This is the 569th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the August 11 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
xaxnar writes—The West may have Fires, But the East has Floods - This is the New Normal in the Anthropocene: “The news has not gotten better since then. Here’s a sampling from a quick web search August 13, 2018. Flash Flood Watch in Eastern New York • Emergencies Declared as Storms Persist in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York • Flash flooding threat continues for East Coast after wet weekend • Pennsylvania flooding prompts water rescues around state • Drenching rain, flooding wreaks havoc in Pennsylvania • Heavy rain prompts flash flood emergencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey • This one got a lot of attention: Bride, groom rescued from floodwaters by New Jersey police. I posted about this on August 12 — to recap some of the highlights: The precipitation graphic shows what’s going on. What does this mean? It shows where thousands of miles of roads have increasingly inadequate drainage systems. They can be rapidly overwhelmed, leading to flash flooding and washouts. It shows where there are cities with large areas of pavement can turn into lakes in a matter of minutes because the water can’t soak into the ground and it can’t drain away fast enough. It shows where people are finding their homes are now in flood zones. Home insurance costs skyrocket, and resale values plummet.”
StateOfMind writes—TAHLEQUAH’S MESSAGE FROM MOTHER EARTH: “People watched with a mixture of horror, fascination and grief as an orca whale mother took her dead child to its burial spot. For 17 days and for over 1000 miles, Tahlequah carried her dead calf, which breathed and swam for only a short time after its birth, as she grieved her loss. Her pod swam along with her but her attention was tuned only to her burden. Tahlequah has been giving everyone on Mother Earth a message without speaking a word. Her tears were invisible to us as they fell into the vast ocean waters. Her message is clear. The number of orcas from her region are growing smaller year by year. The foods they depend on have diminished to such an extent that there has not been a recent live birth for several years -- until Tahlequah gave birth to a calf that was alive and swimming beside her. As an intelligent mammal, there is no doubt that Tahlequah felt the joy of motherhood. Perhaps she also realized how momentous a live birth was to her pod. After all, whales are a matriarchal society and she was the protector and leader of her shrinking family group. But the joy and hope were short lived. Mother Earth has been devastated by the greed of man. We all play a part in the greed that harms her and all of nature.”
sninkypoo writes—It's HEEE-re! “Worldwide record-breaking heatwaves, which produced this stunner: Quriyat, Oman, posted the world’s hottest low temperature ever recorded on June 28: 108.68 degrees. Rampant, terrifying wildfires. Millions (not thousands – MILLIONS) of people evacuated from flood waters in Japan. That’s climate change. That’s now. That’s everywhere. We have reached the proverbial no place to run, no place to hide moment. If Seattle is sizzling and the Arctic is catching fire, what next? More of the same, and worse, and more and worse and soon we’ll reach that point where, quite suddenly, there’s a seismic shift, and we jump to a higher orbital. Of course, with global warming, there’s no analogous jump back down, and no quick, discontinuous way back to ‘normal,’ where we came from. Things fall apart. The edges fray. The space of time between events will get narrower. There will be less time to regroup, regrow, rebuild. Resources will become scarcer. We’ll run out of time, money, materials, and hands to do the work. It won’t be too long now before we are overtaken by the scale of what we have to mitigate. We’ll be battered and bruised, scrounging for assistance, for federal funding, for volunteers, for sandbags, for water trucks, for firefighting equipment, for the energy to go on.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - the ravens of summer: “There's a pair of ravens that lives in my neighborhood. I hear them all through the year, various quorks and knocking and other conversational language between them, sometimes together sometimes way across the woods, but just the two of them, unlike the dozen or so crows who also live around here. In summer, things change radically with the ravens. Every year since I’ve been paying attention, they hatch out a nestful of baby ravens, who scream at them incessantly for weeks and weeks, usually following them around, until suddenly the youngsters go quiet. The ravens of summer are a constant auditory presence, and often visual too, which I really like in spite of the yelling because ravens are otherwise such shy remote birds. The yelling calls of the juveniles are so unlike the dignified resonant utterances of the adults it’s almost comical listening to them badgering their parents. From morning ‘til night I know exactly where they are since the sound carries literally for miles. Occasionally I hear them flying overhead, making that subtle weff weff weff sound that crows do not.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Hurricane Ridge (Part 1): “Day 2 of the second week of the PNW vacation. A drive south from Port Angeles to visit Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. An early start got me past construction on the road in the park with minimal slow downs. And after climbing into a cloud/mist bank it turned out that the ridge itself was above the clouds and clear. And the overcast sky itself cleared for a while later in the day. Given I had a rental car I just stuck to the main visitor center and did not risk any of the secondary sites on steeper roads. And there were sufficient trails anyways for me to do a 7+ mile hike. Said hike, however, was cut short by encountering a place where a thick snow bank cut the trail and I did not have the equipment to cross that. Oh well, but still interesting to encounter snow in late June!”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Dungeness NWR: “Another short stop on the drive between Seattle and Port Angeles — the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. A short hike through some woods and down the bluff gets you to the spit. Very long, and very narrow. The bays sheltered by the spit are used by the birds, and thus the inland side is off limits. But you can walk out to the lighthouse if you wish. (I only went a mile or so out and back.) I did not see that many birds, but did collect some insect and plant photos. Anything growing out here would need to be salt tolerant of course.”
