “We are now getting very close to some dangerous tipping points in the behaviour of the climate – but as this latest leaked report of the IPCC’s work reveals, it is going to be very difficult to achieve the cuts we need to make to prevent that happening,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
The new IPCC report emphasises that land will have to be managed more sustainably so that it releases much less carbon than at present. Peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut to reduce methane production; while food waste will have to be reduced.
Among the measures put forward by the report is the proposal of a major shift towards vegetarian and vegan diets. “The consumption of healthy and sustainable diets, such as those based on coarse grains, pulses and vegetables, and nuts and seeds … presents major opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.
There also needs to be a big change in how land is used, it adds. Policies need to include “improved access to markets, empowering women farmers, expanding access to agricultural services and strengthening land tenure security”, it states. “Early warning systems for weather, crop yields, and seasonal climate events are also critical.”
The chances of politicians and scientists achieving these goals are uncertain, however. Nations are scheduled to meet in late 2020, probably in the UK, at a key IPCC conference where delegates will plant how to achieve effective zero-carbon emission policies over the next few decades.
The US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will have just had its presidential elections. A new Democrat incumbent would likely be sympathetic to moves to control global heating. Re-election of Donald Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax”, would put a very different, far gloomier perspective on hopes of achieving a consensus.
CLIMATE CHANGE: THOUSANDS OF PACIFIC WALRUSES HAVE TURNED UP IN ALASKA AHEAD OF SCHEDULE AFTER RECORD-BREAKING TEMPERATURES
BY ARISTOS GEORGIOU - Newsweek
ON 8/2/19 AT 12:45 PM EDT
Close up of a female walrus resting after entering a haulout.
SMITH COLLECTION/GADO/GETTY IMAGES
Thousands of Pacific walruses have been spotted on an island off the northwest coast of Alaska in what is their earliest appearance on the state's shores—something experts have put down to rapidly receding Arctic sea ice and unusually warm ocean temperatures.
Sea ice off northern Alaska usually reaches its summer minimum in September, but recent high temperatures in the region—which have seen records smashed across the state—have meant that the ice has disappeared much earlier than normal, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The walruses were seen near the Iñupiaq village of Point Lay which is located on a barrier island in the Chukchi Sea, according to environment officials. This is the first time a herd has been seen in the area in the month of July.
"This is the earliest date that large numbers of walruses have been confirmed on shore at Point Lay," Andrea Medeiros, a spokeswoman for the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Anchorage, told AP.
Walruses spend most of their time on sea ice. However, global warming is reducing the amount of ice available for them to rest on, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF.) When no ice is available, walruses congregate on shores in large groups known as "haulouts" to seek refuge.
In recent times, walruses are congregating in increasingly large haulouts—sometimes numbering up to 40,000 individuals—in places like Alaska and Russia.
"The formation of coastal haulouts along the Chukchi Sea coast in recent years is associated with the loss of sea ice habitat near offshore feeding grounds," a statement from the USFWS read. "The walruses typically begin to haul out approximately two weeks after sea ice recedes off the continental shelf. Sea ice provides protection from predators and easy access to feeding areas below. Walruses would normally rest on the sea ice in small groups and occasionally slip into the water to feed."
These haulouts can be dangerous because walruses are easily scared by predators, humans or vehicles—which can lead to stampedes as they rush to safety in the ocean, crushing younger members of the herd.
Furthermore, the journey from the receding sea ice to the shore—which can be more than 100 miles—can be tiring and perilous, particularly for young calves.
Sea ice off northern Alaska usually reaches its summer minimum in September, but recent high temperatures in the region—which have seen records smashed across the state—have meant that the ice has disappeared much earlier than normal, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The walruses were seen near the Iñupiaq village of Point Lay which is located on a barrier island in the Chukchi Sea, according to environment officials. This is the first time a herd has been seen in the area in the month of July.
"This is the earliest date that large numbers of walruses have been confirmed on shore at Point Lay," Andrea Medeiros, a spokeswoman for the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Anchorage, told AP.
Walruses spend most of their time on sea ice. However, global warming is reducing the amount of ice available for them to rest on, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF.) When no ice is available, walruses congregate on shores in large groups known as "haulouts" to seek refuge.
In recent times, walruses are congregating in increasingly large haulouts—sometimes numbering up to 40,000 individuals—in places like Alaska and Russia.
"The formation of coastal haulouts along the Chukchi Sea coast in recent years is associated with the loss of sea ice habitat near offshore feeding grounds," a statement from the USFWS read. "The walruses typically begin to haul out approximately two weeks after sea ice recedes off the continental shelf. Sea ice provides protection from predators and easy access to feeding areas below. Walruses would normally rest on the sea ice in small groups and occasionally slip into the water to feed."
These haulouts can be dangerous because walruses are easily scared by predators, humans or vehicles—which can lead to stampedes as they rush to safety in the ocean, crushing younger members of the herd.
Furthermore, the journey from the receding sea ice to the shore—which can be more than 100 miles—can be tiring and perilous, particularly for young calves.
EPA Inspector General wants to know how something like this was OK’d
July 29, 2019
By Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
Cathy Stepp helped greenlighted polluting Lake Michigan during her time overseeing Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, and now she is helping a mining company that could contaminate Lake Superior.
Stepp, a regional administrator for the EPA, is part of an investigation by the agency’s inspector general into how Minnesota awarded a permit in December to PolyMet Mining Co. which wants to build a $1 billion copper-nickel mine on 19,000 acres near Hoyt Lakes, Minn., near the North Shore of Lake Superior.
The water permit has become a test case for Trump’s effort to weaken environmental oversight by having the EPA mostly defer to state regulators.
Stepp’s chief of staff, Kurt Thiede, who previously worked for her in Wisconsin, was asked in the Minnesota review to stall submitting written comments from the EPA on the proposed mine until after the period for submitting public comments had ended. That move in effect made those comments secret until environmental groups sued.
“Under the current administration, EPA is a pollution watchdog not only on a leash but under a muzzle, as well,” said Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the nonprofit that sued for the records on behalf of WaterLegacy.
Kevin Pierard, a senior official in the EPA’s Chicago office, told Minnesota regulators that the proposed permit didn’t have numeric limits on how much pollution could be in discharges from the mine. He also said the discharges would exceed federal health and aquatic life standards for mercury, copper, arsenic, cadmium and zinc.
Pierard’s comments were read over the phone to Minnesota regulators so they wouldn’t appear in the official record, a move former EPA attorney Jeffry Fowley said was “seriously improper conduct.” Fowley said the permit is “an end-run around the … requirements of the Clean Water Act.”
Glencore PLC, one of the world’s largest publicly traded companies with annual revenues of more than $200 billion, took majority ownership of PolyMet in June. The U.S. Justice Department has subpoenaed Glencore in an investigation into foreign corruption and money laundering, asking for documents for business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria.
“Alarm bells should have gone off all over the place,” said former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson. “It’s like making an investment in a company and suddenly finding out the mob owns it.”
In Wisconsin, Stepp and Thiede helped Foxconn, the giant Taiwan manufacturer best known for assembling iPhones, be exempted from any major environmental review. Foxconn and the state claimed the deal would bring up to 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin, but now it looks like just 1,500 people could be hired to start.
Stepp, a regional administrator for the EPA, is part of an investigation by the agency’s inspector general into how Minnesota awarded a permit in December to PolyMet Mining Co. which wants to build a $1 billion copper-nickel mine on 19,000 acres near Hoyt Lakes, Minn., near the North Shore of Lake Superior.
The water permit has become a test case for Trump’s effort to weaken environmental oversight by having the EPA mostly defer to state regulators.
Stepp’s chief of staff, Kurt Thiede, who previously worked for her in Wisconsin, was asked in the Minnesota review to stall submitting written comments from the EPA on the proposed mine until after the period for submitting public comments had ended. That move in effect made those comments secret until environmental groups sued.
“Under the current administration, EPA is a pollution watchdog not only on a leash but under a muzzle, as well,” said Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the nonprofit that sued for the records on behalf of WaterLegacy.
Kevin Pierard, a senior official in the EPA’s Chicago office, told Minnesota regulators that the proposed permit didn’t have numeric limits on how much pollution could be in discharges from the mine. He also said the discharges would exceed federal health and aquatic life standards for mercury, copper, arsenic, cadmium and zinc.
