This is the 599th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the May 11 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
RoyMorrison writes—Bank of the Commons: Ecological Sustainability as the New Gold for Ecological Transformation: “The practical challenge in building an ecological civilization from industrial business and pillage, as usual, is not technical nor legal, but financial. We must recognize that to save ourselves from ecological catastrophe our economic and financial system must value and embrace sustainability and devalue pollution, depletion and ecological damage. At bottom, ecological sustainability must be monetized as the new gold and store of value and capital to help finance the trillions of dollars of productive investment necessary for ecological transformation and the support of social and ecological justice. At the same time, oil, coal, natural gas must become stranded assets, written down and left in the ground and awarded a new non-pollution credit to be monetized by future renewable investment. A trillion dollars of fossil fuel assets can become a trillion dollars of investment in wind and solar hardware installations. Sustainability must be treated legally and financially not as a cost but as a precious value, a hard asset, the new gold whose value is created by economic growth that means ecological improvement.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—DOI’s Offshore Oil Regulatory Rollback Relies On Big Oil Doc: “Yesterday, Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt testified in front of the House Natural Resources Committee about his leadership of the agency, flanked by swamp monsters in the audience highlighting his corruption. When Rep Huffman asked Bernhardt for specific examples of times when he told former clients ‘no,’ when they asked for a policy change, he struggled to name a single instance. Remember, this is the man with so many conflicts of interest he has to carry them on a card, so he has plenty of former clients to choose from. After being pressed further by Huffman to name something specific, Bernhardt makes a reference to a ‘well control’ rule. That’s really where it gets interesting. Bernhardt’s industry clients actually praised the DOI’s well control rollback. And not only that, but the rule actually relies on the industry’s own guidance, effectively supplanting an Obama-era regulation with an American Petroleum Institute document.”
ColoTim writes—Republicans Force Out Another Democrat (though the Dems will keep the seat): “In Colorado, fracking is a big deal and it has contributed to Colorado’s oil and gas boom (literally as well as figuratively) to the point where Weld county, including the city of Greeley and the area around it is littered with oil and gas fracking pads as far as the eye can see. The industry has brought many jobs to the state and has led to numerous legal battles as the oil and gas industry has been trying to extract every last bit of oil and gas from the shale beneath people’s homes and farmland. The industry has had protections up until recently because the state board that oversees their mining of the resources was entirely composed of interests devoted to development of the resources — not of preserving and protecting people’s land and health. Cities that have grown up north of Denver and east of Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins have especially tried to preserve the health of people by restricting how close to schools and homes the gas drilling could take place, but in every case, even if the cities have won in court, the state has had the authority to over-rule the cities by the way the laws were written. Last year, there were measures on the ballot to try and allow for cities to have larger buffer areas from the drilling and associated pollution in the air and groundwater. They were opposed by a well-funded campaign claiming that Colorado would ruin its whole economy by adopting those measures, including tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions upon billions of dollars. Well, of course the money won, especially since there was no really organized support for those measures because those people living and breathing the pollution every day weren’t enough to compete against the fossil fuel interests.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Aldous J Pennyfarthing writes—Trump claims he's seen piles of dead bald eagles under windmills: “I guess they died of cancer.I suppose this is an apt metaphor for what’s happening in our country these days, but for some reason I don’t think it’s true. Call me crazy. During another one of his ‘unique’ rallies yesterday — this one in Louisiana — the actual president of the United States said this to a group of natural gas workers about the Green New Deal: ‘Under that deal, everybody in this room gets fired. All of the thousands of guys and women standing on these buildings get fired, they go home. Because under the Green New Deal, they don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. They don’t know what they like.’ Or they’ll all be retrained for modern, high-paying clean-energy jobs, but why split hairs? Anyway, he saved the best for last: ‘You want to see a bird cemetery? Go under a windmill sometime. You will see the saddest, you got every type of bird. You know, in California you go to jail for five years if you kill a bald eagle. You go under a windmill, you see them all over the place. Not a good situation’.”
m2c4 writes—Natural Weekends – Immature Bald Eagle And Osprey: “We have a new addition to the birds of prey living on our creek this year. For years we have had two osprey nests to which the same pairs have been returning to for years. This year, a pair of bald eagles also settled in and I finally got a nice shot of an immature one the other day.”
giddy thing writes—Dawn Chorus: Birding the Global Big Day: “In birding parlance, a Big Year is a formal or informal personal challenge among birders (or of oneself) to identify as many species as possible in a single calendar year. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has taken that concept and condensed the challenge into one Global Big Day — a 24-hour birding event in which anyone in the world can log bird sightings into global database eBird. This year’s Global Big Day was held Saturday, May 4th, with organizers hoping to break 2018’s world record of 7,025 species reported in one day. Global Big Day was created by the Cornell Lab in 2015 as a fun event for the global birding community, to unite people in their shared passion for birds while collecting unprecedented information on where and when birds occur around the world. Global Big Day is also a fundraiser for the Cornell Lab and eBird to support their work transforming eBird data into science and research products that support bird conservation worldwide.”