e2247 writes—Action Items --- to strengthen the Endangered Species Act's rules: Do you hold joyful memories of the exhilaration you and that mountain yellow-legged frog in California shared or are you recalling that ecologically and economically important Illinois bumblebee-butterfly-moth-fly-bat wild pollinator or cute dragonfly which teased you mercilessly? You, I and It all need a full-on defense from Trump Administration’s use of ‘Rulemaking’ to Kill the Endangered Species Act! Here’s how to participate in the defense … I am opposed to opening the door to habitat destruction along with allowing the use of more chemicals and pollutants including light, sound, heat pollutants on our lands and in our waters that will be so harmful to vulnerable species Most of the world’s 250,000-plus species of flowering plants require pollinators to transfer pollen between plants. The diversity of flower shapes and sizes, as well as the seasonal timing of flowering requires that a diverse assemblage of animal visitors be on hand in search of pollen or nectar or a colorful place to mate. It’s not only critters (including us) that Trumpsters and administrative law specialists like Brett Kavanaugh attack but also plants that we depend upon every minute of the year.”
Angmar writes—The Daily Bucket: Late end of Summer, with toad: Photo diary.
marsanges writes—Daily Bucket: A walk through the devils' moor: “All along the northern boreal sides of the continents there are wide plains: Canadian (Laurentian) Shield, Russia, Siberia. North-central Europe as well has a wide expanse of plains ranging from the atlantic seaboard into Russia. As the Ice Ages receded, the sea level rose and it rained a lot on these circumboreal plains, and so the water did not find it very easy to escape. In all the waterlogged low places on the plains, moors grew. More specifically, such wetlands are subdivided according to the hydrological status they have. When water just accumulates in a low place, in quantities insufficient to form lakes, one would form marshes and other forms of low lying wetlands. Plants can grow in these in quantities enough to form organic layers—dead plant material decomposes only very slowly under water cover—but the water would have connection to the regional mineral substrate, allowing it to get nutrients from there. However, when the climatic conditions allow plant material to accumulate substantially enough, the land surface can slowly raise itself up—the living plants begin to live as it were on a pile of the accumulated dead plant matter. When that happens, as water doesn’t flow very much upwards, the growing moor can lose contact to the ground water and the to mineral nutrient sources through it. Then, the moor gets its water only by the copious rainfall. Such moors are called raised bogs, and they still today cover vast areas in Canada and Siberia. ”
giddy thing writes—Dawn Chorus: Birding Belize: “This past April, my husband and I spent 12 glorious days birding, fishing, and sight-seeing in Belize. We planned the trip to celebrate my retirement and to introduce Mr. giddy (a serious bird-nerd) to the avian riches of Mesoamerica. Come on in and let’s go birding.… Belize is nestled in the northeast corner of Central America, bordered by Mexico to the north, Guatemala to the west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Though small in size (8,800 square miles—a bit smaller than New Hampshire), its natural and archaeological features rival any destination in the Americas. Belize has one of the most extensive networks of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and nature reserves in the Americas, making up over 42% of its land area. Offshore is the Belize Barrier Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the second largest barrier reef in the world, which teems with marine life above and below its turquoise waters. The Belizean national motto is Sub Umbra Floreo, which translates from Latin to Under the Shade I Flourish, referencing the country’s legacy of mahogany wood harvest. For us, the motto was an invitation to explore the amazing avian diversity flourishing under Belize’s tropical forest canopies.”
Ojibwa writes—Glacier Park: The Wheeler Camp (Photo Diary) Note: Fires in Glacier National Park have destroyed or damaged a number of historic structures, including the Wheeler Camp. The fire started started Saturday and is still endangering structures. In 1915, Butte attorney Burton K. Wheeler and his wife Lulu first visited Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park. The following year, the couple leased land and purchased a cabin. According to the information sign: ‘Montana’s dynamic Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler rose to prominence as a Butte attorney and was one of the leading progressives. He served in the Senate from 1923 to 1947. During his turbulent political career he championed labor unions and freedom of speech, shaped key New Deal legislation, and successfully opposed President Franklin Roosevelt’s scheme to expand the Supreme Court.’ Senator Wheeler used the Glacier Park cabin as a retreat and while relaxing here he put together some of the major legislation of his career. In 1941, the Wheeler cabin burned down and the following year, Lulu supervised the construction of the new cabin. [...] While the Wheelers owned the buildings, the land belonged to Glacier National Park. In 1946, Lulu negotiated a life estate agreement with the National Park Service that would allow family members to use the property and buildings until the death of their last living child. With the death of Marion Wheeler Scott in 2014, the Wheeler Camp reverted to the National Park Service. At the present time, the buildings are closed waiting for structural evaluation and renovation.”
