This is the 605th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the June 22 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
Alexandra Arriaga writes—In the 2020 debate over climate policy, the stakes are especially high for communities of color: “As a crowd of Democrats enters the first primary debates on Wednesday and Thursday, a growing number of voters will be waiting to parse through candidates’ proposals for tackling the crisis of climate change. Polls have shown climate change moving to the forefront as an issue in this year’s election, with a proposal for a Green New Deal pushing candidates’ agendas on cutting greenhouse gases. While environmental activists have pushed for a single-issue debate focused on climate change, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez shot down the idea earlier this month, saying it would unfairly cater to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s campaign, which has been centered on the issue. But other candidates have also come out with ambitious climate proposals and have agreed to participate in a climate-focused debate. This week, 74 medical and public health groups categorized climate change as a ‘health emergency’ as they pushed for stronger commitments to reduce carbon emissions from candidates. The stakes are especially high for communities of color, who studies have shown can be more vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.”
Lawrence writes—Saving The Environment by Picking The Low-Hanging Fruit: “Accomplishing the things that can easily and inexpensively be done now. The global consensus to combat rapid Climate Change has gained steam throughout much of the world over the last decade. With the general exception of those countries whose economies are highly dependent on the extraction and sale of fossil fuels, most countries now strive to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels and reduce Greenhouse gas emissions. Popular movements such as ‘Fridays for Future’ and the fossil fuel divestment movement are also putting pressure on governments and corporations to move forward. One problem inherent to the environmental movement has, however, traditionally been the dogma that ‘doing something about the environment’ means heavily curtailing the modern technologies and lifestyles that most in the industrialized world have become accustomed to. The often unspoken part of this dogma of sacrifice has been that the many billions of people living in developing nations like India, China, and Indonesia would never be able to achieve a standard of living similar to the one enjoyed by those of us who have the luxury of living in an industrialized nation. This is simply just plain not realistic, not fair, and will likely lead to inevitable failure, if the approach focuses too much on having less rather than having a comfortable and sustainable lifestyle that has a low impact on the environment.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: It's that damn Armadillo: “One more reason to dislike 9-banded Armadillos, and yes I am guessing here, but it’s likely an armadillo got to this small turtle. Look around the edges where the shell was gnawed. Armadillos have 90-something teeth so I guess they could do it. [...] The University of Florida extension agency says armadillos will eat small vertebrates and their eggs. The shell was along my wooded path the armadillo’s usual path. It could be one of the hatchlings I found a few years ago. Outside of my vegetable garden, where I have banked soil against the fence, has been a good spot for turtles to lay eggs. Sucks that twice so far something has dug up nests and eaten the eggs. I’ll surely blame the armadillos since around the garden back fence is its usual route.”
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: Open Bucket hosted by the 2nd Coming of Butterflyweed: “This really is the second flowering of this Butterflyweed. You can see the old stubs from flowering the month before. These are new flowerheads on the same old stalks. There were 3 stalks when I found it a decade ago next to the woods, now it has several. The cover photo is one of the offspring, a toddler so to speak.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - solstice gnomons: “A few days ago was summer solstice, the date when the earth’s North Pole is tipped farthest toward the sun as our planet makes its yearly journey. Plants and animals have always oriented their life activities around the turn of the seasons, day length and intensity of sunlight being critically important to life. Humans noticed that variation early on too, and have devised an array of tools to measure it, since there’s usefulness in identifying the pattern for predictive purposes, ie. when’s maximum day length so I know when to plant/harvest etc. A gnomon (name from gnō-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to know.”) is a tool that’s been used for at least 4000 years, first examples uncovered in China, later Babylonia, then Greece by 660 BC. A gnomon casts a shadow; the shape and movement of the shadow tells us about the relative movements of the earth and sun. Gnomons are used most frequently these days in decorative sundials, but they are more than just a fun garden novelty with a pithy motto. They work.”
OceanDiver writes—Dawn Chorus: Open that beak, er, Thread: “Today’s Dawn Chorus is an open thread since all the usual hosts (including me) have their beaks and bills away from home somewhere. So here are a few birdies giving us some encouragement to open our own beaks to share our birdy news of the week. Welcome to the Chorus and tell us who’s been bending your ear lately.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - a short slow walk on a nearby beach: “Yesterday I got out onto the beach for a slow stroll. Nothing dramatic going on, but if you look around there are always seashore things to see.”
enhydra lutris writes—The Daily Bucket - June 2019 Yard Report: “This is part of my ongoing project to document the changes in our yard from month to month.”