Pierard’s comments were read over the phone to Minnesota regulators so they wouldn’t appear in the official record, a move former EPA attorney Jeffry Fowley said was “seriously improper conduct.” Fowley said the permit is “an end-run around the … requirements of the Clean Water Act.”
Glencore PLC, one of the world’s largest publicly traded companies with annual revenues of more than $200 billion, took majority ownership of PolyMet in June. The U.S. Justice Department has subpoenaed Glencore in an investigation into foreign corruption and money laundering, asking for documents for business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria.
“Alarm bells should have gone off all over the place,” said former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson. “It’s like making an investment in a company and suddenly finding out the mob owns it.”
In Wisconsin, Stepp and Thiede helped Foxconn, the giant Taiwan manufacturer best known for assembling iPhones, be exempted from any major environmental review. Foxconn and the state claimed the deal would bring up to 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin, but now it looks like just 1,500 people could be hired to start.
stupidity and greed???
Biodegradable plastics have existed for decades. So why aren't they mainstream?
As Earth's oceans becoming a plastic dumping ground, why haven't biodegradable plastics been normalized yet?
MATTHEW ROZSA - Salon
JULY 28, 2019 5:00PM (UTC)
The business world rarely yields good news, at least when it comes to environmental issues, so this recent story from PR Newswire was quite welcome. It says that the market for biodegradable plastic packaging was valued at $3.97 billion as of last year and is expected to reach $10.3 billion by 2024. At a time when normal (read: non-biodegradable) plastics are polluting our oceans, poisoning our bodies and threatening life on this planet in a manner surpassed only by climate change, this is good news indeed.
Yet the technology to create biodegradable plastics is not new. Indeed, it has existed for more than forty years. Given how crucial such technology is, why has it taken so long for it to become popular? Are there political barriers to it becoming prevalent? What does it say that, during the deepest submarine dive (to the bottom of the Mariana Trench), explorers found a plastic bag?
To learn more, Salon reached out to Ramani Narayan, a professor at Michigan State University's College of Engineering. The main takeaway from this conversation was that — although biodegradable plastics are not a panacea for what ails our planet — there is no sound economic or ecological reason for our global society to not aggressively pursue using them.
The following interview was conducted by email.
In the 1975 novel "Ecotopia" author Ernest Callenbach described a world in which everything was biodegradable or compostable, one that was based on technology which existed at the time. Why did this not become a reality over the past 44 years?
Design and nature of materials changed – plastics became the material of choice — stronger, lighter, cheaper, longer lasting, impervious to microbial action, moisture etc — however, we never worried or bothered about the impact of these new materials at its end-of-life. Because we did not manage its end-of-life, these single-use, disposable plastics soon found itself in natural environments including the oceans. The very properties that made plastics the material of choice became a problem in the environment — they were not biodegradable at rate and time to be removed from the environment, their light weight allowed it to be blown and carried to remote corners causing unintended consequences.
Are there technological, scientific or economic limits to what can be achieved on this front today?
Plastics offers considerable benefits to society — think of lightweight safety helmets, glasses, preserving and protecting food and industrial products, hygiene and many more valuable attributes. The missing link is a viable end-of-life for plastics and other materials, creating a circular loop. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation provides a blueprint for change to a “circular economy” — 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by 2025
Are there political limits to which can be achieved on this front today?
Politics needs to be set aside, and logical closed loop circular materials approaches [are] needed.
What have been the ecological consequences of humanity not transitioning to biodegradable products over the past 44 years?
Biodegradability is not a magical solution to the problem of plastics and other bio-wastes. Biodegradability in concert with managed, closed-loop disposal systems like composting/anaerobic digestion or soil (agricultural products) resulting in complete removal from the environmental in a short time defined by the disposal environment can be a viable and responsible “end-of-life” solution in harmony with Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circularity model.
However, there are many misleading and unqualified use of the term “biodegradable” to describe products — like the oxo- and organic additives claimed to make conventional plastics “biodegradable”.
Is any of that damage permanent?
Clearly, there is an urgency — but not all is lost, and much activity is taking place in the space.
Yet the technology to create biodegradable plastics is not new. Indeed, it has existed for more than forty years. Given how crucial such technology is, why has it taken so long for it to become popular? Are there political barriers to it becoming prevalent? What does it say that, during the deepest submarine dive (to the bottom of the Mariana Trench), explorers found a plastic bag?
To learn more, Salon reached out to Ramani Narayan, a professor at Michigan State University's College of Engineering. The main takeaway from this conversation was that — although biodegradable plastics are not a panacea for what ails our planet — there is no sound economic or ecological reason for our global society to not aggressively pursue using them.
The following interview was conducted by email.
In the 1975 novel "Ecotopia" author Ernest Callenbach described a world in which everything was biodegradable or compostable, one that was based on technology which existed at the time. Why did this not become a reality over the past 44 years?
Design and nature of materials changed – plastics became the material of choice — stronger, lighter, cheaper, longer lasting, impervious to microbial action, moisture etc — however, we never worried or bothered about the impact of these new materials at its end-of-life. Because we did not manage its end-of-life, these single-use, disposable plastics soon found itself in natural environments including the oceans. The very properties that made plastics the material of choice became a problem in the environment — they were not biodegradable at rate and time to be removed from the environment, their light weight allowed it to be blown and carried to remote corners causing unintended consequences.
Are there technological, scientific or economic limits to what can be achieved on this front today?
Plastics offers considerable benefits to society — think of lightweight safety helmets, glasses, preserving and protecting food and industrial products, hygiene and many more valuable attributes. The missing link is a viable end-of-life for plastics and other materials, creating a circular loop. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation provides a blueprint for change to a “circular economy” — 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by 2025
Are there political limits to which can be achieved on this front today?
Politics needs to be set aside, and logical closed loop circular materials approaches [are] needed.
What have been the ecological consequences of humanity not transitioning to biodegradable products over the past 44 years?
Biodegradability is not a magical solution to the problem of plastics and other bio-wastes. Biodegradability in concert with managed, closed-loop disposal systems like composting/anaerobic digestion or soil (agricultural products) resulting in complete removal from the environmental in a short time defined by the disposal environment can be a viable and responsible “end-of-life” solution in harmony with Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circularity model.
However, there are many misleading and unqualified use of the term “biodegradable” to describe products — like the oxo- and organic additives claimed to make conventional plastics “biodegradable”.
Is any of that damage permanent?
Clearly, there is an urgency — but not all is lost, and much activity is taking place in the space.
Fecal bacteria found at more than half of US beaches last year, report says
Beaches were deemed unsafe on at least a quarter of days tested and climate crisis will likely increase the pollution
Miranda Bryant in New York
The Guardian
Wed 24 Jul 2019 07.00 BST
Beaches in Illinois were among the worst-offending in the study. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Before diving into the waves this summer, beachgoers in the US might like to do some homework on what they will be diving into, according to a new report.
The Environment America Research and Policy Center (EARPC) found that more than half of American beaches were home to potentially dangerous levels of fecal bacteria at some point last year.
The Safe for Swimming? report contains analysis of data submitted to the National Water Quality Monitoring Council from 29 states and Puerto Rico. It found that 58% of 2,620 beaches analysed had fecal bacteria levels exceeding the “beach action value”, a threshold used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for making beach notification decisions, on at least one day in 2018.
A total of 605 sites were deemed potentially unsafe on at least a quarter of days on which water was tested.
Among the worst-offending states were Illinois, Mississippi and Louisiana, where all beaches tested were found to be unsafe on at least one day. Other badly performing states included Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Better-performing states included New Hampshire, where 15 of 47 beaches fell short on at least one day, Maine and Hawaii, which scored 39 of 85 and 90 of 218.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the annual European bathing water report, based on 22,000 sites across EU member states plus Albania and Switzerland, found that around 300 had poor bathing quality.
Peter Kristensen, European water expert for the European Environment Agency, said the two systems were “not fully comparable” because they use different guidelines.
“My impression is that the US standards may be stricter,” he said. “In the European system it is also possible after heavy rains and storm water overflow to warn against swimming and discard a sample taken under the short-term pollution event.”
