Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics over the last week. This is a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI.
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AP Explains- Why Congo’s Ebola outbreak still going strong – (AP) – The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, the second deadliest in history, marks six months on Friday and is moving toward the major border city of Goma, a development that would greatly complicate any hope of stopping the virus’ spread in the unstable region.This may be the most challenging Ebola outbreak ever. Health workers face the threat of attack from rebel groups and resistance from frightened communities. A highly mobile population produced two scares in the past week alone: The discovery of an infected, wide-ranging young trader led to vaccinations in a new, third province near the South Sudan border. And two contacts of Ebola victims slipped away and were found in the capital of neighboring Uganda – free of the virus.And yet this outbreak has seen a number of advances, including the widespread use of an experimental Ebola vaccine and a clinical trial of experimental treatments. Health workers say conditions have improved from the devastating West Africa outbreak a few years ago, when some patients were housed by the dozens in sweltering tents and used buckets for toilets. Congo’s health ministry reports 759 cases, including 705 confirmed ones and 414 confirmed deaths. Ebola is spread via infected bodily fluids, including those of the dead.More than 70,000 people have received the experimental Ebola vaccine, whose efficacy has yet to be determined. Some people who have received the vaccine have still fallen ill. As concerns about the vaccine stockpile grow, drugmaker Merck last week said it will ship another 120,000 doses or so to Congo by the end of this month.Women and children make up a worrying number of cases, including more than 160 children under age 18. More than 280 children have been orphaned, the U.N. children’s agency says. Cases are still emerging without any link to confirmed ones, a sign of how difficult it is to track the virus in a dense and often wary population in a region with little infrastructure.
Typhus Epidemic Worsens in Los Angeles – (w/ news video) A veteran Los Angeles City Hall official is one of the latest victims of an epidemic of the infectious disease typhus that continues to worsen across LA County.For months, LA County public health officials have said typhus is mainly hitting the homeless population.But Deputy City Attorney Liz Greenwood, a veteran prosecutor, tells NBC4 she was diagnosed with typhus in November, after experiencing high fevers and excruciating headaches.”It felt like somebody was driving railroad stakes through my eyes and out the back of my neck,” Greenwood told the I-Team. “Who gets typhus? It’s a medieval disease that’s caused by trash.” Greenwood believes she contracted typhus from fleas in her office at City Hall East. Fleas often live on rats, which congregate in the many heaps of trash that are visible across the city of LA, and are a breeding ground for typhus.”There are rats in City Hall and City Hall East,” Greenwood added. “There are enormous rats and their tails are as long as their bodies.” Last year set a new record for the number of typhus cases – 124 in LA County for the year, according to the California Department of Public Health. Last October, Mayor Garcetti vowed to clean up piles of garbage throughout the city to combat the typhus epidemic.The Mayor allocated millions of dollars to increase clean-ups of streets in the Skid Row area, known lately as “the typhus zone.” But four months later, the I-Team documented huge piles of garbage just outside the “typhus zone.” “You can’t solve it (the typhus epidemic) until you hit the cause,” “and the cause of it is that you still have these mountains of trash.” Added Greenwood: “This is a terrible illness and I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. But it’s not just homeless folks getting it.” She believes the city should fumigate City Hall and City Hall East to protect the thousands of workers and visitors who could be at risk from getting typhus.
‘It will take off like a wildfire’: The unique dangers of the Washington state measles outbreak – WaPo – Amber Gorrow is afraid to leave her house with her infant son because she lives at the epicenter of Washington state’s worst measles outbreak in more than two decades. Bor- n eight weeks ago, Leon is too young to get his first measles shot, putting him at risk for the highly contagious respiratory virus, which can be fatal in small children. Gorrow also lives in a community where she said being anti-vaccine is as acceptable as being vegan or going gluten free. Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Wash., a suburb of Portland, Ore., go to school without measles, mumps and rubella immunizations, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control. Measles outbreaks have sprung up in nine other states this winter, but officials are particularly alarmed about the one in Clark County because of its potential to go very big, very quickly. The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation’s most vocal andorganized anti-vaccination activists. That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the median rate nationally. Libertarian-leaning lawmakers, meanwhile, have bowed to public pressure to relax state laws to exempt virtually any child from state vaccination requirements whose parents object. Three states allow only medical exemptions; most others also permit religious exemptions. And 17, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho, allow what they call “philosophical” exemptions, meaning virtually anyone can opt out of the requirements. All those elements combine into a dangerous mix, spurring concern about the resurgence of a deadly disease that once sent tens of thousands of Americans to hospitals each year and killed an estimated 400 to 500 people, many of them young children.
How Unvaccinated Kids Impact Your Health, Database to Find Out How Many Kids Aren’t Vaccinated at Local Schools – It started as one case of chicken pox at the Asheville Waldorf Private School. That bumped up to seven. Then 36 sick kids left medical experts scratching their heads until they looked at the campus’s vaccination records. 72 percent of students did not have the chicken pox vaccine, which is such a high number, the Health Department calls it a community issue.”They go to the grocery store, they go to the library, they go to schools where there is likely to be an immune-compromised person, and now you’re risking not only the health of your own child but the public health,” Dr. Lindsay Diamond said. Researchers at theDuke Human Vaccine Institute went even further saying unvaccinated kids put your vaccinated kids at risk.“Absolutely. The thing about vaccines is no vaccine, or truthfully no medical intervention of any type, is perfect,” said Dr. Tony Moody.So if you got the vaccine and it wasn’t 100 percent effective for you, being surrounded by unvaccinated people is dangerous. They can pass the disease on to you. But if everyone else has been vaccinated, you’re protected too. It’s called herd immunity. And the Duke researchers say it works for some of the most dangerous diseases like Measles, as long as you don’t have more than 5 percent of the population that’s unvaccinated.
Common e-cigarette chemical flavorings may impair lung function – Harvard School of Public Health – Two chemicals widely used to flavor electronic cigarettes may be impairing the function of cilia in the human airway, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Impaired cilia function has been linked with lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. “Although chemicals used to flavor e-cigs are frequently used, little has been known about the mechanism of how they impact health. Our new study suggests that these chemicals may be harming cilia – the first line of defense in the lungs – by altering gene expression related to cilia production and function,” The study was published February 1, 2019 in Scientific Reports. It is the first to look at the impact of flavoring chemicals in human epithelial cells, which are the type that line the lungs. Millions of people use e-cigarettes, and a recent rise in use among school-aged children has alarmed public health experts. In mid-December, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams labeled youth e-cigarette use an epidemic. In a previous study, Allen and Harvard Chan colleagues found flavoring chemicals – primarily diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione – in over 90% of e-cigarettes they tested. In addition to being used in e-cigarettes, diacetyl is used as a flavoring agent in foods such as butter-flavored microwave popcorn, baked goods, and candy; it can create a variety of flavors. Diacetyl is considered a safe ingredient in foods, but evidence suggests that it can be dangerous when inhaled. It has been previously linked with bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating lung disease that was dubbed “popcorn lung” because it first appeared in workers who inhaled artificial butter flavor in microwave popcorn processing facilities.