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: California wildlife report - Lucky eagle, another burned bear, and new wolf pups: “What with wildfires, gravity, and poachers, California wildlife has struggled. However, two animals have been saved by human intervention and one wolf pack still outwits human interference. In the past weeks, I’ve learned about a young eagle who fell from the nest, a bear cub burned in the Carr Fire, and the current status of the state’s gray wolves. MILPITAS BALD EAGLE GETS HELP FROM CALIFORNIA CONDORS. Lucky the bald eagle not only survived a fall from the nest. That fall resulted in a health check and treatment for lead poisoning that probably saved her life. Then she was given the opportunity to leave the hectic urban lifestyle of Milpitas (near San Jose) for a wild home in Big Sur with the big birds. (How does a not-yet-fledged eagle ingest lead? Probably from the prey brought to the chick by her parents.) [...] A Bald Eagle that fell from its nest in Milpitas earlier this year has been given a new home in the company of California Condors in San Simeon, California. Despite its fall from the nest, locals have called the eaglet ‘Lucky,’ no doubt due to the unique collaboration that has provided a second chance for the young bird. State and City officials, with help from Pacific Gas & Electric Company, tried replacing Lucky back in the nest, but found that the nest was too high.”
Lefty Coaster writes—After a 17 day saga of grief Tahlequah leaves her dead calf and swims on: “This is an unspeakably sad story that has been unfolding for weeks.The local Orca population is at risk since the young whales like Tahlequah are underweight and emaciated. Humans are killing off their food source, mainly by destroying the spawning habitat for Wild Salmon with development. After 17 Days And 1,000 Miles, A Mother Orca's 'Tour Of Grief' Is Over. After carrying her deceased baby for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles, an orca mother has shown signs of returning to normal. She was seen Saturday with fellow members of her pod, chasing a school of salmon. She is no longer carrying her baby, and she looks healthy. ‘Her tour of grief is now over and her behavior is remarkably frisky,’ according to a statement on the Center for Whale Research's website. Researchers commonly refer to the mother orca as J-35. She's also known as Tahlequah, a name she was given as part of the adopt a whale program at The Whale Museum on Washington's San Juan Island.”
6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket: Busting the Developer near the Shrunken Pond: “Developers are converting hundreds of acres of grassy fields into business parks southwest of my house. I drive past their projects every day. One day a raccoon mom and half a dozen little ones trekked across the road in front of me, probably fleeing the bulldozers. Another morning, a white glow caught my eye, north of the road. I stopped and got the picture of the egret shown above, and discovered a 300’ x 300’ pond, with mallards swimming in it, near the egret. The surrounding area was heavily overgrown, including evil thorny blackberries, so I never walked up to the water’s edge. But I drove past it many times in the last few months, always slowing down and glancing at the waterfowl. Then a few days ago, they bulldozed the hillside clean, between the road and the pond. I got a good look at the pond, and to my shock, it was almost dry. However, now I could walk right to what was left of the pond’s edge and spy on the aquatic life there, due to the bulldozers clearing some of the vegetation.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Walter Einenkel writes—Climate change has led to 30 percent of bird species in Mojave Desert to 'crash' over last century: “The Mojave Desert has seen disappearing rainfall over the last 100 years due to climate change. This has led to around 30 percent of the bird species and 43 percent of all species in the area to all but disappear from the numbers that existed in the region a century ago. A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, were able to make these calculations based on the very strong note-taking established by Joseph Grinnell who first surveyed the area beginning in 1908. ‘Deserts are harsh environments, and while some species might have adaptations that allow them to persist in a desert spot, they are also at their physiological limits,’ said Kelly Iknayan, who conducted the survey for her doctoral thesis at UC Berkeley. ‘California deserts have already experienced quite a bit of drying and warming because of climate change, and this might be enough to push birds over the edge. It seems like we are losing part of the desert ecosystem’." [...] Though the decline has happened across the entire Mojave Desert, sites with available water saw less decline, suggesting that dehydration is a major factor. To halt further losses, the authors suggest, it may be necessary in the short-term to create additional water resources and limit groundwater pumping, which depletes desert springs. The best long-term solution is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse climate change, the authors say.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Fact Check Hat Trick: Climate and Wildfires, Goddard’s Graphs and Plimer’s Utter Nonsense: “We recently wrote about how deniers used a study about climate policies and hunger in exactly the way the study’s authors warned against, and how the Trump administration is using a study to justify its rollback when the authors consider the rollback “nuts.” As we learned this week, apparently having no real science to cite means you just pretend things support your argument, even when they don’t. For example, in response to a great fact check on wildfires from Carbon Brief’s Zeke Hausfather, Roger Pielke Jr. pointed Hausfather on Twitter this week to a study on lightning and wildfires to make the ‘anything but CO2’ argument. In a shocking twist, turns out that the study actually suggests that climate plays an important part in wildfire science. When Hausfather pointed out that in the study the authors contradict his interpretation, Pielke accused him of ‘mansplaining a paper to me that you just learned of 10 minutes ago.’ This is a bizarre misuse of ‘mansplaining.’ Pielke is also wrong: Hausfather actually interviewed the study author for his fact check, and provided a quote from the researcher pointing to climate change influencing wildfires. Pielke’s puncturing at the hands of Hausfather wasn’t the only impressive takedown last week.