According Safe for Swimming?, the worst beach in the US was Singing Bridge Beach in Arenac county, Michigan, which was found to have unsafe levels of fecal bacteria each time it was tested. San Pedro Creek in San Mateo county, California, came second with 91% of sampling days found to have potentially unsafe water.
Fecal contamination is caused by run-off and sewage overflows, said John Rumpler, co-author of the report and EARPC clean water program director. It can cause gastrointestinal illness, respiratory disease, eye and ear infections and skin rash. According to the report, each year there are an estimated 57m cases of recreational waterborne illness.
While Rumpler was not surprised by the results, he said they were disappointing.
“The basic findings of the report are that there’s far too much fecal bacteria pollution in places where we swim all across the US and that fecal bacteria is an indicator of pathogens in the water that can make swimmers sick,” he said. “So that’s a real cause for concern and we thought the public should know about it. Policy makers should know something about it too.”
Increasingly severe storms due to the climate crisis are likely to result in more run-off pollution and sewage overflows, he said.
Adding: “If you look at those of the predominant causes of fecal bacteria and water sewage overflows and run-off pollution, those factors are tending to be more ominous year by year.”
He believes there is hope. Some communities are investing in infrastructure such as rain barrels, expanded green space and rooftop gardens to help absorb storm water.
The 1972 Clean Water Act controls the discharge of pollution into US waters. Rumpler said the Trump administration could pose a risk to future bathing water quality if it were to weaken rules around sewage treatment plants, a measure he believes the EPA is considering.
An EPA spokesperson said: “Last week, EPA issued its BEACH Report: 2018 Swimming Season … a national summary of beach closings and advisories that states, territories and tribes issued during the 2018 swimming season as well as data trends from 2013 to 2018.
“This year’s report suggests that America’s beaches are open and safe for recreation the vast majority of the time. Specifically, the nation’s monitored coastal and Great Lakes beaches were open and safe for swimming 95% of the time during the 2018 swimming season. The 2018 results were similar to previous years.”
The EARPC report nonetheless calls for the government to take steps including increased funding for sewage systems, protection and restoration of natural infrastructure such as wetlands and strengthened enforcement of municipal wastewater treatment.
On a practical level, Rumpler said it was worth noting how often a beach has been measured unsafe: “Some of these beaches that we highlighted, they may have had an unsafe level, or potentially unsafe level, of fecal bacteria one or two days out of all the days that were tested. So that’s one set of risks as opposed to, say, the 605 beaches that we identified where the fecal bacterial levels were excessive at least 25% of the time or more.”
Colleen Henn, clean water and eastern Long Island chapter coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental charity, said surfers such as herself get sick from water bacteria.
She added: “I think that’s why this report really opened up people’s eyes and kind of scared people in a way … It is frequent for recreational [water] users to get sick from going to beach.”
In January 2018, the Environmental Health journal published a report on recreational waterborne illness which estimated water recreation activities cause 90m illnesses annually at a cost of $3.7bn.
Henn said she does not think water quality has worsened – rather that people are becoming more aware of it. That, she said, was “a wonderful thing”.
The Environment America Research and Policy Center (EARPC) found that more than half of American beaches were home to potentially dangerous levels of fecal bacteria at some point last year.
The Safe for Swimming? report contains analysis of data submitted to the National Water Quality Monitoring Council from 29 states and Puerto Rico. It found that 58% of 2,620 beaches analysed had fecal bacteria levels exceeding the “beach action value”, a threshold used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for making beach notification decisions, on at least one day in 2018.
A total of 605 sites were deemed potentially unsafe on at least a quarter of days on which water was tested.
Among the worst-offending states were Illinois, Mississippi and Louisiana, where all beaches tested were found to be unsafe on at least one day. Other badly performing states included Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Better-performing states included New Hampshire, where 15 of 47 beaches fell short on at least one day, Maine and Hawaii, which scored 39 of 85 and 90 of 218.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the annual European bathing water report, based on 22,000 sites across EU member states plus Albania and Switzerland, found that around 300 had poor bathing quality.
Peter Kristensen, European water expert for the European Environment Agency, said the two systems were “not fully comparable” because they use different guidelines.
“My impression is that the US standards may be stricter,” he said. “In the European system it is also possible after heavy rains and storm water overflow to warn against swimming and discard a sample taken under the short-term pollution event.”
According Safe for Swimming?, the worst beach in the US was Singing Bridge Beach in Arenac county, Michigan, which was found to have unsafe levels of fecal bacteria each time it was tested. San Pedro Creek in San Mateo county, California, came second with 91% of sampling days found to have potentially unsafe water.
Fecal contamination is caused by run-off and sewage overflows, said John Rumpler, co-author of the report and EARPC clean water program director. It can cause gastrointestinal illness, respiratory disease, eye and ear infections and skin rash. According to the report, each year there are an estimated 57m cases of recreational waterborne illness.
While Rumpler was not surprised by the results, he said they were disappointing.
“The basic findings of the report are that there’s far too much fecal bacteria pollution in places where we swim all across the US and that fecal bacteria is an indicator of pathogens in the water that can make swimmers sick,” he said. “So that’s a real cause for concern and we thought the public should know about it. Policy makers should know something about it too.”
Increasingly severe storms due to the climate crisis are likely to result in more run-off pollution and sewage overflows, he said.
Adding: “If you look at those of the predominant causes of fecal bacteria and water sewage overflows and run-off pollution, those factors are tending to be more ominous year by year.”
He believes there is hope. Some communities are investing in infrastructure such as rain barrels, expanded green space and rooftop gardens to help absorb storm water.
The 1972 Clean Water Act controls the discharge of pollution into US waters. Rumpler said the Trump administration could pose a risk to future bathing water quality if it were to weaken rules around sewage treatment plants, a measure he believes the EPA is considering.
An EPA spokesperson said: “Last week, EPA issued its BEACH Report: 2018 Swimming Season … a national summary of beach closings and advisories that states, territories and tribes issued during the 2018 swimming season as well as data trends from 2013 to 2018.
“This year’s report suggests that America’s beaches are open and safe for recreation the vast majority of the time. Specifically, the nation’s monitored coastal and Great Lakes beaches were open and safe for swimming 95% of the time during the 2018 swimming season. The 2018 results were similar to previous years.”
The EARPC report nonetheless calls for the government to take steps including increased funding for sewage systems, protection and restoration of natural infrastructure such as wetlands and strengthened enforcement of municipal wastewater treatment.
On a practical level, Rumpler said it was worth noting how often a beach has been measured unsafe: “Some of these beaches that we highlighted, they may have had an unsafe level, or potentially unsafe level, of fecal bacteria one or two days out of all the days that were tested. So that’s one set of risks as opposed to, say, the 605 beaches that we identified where the fecal bacterial levels were excessive at least 25% of the time or more.”
Colleen Henn, clean water and eastern Long Island chapter coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental charity, said surfers such as herself get sick from water bacteria.
She added: “I think that’s why this report really opened up people’s eyes and kind of scared people in a way … It is frequent for recreational [water] users to get sick from going to beach.”
In January 2018, the Environmental Health journal published a report on recreational waterborne illness which estimated water recreation activities cause 90m illnesses annually at a cost of $3.7bn.
Henn said she does not think water quality has worsened – rather that people are becoming more aware of it. That, she said, was “a wonderful thing”.
EPA-funded research shows US air pollution linked to more than 30,000 deaths
The Trump administration has repeatedly targeted air quality standards.
E.A. CRUNDEN - Thinkprogress
JUL 23, 2019, 2:00 PM
More than 30,000 deaths have been linked to poor air quality in the United States over the past two decades, according to new research funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And even at levels considered to be safe, researchers argue that air pollution can increase mortality rates.
The study, released Tuesday, was also supported by the research charity Wellcome Trust, and reinforces long-running concerns over microscopic pollution particles in the air and their impact on human health. It also widens the gap between the Trump administration’s efforts to rollback clean air rules and the government’s own findings on the importance of air quality.