Chemicals in Cosmetics Linked to Lung Damage in Children, New Study Finds — Children exposed to chemicals commonly found in personal care products may be at a higher risk of suffering from lung damage later in life, according to a new European study.The longitudinal study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, conducted by a team of European scientists, found that babies exposed in utero and shortly after birth to three classes of chemicals – phthalates, parabens and the fluorinated compounds known as PFAS – had diminished lung function at six and 12 years of age. It’s believed to be the first study to look at the effect on children’s lung function of exposure to chemicals before or after birth. Although the chemicals cited in the study have multiple uses, all three classes are found in cosmetics and other personal care products. “This study provides even more evidence that it’s time to finally regulate the chemicals in cosmetics,” said the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Scott Faber. “As if increasing the risk of cancer and infertility were not enough for Congress to act, now we can add lung damage in kids to the list of harms caused by these everyday products.”Parabens are chemical preservatives widely used in cosmetics and have been linked to other health problems, including breast cancer. Parabens were found in one-fifth of the products in EWG’s Skin Deep® cosmetics database, which analyzes ingredients in more than 70,000 products.PFAS chemicals have been linked to serious health effects, including cancer, thyroid disease and liver problems. EWG researchers recently scoured the Skin Deep database and found PFAS chemicals in 66 different products from 15 brands. Phthalates are industrial compounds used in fragrance mixtures and in body care products. They’re potent hormone disruptors that can alter the reproductive development of male infants and are associated with sperm damage in adult men.
5G Wireless- A Massive Health Experiment That Could Cause Cancer And Global Catastrophe – Experts are warning that superfast broadband known as 5G could cause cancer in humans, and the usage of 5G is nothing more than a “massive health experiment.” 5G could very well be a global catastrophe that kills wildlife, gives people terminal diseases, and causes the Earth’s magnetic field to change, according to shocking claims by a technology expert. Arthur Robert Firstenberg is an American author and an activist for electromagnetic radiation and health. In his 1997 book Microwaving Our Planet: The Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution, he claimed: “The telecommunications industry has suppressed damaging evidence about its technology since at least 1927.” Firstenberg has also founded the independent campaign group theCelluar Phone Task Force and since 1996 he has argued in numerous publications that wireless technology is dangerous.According to a report by the Daily Star, Firstenberg has also recently started an online petition calling on world organizations, such as the United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO), and European Union to “urgently halt the development of 5G,” which is due to be rolled out this year. In fact, Verizon has activated the world’s first 5G networks in four cities in the United States: Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. According to the Firstenberg, wireless networks are “harmful for humans” and the development of the next generation is “defined as a crime” under international law, as he states it in the online petition. When speaking to The Daily Star Online, Firstenberg said this 5G rollout is deadly.“There is about to be as many as 20,000 satellites in the atmosphere. The FCC approved Elon Musk’s project for 12,000 satellites on November 15th and he’s going to launch his in mid-2019. I’m getting reports from various parts of the world that 5G antennas are being erected all over and people are already getting sick from what’s there now and the insect population is getting affected,” Firstenberg stated
Evidence mounts that gut bacteria can influence mood, prevent depression – Of all the many ways the teeming ecosystem of microbes in a person’s gut and other tissues might affect health, its potential influences on the brain may be the most provocative. Now, a study of two large groups of Europeans has found several species of gut bacteria are missing in people with depression. The researchers can’t say whether the absence is a cause or an effect of the illness, but they showed that many gut bacteria could make substances that affect nerve cell function – and maybe mood.“It’s the first real stab at tracking how” a microbe’s chemicals might affect mood in humans, says John Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who has been one of the most vocal proponents of a microbiome-brain connection. The study “really pushes the field from where it’s been” with small studies of depressed people or animal experiments. Interventions based on the gut microbiome are now under investigation: The University of Basel in Switzerland, for example, is planning a trial of fecal transplants, which can restore or alter the gut microbiome, in depressed people. Several studies in mice had indicated that gut microbes can affect behavior, and small studies of people suggested this microbial repertoire is altered in depression. To test the link in a larger group, Jeroen Raes, a microbiologist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and his colleagues took a closer look at 1054 Belgians they had recruited to assess a “normal” microbiome. Some in the group – 173 in total – had been diagnosed with depression or had done poorly on a quality of life survey, and the team compared their microbiomes with those other participants. Two kinds of microbes, Coprococcus and Dialister, were missing from the microbiomes of the depressed subjects, but not from those with a high quality of life. The finding held up when the researchers allowed for factors such as age, sex, or antidepressant use, all of which influence the microbiome, the team reports today in Nature Microbiology. They also found the depressed people had an increase in bacteria implicated in Crohn disease, suggesting inflammation may be at fault.
Fruit juices, for kids and adults, may include lead and other metals – Another knock against fruit juices: Many contain potentially harmful levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead, according to Consumer Reports.The non-profit consumer research and advocacy group tested 45 fruit juices (apple, grape, pear and fruit blends) sold across the U.S. and found elevated levels of those heavy metals in nearly half of them. Particularly concerning to the researchers was that many of the juices were marketed to children. Consumer Reports tested 45 drinks and found 21 contained enough of a single heavy metal or a combination of the metals to concern experts who worked with Consumer Reports on the study. Drinking just 4 ounces a day can cause concern, said Consumer Reports chief science officer James Dickerson. Drinking lots of fruit juice could compound their risk, the researchers say, because children may also encounter elevated levels of heavy metals in baby foods, rice products, and other foods, as well as from water and the environment. “Exposure to these metals early on can affect their whole life trajectory,” says Jennifer Lowry, a physician and chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health, in the report. “There is so much development happening in their first years of life.” The drinks tested were from 24 national, store, and private-label brands including Capri Sun, Gerber, Minute Maid, Mott’s and Welch’s. Researchers bought three samples of each product from retailers across the country.
Wheeler’s EPA Keeps Brain-Damaging Chlorpyrifos in Food — Health and labor organizations will have to argue again in court that chlorpyrifos, a brain-damaging pesticide, must be banned from all food uses, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The decision comes four months after Andrew Wheeler’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked the court to rehear the case either by the three-judge panel that originally banned chlorpyrifos in 2018, or by a panel of 11 judges.The court will schedule proceedings that will likely include further briefings and argument.”EPA’s own scientists have said for more than two years that chlorpyrifos is harmful, particularly to children,” said Patti Goldman, the Earthjusticemanaging attorney handling the case. “Any delay to ban this toxic chemical is a tragedy. Chlorpyrifos should be banned based on the agency’s own scientific conclusion, and the law.”Last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered EPA to finalize its proposed ban on chlorpyrifos based on undisputed findings that the pesticide is unsafe for public health, and particularly harmful to children and farmworkers. That court ruling happened nearly two years after the Trump administration reversed EPA’s own proposal to ban this pesticide. Chlorpyrifos is a widely-used agricultural pesticide linked to reduced IQ, attention deficit disorder and other developmental damage in children. Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate that comes from the same chemical family as sarin nerve gas, is used on staple foods, such as strawberries, apples, citrus, broccoli and more. Weeks after former EPA boss Scott Pruitt met with the head of the largest manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, Dow Chemical (now DowDuPont), Pruitt falsely claimed in 2017 the science is “unresolved” and decided EPA would study the issue until 2022. First developed by the Nazis for chemical warfare, organophosphates like chlorpyrifos were later repurposed foragriculture. Chlorpyrifos has been banned from home use for about two decades, as it is too toxic to children.