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: Listen to millions of monarch begin their journey north: “This video is cued to begin when the monarch clusters begin to separate and individuals fly into the air in unison (at 3:28), I hope. You have the option of listening to the chatty build up if you go back to the start. It’s informative but if you already know all the basic monarch overwintering details and want to fall into the magic, begin when it is cued and turn up the sound. This video is from Mexico's Sierra Chincua Reserve in Michoacān. When I visited the colonies in 1979, I’d seen only a few photos of the large clusters and no videos. This was before the Biosphere Reserve establishment and before it was a tourist destination. The not-knowing what to expect (and the higher abundance of monarchs back then) made the event even more magical.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Climate change forces grizzlies to hunt for food elsewhere—and die in higher and higher numbers: “To understand how climate changes can affect entire areas in ways that most humans might not notice, all one must do is look at the whitebark pines in the Yellowstone area. For over a hundred years, whitebark pines have taken a beating. Disease, overcrowding, and outbreaks of mountain pine beetles have threatened the pines for over a century to varying degrees. Climate change and warmer winters have meant more and more mountain beetle outbreaks—as extreme cold used to help with killing off such outbreaks. In 2009, over 3,000 square miles of whitebark pines were destroyed in a beetle outbreak. Why does this kind of deforestation matter? Animals need those whitebark pines for a healthy ecosystem. Animals like grizzly bears. Grizzlies eat the food caches left by squirrels in the whitebark pines. No pines means no squirrel caches of food, which means grizzlies have to move on. Grizzlies have been moving into human-inhabited areas, more and more in order to survive. According to the Missoula Current, 2018 saw the highest number of grizzly deaths in years, 51.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - shady woodland wildflowers: “May 2019. Pacific Northwest. There’s a sharp change in flowers and foliage when stepping into the shade. The lush plants there prefer the darker damper environment under forest canopy. Some flowers are already done blooming while others are still to come. These are a few in bloom right now I see on my regular walks in my neighborhood. All are native wildflowers. I find it interesting that most of our woodland flowers are white or light pink. It could be that in low light conditions there’s an adaptive advantage having flowers that pollinators can see easily. Nothing contrasts more with dark foliage than white flowers.”
Angmar writes—The Daily Bucket: of Spring spiders (& Open thread): “Pholcidae, commonly known as cellar spiders, daddy long-legs spider, granddaddy long-legs spider, carpenter spider, daddy long-legger, vibrating spider and skull spider, is a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Ludwig Carl Christian Koch in 1850. It contains over 1800 species divided in 94 genera.The common name ‘daddy long-legs’ is the common name for several species, especially Pholcus phalangioides, but is also the common name for several other arthropod groups, including harvestmen, which are arachnids but not spiders, and crane flies.en.wikipedia.org/...”
Attack Gardener writes—The Daily Bucket - An Oriole Occurrence: “There are all kinds of different orioles around the country and the one we see is the Baltimore Oriole, Icterus galbula. When we visited Cape Cod in the spring one year, we finally discovered where all the orioles were headed! All the trees in the Audubon preserve were hung with the grass baskets the orioles weave as nests. Both Baltimore and Orchard orioles were everywhere, the way sparrows are here at home. I’ve always loved the orioles and felt a little disappointed that they don’t stick around but that doesn’t dull the thrill of hearing their song and spotting the first one of spring. Yesterday, my darling spouse had that pleasure while he was taking Gracie the Wonder Pug for her morning constitutional. He heard the call and it was so insistent and loud that he started hunting around for the source. A lovely male oriole rewarded his search.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
FishOutofWater writes—CO2 Hits 415ppm for the first time since the Pliocene when sea level was 16 to 131 feet higher: “The last time in geologic history that CO2 levels were this high was 3 to 5 million years ago in the Pliocene when sea levels were 16 to 131 feet higher. scripps.ucsd.edu/… The Pliocene is the geologic era between five million and three million years ago. Scientists have come to regard it as the most recent period in history when the atmosphere’s heat-trapping ability was as it is now and thus as our guide for things to come. Recent estimates suggest CO2 levels reached as much as 415 parts per million (ppm) during the Pliocene. With that came global average temperatures that eventually reached 3 or 4 degrees C (5.4-7.2 degrees F) higher than today’s and as much as 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) warmer at the poles. Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today. Obviously, sea levels 131 feet higher would be a catastrophe for human civilization, but sea level rise is a lagging effect of climate change because the global oceans have a vast store of deep cold water that will take hundreds of years to reequilibrate with global atmospheric conditions. The rate of CO2 rise in the present has the potential to create rapid climate change which will drive ecological shifts, extinction events, chaotic weather, and instability in crop growth and food production.”