Angmar writes—The Daily Bucket: Skies of Spring turn to skies of Summer: “Mammatus (mamma or mammatocumulus), meaning "mammary cloud", is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically cumulonimbus rainclouds, although they may be attached to other classes of parent clouds. The name mammatus is derived from the Latin mamma (meaning "udder" or "breast"). According to the WMO International Cloud Atlas, mamma is a cloud supplementary feature rather than a genus, species or variety of cloud. They are formed by cold air sinking down to form the pockets contrary to the puffs of clouds rising through the convection of warm air. These formations were first described in 1894 by William Clement Ley.en.m.wikipedia.org/...”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Marissa Higgins writes—In the Himalayas, glacier melting has doubled since 2000, says new study: “Glaciers in the Himalayas are melting at twice the rate they used to, according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances. Why? In short: climate change. A team of scientists used satellite images taken during four decades (including during the Cold War, from spy satellites) to make the comparison. In layman’s terms, scientists converted the satellite images into 3D images and used those to compare the thickness of ice in 650 different regions. The study encompasses a wide area, from India, China, Nepal, and Bhutan, and even includes Mount Everest. Unfortunately, the wide area has a consistent bad result: lots and lots of loss. There’s been a loss of 8.3 billion tons of ice per year since 2000. In the years between1975 and 2000, the average was 4.3 billion tons. To put this another way, according to researchers, less than three-quarters of the ice that existed back in 1975 still exists today.”
Mark Sumner writes—It's the hottest day ever recorded in Europe, as Earth hurtles deeper into the climate crisis: “A month ago, we flagged RollCall’s reporting that the Department of Interior formalized a process that allows Trump appointees to decide whether or not documents requested under FOIA would be released. Apparently, the EPA saw something it liked in that approach. The Hill’s Miranda Green reported yesterday that Andrew Wheeler signed off on a new FOIA rule that does the same thing. (Whether it’s actually legal and will survive the inevitable litigation is questionable, to say the least, given that the DC Circuit court has apparently already ruled that you can’t do this.) The policy gives a whole raft of political appointees at EPA the authority to decide “whether to release or withhold a record or a portion of a record on the basis of responsiveness or under one or more exemptions under the FOIA, and to issue ‘no records’ responses’.”
Meteor Blades writes—Trump fails to persuade anyone to abandon support for Paris climate accord in G20's final communiqué: “At the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, this week, Donald Trump failed in his effort to get several nations to back off their support of the Paris climate accord. If he had succeeded, this likely would have killed the final communiqué usually issued at the end of each G20 meeting. Three senior officials told Politico reporters that Trump had been pressuring Australia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Turkey to withdraw their support for the G20’s commitment to the 2015 climate accord. It didn’t work. In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron gave notice early on that he would veto the final communiqué if it weakened the G20’s support for the accord. As it turned out, Trump’s arm-twisting lost out, and the communiqué’s language declares similar support for the accord as it has in the past, with an ‘agree to disagree’ carve-out for the United States in the document like those that have been included since 2017.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Science Shows Serious Denier Pushback Is Good, But Fun and Games are Better! “On Tuesday, Scientific American ran a great story on debating deniers, covering a couple of new studies that are, to put it mildly, relevant to our interests. The first study looked at whether it was more effective to rebut denial by addressing the factual errors presented (a topic-based approach) or by addressing the ways in which deniers are deceptive (exposing the techniques they use). It also tested if rebutting the myths actually reinforced them, a concept known as the backfire effect. The results showed that both topic and technique-based rebuttals reduced the negative impact of anti-vaccine and climate change denial arguments. Neither proved to be significantly more effective than the other, and combining them together doesn’t seem to have a greater effect than either alone. It’s nice to know that climate scientists who provide the facts disproving denial are just as effective as those who expose deniers’ rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies, and that there’s not necessarily a need for any one person to be an expert in both types of rebuttals.”
Pakalolo writes—Nares Strait Ice Arch collapses early - flushing old sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean into Baffin Bay: “Kathryn Hansen of NASA's Earth Observatory writes on the disturbing story out of the Arctic when the Nares Strait sea ice arch collapsed 2 months early in March instead of the normal June or July. Arches, whether formed by nature or engineered by humans, commonly tower above the ground. Not this arch. Composed of sea ice, it spans the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in the horizontal direction. But the relatively flat “ice arch” still has structural importance. It acts a gatekeeper, preventing sea ice from exiting the Arctic Ocean and drifting southward into Baffin Bay. The arch is not a permanent fixture: It usually forms each year toward the end of autumn or early winter and breaks up by June or July. In 2019, however, the arch disintegrated in late March—months earlier than usual. The breakup is visible in this series of images acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite.”
rktect writes—Arctic News Goes there "Beyond Climate Tipping points": “Mount Everest no longer has snow and ice to cover the bodies of hundreds of dead climbersThe Polar Ice Caps with Ice Shelves the size of New England States are detaching. The damage has been done. Fossil fuel companies like Exxon knew exactly what would happen back in 1980. Patrick Moynahan warned Nixon, Hollywood made movies about it shown by GE back in the ’50s, now we see grey whales stacked up on our beaches. It gets pretty obvious that we have to do something. My wife and I got tickets for Mars as a wedding present. My son wants to rebuild the sea ice. I’m not sure either of those will do much good.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Pink Floyd guitarist sells his guitars for a record $21 million to combat climate change: “The legendary Pink Floyd lead guitarist David Gilmour had a record-setting auction for musical instruments last week.* According to Guinness, the 123 guitars Gilmour auctioned offmade up the largest collection of guitars ever auctioned. The lot, which included the black Fender Stratocaster used during the making of the album Dark Side of the Moon and the song “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,’ fetched $21,198,250, becoming the ‘most expensive guitar collection sold at a charity auction.’ Then Gilmour announced on his Twitter feed what he was doing with all that money. […] Quoting 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Gilmour said that “either we choose to go on as a civilization, or we don’t.” Gilmour donated the proceeds to ClientEarth, a law-based charity that fights for climate change initiatives around the world. Shine on, Mr. Gilmour.”