Costco Stops Selling Roundup – Via: Moms Across America: On Friday, January 18, Elizabeth Desiree of Washington state posted on Facebook that she just got a call from an employee at Costco and he told her that Costco would no longer be selling Roundup. She had written him a letter and he was calling her back. I was excited but reserved my excitement. There is so much fake news these days. I called the headquarters, and after two days of messages and calls, I did finally confirm with three people that Costco was not ordering Roundup or any glyphosate-based herbicides for the incoming spring shipments. They would not be selling it in any stores, all across America. This is HUGE! How fantastic! One employee mentioned that they had looked into organic alternatives first and were happy with the results. More than one employee mentioned the lawsuit (Johnson V Monsanto) for part of the reasoning. They said they just felt like it was the right thing to do. I asked for an official statement and was told that usually, Costco does not issue press releases, etc discussing which items they have discontinued. Despite not hearing back from the Costco PR department, I decided to announce the information anyway. I told them that the 89,000 people who signed a petition to Costco, Home Depot, and Lowe’s deserved to have an answer. I knew that they would be happy to know that Costco was doing the right thing.
Neonic Pesticide May Become More Toxic in Tap Water – Pesticide water monitoring experts at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) paired up with scientists from the University of Iowa in a federally funded collaboration to track neonicotinoidpesticides or ” neonics” in tap water, including the potential to form chlorinated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) from the pesticides and their metabolites that may be more toxic than the original compounds. And the news isn’t good.Following up on previous research finding neonicotinoids in tap water (Klarich et al. 2017), the scientists now explore whether the neonic compounds or their metabolites that are generated in the environment are transformed into disinfection byproducts during common, important drinking water treatment processes used to protect public health, such as chlorination (Klarich Wong et al. 2019). This paper is the first report of two known metabolites of imidacloprid in tap water; desnitro-imidacloprid and imidacloprid-urea. This is especially concerning because desnitro-imidacloprid is about 319 times more toxic to mammals than imidacloprid, so even much lower levels could be harmful.In addition to discovering the presence of the two metabolites in tap water, the authors demonstrate the likelihood that these metabolites are further transformed to a new form of neonic-derived chlorinated disinfection byproduct during routine water treatment processes. The scientists simulated the conditions that would occur during realistic drinking water conditions, to show under laboratory conditions that chlorinated chemicals are produced. These new chlorinated contaminants are untested, untracked and potentially harmful. In other words, their potential impacts on human health could be a big deal! Other types of disinfection byproducts in drinking water are highly toxic, linked to a risk of cancer and birth defects.
For Detroit Students, Water Fountains are Health Hazards – For the last six months, the nearly 50,000 students enrolled in Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have not been able to use the drinking fountains. In August, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti tested the water quality at 86 DPS schools. There is no law requiring schools to test their water, but Vitti had good cause for concern. At 57 of the schools tested, results showed elevated levels of lead and copper. Vitti ordered all drinking water to be shut off at every school in the district. Lead is rarely found naturally in lakes, rivers or wells. It tends to enter drinking water through the corrosion of aging pipes, solder and faucets. Copper may enter into drinking water either by directly contaminating well water or through the corrosion of copper pipes. The presence of both lead and copper in drinking water at DPS schools is the result of corrosion.”It’s all about the infrastructure. In DPS schools, they didn’t take care of the infrastructure. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” “They have not put money into keeping up the pipes.” The tests results have left students worried. “When they told us the water was being shut off because it had lead and copper in it, they didn’t give us any information on how the contaminated water affects us, so I looked it up on my own,” saidSoutheastern High School freshman Isiah Pearl. “I found out drinking water with lead and copper in it makes you dumber.” In children, exposure to even low levels of lead has been linked to learning disabilities, lower IQ, hyperactivity, stunted growth, impaired hearing and anemia.
Worrisome nonstick chemicals are common in U.S. drinking water, federal study suggests -In recent weeks, the leadership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., has been dithering on whether to protect drinking water from unregulated industrial chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Meanwhile, the agency’s scientists have found that the compounds are more widespread in drinking water than they previously knew.PFAS chemicals are widely used to make nonstick and water-proof products, including foams used to fight fires. Two of the most common forms – perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) – are no longer made in the United States, but in some cases have been replaced by related chemicals. The compounds can persist in the environment for decades and have been found in many drinking water supplies. That has raised health concerns because studies have linked PFAS to cancer and developmental defects.EPA is facing pressure to set a national limit on PFAS concentrations in drinking water. (Some states have already set their own limits.) But the agency has not yet acted, and has disputed reports that it will not issue a standard. In the meantime, many communities have been pushing officials to test water supplies in order to document the extent of any contamination. A study quietly released earlier this month by scientists at EPA and the United States Geological Survey suggests the chemicals are widespread. They found some combination of 14 PFAS compounds in all 50 drinking water samples they tested, a dramatic jump from a similar 2016 study that used less sensitive testing methods and found the chemicals in less than 3% of samples. The study does not indicate how many people might be drinking the tested water, because the sampling locations are confidential. But using 2016 data collected by federal scientists, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., estimates that up to 110 million people are served by water supplies with PFAS.
Drinking Water PFAS Contamination Crisis: Ex-Koch Chemicals Executive Playing Key Role in Shaping EPA’s Response -A former chemical and fossil fuel industry executive who recently oversaw the anti-environmental agenda of the Koch brothersis playing a lead role crafting the Trump administration’s plan to address the crisis of PFAS contamination in the nation’sdrinking water supply, according to a report Monday by Politico.David Dunlap, a top political appointee in the Office of Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has played a significant role in shaping the agency’s plan for addressing PFAS contamination in the tap water supplies of more than 100 million Americans. According to documents obtained by Politico through a public records request, Dunlap began working on the issue almost immediately after coming to EPA, in October, and has participated in at least nine meetings on PFAS, including one briefing with Andrew Wheeler, the agency’s acting administrator.Dunlap, a chemical engineer, had been the director of environmental affairs at Koch Industries since 2010, before coming into the Trump administration. On his LinkedIn profile, Dunlap described his position at Koch Industries as a “subject matter expert” on water, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, chemical management and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Before working for Koch, Dunlap worked at the Chlorine Institute.Last week, Politico Pro’s Annie Snider reported that, according to her sources, Wheeler will not move to regulate any of the PFAS family of fluorinated chemicals by setting a legal limit, known as a maximum contaminant level, under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Studies have linked PFAS chemicals to cancer, kidney disease, weakened childhood immunity and other health problems.
Senate judiciary gives industry more time to review water quality – West Virginia lawmakers voted Friday to give companies that discharge cancer-causing chemicals into West Virginia waterways another year to gather information before new water quality standards would be implemented. Companies have already had several years to gather that information, as the new standards were first recommended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2015. The Clean Water Act, a federal law, requires states to review water quality standards every three years. In 2015, the EPA recommended that West Virginia update water quality standards for 94 pollutants known to have human health effects, including pesticides. The standards specify concentrations of pollutants allowed in rivers and streams. The EPA had changed the way it calculates the standards, taking into account that people were eating more fish and drinking more water. Those are two of the ways people are exposed to the list of pollutants, along with recreation. The EPA also took into consideration a higher national average for body weight, based on the assumption that larger bodies can handle more exposure to pollutants. Last year, the DEP proposed a rule that addressed 56 pollutants. Under their proposal, two-thirds of the standards would have allowed for less pollution in the water, while one-third of the standards would have allowed for more pollution. In November, the West Virginia Manufacturers Association asked a joint committee comprised of members of the House of Delegates and state Senate rule-making review committees not to implement the standards just yet. Rebecca McPhail, president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, told lawmakers, at the time, that they wanted the DEP to consider that West Virginians drink less water, eat less fish and are heavier than the national average. The EPA allows states to consider state-specific information about its population when proposing water quality standards.