FishOutofWater writes—Atmospheric Convulsion Will Cause Historic Disasters of Arctic Melt & U.S. Storms Next Week: “The atmosphere had a convulsion at the end of April in the transition from winter to summer. The cold polar vortex in the stratosphere did not go gently into summer. Instead of fading slowly into a dome of warm air the whole atmosphere from the surface to the top of the stratosphere convulsed with wave energy driven upwards by an atmospheric dome over Scandinavia. Extraordinary atmospheric heating took place in the over the pole and cold air was pushed towards the temperate latitudes especially over the Pacific ocean. A dome of hot sinking air formed at very high levels over the Arctic pushing cold air and the jet stream south causing unseasonable storms to track across the Pacific ocean into California in mid May. [...] The European and American models agree on the main features — there will be severe storms beginning this weekend lasting for a week or more — but they have subtle differences in the timing and intensity of individual events. The most severe tornado outbreak is apparently going to begin on Monday or possibly Tuesday. However, severe weather outbreak forecasts aren’t reliable beyond 3 days or so, so expect modifications by local experts.”
Angmar writes—"We've run out of elections to waste – this is the last chance on climate change"- Bill McKibben: “We’ve wasted three decades since scientists first raised the warning: ‘I do know a fair amount about the climate crisis, having written the first book on the subject back in 1989. So I can say with confidence that if Australians want to play a serious role in fixing the greatest challenge we’ve ever faced, this may be about the last election where people retain enough leverage to make a real difference. Global warming, after all, is a math problem: how quickly can we reverse the flow of carbon into the atmosphere? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its report last year, said that unless a fundamental transformation was fully underway by 2030, we stood no chance of meeting the targets the world set in the Paris climate accords. No matter what country you’re in, ‘fundamental transformations’ don’t come overnight; if you want to dramatically trim carbon emissions in 2030, it means you better start in 2020."www.theguardian.com/...”
Angmar writes—Cnn Poll:Climate Change"most important issue" for Democrats over healthcare gun control Trump: “A near unanimous percentage of Democratic voters (96%) it at least very important a presidential candidate supports "taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change". That 96% makes it the most important issue tested in our poll. Importantly, ours is not the only poll to find that climate change is big on voters' minds. Climate change was ranked as a top issue by the second highest number of Democratic voters in a Monmouth University Iowa poll earlier this month. This is a big time reversal from what earlier surveys would have suggested. Climate change has generally not been listed as a top issue for all voters and even specifically among Democrats.”
Angmar writes—"Climate Change Isn’t Just Frying the Planet—It’s Fraying Our Nerves": “www.motherjones.com/…Forty percent of Americans reported hearing about climate change in the media at least once a month in 2015, and about half said they were worried about the topic that year, making it ‘a powerful environmental stressor,’ according to a 2016 federal report. And that’s not the only way global warming causes psychological problems: A recent report from the American Psychological Association and Washington-based nonprofit ecoAmerica details some of the effects of natural disasters on mental health, including social disruption, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. Research suggests that heat waves affect our neural regulation, weakening our ability to regulate our emotions, and that people are more aggressive and less empathetic during warm periods. As Stanford University researcher Sanjay Basu put it to me, ‘We kind of lose our cool’.”
Angmar writes—"Why are the US news media so bad at covering Climate Change?"This article is excerpted from a piece published by Columbia Journalism Review and the Nation. "Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn’t much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, “Sure would be nice if our news networks – the only outlets that can force change in this country – would cover it with commensurate urgency.” Hayes (who is an editor at large for the Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: in 2016, All In With Chris Hayes spent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that “every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.”www.theguardian.com/…
pfiore8 writes—Access to abortion on an uninhabitable planet ...”There is an essay on rec list asserting reproductive rights is the issue, the proverbial hill upon which Democrats should be prepared to die. If that’s the strategy, never mind Democrats, but displacement, famine, disease and death are more likely the outcome for 100s of millions of humans and fellow earthlings on the globe.
The only issue in front of us: to mitigate, manage climate chaos and environmental collapse. There is no other hill upon which to die. There will never be social and economic justice on a ruined planet... every pro choice victory, being able to marry whom you choose, winning on gender, pubic healthcare and education will not mean much when Mother Nature finally crashes us. These issues are penultimate… it’s the environment, stupid.”