Researchers from Imperial College London and Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Air, Climate, and Energy Solutions authored the new study, published in PLOS Medicine, which probes the impacts of air pollution across the contiguous United States from 1999 to 2015. At the center of the study is PM2.5, atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers — 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
These particles typically come from sources like power plants and cars, and are so tiny that they can travel deep into the lungs, risking various health problems like cancer and lung disease. The current national standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3) but Tuesday’s study shows that might not be strict enough — while PM2.5 has declined nationally since 1999, the researchers found that PM2.5 levels as low as 2.8ug/m3 are associated with an uptick in deaths.
Majid Ezzati from Imperial’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, said in a statement that the research has jarring implications for the current EPA air quality standard.
“We’ve known for some time that these particles [PM2.5] can be deadly. This study suggests even at seemingly low concentrations — mostly below current limits — they still cause tens of thousands of deaths,” said Ezzati.
Using a combination of satellite imagery, data from over 750 U.S. air quality monitoring stations, and the National Center for Health Statistics, the researchers found that air pollution deaths during the 16-year time period examined totaled more than 30,369. That data, which used binary gender, broke the total number down to 15,612 women and 14,757 men, and noted that they died from cardiorespiratory conditions like asthma or heart attacks.
Region and class status seemingly played a role in the deaths as well. Some areas were more prone to high PM2.5 concentrations and associated mortality, including Los Angeles, California, and a number of Southern states, like Arkansas and Alabama.
Imperial College London also notes that at any concentration of PM2.5, “life expectancy loss was, on average, larger in counties with lower income than in wealthier counties.” Prior EPA-funded studies have shown that black and Latinx Americans also disproportionately suffer from poor air quality.
The researchers said their analysis highlights the dangers of fine particulate matter even at low levels and argued that shifting the national standard could save lives.
“Lowering the PM2.5 standard below the current level is likely to improve the health of the U.S. nation, and reduce health inequality,” said Ezzati.
That advice comes as the Trump administration continues to push forward with an onslaught of regulatory rollbacks at the EPA — many of which are specifically aimed at undoing clean air rules.
The agency’s head, Andrew Wheeler, has targeted the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics standards, or MATS, which seek to curb pollution from coal and oil-burning plants.
Moreover, the administration is embroiled in a war with California over its clean air waiver, which allows the state to impose its own vehicle emissions standards. Those requirements are stricter than their federal equivalent and have helped improve air quality, but under President Donald Trump the EPA has sought to revoke the waiver while standardizing policies nationwide.
Meanwhile, even as air quality has improved nationally over the course of several decades, it has declined since Trump took office, according to the EPA. The agency’s Air Quality Index (AQI) shows that air quality has slightly decreased from 2016 to 2018, even as totals remain far better than in the period between 2010 and 2012 — the last time the country topped 1,000 days with air deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
Another emerging issue for air quality, however, is climate change.
Tuesday’s study comes at the same time as new research from the University of Delaware finds that rising global temperatures will increase the number of days with high concentrations of ground-level ozone in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
Like PM2.5, ozone — also known as smog — is linked to respiratory problems and reduced lung function. While ozone pollution has been declining in Delaware specifically, the research shows that rising temperatures are “threatening to reverse the decrease” of the trace gas in the area.
But while research has found that air pollution can actually assist with global cooling by helping to reflect sun away from the Earth, critics of the Trump administration’s policies argue that the combination of regulatory rollbacks around issues like air quality, coupled with active skepticism around climate science, is harming public health and the environment. And both studies out this week highlight the very contemporary dangers of poor air quality.
Meanwhile, the EPA’s air quality office itself is likely to remain at the center of controversy after its former head Bill Wehrum resigned abruptly last month.
Ethics watchdogs have long accused Wehrum, a former lobbyist who sought weaker air standards, of remaining close to his former clients while simultaneously unraveling air quality standards at the EPA. On Monday, the agency’s internal watchdog acknowledged that Wehrum is facing a new ethics inquiry.
The study, released Tuesday, was also supported by the research charity Wellcome Trust, and reinforces long-running concerns over microscopic pollution particles in the air and their impact on human health. It also widens the gap between the Trump administration’s efforts to rollback clean air rules and the government’s own findings on the importance of air quality.
Researchers from Imperial College London and Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Air, Climate, and Energy Solutions authored the new study, published in PLOS Medicine, which probes the impacts of air pollution across the contiguous United States from 1999 to 2015. At the center of the study is PM2.5, atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers — 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
These particles typically come from sources like power plants and cars, and are so tiny that they can travel deep into the lungs, risking various health problems like cancer and lung disease. The current national standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3) but Tuesday’s study shows that might not be strict enough — while PM2.5 has declined nationally since 1999, the researchers found that PM2.5 levels as low as 2.8ug/m3 are associated with an uptick in deaths.
Majid Ezzati from Imperial’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, said in a statement that the research has jarring implications for the current EPA air quality standard.
“We’ve known for some time that these particles [PM2.5] can be deadly. This study suggests even at seemingly low concentrations — mostly below current limits — they still cause tens of thousands of deaths,” said Ezzati.
Using a combination of satellite imagery, data from over 750 U.S. air quality monitoring stations, and the National Center for Health Statistics, the researchers found that air pollution deaths during the 16-year time period examined totaled more than 30,369. That data, which used binary gender, broke the total number down to 15,612 women and 14,757 men, and noted that they died from cardiorespiratory conditions like asthma or heart attacks.
Region and class status seemingly played a role in the deaths as well. Some areas were more prone to high PM2.5 concentrations and associated mortality, including Los Angeles, California, and a number of Southern states, like Arkansas and Alabama.
Imperial College London also notes that at any concentration of PM2.5, “life expectancy loss was, on average, larger in counties with lower income than in wealthier counties.” Prior EPA-funded studies have shown that black and Latinx Americans also disproportionately suffer from poor air quality.
The researchers said their analysis highlights the dangers of fine particulate matter even at low levels and argued that shifting the national standard could save lives.
“Lowering the PM2.5 standard below the current level is likely to improve the health of the U.S. nation, and reduce health inequality,” said Ezzati.
That advice comes as the Trump administration continues to push forward with an onslaught of regulatory rollbacks at the EPA — many of which are specifically aimed at undoing clean air rules.
The agency’s head, Andrew Wheeler, has targeted the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics standards, or MATS, which seek to curb pollution from coal and oil-burning plants.
Moreover, the administration is embroiled in a war with California over its clean air waiver, which allows the state to impose its own vehicle emissions standards. Those requirements are stricter than their federal equivalent and have helped improve air quality, but under President Donald Trump the EPA has sought to revoke the waiver while standardizing policies nationwide.
Meanwhile, even as air quality has improved nationally over the course of several decades, it has declined since Trump took office, according to the EPA. The agency’s Air Quality Index (AQI) shows that air quality has slightly decreased from 2016 to 2018, even as totals remain far better than in the period between 2010 and 2012 — the last time the country topped 1,000 days with air deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
Another emerging issue for air quality, however, is climate change.
Tuesday’s study comes at the same time as new research from the University of Delaware finds that rising global temperatures will increase the number of days with high concentrations of ground-level ozone in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
Like PM2.5, ozone — also known as smog — is linked to respiratory problems and reduced lung function. While ozone pollution has been declining in Delaware specifically, the research shows that rising temperatures are “threatening to reverse the decrease” of the trace gas in the area.
But while research has found that air pollution can actually assist with global cooling by helping to reflect sun away from the Earth, critics of the Trump administration’s policies argue that the combination of regulatory rollbacks around issues like air quality, coupled with active skepticism around climate science, is harming public health and the environment. And both studies out this week highlight the very contemporary dangers of poor air quality.
Meanwhile, the EPA’s air quality office itself is likely to remain at the center of controversy after its former head Bill Wehrum resigned abruptly last month.
Ethics watchdogs have long accused Wehrum, a former lobbyist who sought weaker air standards, of remaining close to his former clients while simultaneously unraveling air quality standards at the EPA. On Monday, the agency’s internal watchdog acknowledged that Wehrum is facing a new ethics inquiry.
Berkeley became first US city to ban natural gas. Here's what that may mean for the future
The California city on Tuesday voted to ban natural gas hook-ups in new buildings, in a historic move
Susie Cagle in Oakland
The Guardian
Wed 24 Jul 2019 04.34 BST
Berkeley this week became the first city in the United States to ban natural, fossil gas hook-ups in new buildings.