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Racists’ Xenophobic Embrace of Climate Change Illustrates Importance of Intersectionality: “ ‘Make conservatives care about climate change,’ the child whispered to the wish-granting monkey paw, confident that there was no way such a wish could backfire. But of course, it did. Instead of adopting sensible policies to transition off of fossil fuels, and providing funding to shore up communities facing climate impacts, a different set of policy prescriptions has emerged. Not just sea walls to hold off the water, but border walls to hold off the immigrants. Not supplementing food supplies for areas hit by drought or famine, but hoarding supplies to sell to the highest bidders. Not campaign finance laws to prevent the fossil fuel industry from buying off politicians and using charity front groups as tax-free lobby and ad firms to forestall regulations, but voter restrictions to keep minority communities from voting at all. This is not a pitch for the upcoming Twilight Zone reboot (yay!) but the answer to an unfortunately not-quite-hypothetical question posed by Casey Williams in Jewish Currents: What happens when the alt-right believes in climate change? (Spoiler: they use it as an excuse for racist policies.) It’s not just those who deny climate change, then, that people need to be on the lookout for. Instead, we’ll have to add to our watchlist those who nominally accept the science, but use it as an excuse to uphold the Rich White Christian Man’s status quo. Because even if we had magic wishes, climate justice is never going to be easy.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Deniers Censoring Science in Gov’t, Promoting Energy Poverty Propaganda in Public: “Heartland’s conference last week made it clear that there is something of an emerging rift in the fossil fuel world along the denial/denialism line. While some are pushing for science-based tweaks to EPA policy, like how the agency considers (or rather, ignores) dangerous PM2.5 pollution, and for an assault on the Endangerment Finding, others are pushing the denialism envelope by shifting to a non-science framing. On the traditional denial side, there’s a couple updates to the story on the EPA’s proposed policy to censor science under the guise of transparency, the public comment period for which ends on Thursday. Harvard has submitted a pair of comments taking the policy to task for its many failings, including violating patient privacy. A second new tidbit is something we have implied before: this doubt-inducing policy is now confirmed to be the product of Steve Milloy, the former tobacco lobbyist who once talked about how this policy would allow tobacco companies to skirt regulations. Milloy claimed at Heartland’s event that he wrote the science portion of the EPA plan, drawing a direct line between the agency that’s supposed to protect the public’s health, and the tobacco industry, which kills some 6 million people every year. And make no mistake, Milloy said at Heartland that the secret science policy would be ‘devastating to EPA’s over-regulatory air quality program’.”ybruti writes—Devin Nunes and climate change: “For years, I’ve written to Devin Nunes about his denial of human caused climate change, but his repeated response has been merely that reasonable people can disagree. At a meeting, when my friend asked him about climate change, Nunes said blithely: ‘The climate is always changing.’ But perhaps Nunes can be influenced by a director of Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, who recently said: ‘It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires.’ www.nytimes.com/… Going back to a long statement written in 2012, it is apparent that Nunes has long doubted ‘man made global warming’: there is no proof that our planet is warming because of mankind and there is certainly no proof that any of the radical changes proposed by environmentalists will end recent warming trends. votesmart.org/... However, in the same 2012 statement, Nunes said he supported initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as ‘good public policy.’ If true, perhaps in the future he will vote for policies that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
xaxnar writes—Part 2: Would You Prefer to Burn or Drown? Either Way the Odds are Going Up: “It’s Not Just Fire — It’s Flood Too. Changing climate means everything is going to be under stress in ways that will change what we think of as ‘normal’. Increased fire risk is what California is going through, and the western states are experiencing hotter and drier weather generally. Part 1 looked at the scope of the fires in California, and the rest of the story around them. Things are happening back east too. [...] As the Washington Post reports, the East is getting its own share of climate change grief. Tim Craig and Angela Fritz reported back on June 24, 2018: Immense rains are causing more flash flooding, and experts say it’s getting worse. [...] Fire and flood are the immediate and visible manifestations of climate change for most people. Read the rest of the Washington Post article for a look at how some people are responding to it. While this is a human-driven event, the quotes from those who describe it as God’s will are disturbing — but the people hit most heavily by these events are those who often have little else but faith to sustain them. They don’t believe in government or science as the answer.”
Lincoln Green writes—Severe flooding kills at least 324 in Kerala. Media ignore, pooh-pooh climate change: “The recent monsoon flooding in Kerala, India has killed at least 324 people and left nearly 220,000 more homeless so far, with more rain expected this weekend. While Kerala gets monsoons every year, this is the worst flooding there since 1924’s Great Flood of 99, and is being reported by lots of sources: Marla Abi-Habib in the New York Times • BBC News • Michael Safi in the Guardian • The Times of India • Anand Katakam & Mridula Chari in Scroll+ have a detailed article about historical rain levels • USA Today ran an AP article. However, none of these news sources mention climate change or global warming or anything like that. The AP article even goes so far as to insinuate that this is all normal in India, saying ‘Monsoon rains kill hundreds of people every year in India’ — a statement that is correct but misleading, as these particular floods are just in one state, the death toll soared in just 24 hours, and it’s the worst flooding there in nearly a century.”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
Ojibwa writes—Glacier National Park Fire Update: “On Saturday night lightning started a number of small fires in Glacier National Park in Montana. On Sunday, the Howe Ridge Fire exploded to about 2,500 acres and destroyed at least seven private homes and a number of the Park’s historic buildings. The Howe Ridge Fire started in an area above Lake McDonald last burned by the Robert Fire in 2003. The latest update (Wednesday morning) from the National Park Service: Fire behavior increased yesterday yet there was minimal fire growth under smoky skies. The fire is estimated at 2,600 acres. Visibility hampered the CL-215 ‘Super scoopers’ from working on the fire, however the Type I helicopter effectively cooled spot fires slowing the fire’s growth. Ground crews utilized existing trails to create fire breaks, continued to pump water for sprinklers for structure protection, and cooled hot spots at the residences on North Lake McDonald Road. Structure protection continued at remaining buildings at Kelly’s Camp.”