Crazycab214 writes—Sen. "Big John" Cornyn (R-TX) "Takes On" Climate Change: “How do you even describe Big John’s stance? I guess at least he acknowledged (finally) that climate change is real, BUT (and this is a gigantic caveat) his proposed solution only deals with carbon capture technology, and has nothing to do with cutting emissions. He also (I’m assuming just out of habit at this point) repeats old talking points about not taking appropriate action to combat climate change because of the costs (because of course he does).
Crazycab214 writes—My Letter to Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) About Climate Change: “Senator Cornyn, Yesterday I saw an article in the Houston Chronicle in which you claimed to be preparing legislation to combat climate change. While I think that it is admirable that you have joined the rest of modern society in acknowledging that climate change is both real and a danger to our society, the proposed legislation that is discussed in that article is woefully inadequate to meet the challenges we face in combating climate change. You are quoted as saying, ‘There is a growing consensus the days of ignoring this issue are over. If we all agree that reducing emissions is important I think we have a better way of approaching that than the Green New Deal.’ There has been a scientific consensus on this issue for decades. Your political party is the primary reason that our nation hasn't taken the consequential and effective actions necessary to combat this. So please do not condescend to us by talking about how there is now a "growing consensus". Your proposed legislation seeks to expand federal funding for carbon capture technology, but, and this is vital, your legislation seemingly ignores cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”
Lefty Coaster writes—Sea Level Rise is hurting coastal Real Estate Values - say goodby to these cities and towns: “I ran across this at Google Finance. Here is some of the towns and cities we’ll be saying goodby to in the coming 81 years. These towns and cities currently have some of the country’s priciest real estate. Rising Sea Levels Are Hurting Home Values in These 40 Cities 2. Ocean City, New Jersey. • Current median home value: $603,000 • Value lost in impacted properties (2005-17): $530,439,399 • Percentage of homes underwater by 2100: 79.4%. Ocean City has the highest dollar amount of value lost in impacted properties from 2005 to 2017 of any city on this list. It is also projected to have the largest loss in the next 15 years, losing $612,045,461 in property values from 2018 to 2033.”
Pakalolo writes—Siberians roast under temperatures as high as 87.8 F as second heat wave melts the Arctic: “The code red lights are blinking furiously as the world’s climate continues to change as fossil fuel emissions ramp up yet again. Nowhere are these changes more noticeable than in the polar regions. The Arctic is experiencing what scientists call Arctic amplification, a phenomenon where temperature rise are two to three times warmer than anywhere else on earth. Feedback loops such as a rapid decline in sea ice, thawing permafrost, changing rain and snowfall patterns, more powerful storms, changes in atmospheric wave patterns along with many other increasingly scary feedbacks amplify the greenhouse effect due to our inability to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.”
Angmar writes—Daily Bucket Saving Earth: ‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica: ”The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places. A complete loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet would drive global sea levels up by about five metres, drowning coastal cities around the world. The current losses are doubling every decade, the scientists said, and sea level rise are now running at the extreme end of projections made just a few years ago.”
Jen Hayden writes—Bill Nye the Science Guy goes OFF about climate change (warning: contains explicit language): “Beloved television educator Bill Nye the Science Guy appeared on HBO’s Last Week Tonight to give his now grown-up fans a much-needed lesson on climate change. You really need to hear Bill Nye in his own explicit words. You can see John Oliver’s full segment on the Green New Deal. It’s definitely worth watching. Seriously, as Bill Nye says, “The planet’s on fucking fire.”
John S Mill writes—Need to confront Climate Change Skeptics: Jordan Harris is the Executive Director of the Conservative, privately funded Pegasus Institute. He wrote an embarrassing Opinion piece in the Louisville Courier Journal entitled ‘The Green New Deal is really the “Green Scare” over climate change.’ In my opinion, Jordan writes in a style and content which emphasizes naming calling and spouting ‘facts’ without corresponding documentation. To get a taste of the Harris style, please read the third paragraph: ‘… At this point, most of us who are literate accept that climate change is happening, yet despite claiming that addressing it is a top concern, policymakers and advocates on the left continue to promote nonsensical solutions (Facts? and sarcasm … my words) . Their efforts seem more like McCarthyism (Name Calling … my words). ‘Are you now, or have you ever, used a plastic straw?’ (Sarcasm … my words).