W.Va. Senate Committee Strips Water Standards From Rule, Offers Compromise Timeline -The West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to remove a set of 60 proposed updates from Senate Bill 167, a rules bill that outlines a state regulation limiting pollution discharges into the state’s streams and rivers. In a hearing that lasted about 15 minutes Friday afternoon, members of the Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to approve a proposed committee substitute to Senate Bill 167. The meeting took place during a brief recess from a floor session where members were debating amendments to a controversial education reform bill. The Judiciary Committee’s substitute removed 60 updated human health criteria that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had proposed in July be added to the state’s Water Quality Standards. It also added language that creates a timeline for new proposed updates to be brought before the Legislature. Speaking during the committee hearing, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Trump (R-Morgan) characterized the committee substitute as a compromise. “Is it a fair characterization of that to say that that got made and made absolutely everyone mad and dissatisfied at some level with this slight change, but does provide a delay,” he said. “And it provides a longer delay than environmental community would like to see. They’d like to see it move forward with no delay. And it provides less of a delay than the regulated community would like to see.” Under the committee substitute, DEP must propose updates to the human health criteria in the rule before April 1, 2020 and put them out for public comment. The agency will submit the proposed updates for consideration by the 2021 legislative session.
At a crossroads, Ohio River agency weighs dueling proposals on role – In 2014 President Barack Obama made Tom FitzGerald an insider by appointing him to the governing board of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, more commonly known as ORSANCO. Today, FitzGerald is at the epicenter of a fierce industry-led struggle meant to end one of ORSANCO’s core missions – setting and enforcing safety limits on biological and toxic pollutants spilling into the river. Since its establishment in 1948, the multi-state environmental agency has played an outsized role in improving water quality and ecology on America’s most important industrial river. Founded by an act of Congress and an interstate compact signed by the eight states of the 204,000-square-mile Ohio River Basin, ORSANCO has served as an innovator of policies and practices to reduce biological and toxic chemical discharges to the river. It developed and implemented so-called “pollution control standards” compelling cities and towns to stop dumping raw sewage into the Ohio River. It did the same for cleaning up chemical and toxic effluents from coal-fired power plants, refineries, and metals manufacturers along the river. ORSANCO’s safety standards have been adopted by the six states that border the river, and incorporated by several states as requirements in discharge permits. It is widely credited for its big role in significantly improving water quality and ecological conditions along the river, which 5 million people depend upon for their drinking water. The push to fundamentally change ORSANCO’s role is supported by some board members. But FitzGerald has fought back with a separate proposal that would maintain the pollution control standards and expand the agency’s work to help reduce biological and toxic chemical pollution. This month the full commission meets to weigh the competing measures.
Management of Australia’s Murray – Darling basin deemed ‘negligent’ – An independent inquiry into the management of Australia’s troubled Murray – Darling Basin river system has delivered a scathing report, accusing the agency responsible of mismanagement and negligence.A royal commission was established last year by the state of South Australia, where the Murray River ends, to review the state and national legislation and policies that manage how water is shared in the country’s largest basin, which stretches across four states.In his report released on 31 January, commissioner Bret Walker, a barrister in Sydney, wrote that “politics rather than science” had driven the setting of limits on how much water could be taken from the river system for uses such as agriculture.He also noted that the Murray – Darling Basin Authority, the statutory agency that was established by the national government in 2007 to manage the basin’s water resources, was extremely secretive, which is “the bane of good science”.The premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, said his government would consider the report’s recommendations. The Murray – Darling Basin Authority issued a statement denying that it had acted improperly or unlawfully. It said it is confident the plan to manage the basin was based on the best available science.The commissioner recommends that water allocations be reset to restore and protect the basin’s key environmental assets and ecosystem functions. He also calls for an urgent review of the system’s vulnerability to climate change. In the past month, the lower end of Darling River in New South Wales has experienced mass fish die-offs, linked to fluctuating temperatures affecting oxygen levels, and low water levels.
Even groundwater is contaminated with microplastics — It seems that no part of the planet is safe from the scourge that is microplastics. Not only are they found floating in the air and in deep ocean trenches, but now a study from the University of Illinois has found that underground aquifers, which supply one-quarter of the world’s population with drinking water, are contaminated, too. The researchers took 17 groundwater samples from wells and springs. As a press release explains, 11 came from a highly fractured limestone aquifer near the St. Louis metropolitan area and six from an aquifer containing much smaller fractures in rural northwestern Illinois. Every samples but one contained microplastic particles, with a maximum concentration of 15 particles per litre. These concentrations are said to be comparable to those of surface water concentrations found in the rivers and streams in the Chicago area. How does an underground aquifer get contaminated? Study co-author John Scott explained that “groundwater flows through the cracks and voids in limestone, sometimes carrying sewage and runoff from roads, landfills and agricultural areas into the aquifers below.” Because the samples also contained traces of pharmaceuticals and other household contaminants, it seems likely that the particles originated in household septic systems. In Scott’s words, “Imagine how many thousands of polyester fibers find their way into a septic system from just doing a load of laundry. Then consider the potential for those fluids to leak into the groundwater supply, especially in these types of aquifers where surface water interacts so readily with groundwater.” The researchers say that the findings cannot be interpreted in great detail, as there is very little data on microplastics in groundwater. Yessenia Funes wrote for Earther, “We still don’t know much about the impacts of microplastics on our bodies, so there’s no concentration that’s deemed unsafe or illegal.” There’s something deeply disturbing about the thought of drinking plastic waste in a glass of water. It goes to show how Earth’s systems are deeply interconnected and how there is no ‘away’; just because waste is out of sight does not mean it’s not there, and it will come back to haunt us.
Microplastics Found in Every Marine Mammal Surveyed in UK Study – Microplastics are being widely ingested by Britain’s marine mammals, scientists say, with samples found in every animal examined in a study. The research on 50 stranded creatures including porpoises, dolphins, grey seals and a pygmy sperm whale is the most comprehensive analysis of microplastics in the digestive tracts of both wild cetaceans and seals. “It’s shocking – but not surprising – that every animal had ingested microplastics,” said Sarah Nelms, of the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), lead author of the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. The study found that nylon made up more than 60% of the microplastics, with possible sources including fishing rope and nets, clothing microfibres and toothbrush bristles. Polyethylene terephthalate (Pet) and polyester were also widely present. As well as accidental consumption, microplastics are ingested indirectly when predators consume contaminated prey such as fish. On average, 5.5 particles were found in the guts of each animal, suggesting they pass through the digestive system, or are regurgitated. “The low number of microplastics in their gut at any one time doesn’t necessarily correlate to the chemical burden within their body because the exposure is chronic and cumulative,” said Nelms. “It’s also not yet understood how synthetic particles physically interact with the gut wall as they pass through.” Dr Penelope Lindeque, the head of the marine plastics research group at PML, has found microplastics in animals at every level of the food chain, from tiny zooplankton to fish larvae, turtles, and now marine mammals. “It’s disconcerting that plastic is everywhere – all animals are exposed to it and they are ingesting it in their natural environment,” she said. “The ocean is a soup of microplastics and it’s only going to get worse, so we need to reduce the amount of plastic waste released into our seas now.” Species with a long lifespan such as dolphins and seals are good indicators of marine ecosystem health, but as top predators they are susceptible to the accumulation of pollutants such as toxins or plastics. Lindeque said: “There’s a risk that chemicals within the plastic and chemicals that stick to the outside of the microplastics, such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), could affect these animals. We are increasingly worried that microplastics could also be a vector for viruses and bacteria.”