Xaxnar writes—Debate is Over for Dems: Climate Crisis It Is. GOP: Crisis! What Crisis? “In case you were wondering why Climate Change is getting the attention of Democratic candidates, and why “Climate Crisis” is finally getting some traction, the BBC’s Matt McGrath had a report from their Met Office with a grim prediction back in February that more than justifies it: Climate change: World heading for warmest decade, says Met Office. The Met Office is forecasting that temperatures for each of the next five years are likely to be 1C or more above pre-industrial levels. In the next five years there's also a chance we'll see a year in which the average global temperature rise could be greater than 1.5C. That's seen as a critical threshold for climate change. If the data matches the forecast, then the decade from 2014-2023 will be the warmest in more than 150 years of record keeping.”
Xaxnar writes—This is happening now. Not in 100 years. Not by 2050. Not by 2040. Now: “Republicans and the monied/corporate interests behind them are not just in denial — they are working to suppress any efforts to deal with this. The terrible ‘good’ news is that it’s getting harder to ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room — but that won’t stop them from using any means to keep doing it. They are hiding the bad news — you cannot trust government under Republican control for the truth. It’s past time to start calling the fossil fuel industry and their agents what they are: Merchants of Death. Like the tobacco industry, like the gun lobby, it’s all about profits over people and the planet. While the headline is about Europe, the climate crisis is global. If you’re not feeling the effects where you are, be sure you will — and it doesn’t have to be direct like a heat wave, a monster hurricane, a flood, or massive snowfall.”
Angmar writes—New York City Declares A Climate Emergency: “New York City just became the largest municipality in the Americas to declare a climate emergency. The City Council overwhelmingly voted Wednesday afternoon to approve a resolution pushed by activists, adding bulk to a growing list of legislation aimed at cutting emissions in an economy that ranks among the top 20 in the world. It’s largely symbolic, and does not even require the mayor’s signature. But it codifies recognition of a threat that became real for many New Yorkers in 2012, when Superstorm Sandy shut down subways and power across large swaths of the city and flooded waterfront neighborhoods”
Angmar writes—"Climate Crisis- Private sector must be forced to invest in ‘Green Revolution’, says UK Labour": “Labour will back measures deterring investment in fossil fuels as part of a new drive to stop the financial sector from funding global heating, John McDonnell will reveal this week. The shadow chancellor will use a speech in the City on Monday to commit to using the ‘full might of the Treasury’ to tackle the issue. He will commit the party to forcing the private sector into investing in the ‘green industrial revolution.’ He will announce a review of the financial sector’s role in the climate crisis, looking at ‘where and how it is causing or exacerbating problems.’ It will examine measures preventing financial institutions from ‘actively contributing to planetary heating or exposing our economy to financial instability’.”
Angmar writes—"Wildfires- UK gardeners given tips to avoid wildfires as Climate Crisis raises”: “UK faces an increasing risk of blazes from global heating. This year has already been the worst for wildfires in the country in the last decade, perhaps longer, and comes on top of a significant rise in the number and extent of fires during last summer’s record-breaking drought and heatwave. So far this year, there have been 134 wildfires in the UK, burning more than 29,000ha of land. This is substantially more than the 18,000ha burned in 79 incidents in 2018, when blazes on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester and Winter Hill in Lancashire, as well as dozens of smaller fires across the country, caused devastation."
Angmar writes—"Hottest day ever recorded in Europe" And we're STILL arguing about holding a Climate debate: “France recorded temperatures nearly two degrees higher than its previous record and firefighters continued to battle historic wildfires in Spain as much of western Europe remained in the grip of an extreme early-summer heatwave on Friday. The French state weather forecaster, Météo-France, said the temperature in Gallargues-le-Montueux in the Gard département hit 45.9C at 4.20pm on Friday. The previous 2003 record of 44.1C was beaten twice before on Friday: first when the southeastern town of Carpentras reached 44.3C, then hours later when Villevieille, in Provence, hit 45.1C.(113.18o f) www.theguardian.com/...”
Aldous J Pennyfarthing writes—Jake Tapper laughs in Pence's face: 'We don't have the cleanest air and water in the world': “On CNN this morning, Mike Pence tried to summon as much gravitas as he could—veering dangerously close to the event horizon of fatally constipated—in order to sell a few of those common-sense homespun lies that play so well in the heartland. He sounded like an ass—but, significantly, not a braying ass like his Sith Lord. He simply sounded like a ‘Christian’ greasing the skids for the destruction of God’s creation. In the wake of the Trump administration’s rollback last week of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Jake Tapper asked Pence if he thinks climate change is a threat to our country.”