OCEANS, LAKES, RIVERS, DROUGHT
Pakalolo writes—Rick Scott defunded agencies tasked with overseeing red tide. Today he declares State of Emergency: “Well, well, well. This is not going to help Florida Governor Rick Scott in his months long effort to greenwash his despicable environmental policies just in time to muddy the waters for his effort to unseat Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. As many of you know, the discharge from Lake Okeechobee (laced with poisoned run-off from the sugar industry) gets released during the rainy season. It happens every year at this time (even in winter if it rains too much), and it is horrifying to witness. But this year the discharge is truly devastating the gulf coast and the Atlantic coast. The rivers that empty the lake, the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie, are void of life. Any marine species that swims into the discharge dies. The water is green and thick with algae. Many of our waterways and beaches are nothing more than a graveyard with the bodies of fish, bottlenose dolphins, manatees, turtles and whale sharks littered about. Who wants to go for a swim and see that when they arrive? The discharge to the gulf coast has combined with a red tide making it a grim reminder what ecological devastation can mean to a community. Property values are plummeting, , the tourism industry is hit hard, people are getting sick from just breathing, and we are devastated at what we are witnessing in the ocean.”
vetwife writes—Hands Across the Water.....Keep at it Florida. Big Protest on Deadly Marine life...Hands held: “ We have an ugly situation in Florida but people have gathered on the shores holding hands from bridges and along shorelines. www.tampabay.com/… As what’s believed to be Florida’s worst Red Tide algae bloom in a decade continues to ravage beaches and wildlife, residents across Tampa Bay and Florida are planning to travel to beaches and stand, hand-in-hand, for 15 minutes to bring awareness to an issue they feel is not receiving the attention it deserves. On Sunday at 10 a.m., the groups of people, organized by a Facebook page called Hands Along The Way, will travel to 30 different Florida beaches to send a message that they ‘do not, and will not, stand for our beautiful beaches, wildlife, homes and livelihoods to continuously be destroyed and impacted by the water released from Lake O(keechobee’.)”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Xaxnar writes—"Flat-Earth" Friedman to Democrats: Run Against Trump With Climate Change. Some Thoughts: “NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman asks a question: What if Mother Nature Is on the Ballot in 2020? The sub-headline goes into a little more detail: Democrats could have a strong issue to run on if the extreme weather persists and President Trump continues to dismiss climate change. Give Friedman credit for raising the issue. If the punditocracy is beginning to take Climate Change seriously, it must be getting too big to ignore. I have several issues with the headlines though. • Democrats do not have to wait until 2020 to raise the issue, or use it exclusively against Trump. • ‘IF’ extreme weather persists is not a question any longer. It’s a given. • It’s not just Trump; the entire Republican Party and conservatism in general will continue to dismiss climate change — because they have nothing.”
Dan Bacher writes—Groups Urge Governor Brown to Reject Trump Takeover of California's Energy Future: “Today, Food & Water Watch, Consumer Watchdog, and local community groups will hold a press conference urging Governor Brown to protect California’s environment and green laws from the Trump Administration. ‘The coalition will call on Brown to drop a plan that puts the Trump Administration in charge of California’s energy grid, threatening to stick Californians with dirty coal imports, as actors playing Trump and Brown tussle in a bed filled with coal placed at the bottom of the south steps at the State Capitol,’ according to a news release from the groups. ‘Speakers will also push Brown to oppose Trump’s latest plan to explore leasing California federal lands for fracking and to be a climate leader by freezing all new drilling permits in California.’ On June 26, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 4-2 to approve AB 813, a Governor Brown backed-bill that would dismantle the California Independent System Operator (CAIS0) and replace it with a western regional electricity market under the control of the Trump administration’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). You can read the details about the bill here: www.dailykos.com/…”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Pakalolo writes—Earthquake shakes Alaska's North Slope, the same fragile eco-system Trump just sacrificed to Big Oil: “The controversy over whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR) began in 1977. That very year, Exxon became aware that fossil fuel emissions was the cause of climate change and was a real and growing threat to the very survival of the Earth’s bio-sphere. ANWR comprises about 20 million acres. Unfortunately, 1.5 million acres of the reserve were set aside by Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to study the potential for energy production. Radical Republicans in Congress and in Alaska dismissed the possible environmental impacts of oil extraction in ANWR while arguing that there would be just a teeny-tiny amount of a footprint necessary. They actively pushed this lie that oil development would only impact 2000 (out of 20,000,000 acres) known as the 1002 area. The GOP, in a effort to make the idea of destroying the Alaskan North Slope more palatable to a doubting public, used tricks and falsehoods to sway the public to support the fossil fuel industry drilling plan in the ecologically sensitive region. Democrats, Environmentalists and some Republicans in turn dismissed their plan as absurd. Fast forward to 2017 where Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate [...]”