ENERGY
Green New Deal & 100% Clean Energy
Citisven writes—Shifting culture towards nourishing a just and sustainable society, or The Art of the Green New Deal: “Sometimes it’s truly uncanny how synergistic human consciousness can be. I’ve always thought that the world as it exists is the result of what we collectively dream into being, and if a lot of people dream the same thing at the same time, this dream and all its interconnected threads is bound to rapidly and visibly manifest in the waking world. Still, as comfortable as I consider myself to be with such sublime convergences, I admit that it threw me for a galactic loop when Congresswoman and Green New Deal resolution co-author Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted ‘a very special + secret #GreenNewDeal project’ announcement mere minutes before I sent the draft of the creation story you’re about to read to my collaborating editors. ‘Holy cow,’ I thought to myself. ‘A creative Green New Deal storytelling project! This is exactly the kind of stuff we’ve been building our hub for.’ When the surprise — a beautiful, visionary video entitled A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — was revealed the next morning, I was stunned by how much the storyline, the visuals, and the aspirational nature of this moving piece of contemporary art fit into what we’d been dreaming up over the last several months.”
TomP writes—Bernie and AOC at Sunrise Movement's Road to a Green New Deal at Howard University Tonight.
TomP writes—AOC Condemns Middle of the Road Approaches on Combating Climate Change: “”AOC gave an inspiring speech at the road to a Green New Deal Rally at Howard University last night. She minced no words In strongly condemning a middle of the road, go slow approach on combatting climate change. The quoted words are at the end of this two minute clip from her speech. She starts with talking about what is “too much for me.” Spend two minutes and watch.
Angmar writes—Washington State Governor Jay Inslee on the Green New Deal: “’Jobs in the clean energy sector are growing faster than rest of the economy,’ Inslee said. ‘These are jobs for today, for a vision of tomorrow.’ Inslee told attendees that he knew many people were concerned about the details of the bill, but he believes the road to completely clean energy is feasible. The governor showed lots of support for the Green New Deal two weeks prior on The View townhall.com/….”
Angmar writes—JAY INSLEE NEWS SUMMARY: Announces $9-Trillion Climate Change Plan, Evergreen Economy Plan(and more): “Today, I announced a plan to do just that. My Evergreen Economy Plan is a comprehensive proposal to create 8 million good jobs over the next 10 years building an economy run on clean energy. My plan will invest nearly $9 trillion over the next decade in American industries and manufacturing, skilled labor, and clean technology innovation.My Evergreen Economy Plan is built on the model that has led Washington state to become the fastest-growing economy in America. We've made historic investments in clean energy research and deployment, creating jobs in 21st century manufacturing, building green transportation infrastructure, supporting modern job training programs, and protecting workers' rights and families.”
Fossil Fuels
Walter Einenkel writes—So much for those Trump coal jobs, 4th largest coal company in the U.S. files bankruptcy: “Cloud Peak Energy is the fourth largest coal producer in the United States. Up until 2018, it was the third largest producer. On Friday, May 10, Cloud Peak Energy filed for bankruptcy, choosing not to pay a $1.8 million loan due that day. According to a statement from the President of Cloud Peak, Colin Marshall: Over the past several months, Cloud Peak Energy has thoroughly evaluated strategic alternatives to address the challenging market conditions in our industry. “We believe, at this time, that a sale process in Chapter 11 will provide the best opportunity to maximize value for Cloud Peak Energy. One of the gambits that the company had made this past year, was to invest in foreign markets, something that didn’t pan out for the company as coal prices in the Asian market collapsed this past year. Andy Blumenfeld, a market analyst for an energy research firm, told Wyoming Public Media that in many respects, Cloud Peak Energy didn’t suffer from being run poorly as a coal business, but that the coal business cannot be run the way it once was.’They’re a good operator, but the strategy didn’t ultimately work out for them mostly because I don't think anyone foresaw the incursion into their marketplace of so much natural gas and renewables’.”
Dan Bacher writes—Legislation to mandate setbacks from oil and gas drilling sites becomes two-year bill: “After intense lobbying by the Western States Petroleum Association and the oil companies, Assembly Bill 345 stalled in the Appropriations Committee on Thursday, becoming a two-year-bill. The bill will be brought up again in 2020. AB 345, authored by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), would ensure that new oil and gas wells not on federal land are located 2,500 feet away from homes, schools, hospitals, playgrounds and health clinics. Frontline communities and environmental justice advocates are hopeful that the Legislature will approve the bill in 2020.”
Angmar writes—Washington Governor Insee withdraws support LNG plant,sides with Puyallup Tribe-Indian Country Today: “The Puyallup Tribe received some good news on Wednesday when Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced he no longer supports the construction of a liquified natural gas plant (LNG plant) on the Puyallup River Tideflats in Tacoma. The plant, which the tribe has opposed since 2015, would produce up to a half million gallons of highly volatile liquefied natural gas per day and would store up to 8 million gallons of it in a huge tank located at the facility. Gov. Inslee, a Democrat who announced in March he is running for president on a climate change platform, previously supported the construction of the plant. But he changed his mind and announced his reversal on the same day he signed a bill banning the use of hydraulic fracking in Washington state.”