HalBrown writes—Coverage of an Oregon story about GOP trying to stop climate change vote shows bias: “I was surprised to see a story about my liberal home state of Oregon. It had a catchy headline as the top of the page story on Huffpost. The coverage of the story depended on the bias of the websites. Huffpost covered the story the best with straight reporting and interviews with people on each side. As they often do their headline and subtitle (“The GOP lawmakers are on the lam to sabotage a vote on a historic bill to combat climate change”) showed their liberal bias. There was no opining in the story itself. To get an idea of what’s happening here’s an excerpt from the Huffpost story: Oregon citizens and state troopers are keeping an eye peeled for AWOL Republican state senators who by being absent from their legislative jobs are stonewalling a vote on stricter pollution standards to battle climate change. All 11 of the chamber’s GOP senators walked out of a legislative session Thursday and are in hiding to block passage of the historic bill. They don’t have the votes to stop it the old-fashioned, democratic way. The walkout leaves the Senate two people short of a required quorum before a vote can be held.”
Pretiare writes—Adaptation to Climate Crisis and New Zealand: “New Zealand’s projections over the next decades have become more dire for climate change/crisis effects. Currently it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere with fewer frosts and higher snowlines. Information on projections of climate change are readily available for New Zealanders online. New Zealand has become a favorite place for the ultra-wealthy to have their boltholes. Perhaps it isn’t as rosy of a choice as they first thought. The following highlights are all from a 2008 article: www.nzgeo.com/… [Emphasis added by me.] NIWA’s researchers [National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Ltd, New Zealand] used the results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Report [2007] ..., which provides a broad-brush picture of the changes likely to take place around the globe. Over the last 100 years, New Zealand’s temperature has increased by 0.9ºC. [This statistic hasn’t been revised in more recent literature.]”
Pakalolo writes—Record high temperatures as candidates and media descend on Miami for the first Democratic debate: “Miami’s hot today. Hotter than the Devil’s balls even hotter than a Lanbi Pike Nan Ji Sitwon in a sweltering Little Haiti cafe. Of course, Miami is either pleasantly warm or hot-year round. We haven't really had a cold winter in many years (though unusual - we can get snowfall). Summer is brutal in Miami, it is the season of the infamous Miami heat. But, we should not be this hot in June. Oppressive, smothering heat usually arrives in August and stays through September and October. Those are the days when residents stay inside when the Cape Verde season starts when powerful hurricanes spin off the coasts along with higher sea levels and storm surge could wipe the city off the map. The city is a tourist and investor magnet, a massive fun in the sun metropolis with an international resort vibe. Local governments in Southeast Florida recognize the clear and present danger that a heating planet will have on us. Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Broward and Monroe counties all joined the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact. The Compact works in mitigating the causes and adapting to the consequences of climate change.”
Pakalolo writes—Warming forces microbes into dangerous climate feedbacks-proceed at your peril warn scientists: “The climate is extremely complicated and overwhelming for those of us that are not scientists. One thing we know for sure about humanity's massive science project with our atmosphere, however, is that pumping unfathomable amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere damages the interconnectivity of Earths ecosystems resulting in a cascading series of changes that can exacerbate the horrifying changes already in progress. Thirty microbiologists have a code red warning for climate scientists along with the rest of humanity, that the microbial world is being left out of climate calculations.”
POPULATION, SUSTAINABILITY & EXTINCTION
gmoke writes—Predicting Extinction Rebellion: “Although these predictions of mass climate action are more violent than the present moment. The Sheep Look Up, by John Brunner (1972) (page 14-15) Sharp on nine the Trainites had scattered caltraps in the roadway and created a monumental snarl-up twelve blocks by seven. The fuzz, as usual, was elsewhere - there were always plenty of sympathizers willing to cause a diversion. It was impossible to guess how many allies the movement had; at a rough guess, though, one could say that in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, LA or San Francisco people were apt to cheer, while in the surrounding suburbs or the Midwest people were apt to go fetch guns. In other words, they had least support in the areas which had voted for Prexy. ‘Next, the stalled cars had their windows opaqued with a cheap commercial compound used for etching glass, and slogans were painted on their doors. Some were long: THIS VEHICLE IS A DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB. Many were short: IT STINKS! But the commonest of all was the universally known catchphrase: STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME!”
ENERGY
Nuclear
Rei writes—Nuclear Power: Always More Popular On K-Street Than Wall Street: “Barring the early period of ‘too cheap to meter’ optimism, nuclear power has consistently been more popular on K-Street than Wall Street. Curiously among political topics, nuclear power has its staunch ideologues on both the left and the right. Yet the place where it lacks support is perhaps where it needs it the most: investors. While debates about nuclear power tend to focus on side topics such as fuel supply, waste handling, and reactor safety, the industry lives or dies based on economics — and the modern history of the industry has been one of “dying”, despite desperate attempts by governments to prop it up.”