BYPRODUCTS, TRASH, TOXIC & RADIOACTIVE WASTE
Rmuse writes—Trump's new asbestos rule will kill Americans to aid Russians: “Any sane human being knows it was no coincidence that at about the same time Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to relax prohibitions on using a globally known and almost universally banned carcinogen, asbestos, a Russian asbestos producer released images of Trump’s face on asbestos packaged for export. First, the EPA announcement about allowing asbestos back in America attempted to portray the administration’s ‘concern’ for American lives with some bovine excrement claim that new uses of asbestos ‘would require manufacturers and importers to receive EPA approval before starting or resuming manufacturing, and importing or processing of asbestos.’ Despite EPA claims to the contrary, the new rule explicitly allows new uses for asbestos with the caveat that the EPA evaluate any new uses based on ‘risk evaluation, selected studies, and use the best available science.’ However, the EPA evaluation process will not use ‘existing’ science despite ‘the significant body of work around the inherent health risks associated with asbestos’.”
ENERGY
Emissions Controls & Carbon Pricing
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Sizing Up Trump’s Dirty Replacement for the Clean Power Plan: “Thirteen months ago, we made some guesses about what a replacement for the Clean Power Plan might look like. We speculated the new rule would be the sort of ‘inside the fenceline’ policy preferred by the industry--one where coal plants are only required to make marginal improvements, basically just upgrading existing plants to run more efficiently. Such an approach, which makes coal plants more profitable to run and would keep them running for longer, would ultimately lead to even higher levels of pollution than if there was no policy at all. A couple weeks later we looked at the shady math used to justify repealing the CPP, and how that played into Bob Murray’s plans (the coal baron for whom Andrew Wheeler lobbied.) And back in March, we pointed to legal experts who explained how the EPA will need to do better than the inside-the-fenceline approach if it wants to survive a legal challenge. This is all just to say that if you’ve been paying close attention here, you won’t be at all surprised by Emily Holden’s scoop in Politico based on the soon-to-be-published draft CPP replacement plan that itself admits it will lead to more pollution.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Trump's EPA Said Trump's Auto Rollback Would Cost Lives, Not Save Them. He Did It Anyway: “Last week, we discussed E&E News reporting on the Trump rollback of gas mileage standards, specifically that it will eliminate 60,000 jobs, and that the EPA and DOT were at odds over the standards. Since then, two new stories have emerged from the materials released by the EPAabout the rule’s development. On Wednesday, the AP’s Ellen Knickmeyer reported that senior EPA staffer William Charmley challenged the DOT’s figures on number of lives saved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (part of the DOT) claims the rollback would save 1,000 lives a year, but EPA experts found the opposite: the change would increase highway deaths by 17 annually. Yesterday, Maxine Joselow at E&E News cast the interagency communications as ‘EPA is the harsh teacher, and the Transportation Department is the struggling student.’ There are reportedly ‘dozens of instances’ where ‘EPA career staff criticize DOT’s political appointees for making faulty assumptions in order to justify the rollback.’ The EPA pointed out that the DOT was ‘comparing apples to oranges,’ in one message and misrepresenting research in another. In fact, Joselow found 19 different instances in the documents where it said the ‘EPA does not agree’ with DOT analysis.”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
xaxnar writes—Size Matters, Whether You're Talking About Solar Panels or Green Waves: “Two items of interest in the NY Times today. Here’s the first: In Shadow of Mt. Etna, Europe Makes a Last Stand for Solar. Stanley Reed and Keith Bradsher report on efforts in Italy by a company gambling on an unproven technology to try to beat China with panels that are more expensive — but also more efficient. The problem, as the selection below indicates, is whether they can produce them in volumes sufficient to pay back their investment before China swamps the market with something comparable or even lower prices on conventional panels. ...Solar energy was largely commercialized in Europe around 20 years ago. Governments stimulated demand with generous subsidies, encouraging homeowners to install panels on their roofs and utilities to invest in larger-scale solar farms. But its popularity was limited in those early years by the high cost of the electricity that was being generated. Seeing little prospect of widespread sales, companies in the West built small factories, the largest of which had only a few hundred workers. Beijing changed that equation with an ambitious industrial policy. It pushed state-owned banks to lend to renewable energy projects at low interest rates. Factories employing thousands of workers were built, leading to hefty economies of scale. By 2015, panel prices worldwide had dropped 90 percent from a decade earlier, opening up a wider range of customers able to afford them.”