Hydraulic Fracturing
Karen Feridun writes—Wolf Rallies for More Fracking in Wake of Chilling Report of Childhood Cancers in Shale Fields: “Nicole Stewart says of Hodgkin lymphoma, ‘I expect it to come back, so if it does come I’ll be ready for it.’ She is 19. Anya La Mar was 11 when she passed away after a recurrence of Ewing sarcoma in 2016. Theirs are among the stories shared in gut-wrenching must-read reporting by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday on the disproportionately large number of cases of childhood cancers being diagnosed in four Pennsylvania counties at the epicenter of the shale gas boom. Today, Governor Tom Wolf staged a rally for his Restore Pennsylvania plan. It is version 5.0 of his severance tax plan. Pennsylvania is the only large gas-producing state that does not tax production of the greenhouse gases methane and ethane, something that has preoccupied Democrats since former Governor Ed Rendell first opened the state to fracking. What the tax would pay for has changed from proposal to proposal, but what it has never been intended to pay for are the health impacts of fracking. This year’s plan would pay for a laundry list of items including high-speed internet, flood recovery, and efforts to address blight. It would put some of the money back in the industry’s pockets to build more pipelines and grow the booming petrochemical business.”
Emissions Controls & Carbon Pricing
mettle fatigue writes—New Report Estimates, for the First Time, Plastic's Role in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: “WasteDive.com has written up the report from the Center for International Environment Law research, into each [stage] of the plastic lifecycle to identify the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, sources of uncounted emissions, and uncertainties that likely lead to underestimation of plastic’s climate impacts. Most conventional plastic and plastic-like products begin lifecycle with the petrochemical industry pumping, digging, and mountain-topping it out of the earth: oil, gas and coal alone are raw material for worlds more than just fuel.”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Jamess writes—If you haven't heard of this 'Wonder Material' yet, well take a few minutes: So, my brother told me about this wonder material that may get us all into electric carsmuch quicker than we imagine. To my surprise I hadn’t heard of it yet. Too busy putting out wild-fires of a Trumpian nature, I guess. Anyways the ‘wonder material’ is a 1-atom thick fabric of carbon rings, that is poised to change much of how energy gets stored and used. And re-used; quickly, efficiently, extendedly. It is called: Graphene. So let me put a spark or two into your day. Here’s the skinny on that very thin, and energy-dense ‘super-capacitor’ which is destined to change our 21st century world.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—A.G. Xavier Becerra, fishing groups sue Westlands over Shasta Dam raise plan: “California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of fishing and environmental groups have each filed a lawsuit to block the Westlands water District, the largest agricultural water district in the U.S. from taking what they described as ‘unlawful’ action to assist in the planning and construction of a project to raise the height of Shasta Dam. ‘The project poses significant adverse effects on the free-flowing condition of the McCloud River and on its wild trout fishery, both of which have special statutory protections under the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act,’ according to a statement from Becerra’s Office. ‘The Act prohibits any agency of the State of California, such as Westlands, from assisting or cooperating with actions to raise the Shasta Dam.’ The dam raise would also destroy many of the remaining sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe that already lost 90% of its ancestral lands when the dam was completed and Shasta Reservoir filled in 1945. ‘This project is unlawful. It would create significant environmental and cultural impacts for the communities and habitats surrounding the Shasta Dam,’ said Attorney General Becerra. ‘Today we ask the court to block this illegal attempt by the Westlands Water District to circumvent state law’.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
billofrights writes—McKibben is Right: We need a Sea Change in the Zeitgeist & Biden and Pelosi aren't providing it: “Dear Citizens and Elected Officials: Introduction A good conservationist sent around, Sunday, on Mother’s Day, very appropriately, a New Yorker magazine article interview with Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert. They are perhaps our two very best writers about climate disruption and the collapse of biological diversity. Here’s the article: www.newyorker.com/… The article follows immediately in the wake of yet another devastatingly bleak, and alarming, scientific report on the threats to Nature from our globalized economy, putting the collapse of Nature, and therefore, us, civilization as we know it, on the policy table, maybe in the starkest terms yet. The report adds to the two other scientific jolts to the status quo, political and economic, from late 2018: one from the U.N., the other from the US government agencies’ requirement to report to Congress on the threats from Global Warming. Here are the two brief opening paragraphs of the new U.N. report, which you can find online at www.un.org/…”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—AWEC Opposition to Oregon Climate Action Funded by Microsoft, Intel, U Oregon: “On Sunday the Oregonian reported that a lobby group fighting against climate action in the state includes a number of members that otherwise profess to support climate policies, including the University of Oregon. The Alliance of Western Energy Consumers, or AWEC, was created in 2018 after the merger of two other groups focused on Northwest utilities and gas customers. AWEC’s natural gas director told the Oregonian that the group is focused on doing ratepayer advocacy aimed at public utility commissions. And that’s similar to what University of Oregon officials claimed was the reason for their involvement, telling the paper that their membership is ‘purely to aid in projecting costs for natural gas.’ But in practice, the banal-sounding defense of ratepayers turns out to be a pretty heavy-handed attack on the state’s attempts to reduce emissions. We know that because they declared the delay of a cap and trade bill as a victory in FOIA’d documents. What’s more, not only did UO know full well that the group was opposed to the legislation, but they also attempted to hide that information when responding to FOIA requests.”