R Holloway writes—Why *conventional* nuclear energy cannot possibly be the solution to the climate crisis: “1st premise. The solution to the climate crisis is to electrify everything, and to generate the electricity from (ideally) zero-carbon sources. 2nd premise. Humanity’s total power consumption is about 18 terawatts. 3rd Premise. Total recoverable reserves of uranium 235 correspond to about 1022joules of fission energy. From the 2nd and 3rd premises, we can easily calculate that there are only sufficient reserves of recoverable uranium 235 for conventional nuclear energy to power the world for about a decade: human power consumption = (18 terawatts)x(365 days/year)x(24 hours/day)x(60 minutes/hour)x(60 seconds/minute) = 5.7x1020 watt-seconds/year ≈ 1021 joules/year. (1022 joules of fission energy)/(1021 joules/year of human power consumption) = 10 years, QED. So if conventional nuclear energy isn’t up to the task of dealing with the climate crisis, then what about unconventional nuclear energy? Well, for years already for top climate scientist James Hansen has been calling for the rapid buildout of the integral fast reactor (IFR), to consume existing stockpiles of nuclear waste, and the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, to prevent more nuclear waste from being created. (An important point being that both the IFR and the LFTR can be made inherently much safer than today’s conventional nuclear reactors.) Nevertheless, in this writer’s (admittedly nonexpert) opinion, given the historical and probable future problems associated with breeder reactors (like the IFR), and the unproven nature of the LFTR, it is doubtful that unconventional nuclear energy is a superior solution to solar, wind, and other forms of non-nuclear renewable energy, which are already on hand.”
Fossil Fuels
Dan Bacher writes—As Oil Drilling Expands, Coalition Urges Governor to Take Immediate Action to Protect Communities: “As the expansion of oil and gas drilling begun under Governor Jerry Brown continues in California, Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday signed into law a state budget that allocates $1.5 million for ‘a study to identify strategies to decrease demand and supply of fossil fuels, while managing the decline of fossil fuel use in a way that is economically responsible and sustainable.’ An interagency state team, in partnership with the University of California system, will explore managing the decline of in-state production alongside a decrease in demand, according to a news release from coalition of environmental and climate justice groups. Despite California’s “green” veneer, Governor Jerry Brown’s oil and gas regulators approved over 21,000 new oil and gas wells, including over 200 new offshore wells, according to a 2018 analysis of Department of Conservation data by the Fracktracker Alliance. Preliminary indications are that this expansion of fracking and other extreme oil and gas drilling continues unabated under Governor Newsom.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—What Will You Find? Treasure Trove Of Fossil Fuel Industry Documents Made Public: “Yesterday, Chris D’Angelo at HuffPost wrote about how Trump’s approach to climate change “echoes Big Oil’s 1998 denial campaign,” framed mainly around a document exposed two decades ago detailing the denial gameplan that we’ve seen the Trump administration roll out. Fortunately, there are now a ton of similar documents available to those interested in charting denial’s history. The Climate Investigations Center has provided UC San Francisco with over a thousand documents from their database. UCSF is already home to the Tobacco Industry document database, where millions of documents detailing Big Tobacco’s denial operations are kept as a result of the industry’s major loss in court. Now, they’ve added a fossil fuel section to accompany the documents from tobacco, drug, chemical and food companies. Over at DeSmog, John Mashey this week described the sorts of stories one can write with these kinds of internal documents. The Chamber of Commerce’s tobacco advocacy is one opportunity, and a quick perusal of the documents provides plenty of other potential options for further digging.”
Aldous J Pennyfarthing writes—U.S. renewable energy generation just surpassed coal for the first time ever: “Donald Trump has staked his grubby little political future in part on a supposed renaissance in dirty, backward-looking industries like coal production. Unfortunately for him, the world doesn’t stand still for anyone, much less the imperial tonne of congealed adipose and inertia who calls himself our 45th pr*sident. Renewable energy is our future, whereas fossil fuels are our past and rapidly fading present. That’s just the way it is. We can prepare our workers for the future or lie our asses off to make them feel better. Guess which path Trump has taken? In April, we got a glimpse of that future. The production of renewable energy — once considered the bailiwick of kooks, vegans, unscrubbed hippies, and pie-eyed, dope-smoking liberals (i.e., me) — has now passed that of coal for the first time in our country’s history.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Oil company has been leaking 4,500 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years: “It wasn’t until 2008 that Taylor Energy Company and the government made a deal that created a $666 million trust meant to stop the spill from continuing to leak into the Gulf. The deal coincided with Taylor selling off its oil interests to a South Korean company. While the money was meant to help stop the leak, it did not. The company and the government kept the size of the spill very quiet until around 2015, when the Associated Press did an investigation that estimated that the Taylor Energy oil rig was leaking at least 91 gallons of oil per day, and had been for more than a decade. This was about twice as much as Taylor Company’s public estimates of 1-41 gallons per day of leakage. In 2018 a report by environmental watchdogs SkyTruth, using satellite data and pollution reports, put the amount of oil flooding the gulf from the Taylor rig somewhere between 37-900 gallons a day. That’s a big difference that began bringing the size of the Taylor Company oil rig into focus, placing it into the top 10 worst oil spills in the last few decades, up there with the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. In 2018, Taylor Energy attempted to get back $423 million from the government by dissolving the trust they had made the original deal on.”
Emissions Controls & Carbon Pricing
solarsean writes—Ten Years To Zero Carbon: “Solar power represents the fastest means to transform this country’s and the world’s electrical energy away from fossil fuel. For all practical purposes there is an infinite supply. California has made the most progress so far, but thirteen years after the California Solar Initiative jump-started the industry with its tiered rebates, which are now used up and no longer necessary anyway, we still have not even reached Governor Schwarznegger’s “million solar roofs.” We are close, over 800,000 homes at last count, but at this rate it will take over a century before every home in this state is solar powered. And market penetration in California is a multiple of every other state, with the possible exception of Hawaii. The challenge here is to compel the entire country to switch to solar immediately. There are a number of ways to do this. Here in this state we have already entered the era of intermittent electricity; the utilities have warned us that they will de-energize transmission lines in high wind, high fire danger areas so as to prevent further fatal wild fires. These interruptions could last for several days. This, of course is loud rock music to the ears of energy storage executives and really to all of us who provide distributed energy, generated at the point of use and so not dependent on miles of transmission lines.”