Dan Bacher writes—Groups rally against bill that will hand over California electricity grid to Trump administration: “A press conference and rally on the south steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday featured actors playing Governor Jerry Brown and President Donald Trump laying together in a bed full of oil and coal in front of a large banner that proclaimed, ‘Jerry Brown: Don’t Submit to Trump, No More Coal, No More Drilling.’ The skit, accompanied by speeches from representatives of a coalition of environmental and consumer groups, underlined the threat of a Trump takeover of the California electricity grid by means of a controversial bill, Assembly Bill 813, now making its way through the California Legislature. Speakers also voiced their opposition to Trump’s plans to frack and drill California, both offshore and onshore. [...] ‘A western regional electricity market would subject Californians to increased power imports from coal-heavy states and higher bills from speculation on power contracts, in a regional grid under the oversight of the Trump administration,’ said Adam Scow, California Director for Food and Water Watch. ‘The California Senate appropriations committee has until Friday to take action on a bill, AB 813, to fold California into a western market, or let the bill die’.”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
Jason B Marshall writes—Deregulation is Going to Kill a LOT of People: Monsanto has spent millions on lobbying to avoid regulation, and now they are likely to pay out millions more due to toxic chemicals that helped keep operations cheap for years. A formula was applied. And that formula was dependent on the fallacy that less regulation and low operating costs are always better. And it was better, just so long as the general welfare of the public was ignored. There's a reason that ‘promote the general welfare’ is in the constitution of our government—it's not the province of private companies. Even from pragmatic perspective, that's also a huge amount of capital that isn't going to worker pay or to innovate new products - it's functionally going nowhere. And it's highly unlikely that the cost of finding an alternative to a cancer causing product would be more expensive than what must be approaching billions of dollars on litigation and lobbying. Just ask the tobacco companies.”
lynn47 writes—The zinkeman is now up for grifter of the year! His HS pal is now holding up Climate Research: “Research on Climate Change is now being held up by and old high school football buddy of ryan zinke. And who might this brilliant Scientist be, well, stevie howkie is his name and finicance is his game. Yes indeed, stevie has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, and has spent his career up till now working for Credit Unions, until now. The trump admin, with zinke’s approval, have put in a new step into Scientists getting their funding for Projects. All funding over $50,000 has to go through stevie’s desk first for review before funding is released, or as the zinkester puts it: interior secretary Ryan Zinke instated a new requirement that scientific funding above $50,000 must undergo an additional review to ensure expenditures ‘better align with the administration’s priorities.’ If better aligning with the administration’s priorities means destroying our Environment, they are doing a bang up job...assholes.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
350 Bay Area writes—RISE for Climate, Jobs, and Justice on Sept 8th: “On September 8th, 350 Bay Area will help host a march to demonstrate the massive support from the San Francisco Bay Area community for a fast and fair transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. This will be the lead event of an international day of action that will take place in thousands of cities across six continents. Find an action near you here. It is scheduled just prior to the Global Climate Action Summit chaired by Governor Jerry Brown September 12th to 14th in San Francisco. The main objective of the march is to convey the message that our elected officials cannot treat the current climate catastrophes with a business-as-usual approach. There are lives and communities being devastated. We need real climate leadership now.”
AGRICULTURE, PESTICIDES, FOOD & GARDENING
greenandblue writes—This is what sustainable agriculture looks like: “There are alternatives. We can feed people in harmony with nature. We don’t have to exploit and mine soil as if it is a limited, fixed resource. Our farms are part of living communities that cycle water, carbon, nutrients and living organisms. We can integrate into those cycles and develop nourishing systems that build soil, absorb carbon, promote biological diversity and are resilient to drought, pest and disease pressures. Otherwise, our food will continue to cost climate change, poisoned water, degraded ecosystems, and the well being of many species, ourselves included. Most farming today is conducted as if humans and our favorite foods are separate from nature. It’s us vs them. Who do we have to kill to keep our guys alive? Monoculture seems to be a simple system to manage with low labor costs. Yet, soil is exposed and degraded through tilling, while pests and diseases feast on buffets of their favorite foods. Fertilizers are applied to maximize yield, but these applications also stimulate fast growing weeds and their cohorts. In these systems, herbicides and pesticide applications are a given for most. Organic agriculture steps away from the chemical applications, but it is not enough. Weeds are seen as enemies, so soil is still degraded through tilling, or miles of plastic covers soil to prevent weed growth at the expense of soil aeration and uniform water infiltration.”
mettle fatigue writes—"Urban Farm" - IKEA's free-download plans & photos for the Space10Growroom: “I’m not quite clear on how irrigation is handled, and there are some outgas and other environmental issues involved with plywood, but this is a promising-looking vertical-gardening possibility otherwise. Didn’t find mention anywhere else in DK, so, as reported at Verdict for the 16th annual World Earth Day —https://www.verdict.co.uk/world-earth-day-2018-positive-environment/—...Designers Sine Lindholm and Mads-Ulrik Husum working at Space10, an ideas lab run by IKEA, came up with the Grow Room. Nothing but plywood and screws are necessary to build the free-standing spherical pavilion. By building upwards rather than sideways, the structure can produce lots of food in a small space. They note: Local food represents a serious alternative to the global food model. It reduces food miles, our pressure on the environment, and educates our children of where food actually comes from. The result on the dining table is just as fascinating.’ IKEA made the cutting files for the Grow Room available for free….”