The landmark ordinance was passed into law on Tuesday, after being approved unanimously by the city council the previous week amid resounding public support.
Although Berkeley may be pushing the vanguard, the city is hardly alone. Governments across the US and Europe are looking at strategies to phase out gas. In California alone, dozens of cities and counties are considering eliminating fossil fuel hook-ups to power stoves and heat homes in new buildings, while California state agencies pencil out new rules and regulations that would slash emissions.
Natural gas, it seems, has become the new climate crisis frontline.
Landmark move
Berkeley’s ordinance, which goes into effect on 1 January, will ban gas hook-ups in new multi-family construction, with some allowances for first-floor retail and certain types of large structures.
The reasons behind the decision are multifold. Energy use in buildings accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in California. If the state is to meet its goal of 100% zero-carbon energy by 2045, the gas will have to go.
For decades, gas was considered among the preferred energy sources for buildings and embraced as a bridge from dirtier fossil fuels to a green energy future.
“There’s been a lingering perception that burning gas was cleaner than electricity, which might have been true 20 years ago when electricity came from burning coal,” said Pierre Delforge, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council . “When we look at electrification policies, we need to think about what the grid will look like in 10 or 20 years, not what it looked like yesterday.”
A state energy commission report released in early 2019 concluded that building electrification was “a key strategy” for reducing the state’s climate impacts, one that “offers the most promising path to achieving [greenhouse gas] reduction targets in the least costly manner”.
Roughly 3% of all natural gas extracted by industry is leaked into the atmosphere, where methane is a far more potent, if shorter lived, greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Berkeley was also motivated to reduce health and safety risks endemic to gas appliances, which release significant emissions and pollutants indoors.
And then there’s the matter of running large amounts of flammable fuel around a state known for large earthquakes. A Pacific Gas and Electric pipeline explosion in 2010 turned a Northern California neighborhood into a smoking crater.
“We really believe we have the underpinnings of good legislation with economic, health and safety and climate impacts,” said the Berkeley councilmember Kate Harrison. “We can do this and we’ll end up a lot healthier and cleaner for it.”
As goes Berkeley, so goes California
Further decarbonizing the grid and electrifying buildings will be key to helping California meet its ambitious climate goals. In 2018, the state passed a law requiring it to derive 100% of its power from zero-carbon energy sources by 2045, and to pursue a “bold path” to get there.
Cities’ individual choices will be crucial in reaching that target. Energy is regulated at the state level, but municipalities control much of their own building codes.
“Climate-minded cities are all pulling their hair out, like, we have a climate emergency, and the national government doesn’t care. But this issue is squarely in their wheelhouse – they’ve just got to think about it in new and creative ways,” said Bruce Nilles, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. “We’re dealing with an existential crisis. We’ve got to dust off all the different ways that different actors can do good, progressive, climate-minded things.”
More than 50 cities and counties in California are now considering similar policies to Berkeley’s, either banning or limiting gas and incentivizing full electrification in new buildings.
Panama Bartholomy, director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, points to this summer as a transformative one: in order to have new ordinances in place by 1 January, municipalities will have until September to pass electrification measures. “Not all 50 are going to make it. I’m thinking a couple dozen make it,” he said.
Even a fully electrified California will still burn some gas, some of it to power that electric grid. Los Angeles, for example, plans to phase out some gas infrastructure, but is also investing in a new gas-fired power plant, in service of fully phasing out coal.
There are also still hurdles in the developer community. When Dan Kalb, a city council member in Oakland, tried to convince a developer to build a new housing development to be fully electric, he said, they were unwilling, claiming that new apartments without gas wouldn’t command the same high market rate as units that were oven-ready.
And new construction accounts for just roughly 1% of buildings in California. In order to fully phase out gas, reach climate emissions goals, reduce indoor pollution, address safety hazards, and reach zero-carbon energy by 2045, state and local governments will have to create an incentivized, affordable pathway away from the pipelines, and toward induction stoves and heat pumps. Bartholomy’s coalition is working with manufacturers to prepare them for all that new electric appliance demand.
“We’ve got about 10 years to really transform this market and make the clean version the more attractive version,” said Bartholomy.
If more cities can pull off what Berkeley did, they could not just clean up California, but also create a model for local and state governments across the US, as coal is phased out and the electric grid becomes cleaner.
“There are gas utilities all over the industry, all over the country that are terrified that this fight is going to come to them,” said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute. “There are rumblings in Oregon and Washington. The fight’s in California right now but it’s coming everywhere.”
For utilities that sell both gas and electricity, a gas phase-out presents a tremendous market shift, but not necessarily an existential one – they’ll stay in business, their customer bases intact. But for utilities that sell and service only natural, fossil gas, the prospect of Berkeley leading California toward an electric green future is horrifying.
“If you’re a gas-only utility, then building electrification is a death sentence for you. In that sense they’re almost akin to the coal mining industry,” said Pomerantz.
SoCalGas, for example, serves nearly 22 million customers, or about half the state. A subsidiary of Sempra Energy, the utility arguably has the most to lose from electrification.
“The Southern California Gas Company is just not coming to the table on this,” said Bartholomy. “They aren’t providing any vision to meet our climate targets.”
SoCalGas did not respond to a request for comment.
Gas companies won’t be the only ones left bearing the cost of old energy infrastructure. Ratepayers have in turn invested in the current pipelines, which will become stranded assets if everything electrifies.
“If you’re going to have entire communities apart from the gas system under the name of decarbonization, who is left holding the bag of the things that are already in the ground?” said Michael Colvin, director of California Energy for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Of all the challenges facing full electrification, the affordability component is among the trickiest. A report released in June cautioned that as more people leave the gas grid, the same fixed infrastructure costs will be spread across a smaller number of customers, raising prices for everyone left.
“We don’t want to have low-income communities the only ones left paying for the natural gas – these are already folks who pay a disproportionate amount of their income for energy and we don’t want to make it worse,” said Bartholomy.
But we’ve invested a lot in that gas infrastructure, and it still has to be paid for somehow, by someone.
“It was put in place assuming we would be using gas infrastructure for so many years,” said Ranjit Deshmukh, environmental studies professor at UC Santa Barbara. “Are we as a society and a consumer base obligated to pay for that even if we’re not using it in the future?”
If the public doesn’t pay for those pipelines, Colvin warns, it may be even more difficult to get the investment necessary to carry California into full electrification. “Who on earth is going to invest in us if we don’t honor our past commitments?”
The earlier California begins fully decarbonizing the state’s energy, the more time there may be to plan for what will be a painful, if necessary, phase-out. If the state is to go zero-carbon by 2045, new gas-powered appliances would need to be removed from the market by around 2030.
“We have a 10-year window to figure out a lot of these conversations. That sounds like a long time, but it’s not,” said Colvin. “There’s pipes in the ground that have been around since the 30s.”
The landmark ordinance was passed into law on Tuesday, after being approved unanimously by the city council the previous week amid resounding public support.
Although Berkeley may be pushing the vanguard, the city is hardly alone. Governments across the US and Europe are looking at strategies to phase out gas. In California alone, dozens of cities and counties are considering eliminating fossil fuel hook-ups to power stoves and heat homes in new buildings, while California state agencies pencil out new rules and regulations that would slash emissions.
Natural gas, it seems, has become the new climate crisis frontline.
Landmark move
Berkeley’s ordinance, which goes into effect on 1 January, will ban gas hook-ups in new multi-family construction, with some allowances for first-floor retail and certain types of large structures.
The reasons behind the decision are multifold. Energy use in buildings accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in California. If the state is to meet its goal of 100% zero-carbon energy by 2045, the gas will have to go.
For decades, gas was considered among the preferred energy sources for buildings and embraced as a bridge from dirtier fossil fuels to a green energy future.
“There’s been a lingering perception that burning gas was cleaner than electricity, which might have been true 20 years ago when electricity came from burning coal,” said Pierre Delforge, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council . “When we look at electrification policies, we need to think about what the grid will look like in 10 or 20 years, not what it looked like yesterday.”
A state energy commission report released in early 2019 concluded that building electrification was “a key strategy” for reducing the state’s climate impacts, one that “offers the most promising path to achieving [greenhouse gas] reduction targets in the least costly manner”.