Renewables, Efficiency, Energy Storage & Conservation
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—JoNova Attacks Risks Of Wind And Solar As US Oil Refinery Explodes: “Australian blogger Jo Nova had a pair of posts on Friday, one on wind and one on solar. The solar story was simple: some birds caused a fire at a California solar farm, dramatically reducing its output for a couple weeks. The wind story, meanwhile, addresses the longstanding myth hilariously botched by President Trump when he claimed wind turbines cause cancer--that there are healthimpacts to living near wind farms. According to a new study with an incredible sample size of NINE HOUSES, researchers found that noise from wind turbines can occasionally be heard in houses that are less than 3.5 kilometers away. They didn’t find any health impacts. Nova claims there are “almost no studies into the health impact of wind farms,” pointing to another study with a similarly insignificantly small sample size of six people in three houses, and asks why there aren’t more large-scale studies on the issue. ‘Are we afraid of what the results might show?’ she questions. Except, of course, there have been plenty of other studies on wind farms and health, and they show that there are no impacts.”
Mokurai writes—Renewable Friday: Our Most Important Renewable Resource is Children: “More than a billion of them at a time. One of the largest environmental protests ever is underway. It’s led by children. Kids are fed up with grown-ups’ inaction on climate change. Scientific American: Children Change Their Parents’ Minds about Climate Change Study of students schooled on the issue showed them going on to shift their elders’ attitudes. Children may be their parents' best climate-change teachers, scientists find. Danielle Lawson, lead author of the study published by the journal Nature Climate Change and a researcher at North Carolina State University, said the findings could "empower" ongoing efforts by students, such as the "Fridays for Future" marches.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
assaf writes—EV Revolution: A New Daily Kos Group: “As Earth Day approached, I invited the amazing Rei to co-found this new Daily Kos Group, and Rei kindly agreed. Earth Day, as you may have noted, was in April, and two months later this group has yet to be announced officially. Spring is my busiest time of year (full-time job plus evening teaching). So instead of Earth Day it’s happening on Solstice Week. Technically, this is not our first posted diary; a month ago I republished Mokurai’s excellent reclist Renewable Friday EV diary, and immediately thereafter Mokurai became our first invited group member, and has posted another EV diary since then. If you want to join, feel free to message the group. Everyone will be at least a Blog Editor, and I’m contemplating making all of us Blog Admins. I’m a big fan of ‘flat’ egalitarian org structures. We have too few of those in life.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
guavaboy writes—The South Asia water crisis is here. A hundred million people will be affected to begin with: “Early this month there were record high temperatures in Delhi ( 48 c which is 118.4 f) and in Churu, halfway between Delhi and Bikaner where it was 50.8 c.I travelled in that region in November 2014, and of course I took a four-day camel trek. It was plenty hot that time of year, so much so that we had to take a three hour siesta each day under whatever bushes we could find. We were in the Thar desert of Rajasthan if you really must know. Chennai is out of water now. Time lapse satellite photo of Chennai reservoir disappearing:
News from India says that 21 cities with about a hundred million people, will run out of groundwater by 2020. Yes folks, that’s next year.”
guavaboy writes—South Asia Water Crisis Update June 28th: “In the meantime, I thought I would give you a geography lesson about Chennai. It was formerly known as “Madras” under British rule, and it is “the gateway to Tamil Nadu.” I haven’t been there, but I took a week out of my time in Kerala in 2014 to make a side trip to Bangalore, where much of the culture is similar the Chennai. (as an aside … go to Kerala…. go to Kerala…..) Kerala, by the way, does not seem to be having a water shortage, in fact it’s the Venice of India, but that is for another story. Silicon Valley. Bangalore is more well known these days because of the investment in I.T. services and they are a major powerhouse of India computing brainpower. Bangalore is “The Silicon Valley of India,” and yes, they too are on the list of impending water shortages. In ten words or less, all the Indian guys that got their PhD at a University in USA returned home and formed IT businesses. Chennai, it turns out, also has an IT hub.”
Dan Bacher writes—State Water Board report documents oil industry pollutants in Kern County water supply: “California officials have allowed the oil and gas industry to pollute drinking water wells while expanding drilling in recent years, exposing the constant touting of the state as the nation’s “green leader” by state officials and many media outlets as an unsupportable false narrative. A new report released by the State Water Resources Control Board, entitled “2018 Annual Performance Report: Model Criteria for Groundwater Monitoring in Areas of Oil and Gas Well Stimulation,” documents the presence of oil industry pollutants in water-supply wells in Kern County. The chemicals detected at elevated levels include arsenic, barium and boron.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
occupystephanie writes—Jay Inslee: Taking Big Oil to the Woodshed: “Globally, Big Oil has had its way with the world. Wars are fought for its sake. Taxpayer’s money is shoveled into their pockets. Ground water is contaminated with their waste. Children, women and men sicken and die. Indigenous cultures are decimated. Wildlife dies. Life sustaining forests and watersheds are laid waste. The world needs all of this to stop. Jay Inslee plans to announce his intentions and policy initiatives to radically change this scenario this morning from the Florida Everglades where a Florida court has ruled to allow oil exploration in the River of Grass which supplies fresh drinking water for millions of Floridians. If elected, Inslee says, he will cut billions in fossil fuel subsidies, ban new drilling on public lands and in offshore waters, phase out fracking for natural gas, end the use of coal and ban oil exports.”