SouthernLeveller writes—Inslee's Bold Plan to Tackle Climate Change is Amazing! “Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA), candidate for the Democratic nomination for POTUS is near the back of the pack, polling at 1%. But his new Evergreen Economy Initiative is so very bold, matching the size of the response to the huge size of our climate crisis, that he has now moved into 2nd place in my own 2020 preferences. Warren is still first, but I hope she adopts a climate plan as bold as this. It dwarfs the Green New Deal. The details are here. It is not socialist, and does not rely entirely on governmental central planning, but it is a WWII sized effort based on the original New Deal. It aims to revitalize Labor by repealing all ‘right to work’ laws. It invests $9 Trillion in infrastructure (super high speed rail, better/smarter power grids, zero emission vehicles, green buildings, water conservation, etc.) and green energy production. It aims to get to a zero emission economy by 2030. The plan includes a carbon tax and plans to cap methane emissions and HFCs. There is a “G.I. Bill” component aimed at coal communities to help them transition to new technologies and not be simply left behind (as they are now with all the coal plant closings). I think there needs to be a similar effort for places Alaska and the Gulf Coast to be quickly weaned off oil & natural gas.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Mark Sumner writes—Bureau of Land Management officially changes its goals from protection to destruction: “Since its inception, the mission statement of the Bureau of Land Management has been simple: ‘The BLM’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.’ However, that mission statement is now, as HuffPost reports, simply missing. Until recently, that mission statement has been attached to reports and public documents provided by the BLM. But now it’s gone. As in, completely gone. It’s been cut from ‘all agency releases, including those that predate the Trump administration.’ Instead, the BLM now has a single focus, and a single mission: ‘the economic value of America’s public lands.’ Where the old mission statement talked about preserving the health and diversity of public lands for future generations, the Trump version replaces those ideas with consumption and profit. The old sentence about health, diversity, and the enjoyment of future generations has been replaced with this: ‘Diverse activities authorized on these lands generated $96 billion in sales of goods and services throughout the American economy in fiscal year 2017. These activities supported more than 468,000 jobs’.”
Meteor Blades writes—Open thread for night owls: Oil shale project would be disaster for Colorado River Basin: “A coalition of conservation groups filed a legal challenge this week to the Trump administration's approval of what would be the nation's first commercial-scale oil shale mine and processing facility—a fossil fuel project the groups say would run roughshod over the environment. At issue is Estonia-based Enefit American Oil's strip-mining South Project for eastern Utah's Uinta Basin. In their lawsuit (pdf) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Utah, the organizations say that the administration violated the law in approving several rights of way for utilities across public lands to enable the company to construct and operate its proposed 50,000-barrel-per-day project [...]”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—IG Says Disgraced Former EPA Admin Scott Pruitt Spent Over $120K Too Much On Travel: “Remember Scott Pruitt? Of course you do. His hard-snacking, phone-boothing, lotion-loving, used-Trump-mattress-seeking, homophobic-sandwich-craving antics at the EPA were only overshadowed by his despicable attempts to make it easier for polluters to profit off killing Americans. Well, yesterday the Office of Inspector General published its report on Pruitt’s travel expenses, which totaled some $985,037 over 10 months in 2017. Of that, 82% is airfare expenses. And surprise surprise, Pruitt, whose out of date LinkedIn profile describes him as “a leading voice for fiscal responsibility,” appears to have bilked taxpayers out of over a hundred thousand dollars in what the report determined was excessive travel costs. (That said, his LinkedIn also describes him as ‘leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,’ so maybe running up a six-figure travel tab was part of his plan to hollow out the EPA from the inside…)”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
Attack Gardener writes—The Daily Bucket - The Grand Garden Renovation Begins: “The above god-awful mess has been in place for many, many moons, ever since I wrecked my back trying to do too much at one time, so since at least 2012 and probably earlier. I have daydreamed about taming this beast and installing a new, back-friendly garden but never quite got around to it. Darling Spouse even made a couple of attempts but was driven back by the ferocious greenery. Finally, last fall, I said ‘enough.’ I’ll skip the part where I called half a dozen places, looking for a contractor willing to do such a relatively small job. Suffice it to say it was educational.