Roughly 3% of all natural gas extracted by industry is leaked into the atmosphere, where methane is a far more potent, if shorter lived, greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Berkeley was also motivated to reduce health and safety risks endemic to gas appliances, which release significant emissions and pollutants indoors.
And then there’s the matter of running large amounts of flammable fuel around a state known for large earthquakes. A Pacific Gas and Electric pipeline explosion in 2010 turned a Northern California neighborhood into a smoking crater.
“We really believe we have the underpinnings of good legislation with economic, health and safety and climate impacts,” said the Berkeley councilmember Kate Harrison. “We can do this and we’ll end up a lot healthier and cleaner for it.”
As goes Berkeley, so goes California
Further decarbonizing the grid and electrifying buildings will be key to helping California meet its ambitious climate goals. In 2018, the state passed a law requiring it to derive 100% of its power from zero-carbon energy sources by 2045, and to pursue a “bold path” to get there.
Cities’ individual choices will be crucial in reaching that target. Energy is regulated at the state level, but municipalities control much of their own building codes.
“Climate-minded cities are all pulling their hair out, like, we have a climate emergency, and the national government doesn’t care. But this issue is squarely in their wheelhouse – they’ve just got to think about it in new and creative ways,” said Bruce Nilles, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. “We’re dealing with an existential crisis. We’ve got to dust off all the different ways that different actors can do good, progressive, climate-minded things.”
More than 50 cities and counties in California are now considering similar policies to Berkeley’s, either banning or limiting gas and incentivizing full electrification in new buildings.
Panama Bartholomy, director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, points to this summer as a transformative one: in order to have new ordinances in place by 1 January, municipalities will have until September to pass electrification measures. “Not all 50 are going to make it. I’m thinking a couple dozen make it,” he said.
Even a fully electrified California will still burn some gas, some of it to power that electric grid. Los Angeles, for example, plans to phase out some gas infrastructure, but is also investing in a new gas-fired power plant, in service of fully phasing out coal.
There are also still hurdles in the developer community. When Dan Kalb, a city council member in Oakland, tried to convince a developer to build a new housing development to be fully electric, he said, they were unwilling, claiming that new apartments without gas wouldn’t command the same high market rate as units that were oven-ready.
And new construction accounts for just roughly 1% of buildings in California. In order to fully phase out gas, reach climate emissions goals, reduce indoor pollution, address safety hazards, and reach zero-carbon energy by 2045, state and local governments will have to create an incentivized, affordable pathway away from the pipelines, and toward induction stoves and heat pumps. Bartholomy’s coalition is working with manufacturers to prepare them for all that new electric appliance demand.
“We’ve got about 10 years to really transform this market and make the clean version the more attractive version,” said Bartholomy.
If more cities can pull off what Berkeley did, they could not just clean up California, but also create a model for local and state governments across the US, as coal is phased out and the electric grid becomes cleaner.
“There are gas utilities all over the industry, all over the country that are terrified that this fight is going to come to them,” said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute. “There are rumblings in Oregon and Washington. The fight’s in California right now but it’s coming everywhere.”
For utilities that sell both gas and electricity, a gas phase-out presents a tremendous market shift, but not necessarily an existential one – they’ll stay in business, their customer bases intact. But for utilities that sell and service only natural, fossil gas, the prospect of Berkeley leading California toward an electric green future is horrifying.
“If you’re a gas-only utility, then building electrification is a death sentence for you. In that sense they’re almost akin to the coal mining industry,” said Pomerantz.
SoCalGas, for example, serves nearly 22 million customers, or about half the state. A subsidiary of Sempra Energy, the utility arguably has the most to lose from electrification.
“The Southern California Gas Company is just not coming to the table on this,” said Bartholomy. “They aren’t providing any vision to meet our climate targets.”
SoCalGas did not respond to a request for comment.
Gas companies won’t be the only ones left bearing the cost of old energy infrastructure. Ratepayers have in turn invested in the current pipelines, which will become stranded assets if everything electrifies.
“If you’re going to have entire communities apart from the gas system under the name of decarbonization, who is left holding the bag of the things that are already in the ground?” said Michael Colvin, director of California Energy for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Of all the challenges facing full electrification, the affordability component is among the trickiest. A report released in June cautioned that as more people leave the gas grid, the same fixed infrastructure costs will be spread across a smaller number of customers, raising prices for everyone left.
“We don’t want to have low-income communities the only ones left paying for the natural gas – these are already folks who pay a disproportionate amount of their income for energy and we don’t want to make it worse,” said Bartholomy.
But we’ve invested a lot in that gas infrastructure, and it still has to be paid for somehow, by someone.
“It was put in place assuming we would be using gas infrastructure for so many years,” said Ranjit Deshmukh, environmental studies professor at UC Santa Barbara. “Are we as a society and a consumer base obligated to pay for that even if we’re not using it in the future?”
If the public doesn’t pay for those pipelines, Colvin warns, it may be even more difficult to get the investment necessary to carry California into full electrification. “Who on earth is going to invest in us if we don’t honor our past commitments?”
The earlier California begins fully decarbonizing the state’s energy, the more time there may be to plan for what will be a painful, if necessary, phase-out. If the state is to go zero-carbon by 2045, new gas-powered appliances would need to be removed from the market by around 2030.
“We have a 10-year window to figure out a lot of these conversations. That sounds like a long time, but it’s not,” said Colvin. “There’s pipes in the ground that have been around since the 30s.”
Trump’s drilling leases on public lands could release 4.7B metric tons of carbon – more than all 28 EU countries emit in a year
July 18, 2019
By Common Dreams - Raw Story
“Americans have been kept in the dark” about the effects of Trump’s drilling leases on public lands, says the Wilderness Society
A national conservation group revealed Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s drilling leases on public lands could lead to the release of more carbon emissions than the European Union contributes in an entire year.
The Wilderness Society estimates that U.S. companies will release at least 854 million and as much as 4.7 billion metric tons of carbon if it develops leases in public waters and lands.
“These leasing decisions have significant and long-term ramifications for our climate and our ability to stave off the worst impacts of global warming.” —Wilderness Society“Taking into account the potency of shorter-lived climate pollutants like methane, lifecycle emissions resulting from the development of these leases could be as high as 5.2 billion metric tons,” the group’s new report reads.
The 28 countries in the EU released four billion metric tons in one year, according to the most recent available data.
Regardless of exactly how many leases are put to use by oil and gas companies, the Wilderness Society reports, “These leasing decisions have significant and long-term ramifications for our climate and our ability to stave off the worst impacts of global warming.”
Since taking office in 2017, Trump has offered up 378 million acres of public land to oil and gas companies and has sought to overturn the Obama administration’s ban on coal leases.
Climate action groups and lawmakers have pushed back against the administration’s plans. Earlier this month California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), saying the federal government’s plan to open up more than 725,000 acres across California amounted to an abdication of “our responsibility to protect our residents, our resources, and our right to pursue a future beyond fossil fuels.”
In Arizona on Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity was among the conservation groups which sued the Trump admininistration over its approval of leases on more than 4,000 acres, which they say will threatan wildlife and water in the Coconino Aquifer and Petrified Forest National Park.
The Wilderness Society noted in its report on what it called “Trump’s reckless leasing of public lands” that because of the federal government’s lack of transparency regarding emissions on federal property, it can only estimate how much carbon dioxide will be released should the leases be developed.
“The federal government cannot manage what it does not measure, yet the Trump administration is actively seeking to suppress disclosure of the full sweep of climate emissions from fossil energy leases,” reads the report.
The Trump administration, the Wilderness Society wrote, is currently discouraging BLM field offices from analyzing the potential effects of oil and gas extraction on public lands:
In June 2019, Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released draft guidance on how federal agencies should consider [greenhouse gas] emissions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This guidance essentially allows federal agencies to avoid fully estimating emissions for these leases, enables agencies to skirt accounting for the cumulative effects of emissions across permitted projects, and fails to encourage agencies to identify lower-emitting alternatives.
“As the world works to respond to the dire warning issued last fall by the global climate science body about the pace and scale of greenhouse gas emissions declines needed to avoid catastrophic warming,” wrote the Wilderness Society, “the American public cannot even find reliable information about the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of how their resources are being put to use.”