Angmar writes—"The First Democratic Debate Failed The Planet": “The New Republic: ‘For the last month, the Democratic National Committee has faced intense pressure to hold a debate specifically focused on the climate crisis—not just from environmental activists, but also from Democratic voters and the Democratic candidates themselves. While DNC Chairman Tom Perez has refused to accede to that pressure, he has publicly promised that this year’s debates will be different from previous election cycles, when the issue was all but completely ignored. But Wednesday night’s debate did not clear even the low bar that Perez set. Over the course of two hours, approximately seven minutes were devoted to the top existential threat facing humanity. And only four of the ten candidates on stage were asked directly about how they intend to rapidly reduce carbon emissions over the next eleven years—something that must be done to preserve a livable planet for future generations. The entire first half of the debate passed without a single climate-related question. Some candidates did address it: In response to a question about the economy, Elizabeth Warren referred to a “worldwide need for green technology.” Washington Governor Jay Inslee mentioned the issue, too—understandable, given his campaign’s undivided focus on global warming.”
chairjoseph writes—Climate Change Candidate Blows His Question: “In the first Democratic Debate Jay Inslee, who says he is running on climate change as the one overriding issue, was asked if his plan would save Miami. If you didn’t hear his answer you can easily find it online, but it starts with “Yes,” so you know he missed his chance. The right answer: “The fact that you even ask that question demonstrates that you have no idea of the seriousness of what we are facing. The polar ice caps are melting. We have passed the tipping point where the warming of the arctic has set off feedback loops that make the complete melting of those ice caps inevitable. When the Greenland ice sheet melts, sea level will rise by 20 feet. When the antarctic ice sheets melt it will be another 20 feet. Miami is now exactly at sea level. It is going to be 40 feet beneath the ocean. That may take a century, but within 10-20 years Miami will be 2-5 feet underwater. ‘No, my plan won’t save Miami. Nobody’s plan will save Miami. Miami is finished. The question is not how to save Miami, but how to safely and effectively retreat from it. Twenty years ago we could have taken actions to stop climate change. All we can do now is plan to survive it’.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
MorrellWI1983 writes—Expanding the National Parks System #45- Vermont: “This is the forty-fifth diary in my ‘Expanding the National Parks” series. Prior diaries are linked at the bottom of this diary.Last Time I was in Utah, this time I’m in Vermont, the Green Mountain state. Vermont, despite its small size, has quite a bit of federal land — 7.5% of the state is federally owned, good for 19th in the country, behind Florida and just ahead of West Virginia. Vermont is one of 18 states, along with Guam and Puerto Rico, to have 0 national monuments. I will be proposing giving it its first monuments. Currently, Vermont has 1 national forest, 2 wildlife refuges and 2 historic sites and other NPS units. Vermont. Total Area 9 616 sq miles. Land area 9 216 sq miles. Water Area 400 sq miles. Coastline 0 miles. Additional Monuments-2. ADDITIONAL MONUMENTS -2. Green Mountain Estimated Area 1.1 million acres Would convert the existing national forest into a national monument, and which would run the length of the state from the border with Massachusetts to the Canadian border. Originally proposed as a national park in the 1930s on two separate occasions, the first covering 1 million acres, the second proposal covering 150000 acres, neither proposal got past Congress. there was even a 1936 proposal to create a national monument in the area and name it after Ethan Allen, but FDR ended up not doing it.”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Following DOI, EPA Clamps Down on FOIA Requests By Allowing Political Appointees To Squash Release: “A month ago, we flagged RollCall’s reporting that the Department of Interior formalized a process that allows Trump appointees to decide whether or not documents requested under FOIA would be released. Apparently, the EPA saw something it liked in that approach. The Hill’s Miranda Green reported yesterday that Andrew Wheeler signed off on a new FOIA rule that does the same thing. (Whether it’s actually legal and will survive the inevitable litigation is questionable, to say the least, given that the DC Circuit court has apparently already ruled that you can’t do this.) The policy gives a whole raft of political appointees at EPA the authority to decide “whether to release or withhold a record or a portion of a record on the basis of responsiveness or under one or more exemptions under the FOIA, and to issue ‘no records’ responses’.”