Key West Bans Coral-Damaging Sunscreen – City officials in Key West have put the cap on sunscreen – or at least varieties that contain chemicals believed to harm coral reefs and increase coral bleaching and death. The Florida Keys is home to the third largest living coral barrier reef system in the world. The ecosystem is a habitat for fish species and other marine life and also serves as economically important touristic and recreational spot.On Tuesday, the City Commission voted 6-to-1 to prohibit sales of sunscreens containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, according to FLKeysNews. The ban will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.”We have one reef, and we have to do one small thing to protect that. It’s our obligation,” Mayor Teri Johnston said before the vote, as quoted by FLKeysNews. People with medical prescriptions are exempt from the ban, Johnston told The New York Times. The first offense would be met with a warning and the second offense would incur an as yet undetermined fine. The move follows efforts from Hawaii, which became the first state to ban sunscreenswith the same two chemicals last year. The Aloha State’s ban takes effect in 2021.Last year, the Pacific archipelago of Palau also banned sunscreens containing any one of 10 chemicals that may be reef toxic. Oxybenzone and octinoxate, which filter UV rays, can be found in more than 3,500 sunscreen products, including popular ones sold by Hawaiian Tropic, Banana Boat and Coppertone.
Border Wall Construction Imminent at Most Diverse Butterfly Center in U.S. – Construction equipment has arrived to build a border wall through the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, a protected habitat for more than 200 species of wild butterflies and other unique wildlife. A planned 5.5 mile section of concrete and steel border wall that is already funded will cut off 70 percent of the 100-acre property. The barrier will be built on top of a levee of the Rio Grande that runs through the sanctuary. An excavator and eight law enforcement units arrived around the center on Sunday, the National Butterfly Center wrote in a Facebook post. “Effective Monday morning, it is all government land,” a Mission police department officer said, according to the post. Bulldozing for the wall, which is expected to be about three stories tall, will commence any day now, the center wrote in another post on Tuesday. The butterfly center’s fate was sealed in December when the Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife to appeal a federal court decision that the Trump administration can waive 28 environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, in order to build 33 more miles of wall, including the section that runs through the refuge. The project was funded in the 2018 Omnibus spending bill in March. In a recent Facebook Live with EcoWatch, Marianna Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center said morale on the ground was “pretty bad.” “The potential impacts are devastating,” Wright continued. “Especially for animals like the ocelot where we have fewer than 80 known in existence.”
Skyscrapers Made of Wood Are Making a Comeback – More than a century after steel and concrete became the standard for building high-rise buildings, the humble tree is making a comeback. Sidewalk Labs LLC, a unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc., is planning to use timber to construct all of its buildings for a mixed-use community along Toronto’s eastern waterfront. Meanwhile, Oregon became the first U.S. state to amended its building code to permit taller buildings made from timber. The material can “contribute to people’s wellness, are beautiful, easy to assemble, and strong enough support to build dozens of stories,” said Karim Khalifa, director of buildings innovation at Sidewalk Labs. “And unlike concrete and steel, which are very carbon intensive to produce, using timber in buildings takes carbon out of the atmosphere.” The push comes as timber becomes more cost competitive as steel prices rise, and the use of pre-fabricated wood panels allows for quicker construction with less labor. As opposed to the heavy timber construction from 100 years ago, builders are using so-called mass timber from younger, smaller trees that are engineered together, said architect Michael Green, an early proponent of the material. Unlike traditional two-by-four lumber, cross-laminated timber consists of layers of wood glued together to form solid, thick panels that can be made in custom dimensions for anything from walls and floors to beams and roofs.
Haiti looks set to be entirely wiped of its native forests – Several factors are contributing to extreme deforestation in Haiti, with the poor economic state of the country primary among them Already blighted by natural disasters, disease and poverty, Haiti looks as though it will soon become entirely devoid of biodiversity as the Caribbean country approaches 100 per cent deforestation. The Haitian portion of the island of Hispaniola (shared with the Dominican Republic) had 4.4 per cent forest cover in 1988, a figure that had shrunk to 0.32 per cent by 2016. New research reveals that 42 of Haiti’s 50 largest mountains are now stripped of their primary forest, leaving only a handful of remote vestiges of tree cover left, themselves expected to disappear within the next two decades, wiping out native reptiles, amphibians and other species in the process. ‘There are many contributing reasons for the extreme deforestation of Haiti, but the poor economic state of the country, combined with the large number of people, would be the primary reason,’ says Dr Warren Cohen, a research associate at the College of Forestry, Oregon State University. ‘Trees are cut to make cooking fuel, charcoal, and for subsistence agriculture. Most homes use charcoal rather than electricity or other energy sources. There are efforts to change the source of energy, but it would take years and a large inflow of funds for a country of this size to make such a transition in its infrastructure. It is doubtful that the primary forests would survive by then.’
Lack of forest connectivity threatens Sabah’s Sunda clouded leopards – Studies say a lack of forest connectivity in Sabah threatens the Sunda clouded leopard population. According to studies conducted by researchers from Oxford University’s WildCRU et al, patchy forests are also hampering gene flow in the species. Dr Andrew Hearn from WildCRU, who led the study, said Sabah was a stronghold for the Sunda clouded leopard on Borneo. “Yet these rarely seen animals are found at very low population densities, typically as few as one to five animals for every 100 square kilometres of forest,” he said in a statement Sunday (Jan 27). Such rarity, he said, coupled with the fact that their forest home was shrinking and becoming increasingly isolated, may expose these beautiful cats to the negative effects of population isolation, as individual animals struggle to disperse across the landscape. Dr Hearn said from their research, they found that core areas of Sunda clouded leopard habitat are comprised of large and unfragmented forest blocks, and areas of reduced forest cover comprise barriers among patches of predicted remaining habitats.
Anti-grizzly-Fever-Grips-Wyoming-Again – Last week’s press was peppered with hostile rhetoric from people in high places. Several inane bills are being debated in the state legislature that presume to strip federal grizzly bear protections and institute a grizzly bear hunt with the stated goal of “ensuring public safety.” Brian Debolt of Wyoming Game and Fish further fueled public confusion by publicly claiming that the 59 grizzly bears captured during conflicts last year was “about normal,” when that number is, in fact, twice the 2005-2017 annual average. And after only a few days in office as Wyoming’s Governor, Mark Gordon called for punitive management of grizzly bears by the state, saying to a group of reporters: “bears have no respect for us.” His statement fits squarely in the tradition of invoking violence and punishment as means of instilling “respect,” which is conservative shorthand for “fear.” Last week’s antics build on widespread anti-bear vitriol in the “Equality State” that seems to be increasing since the Judge’s ruling. Never have Wyoming wildlife managers killed so many grizzly bears in one year: 32, all outside National Park boundaries, almost all associated with conflicts over livestock. This toll is about half of the total 65 grizzlies that died ecosystem-wide. Moreover, the 2018 deaths are 30% higher in Wyoming than the previous record set during 2016. The only year when more bears were captured in response to conflicts was during 2010, when 65 bears were trapped. For Wyoming’s grizzlies, there was absolutely nothing normal about 2018.