A national conservation group revealed Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s drilling leases on public lands could lead to the release of more carbon emissions than the European Union contributes in an entire year.
The Wilderness Society estimates that U.S. companies will release at least 854 million and as much as 4.7 billion metric tons of carbon if it develops leases in public waters and lands.
“These leasing decisions have significant and long-term ramifications for our climate and our ability to stave off the worst impacts of global warming.” —Wilderness Society“Taking into account the potency of shorter-lived climate pollutants like methane, lifecycle emissions resulting from the development of these leases could be as high as 5.2 billion metric tons,” the group’s new report reads.
The 28 countries in the EU released four billion metric tons in one year, according to the most recent available data.
Regardless of exactly how many leases are put to use by oil and gas companies, the Wilderness Society reports, “These leasing decisions have significant and long-term ramifications for our climate and our ability to stave off the worst impacts of global warming.”
Since taking office in 2017, Trump has offered up 378 million acres of public land to oil and gas companies and has sought to overturn the Obama administration’s ban on coal leases.
Climate action groups and lawmakers have pushed back against the administration’s plans. Earlier this month California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), saying the federal government’s plan to open up more than 725,000 acres across California amounted to an abdication of “our responsibility to protect our residents, our resources, and our right to pursue a future beyond fossil fuels.”
In Arizona on Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity was among the conservation groups which sued the Trump admininistration over its approval of leases on more than 4,000 acres, which they say will threatan wildlife and water in the Coconino Aquifer and Petrified Forest National Park.
The Wilderness Society noted in its report on what it called “Trump’s reckless leasing of public lands” that because of the federal government’s lack of transparency regarding emissions on federal property, it can only estimate how much carbon dioxide will be released should the leases be developed.
“The federal government cannot manage what it does not measure, yet the Trump administration is actively seeking to suppress disclosure of the full sweep of climate emissions from fossil energy leases,” reads the report.
The Trump administration, the Wilderness Society wrote, is currently discouraging BLM field offices from analyzing the potential effects of oil and gas extraction on public lands:
In June 2019, Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released draft guidance on how federal agencies should consider [greenhouse gas] emissions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This guidance essentially allows federal agencies to avoid fully estimating emissions for these leases, enables agencies to skirt accounting for the cumulative effects of emissions across permitted projects, and fails to encourage agencies to identify lower-emitting alternatives.
“As the world works to respond to the dire warning issued last fall by the global climate science body about the pace and scale of greenhouse gas emissions declines needed to avoid catastrophic warming,” wrote the Wilderness Society, “the American public cannot even find reliable information about the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of how their resources are being put to use.”
Corporations can legally put carcinogens in our food without warning labels. Here's why
Cheerios has so much glyphosate in it, it should be labeled as toxic. Corporate free speech precedents prevent that
MATTHEW ROZSA - Salon
JULY 14, 2019 2:00PM (UTC)
A recent study by the Environmental Working Group revealed something horrifying: Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, was present in 17 of the 21 oat-based cereal and snack products at levels considered unsafe for children. That includes six different brands of Cheerios, one of the most popular American cereals.
I've written before about the limits of corporate free speech when it comes to public safety, but on that occasion I discussed this insofar as it involved corporate-sponsored climate change denialism. Yet here we have something more tangible, more direct: The safe glyphosate limit for children is 160 parts per billion (ppb), yet Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch has 833 parts per billion and regular Cheerios has 729 ppb. While the potential risks of glyphosate are fiercely debated, many scientists believe that it is linked to cancer.
So if there are unsafe levels of glyphosate in a cereal popular with children, why isn't this disclosed on the cereal boxes? The complicated answer has to do with a legal case that defined free speech as something that non-human persons, like corporations, have a "right" to, in a sense. That sounds absurd, perhaps, and probably not something the framers of the constitution intended. Indeed, the idea of "corporate constitutional rights" is a relatively new one, yet one that corporations' legal arms fight tooth and nail to preserve.
There are several activist groups working to amend the constitution to undo the notion of corporate personhood and make it so that this mind-bending and harmful interpretation of corporate free speech is no longer enshrined in law. Move to Amend — as in, the constitution — is one such group. Salon interviewed Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, the National Director of Move to Amend, to understand how this weird legal situation came to exist.
What does glyphosate do to weeds?
Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, meaning it will kill most plants, not just weeds. It prevents plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth.
What do peer-reviewed studies indicate it does to human beings and animals if they ingest it?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment categorized it as a “chemical known to the state to cause cancer.”
How did glyphosate wind up in foods like breakfast cereals?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 250 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on American crops each year. Glyphosate is primarily used on Roundup Ready corn and soybeans that are genetically modified to withstand the toxin. Glyphosate is also sprayed on other non-GMO crops, like wheat, oats, barley and beans, right before harvest.
What have Monsanto and other companies done to suppress knowledge of its effects (lobbying, suppressing science, etc.)?
Monsanto has waged a sophisticated PR campaign to bully scientists and undermine findings that glyphosate is cancerous. In addition Monsanto and agribusiness leaders protecting the company's interests have a revolving door relationship with many agencies that are supposed to be overseeing and regulating the corporation. Monsanto and agribusiness associations have also made significant political contributions to Congressmembers like former Rep Lamar Smith from Texas who chaired the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he used his platform to undermine the [International Agency for Research on Cancer] when their cancer findings came out, accusing the agency of using "cherry-picked" science when determining that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.”
Good info on this is here.
Where do corporate constitutional rights play into why these companies don't have to have warnings about pesticides in their foods?
Monsanto has argued that California's Prop 65 labeling law is a violation of the company's First Amendment right not to speak.
What is the boundary separating corporate free speech between their responsibility to the public health? Have those boundaries shifted over the years?
The courts have expanded the ability of corporations to overturn labeling requirements on a number of occasions over the last 35 years. In 1986 the Supreme Court decided that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California was not required to allow a consumer advocacy group to use the extra space in their billing envelope, upholding the corporation's right not to speak and protecting the corporation's “freedom of mind.”
In 1996 the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone and ruled that the right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion.
In Nike v. Kasky in 2003 the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether purposeful untruths in advertising are protected political speech before sending the case back to a California court where it was settled in Kasky’s favor, finding that the state laws requiring truth in advertising had been violated. The question of whether the First Amendment gives a corporation the right to speak lies remains unsettled.
Legally speaking, why are companies allowed to have poisons in our foods without warning the public of that fact?
The Supreme Court never had the authority to determine that corporations have any Constitutional rights, including First Amendment rights. By granting corporations these powers, meant to be the ultimate protections for people from government overreach, it in effect means that in many ways regulatory agencies have no authority over corporate actions — even when those actions are determined to cause public harm. In cases involving the First Amendment right not to speak it is even more insidious because it means that their so-called right not to warn the public about their toxic products trumps our right to know what's in our food.
The only solution to this problem is to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make clear that only human beings have Constitutional rights, and that government absolutely has the right to regulate corporations like Monsanto, so that they can no longer use the Constitution as a shield against public oversight and protection. The We the People Amendment will do just that.
I've written before about the limits of corporate free speech when it comes to public safety, but on that occasion I discussed this insofar as it involved corporate-sponsored climate change denialism. Yet here we have something more tangible, more direct: The safe glyphosate limit for children is 160 parts per billion (ppb), yet Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch has 833 parts per billion and regular Cheerios has 729 ppb. While the potential risks of glyphosate are fiercely debated, many scientists believe that it is linked to cancer.
So if there are unsafe levels of glyphosate in a cereal popular with children, why isn't this disclosed on the cereal boxes? The complicated answer has to do with a legal case that defined free speech as something that non-human persons, like corporations, have a "right" to, in a sense. That sounds absurd, perhaps, and probably not something the framers of the constitution intended. Indeed, the idea of "corporate constitutional rights" is a relatively new one, yet one that corporations' legal arms fight tooth and nail to preserve.
There are several activist groups working to amend the constitution to undo the notion of corporate personhood and make it so that this mind-bending and harmful interpretation of corporate free speech is no longer enshrined in law. Move to Amend — as in, the constitution — is one such group. Salon interviewed Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, the National Director of Move to Amend, to understand how this weird legal situation came to exist.
What does glyphosate do to weeds?
Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, meaning it will kill most plants, not just weeds. It prevents plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth.
What do peer-reviewed studies indicate it does to human beings and animals if they ingest it?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment categorized it as a “chemical known to the state to cause cancer.”
How did glyphosate wind up in foods like breakfast cereals?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 250 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on American crops each year. Glyphosate is primarily used on Roundup Ready corn and soybeans that are genetically modified to withstand the toxin. Glyphosate is also sprayed on other non-GMO crops, like wheat, oats, barley and beans, right before harvest.
What have Monsanto and other companies done to suppress knowledge of its effects (lobbying, suppressing science, etc.)?
Monsanto has waged a sophisticated PR campaign to bully scientists and undermine findings that glyphosate is cancerous. In addition Monsanto and agribusiness leaders protecting the company's interests have a revolving door relationship with many agencies that are supposed to be overseeing and regulating the corporation. Monsanto and agribusiness associations have also made significant political contributions to Congressmembers like former Rep Lamar Smith from Texas who chaired the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he used his platform to undermine the [International Agency for Research on Cancer] when their cancer findings came out, accusing the agency of using "cherry-picked" science when determining that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.”
Good info on this is here.
Where do corporate constitutional rights play into why these companies don't have to have warnings about pesticides in their foods?
Monsanto has argued that California's Prop 65 labeling law is a violation of the company's First Amendment right not to speak.
What is the boundary separating corporate free speech between their responsibility to the public health? Have those boundaries shifted over the years?
The courts have expanded the ability of corporations to overturn labeling requirements on a number of occasions over the last 35 years. In 1986 the Supreme Court decided that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California was not required to allow a consumer advocacy group to use the extra space in their billing envelope, upholding the corporation's right not to speak and protecting the corporation's “freedom of mind.”
In 1996 the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone and ruled that the right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion.
In Nike v. Kasky in 2003 the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether purposeful untruths in advertising are protected political speech before sending the case back to a California court where it was settled in Kasky’s favor, finding that the state laws requiring truth in advertising had been violated. The question of whether the First Amendment gives a corporation the right to speak lies remains unsettled.
Legally speaking, why are companies allowed to have poisons in our foods without warning the public of that fact?
The Supreme Court never had the authority to determine that corporations have any Constitutional rights, including First Amendment rights. By granting corporations these powers, meant to be the ultimate protections for people from government overreach, it in effect means that in many ways regulatory agencies have no authority over corporate actions — even when those actions are determined to cause public harm. In cases involving the First Amendment right not to speak it is even more insidious because it means that their so-called right not to warn the public about their toxic products trumps our right to know what's in our food.
The only solution to this problem is to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make clear that only human beings have Constitutional rights, and that government absolutely has the right to regulate corporations like Monsanto, so that they can no longer use the Constitution as a shield against public oversight and protection. The We the People Amendment will do just that.
the gop will destory every living thing on the planet!!!
Radical Republicans Want To Finish Off An Endangered Fish
Missouri Lawmakers Block Army Corps Effort to Save Pallid Sturgeon Hatchlings
By Sarah Okeson - DC Report
7/12/19
The pallid sturgeon, a bottom-dwelling fish found in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, has survived since the days of the dinosaurs, but it might not survive Missouri’s Republican politicians.
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) sponsored an amendment that made it into legislation Trump signed in October, America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, S.3021, to block efforts to help young pallid sturgeon that suffocate and die in the dead zones of the industrialized Missouri River.
“For the sake of landowners, businesses and taxpayers, I believe we must halt these activities until the Corps can prove more harm will not be done to Missourians,” Graves said.
The new law blocks plans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dozen areas in the river below Kansas City, Mo., for just-hatched pallid sturgeon to feed and grow in slower, shallower water. Six major dams built on the 2,341-mile river between 1933 and 1964 created dead zones with very little oxygen where the young pallid sturgeon suffocate and die. Thefish, which can grow to 80 pounds and live 60 years or more, were listed as endangered in 1990.
Two shallow areas to help newly-hatched pallid sturgeon survive were built at Searcy Bend, near Huntsdale, Mo., and Baltimore Bend, near Waverly, Mo. The law Trump signed blocks building more areas until a report is done about the impact on flood control and navigation.
The American Waterways Operators, the national trade organization for the barge industry, opposes building these areas, saying they could hinder navigation. The organization gave $273,000 to federal candidates in the 2018 election cycle, including $7,500 to Graves.
Despite politicians’ support, the Missouri River plays a very small role in agricultural markets. In 2017, the 5 million short tons of cargo transported, most of it sand and gravel, was 1.6% of what was transported on the Mississippi River.
Historically, flooding was common on the Missouri River with floods up to 17 miles wide. When Lewis and Clark explored the river, it had multiple channels, islands, shallow sloughs and oxbow lakes. The Corps transformed the river into a nine-foot-deep by 300-foot-wide navigation channel from Sioux City, Iowa to the mouth of the river near St. Louis.
Flooding in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014 has been among the worst flooding years in the river’s history. In March 2018, a federal judge ruled that the Corps was responsible for flooding in some of those years because of changes to try to protect endangered species. The damage estimates for this year along the Missouri and Platte rivers already top $1 billion, and that’s just for repairing levees.
John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School, said it is unclear whether flooding of private land along the Missouri in recent years has been any greater than it would have been if the federal government hadn’t spent millions to build the flood control system on the Missouri River.
Missouri politicians now are proposing the Missouri River Flood Control Prioritization Act, S.1571, which could bar the Corps from trying to prevent extinction of the pallid sturgeon. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sponsors the bill. Co-sponsors include Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa.) Graves is the sponsor of the House version of the bill.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to get its priorities straight, and that means putting flood control and navigation first,” Blunt said.
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) sponsored an amendment that made it into legislation Trump signed in October, America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, S.3021, to block efforts to help young pallid sturgeon that suffocate and die in the dead zones of the industrialized Missouri River.
“For the sake of landowners, businesses and taxpayers, I believe we must halt these activities until the Corps can prove more harm will not be done to Missourians,” Graves said.
The new law blocks plans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dozen areas in the river below Kansas City, Mo., for just-hatched pallid sturgeon to feed and grow in slower, shallower water. Six major dams built on the 2,341-mile river between 1933 and 1964 created dead zones with very little oxygen where the young pallid sturgeon suffocate and die. Thefish, which can grow to 80 pounds and live 60 years or more, were listed as endangered in 1990.
Two shallow areas to help newly-hatched pallid sturgeon survive were built at Searcy Bend, near Huntsdale, Mo., and Baltimore Bend, near Waverly, Mo. The law Trump signed blocks building more areas until a report is done about the impact on flood control and navigation.
The American Waterways Operators, the national trade organization for the barge industry, opposes building these areas, saying they could hinder navigation. The organization gave $273,000 to federal candidates in the 2018 election cycle, including $7,500 to Graves.
Despite politicians’ support, the Missouri River plays a very small role in agricultural markets. In 2017, the 5 million short tons of cargo transported, most of it sand and gravel, was 1.6% of what was transported on the Mississippi River.
Historically, flooding was common on the Missouri River with floods up to 17 miles wide. When Lewis and Clark explored the river, it had multiple channels, islands, shallow sloughs and oxbow lakes. The Corps transformed the river into a nine-foot-deep by 300-foot-wide navigation channel from Sioux City, Iowa to the mouth of the river near St. Louis.
Flooding in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014 has been among the worst flooding years in the river’s history. In March 2018, a federal judge ruled that the Corps was responsible for flooding in some of those years because of changes to try to protect endangered species. The damage estimates for this year along the Missouri and Platte rivers already top $1 billion, and that’s just for repairing levees.
John Echeverria, a professor at Vermont Law School, said it is unclear whether flooding of private land along the Missouri in recent years has been any greater than it would have been if the federal government hadn’t spent millions to build the flood control system on the Missouri River.
Missouri politicians now are proposing the Missouri River Flood Control Prioritization Act, S.1571, which could bar the Corps from trying to prevent extinction of the pallid sturgeon. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sponsors the bill. Co-sponsors include Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa.) Graves is the sponsor of the House version of the bill.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to get its priorities straight, and that means putting flood control and navigation first,” Blunt said.
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