PMaier writes—Why EPA never implemented the CWA: “The goal of the Clean Water Act was to eliminate all water pollution by 1985, but since that was not yet possible, Congress demanded initially ‘secondary sewage’ treatment for all point-source discharges. Secondary treatment, Congress was told, represented 85% treatment and when EPA implemented the CWA by demanding NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System) permits, it used the BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) test to set sewage treatment standards. The BOD test was developed around 1910 in England and measures how much oxygen bacteria need to break down organic, both fecal and urine, waste and requires 30 days. Because those bacteria using nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste in fresh raw sewage only contribute to the test reading after 6 to 10 days and their oxygen use also can be measured with a faster nitrogen test, it became acceptable, as a timesaver, to use the 5-day reading of the BOD test or BOD5 in combination with this nitrogen test. Although essential for the BOD test, this nitrogen test in many countries, was later ignored and many regulations now only address the BOD5 test value.”
Mark Sumner writes—Tightening regulations on chemicals wouldn't just save lives, it could save billions of dollars: “The annual costs associated with endocrine disrupting chemicals were estimated to be $340 billion in the United States. That’s not just the cost of treatment for diseases associated with these chemicals, or the cost of lost work time from those affected. It’s also the cost of 11 million IQ points lost to the effect of EDCs in the environment, food supplies, and products. And yes, an IQ point is an arbitrary unit and not really reflective of someone’s worth as a person—but as this study shows, there is a connection between that arbitrary value and someone’s worth when it comes to a lifetime of earnings. That effect can be hard to see because it’s distributed. As the report notes, ‘If one child loses IQ points, the parent or teacher may not even notice.’ But the impact of 100,000 or 1 million or 11 million IQ points has an impact that’s felt by the nation.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
kailaHI writes—CLIMATE HEALTH EQUITY: “I sent this information to my Senators and Representative. I urged them to sit down with Perez and make him watch the excellent Kaiser videos. And to insist the DNC have a climate emergency debate. And I reiterated: Of course the Climate Emergency is paramount ... nothing else matters. If we don't save life on earth no one will be here, we will be extinct, no one to care about health care for all, women's rights, voters rights, labor rights, social justice and all the rest of our issues.”
A Siegel writes—Sunrise Movement vigil at DNC continues overnight: #ClimateDebate: “As candidate after candidate for the Presidential nomination calls for a climate debate (at least 14), Tom Perez holds out. As Florida burns (and Europe swelters, Greenland melts, Midwest farmers deal with flooded fields, …), Tom Perez holds firm. As inspiring young people, fearful over their futures and fighting for a better America, hold an overnight vigil at the DNC, Tom Perez refuses to budge on his refusal to provide a focused forum to lay out clearly the ideas and approaches that each of the candidates have for tackling the most serious issue facing humanity and how to foster a more prosperous, equitable, just, resilient, climate-friendly United States.”
occupystephanie writes—Demand Climate Emergency Coverage! (Petition): “Remember when Bush Jr was ‘surprised’ by the damage caused in New Orleans and the Gulf coast by Katrina saying ‘No one knew’? Scientists knew. Geographers knew. All beforehand. Can we not do that again? Can we get some coverage on the looming existential threat to humanity? Can they get their noses out of Washington DC? Sign this petition from Grist: Add your name to demand more climate change coverage in the news! The last five years were the hottest ever recorded – but you’d never know it if you turned on the news. Climate change stories are being swept under the rug – and with the threat of unprecedented weather events, fatally hot summers, and epidemics like we’ve never seen, we simply can’t afford to ignore the climate crisis any longer. Make your voice heard now to demand climate change be covered more in the news!”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
gmoke writes—City Agriculture - June 22, 2019: “ Given that this year’s harvest are almost certainly going to be lower than usual, it would be good to expand your food supply systems. Urban agriculture is one way to do so. The archive of all the City Agriculture Links is available at http://cityag.blogspot.com. Urban farming solutions from IKEA will be available as early as 2021.
Brasserie 250 - a pop-up restaurant which grows the food it serves with zero waste.
https://inhabitat.com/brasserie-2050-restaurant-pops-up-as-a-prototype-for-sustainable-food-service/ [...] ”
Mimer writes—Saturday Morning Garden Blogging. Vol 15.26: Just puttering around in the garden: “Every morning I sneak out early and do a walk-about to see what new iris/es have bloomed during the night. But now iris season is nearly over — oh, there is a tall bearded here and there, and some Siberians — but no new thrills; still, I’m wandering around just looking at plants. I thought I would share a few photos of my ‘After Iris — Before Daylily’ garden, taken as I puttered around. I have quite a few ninebark shrubs in the garden. I planted them because I like the dark foliage, and because they are native. I really don’t particularly like how they look when in bloom.”
MISCELLANY
Walter Einenkel writes—New investigation shows the majority of 'recycled' U.S. plastics are dumped in landfills or burned: “A large part of the global problem of industrial waste and pollution, from fossil fuels to plastics, is that we have not just dragged our feet in implementing recycling programs and greener alternatives, we have dragged our feet in developing the infrastructure needed to begin true recycling programs and greener alternatives. Up until 2013, the United States shipped its plastic recycling to China, a cheaper alternative to creating the kind of recycling infrastructure needed to do it here. Then China began their Green Fence Policy, which cut down drastically on how much plastics they would be importing for recycling. Specifically, it shut out the low-grade plastics the United States and other ‘developed countries’ have been drowning in. This left the United States scrambling to figure out how to quickly find cheap alternatives, with hopes that the need for industrial recycling at home might incentivize our fearless capitalist class to create new economic opportunities.”