The killing of large species is pushing them towards extinction, study finds The vast majority of the world’s largest species are being pushed towards extinction, with the killing of the heftiest animals for meat and body parts the leading cause of decline, according to a new study. While habitat loss, pollution and other threats pose a significant menace to large species, also known as megafauna, intentional and unintentional trapping, poaching and slaughter is the single biggest factor in their decline, researchers found. An analysis of 362 megafauna species found that 70% of them are in decline, with 59% classed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Direct killing by humans is the leading cause across all classes of animals, the study states. A range of maladies including intensive agriculture, toxins and invasive competitors are also helping to trigger these declines. This situation adds to the “mounting evidence that humans are poised to cause a sixth mass extinction event”, according to the research, published in Conservation Letters. Humans have hunted the largest animals for thousands of years but technology has allowed them to be targeted far more efficiently, the study notes, with nine megafauna species becoming extinct in the past 250 years, including two types of giant tortoise and two varieties of deer. Besides the intrinsic value of imposing creatures such as rhinos, sharks and tigers, many of them perform an important ecological role as predators at the top of the food web or by spreading seeds throughout habitat. ••••• The crisis in the natural world has been laid bare by recent research, which illustrated that only 4% of the world’s mammals, by weight, are wild, with the other 96% made up of humans and livestock. Since 1970, populations of wild mammals, birds fish and amphibians have, on average, slumped by 60%.
Desperate Mongolians send children into countryside to escape choking winter smog (Reuters) – Mongolia has extended school winter holidays in the world’s coldest capital and many families have sent children to live with relatives in the vast, windswept grasslands to escape choking smog and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia. The temperature is expected to drop to minus 32 degrees Celsius (minus 26F) in Ulaanbaatar on Monday night, as residents burn coal and trash to try to keep warm and concentrations of smog particles known as PM2.5 routinely exceed 500 mg per cubic meter, 50 times the level considered safe by the WHO. Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite landlocked between Russia and China, has invested public money and foreign aid to tackle pollution, but improvement has been slow, with residents saying inaction has been compounded by a corruption scandal that has paralyzed parliament. The children are nearing the end of a two-month break, with schools due to reopen next Monday. About 60 percent of Mongolia is covered by grassland, where the mining of copper, gold, coal and other minerals provides employment, while the Gobi desert envelops the South. But almost half the population live in Ulaanbataar. Reuters calculations based on U.S. Embassy data show annual average PM2.5 concentrations hit 100 micrograms in Ulaanbaatar in 2018. They soared to 270 in December. PM2.5 in China’s most polluted city of Shijiazhuang stood at an average 70 micrograms last year, down 15.7 percent from 2017. The World Health Organisation recommends a concentration of no more than 10 micrograms. The WHO said 80 percent of Ulaanbaatar’s smog was caused by coal burning in “ger” districts, where thousands of rural migrants, used to a nomadic lifestyle, have pitched huts. It estimates air pollution causes more than 4,000 premature deaths a year. A joint study by the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Mongolia’s National Centre for Public Health said children living in one smog-prone district of Ulaanbaatar had 40 percent less lung function than those living in the countryside.
Tasmania is burning. The climate disaster future has arrived while those in power laugh at us – As I write this, fire is 500 metres from the largest King Billy pine forest in the world on Mt Bobs, an ancient forest that dates back to the last Ice Age and has trees over 1,000 years old. Fire has broached the boundaries of Mt Field national park with its glorious alpine vegetation, unlike anything on the planet. Fire laps at the edges of Federation Peak, Australia’s grandest mountain, and around the base of Mt Anne with its exquisite rainforest and alpine gardens. Fire laps at the border of the Walls of Jerusalem national park with its labyrinthine landscapes of tarns and iconic stands of ancient pencil pine and its beautiful alpine landscape, ecosystems described by their most eminent scholar, the ecologist Prof Jamie Kirkpatrick, as “like the vision of a Japanese garden made more complex, and developed in paradise, in amongst this gothic scenery”. “You have plants that look like rocks – green rocks – and these plants have different colours in complicated mosaics: red-green, blue-green, yellow-green, all together. It’s an overwhelming sensual experience really.” I had understood that climate change’s effects on Tasmania would be significant but not disastrous; the changes mitigated by Tasmania being surrounded by seas that were not heating as quickly as others: the island’s west would get wetter, the east a little warmer and drier, but compared to much of the world it didn’t seem catastrophic. But it wasn’t so. Tasmania’s sea waters were warming at two to three times the global rate. Davies’ work, with that of other scientists, was revealing the warming and drying of Tasmania’s west and highlands, and the growing impact this was having. The highland lakes of Tasmania would, for example, in the next 70 to 100 years see between a 10% and 20% drop in rainfall, coupled to a 20% to 30% increase in evaporation. By the end of this century a significant proportion of these lakes and wetlands will cease to exist or be largely dried out much of the year. Then there was the startlingly new phenomenon of widespread dry lightning storms. Almost unknown in Tasmania until this century they had increased exponentially since 2000, leading to a greatly increased rate of fire in a rapidly drying south-west. Compounding all this, winds were also growing in duration, further drying the environment and fuelling the fires’ spread and ferocity. Such a future would see these fires destroy Tasmania’s globally unique rainforests and mesmerising alpine heathlands. Unlike mainland eucalyptus forest these ecosystems do not regenerate after fire: they would vanish forever.
Extreme Rainfall in Australia Forces Evacuations, Could Flood 20,000 Homes — A once-in-a-century flooding disaster in northeast Queensland, Australia forced authorities in the city of Townsville to fully open the floodgates of the Ross Riverdam on Sunday night, causing nearly 2,000 cubic meters (approximately 70,629 cubic feet) of water to pour out of the dam every second from 9 p.m.,News.com.au reported.”We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told Today, according to News.com.au. “In Queensland, of course, we’re used to seeing natural disasters, but Townsville has never seen the likes of this.”Nearly 1,000 people in Townsville have sought refuge in relocation shelters, Australia’s ABC News reported. Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said Monday it had carried out 18 rescues from swift water and 1,100 relocations in the past 24 hours. So far, around 500 homes in Townsville have been flooded, News.com.au reported, but that number could increase.”It could move up to the 10,000, 20,000 [mark],” district disaster coordinator Steve Munro said, according to News.com.au. “That’s the worst case scenario we’re looking at if things keep going pear-shaped. We don’t want to get to that stage.” Townsville has received more than 20 times its average rainfall for late January / early February at around 3.3 feet in the past week. This breaks the record previously set by the Night of Noah flood in 1998, BBC News reported. BOM meteorologists have said water spouts and tornadoes could form along parts of the Queensland coast, but the rain should move further south of Townsville, ABC News reported. However, another half-a-meter to meter (approximately 1.6 to 3.2 feet) of rain could fall in north and central Queensland in the next few days, according to News.com.au.