I made a choice, did some haggling and signed a contract. Saturday, May 4th, they showed up for the first time. The work done that first day was not extensive. It’s been far too wet for them to use heavy equipment so all they were able to do was chop down anything that held still long enough with chainsaws. Since that didn’t take long, they were kind enough to run around our property with me and cut down some other nuisance trees and shrubs that needed removal.”
Lib Dem FoP writes—Best Place to Plant a Tree? Consult the Wood Wide Web (Seriously!) ” Trees use fungi in a number of ways, from breaking down organic materials for the trees to absorb nutrients to enabling a form of ‘communication.’ Fungi form a network underground and a report in Nature has brought together millions of points of observation data to map the ‘Wood Wide Web’ and understand this underground ecosystem. Using millions of direct observations of trees and their symbiotic associations on the ground, the researchers could build models from the bottom up to visualise these fungal networks for the first time. Prof Thomas Crowther, one of the authors of the report, told the BBC, ‘It's the first time that we've been able to understand the world beneath our feet, but at a global scale’."
gmoke writes—City Agriculture - May 15, 2019: “ Singapore Airlines reinventing airplane food with produce from a vertical farm. Agritech innovations. Fraunhofer Reports Combining Farming With Solar 186% More Efficient In Summer Of 2018. Editorial Comment: The Japanese have been combining agriculture with solar electricity for a decade or two now. The Circular Garden - a temporary pavilion made from mushrooms for Milan Design Week [...] ”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Koch Media Covers Koch Groups’ Letter Citing Koch Reports Opposing Electric Vehicles: “A couple weeks ago we discussed the ongoing Koch effort to fight electric vehicle tax credits, and the many debunkings of their ‘factual’ and rhetorical justifications. So excuse us for retreading slightly old ground, but we would be remiss not to point out the latest and starkest example of how the Koch network creates its own reality. On Thursday, the Daily Caller ‘reported’ on a letter sent to Congress opposing electric vehicle tax credits, signed by a bunch of conservative groups. Now the story makes it seem as if it’s a broad coalition of conservative groups presenting a credible argument, independent of any possible profit motive. That is, of course, hardly the case. As Ben Jarvey at DeSmog pointed out in his debunking, the Caller’s story went live at 5:10am—well before the letter could have possibly been delivered and press notified. So it seems that the Koch groups coordinated with the Koch-funded media outlet on the release of a letter filled with Koch talking points, in order to advance the Koch’s argument for a political change Koch Industries will benefit from. This is one of the clearest examples yet of how the decades of supposedly philanthropic work the Kochs have done has created an entire ecosystem where the Koch’s interests are disguised as a larger ideological concern independent of their profit motive.”
Marissa Higgins writes—NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio warns Trump with $2.1 million fine: 'Cut your emissions or pay the price': “Outside of Donald Trump’s New York City-based Trump Tower, Mayor Bill de Blasio didn’t mince words. ‘It doesn’t matter who you are, even the president of the United States, you have to obey the laws of New York City,’ de Blasio said, as reported by Reuters. What’s he referring to? Oh, just that if the Trump Organization doesn’t reduce carbon emissions from its own buildings in New York City, they’ll be slapped with a little $2.1 million dollar per year fine, starting in 2030. Of course, this law doesn’t apply only to Trump. It’s a citywide effort to reduce emissions and will impact the largest buildings in the city. And we’re talking large; these properties have to be more than 25,000 square feet, which is big anywhere, but colossal in New York. According to the mayor’s office, these buildings are responsible for almost 70% of the city’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. So this isn’t going after the little man, which is nice to see.”
MISCELLANY
Besame writes—Cal Fire fingers PG&E for Camp Fire and judge requires their execs to visit the disaster area: “ Both the Butte County District Attorney and Cal Fire conducted separate investigations into Camp Fire cause and the answer (twice) was PG&E equipment. It’s official now. Cal Fire today issued a Press Release and on May 2, DA Mike Ramsey told the media that his investigation had ruled out all other causes except PG&E equipment but hadn’t (yet) determined if manslaughter charges could apply. The transmission tower at fault was 25 years beyond what PG&E considers its ‘useful lifespan.’ The Cal Fire statement begins by summarizing the Camp Fire disaster and then swiftly identifies the two PG&E ignition sites.”