Walter Einenkel writes—Jury awards school groundskeeper $289 million in big case against Monsanto: “Monsanto may soon no longer be called ‘Monsanto,’ with a name change already under way, but the damage and greed that Monsanto represents will not disappear. On Friday, a San Francisco jury awarded 46-year-old Dewayne Johnson $289 million in damages in his case against Monsanto. Johnson, who had been a school groundskeeper, contended that Monsanto’s herbicides RoundUp and Ranger Pro, caused the terminal case of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma he got when he was 42-years-old. ‘The jury found Monsanto acted with malice and oppression because they knew what they were doing was wrong and doing it with reckless disregard for human life,’ said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of Johnson's attorneys, according to the Associated Press. Johnson was awarded $250 million in punitive damages and $39 million in compensatory damages as a jury agreed with his charge that Monsanto ‘failed to warn consumers about the alleged risk from their product’. [...] Monsanto has promoted the idea that there is scientific evidence on both sides, arguing that glyphosate—the acting agent in their herbicides—has been cleared by many in the scientific community. On the other hand, CNN reports, that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, using a ‘from 17 scientists,’ found that ‘glyphosate was a probable cause of cancer in humans.’ Johnson’s case is just the first of many more to come for the agricultural giant.”
witgen writes—Trump Trade War worries Iowa Farmers: “The Des Moines Register has been talking to farmers at the Iowa State Fair. Things are looking grim in the markets right now, although that isn’t stopping farmers from holding out hope. Tariffs dominate discussions inside the Iowa State Fair's livestock barns. Sitting at a picnic table at the Iowa Pork Producers tent, Gregg Hora, Art Halstead and Mark Meirick hash over what low prices will mean for farmers. Waiting for higher prices next summer could mean 10 months of losses, said Halstead, who works for a contract grower that raises pigs for others. ‘You've got to get to June,’ he said. ‘If you have everything paid for, you can hang on for a long time. But if you've got a lot of debt, and a lender who's leery about what's going on, it could end in a hurry,’ said Meirick, who owns Farmers Mill, a feed supply and elevator in northeast Iowa. While farmers may be willing to dig in their heels and wait for better prices, the downstream effects will still be hurting their friends and neighbors.”
Franks Human writes—My Container Garden: “I live in the ‘Valley’ ecosystem of Los Angeles, so the heat this year has been brutal. I have grown a tomato plant just outside my apartment door in a large pot with a cage to which its attached using similar ties as shown in the photo below. It gets direct sunlight for about 10 hours a day, which can be taxing on these plants given the heat. While it’s been exhibiting signs of heat stress, it’s producing a lot of tomatoes since the first few cropped up the first week of July. I picked four today, although some of them are “split” and I’ll have to use parts rather than the whole tomato. (The earliest ones were exquisitely juicy and delicious and I ate them whole and mostly on the spot.)”
mahdalgal writes—Saturday Morning Gardening Blogging Vol. 14:33 Minnesota Adventures: “My first outing was with my long-time friend Judy, touring her family farm in Little Falls. MN. I was determined to see native milkweed in its natural environment. One drive down a dirt road in farm country was ultimately rewarding.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Rei writes—Who's Trying To Kill The Electric Car Again? Take A Guess: “As you can see, Honda and Nissan have been on a roll when it comes to fuel economy. Toyota, by contrast, has stagnated in recent years. Fiat Chrysler, Ford, and GM have been improving since 2012, but are so far behind that they have a lot of catching up to do; of them, only GM has even caught up to the old 2012 average. In short, they’re simply lobbying their interests — they gain when fuel standards are tight, while the Alliance members lose. Unfortunately, part of that interest is ‘not wanting to have to make electric vehicles.’ The Alliance’s official stance tries to be as ‘EV friendly’ as possible, arguing thatgovernment fleets should buy more EVs in order to meet ZEV mandate targets. Of course, if governments — with much larger budgets than consumers — by more EVs while total EV targets stay the same, that means that they have to sell fewer vehicles to tighter-budgeted consumers. They also ran a greenwashing ‘pro EV’ ad campaign earlier this year, while simultaneously lobbying against regulations. If this rings a bell, it should; similar ad campaigns were run in the ‘90s while the automakers were lobbying against the first generation of ZEV mandates.”
MISCELLANY
Mark Sumner writes—A shorter story than it should be: “And while he was still in the ICU, this bright, curious, gentle, genuinely good man ... bummed cigarettes. Unable to stop an addiction that began on a ship in the South Pacific, where he fought in World War II. The last time I saw him I brought him a brand-new rod and reel, and he stood in the hospital hallway, in a hospital gown, and made practice casts toward a chair in the waiting room. And we talked about when he would be out and what we would catch. And he never made it to 69. I’m not telling you this story because cigarettes are bad. You know that. I’m telling you because of a study that was published last week. The study is a survey of data published by an international team of 16 scientists, It suggests that climate change isn’t going to stop with ‘just’ flooding cities around the globe, and bringing droughts and floods and generating a billion refugees. It says we are currently on track to a planet too warm to support our civilization, and quite possibly our species. Think about it. And my grandfather. He’s been gone a long time, but I still miss him.”
mettle fatigue writes—New Research Finds Bio-Marker for DDT in Autism: Elevated levels of a dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) metabolite in pregnant women provide the first biomarker evidence that the banned insecticide is implicated in autism in children, new research shows.’This study provides the first evidence, using a marker of an insecticide in the blood, that a pregnant mother's exposure to this organic pollutant is related to an increased risk of autism in her offspring. Previous studies were based, for example, on proximity to sites that were contaminated with these pollutants,’ lead investigator Alan S. Brown, MD, MPH, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, told Medscape Medical News.”