Earth’s oceans are routinely breaking heat records – Two recently published peer-reviewed studies make clear that the planet’s oceans are continuing to set hottest-yet temperature records nearly every year and, secondly, that the rate of ocean warming is in virtual lockstep with what modern climate models have projected.Taken together, the findings, from studies led by Lijing Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for Atmospheric Physics, demonstrate that climate scientists have developed an increasingly clear picture of the rapid warming of Earth’s oceans and its consequences.One study, led by Cheng and colleagues and published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, concludes that 2018 was the hottest year ever recorded in the oceans. In fact, since the turn of the century, all but three years – 2007, 2010, and 2016 – have set a new ocean heat record.Those three exceptions shared a key trait: Each was characterized by significant El Niño events, which transfer heat from the ocean to the air. As a result, for heat at Earth’s surface (in the air above both the land and oceans), 2007 was the second-hottest year up to that time, and 2010 and 2016 both subsequently broke the surface temperature record. 2018 was the fourth-hottest on record at the surface as a result of a La Niña event that year that kept more heat in the oceans than was the case in 2015 through 2017.About 93 percent of global warming goes into heating the oceans, compared to about 2 percent warming the atmosphere. As the hottest year in the oceans, 2018 therefore was the hottest year ever recorded for the planet as a whole. And the amount of heat currently building up on Earth is equivalent to the amount of energy released by more than five atomic bomb detonations per second, every second. But most of the heat trapped by the tens of billions of tons of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year is absorbed by the oceans; it’s there that Earth overall is regularly breaking temperature records in the oceans, in the air, or in both … and doing so almost every year.
Climate Change Will Alter the Color of Half of Earth’s Oceans by 2100 – Half of Earth’s oceans will change color by 2100 as a result of warming global temperatures, according to a study published Monday in Nature Communications. Blue ocean surfaces are expected to shift to a darker blue, said the authors, who were led by Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a principal research scientist and marine ecologist at MIT. Meanwhile, green-tinted marine habitats could become more intensely verdant.The shifts in color will be the result of marine phytoplankton – microscopic organisms that live in the sunlit layers of the ocean – responding to the effects of human-driven climate change.Phytoplankton uses the pigment chlorophyll to harvest solar radiation into energy, which bounces green rays back into the environment. As a result, large communities of phytoplankton act like a biological dye tinting the ocean surface green, while marine habitats that are depleted of phytoplankton are more of a navy blue color.“There will be a noticeable difference in the color of 50 percent of the ocean by the end of the 21st century,” Dutkiewicz said in a statement. “It could be potentially quite serious. Different types of phytoplankton absorb light differently, and if climate change shifts one community of phytoplankton to another, that will also change the types of food webs they can support.” Using computer models, the team projected that some blue regions of the ocean, includingsubtropical gyres, are likely to become bluer in the coming decades due to a reduced phytoplankton presence in the warmer waters. Meanwhile, phytoplankton blooms will become common in the water around Earth’s poles, suggesting those regions might have an emerald shade in the coming decades.
Cod stocks on course to crash if ocean warming continues – The North Atlantic cod stock in the Barents Sea is likely to first rise and then crash, possibly to almost zero before the end of the century if climate change isn’t addressed, says the scientific paper, published by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. The grim forecast is based on the most comprehensive study to date of the effects of climate change on cod, which – for the first time – takes into account ocean acidification as well as warming. It found larvae mortality rates were 75% higher when exposed to the combined pressures of the two factors – both of which are caused by emissions – than to heating alone. As a result, fish numbers, catches and revenues will decline faster than previously estimated. The Barents Sea, which is in the Arctic, is a major source of seafood nutrition for northern Europe. Along with Iceland, it is a key source of cod imports into the UK, which has over-fished its own waters. More Atlantic fish are migrating into this region as a result of global warming. But this ocean has the highest level of acidification in the world because cold water absorbs more carbon dioxide, which changes its pH level. It is also the ocean that is experiencing the fastest rates of heating. While the global average is a rise of 1.1C since the start of the industrial revolution, the coastal breeding grounds of the cod in the Barents Sea have experienced a temperature increase of 3.5C. Unless the warming trend is controlled, the stocks will see a boom and then a bust. A temperature rise of up to 4.5C is beneficial to the cod. By this time, catches are projected to be worth 255 million Norwegian kroner per year (£23m). But after this point, the larvae rapidly start to die off. At 6C of warming (less than 3C for the rest of the world), they completely disappear. The numbers may yet prove an under-assessment of the risk because oxygen depletion – another side-effect of man-made climate change – is not accounted for. “We are trying to show the magnitude of risk and it looks very significant,”
Sonar Makes Beaked Whales Suicidal – Scientists have figured out why exposure to naval sonar drives beaked whales to beach themselves in bizarre bouts of apparently suicidal behaviour. According to new research, the mammals are driven to suicide by the bends, also known as decompression sickness. Just like when scuba divers suffer from it, nitrogen bubbles form in the whales’ bodies. But instead of being caused by rising to the surface too quickly, the gas forms due to fear “In the presence of sonar they are stressed and swim vigorously away from the sound source, changing their diving pattern,” explained lead author Yara Bernaldo de Quiros, a researcher at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. “The stress response, in other words, overrides the diving response, which makes the animals accumulate nitrogen,” Dr Bernaldo de Quiros added in Proceedings of the Royal Society. “It’s like an adrenaline shot.”Academics are placing the blame on sonar developed in the 1950s to detect submarines, especially sonar buzzing at around five kilohertz as used by the US and NATO allies. It was around the 1950s when the mass beachings of beaked whales began in the Mediterranean. According to the researchers, there were 121 mass strandings between 1960 and 2004, at least 40 of which were closely linked to naval activities. The so-called “atypical” mass strandings didn’t feature individuals or old and sick animals, but a handful or more of beaked whales washing ashore within a day and a few kilometres of each other. During one NATO naval exercise in 2002, 14 whales were stranded over a 36-hour period in the Canary Islands. “Within a few hours of the sonar being deployed, the animals started showing up on the beach,” Dr Bernaldo de Quiros said. While these whales showed no outward sign of disease, inside their veins were filled with nitrogen gas bubbles and their brains had suffered severe haemorrhaging.
Will Hawaii Ban Purposeful Killing and Abuse of Sharks and Rays? – Hawaiian lawmakers and conservationists are pushing for a landmark law to protect the Aloha State’s sharksand rays.House Bill 808, which outlaws the intentional killing, capture, abuse or entanglement of sharks and rays in state marine waters, passed its first committee meeting on Wednesday. The upper chamber version, Senate Bill 489, secured its first committee approval late last month and passed a second reading on Monday.If the proposal becomes law, Hawaii could be the first state in the nation to have such sweeping protections for the marine creatures, according to the Guardian.Penalties for a first offense would range from $500 and goes up to $10,000 for a third or subsequent offense, according to a press release. Exemptions are allowed for research, cultural practices and public safety.The bills were re-introduced on Jan. 18 by state Sen. Mike Gabbard, who chairs the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee, and state Rep. Nicole Lowen, who chairs the House Environmental Protection and Energy Committee.Last year, a similar measure unanimously passed in the Senate but stalled in the House.”As apex predators, sharks and rays help to keep the ocean ecosystem in balance, and protecting them from unnecessary harm is essential to the health of our coral reefs,” Lowen said in the release. “I’m hopeful that this year will be the year that we are able to take this important step.”
20,000 Seabirds Mysteriously Wash Up Dead on Dutch Coastline – About 20,000 guillemots, a black-and-white seabird of the northern seas, have mysteriously washed up dead on Dutch beaches in recent weeks, according to public broadcasterNOS.Scientists in the Netherlands now are trying to understand the reason behind the deaths.”The working hypothesis is that it is a combination of bad weather plus something else, and we are trying to find the smoking gun,” Mardik Leopold, a biologist from Wageningen University, told The Guardian. “We have dissected some of the birds. They are clean but they were very skinny, with gut problems, which is indicative of starvation. But we need a larger sample and so have been asking people to collect birds for us.”Leopold told NOS that such mass deaths have not been seen since the 1980s and 1990s. The seabird wrecks have only occurred in the Netherlands, from the island of Schiermonnikoog to Zeeland, the country’s westernmost province.”We do not get these reports from Germany and Belgium,” Leopold explained.The birds that do not show up dead on Dutch beaches are sick, skinny or severely weakened and are taken to animal shelters for treatment.Guillemots have diets that usually consist of fish, crustaceans and marine invertebrates. A suggested culprit behind the mass deaths is ingestion of marine pollution and other contaminants. On the night of Jan. 2, a storm caused a large container ship to spill 291 containers and its contents into waters north of the island of Ameland, The Guardian reported. An operation to retrieve the containers has been underway but 50 of them are still unaccounted for.
Our Plastics, Our Selves – On the deck of the 72-foot shiny-bright Sea Dragon, moored here in the island capital of British Columbia for just one day, are four young women, part of the crew of the research voyage “eXXpedition.” They’re hauling heavy buckets of black sludge up to the deck from the ocean floor, their labor set to a tinny radio serenade of Drake and Selena Gomez. The team will meticulously pack the sludge – actually wet sand from the harbor floor – into little glass jars like you would some fresh vegetables you planned to pickle. These jars will be added to a library of sand, water, and air samples that they’ve collected over the past six weeks from across the North Pacific. They’ll ship some of those samples off to Plymouth, England, to be analyzed by eXXpedition’s marine scientist Imogen Napper. The idea is that by cataloging this library, she and the team will begin to get a better sense of what kind of plastic is out there in the ocean. One thing they already know, because they’ve seen it every day for weeks: There is a whole lot of it. The Sea Dragon, with an all-woman crew of 14 aboard, launched from Hawaii in mid-June, traversing a part of the North Pacific Gyre known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a swirling mass of trash the size of two Texases. The name conjures the image of great islands of refuse gently bumping up against each other, like a Waterworld made of old tires and sandwich bags. But, as eXXpedition founder Emily Penn tells me as we sway a bit on deck, it’s really more of a plastic soup, trillions of little bits and particles seasoning a million square miles of ocean. “When we sailed into the southern edge of the Gyre, we started to see a piece of plastic over the side of the boat every 10 seconds – a cigarette lighter, a bottle, some sort of container,” she said. “Then when you wake up the next morning, and it’s still going, and wake up seven days later, and it’s still going, and you’re 800 miles from the nearest human being – it’s that relentlessness that’s just so overwhelming.”
Sea Shepherd Ship Attacked by Rocks, Molotov Cocktails in Vaquita Refuge — The Sea Shepherd Conservation Societysays that its vessel, the M/V Farley Mowat, was ambushed on Jan. 31 by a group of poachers posing as fishermen while the ship was conducting maritime conservation patrols in a vaquita refuge in Mexico’s Gulf of California. It’s the second such attack in less than a month. The conservation organization says its ship was surrounded by more than 50 assailants on 20 high speed boats, according to a press release shared with EcoWatch. Sea Shepherd said the side of the Farley Mowat caught fire and its windows shattered because the attackers were hurling molotov cocktails and projectiles such as lead weights and large stones at the vessel.The group also released dramatic footage of the confrontation: SEA SHEPHERD SHIP’S WINDOWS SMASHED AND HULL SET ON FIRE BY POACHERS – YouTube Crew onboard the Farley Mowat used high-pressure fire hoses to defend the vessel while Mexican Navy soldiers and federal police stationed aboard opened fire into the air and sea to deter the attackers. Neither the crew nor the security personnel sustained injuries. No arrests have been made. The Farley Mowat was similarly attacked by roughly 35 fishing boats in the waters on Jan. 9. “These repeated attacks have made Sea Shepherd’s vital conservation efforts within the Vaquita Refuge challenging in recent weeks, casting a doubt on the vaquita’s chances of survival,” the press release states.
2018 was Earth’s fourth hottest year on record, NOAA and NASA report – The string of hotter-than-average annual temperatures continued in 2018, as Earth experienced its fourth-hottest year on record, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Also in 2018, the United States suffered 14 weather and climate disasters with costs surpassing $1 billion during a warmer- and wetter-than-average year, NOAA reports.Global temperatures across land and sea were 1.42 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, making 2018 the fourth-warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880, NOAA said in a report Thursday.In a separate report, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies said global temperatures were 1.5 degrees above the 1951 to 1980 mean, also the fourth highest going back to 1880. The 2-degrees Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures since the late 19th century has been driven largely by growing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, said the institute’s director, Gavin Schmidt. By both agencies’ measures, Earth has now recorded its five hottest annual average temperatures in the past five years.”2018 is yet again an extremely warm year on top of a long-term global warming trend,” Schmidt said in a press release. The strongest warming trends are occurring in the Arctic, where the loss of ice sheets continues to contribute to a rise in sea levels, NASA says. The amount of ocean covered with sea ice totaled about 4 million square miles in 2018, the second-smallest annual average on record since 1979, NOAA reports. “The impacts of long-term global warming are already being felt – in coastal flooding, heat waves, intense precipitation and ecosystem change,” Schmidt said.
UK’s Met Office Warns Global Temperature Could Soar Beyond 1.5°C Threshold Within Five Years – As NASA on Wednesday confirmed that the past five years have been the hottest on record, the United Kingdom’s national weather service warned that the next five years could see global average surface temperature temporarily surpass the end-of-the-century target of the Paris climate agreement. The Met Office forecasts that the average for 2019 to 2023 will likely be between 1.03°C and 1.57°C above pre-industrial levels, fluctuating each year depending on variations in human activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions as well as natural phenomena such as La Ninã and El Niño. The global average reached 1.0°C for the first time in 2015, “and the following three years have all remained close to this level,” Adam Scaife, head of long-range prediction at the Met Office, noted in a statement. If that trend continues as expected, the decade from 2014 could be “warmest in more than 150 years of records.” While the U.K. researchers predict there is currently a 10 percent chance that the global average will soar beyond 1.5°C – the Paris accord’s lower limit – in the next five years, Met Office research fellow Doug Smith pointed out that “a run of temperatures of 1.0°C or above would increase the risk of a temporary excursion above the threshold.” “Although it would be an outlier,” the Guardian reported that scientists see the potential excursion as “worrying, particularly for regions that are usually hard hit by extreme weather related to El Niño,” including western Australia, South America, south and west Africa, and the Indian monsoon belt.
The frigid polar vortex that killed 21 people is on the way out – and temperatures are due to spike by up to 80 degrees – The polar vortex that brought record-low temperatures to the US and killed at least 21 people is coming to an end – and temperatures are expected to spike this weekend.The polar vortex brought temperatures lower than minus 50 degrees, and forecasters are predicting that some places will become up to 80 degrees higher than their lowest temperatures during the week.The rebound in temperature could set records of its own. Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the Weather Underground firm, said, “I don’t think there’s ever been a case where we’ve seen [such a big] shift in temperatures,”according to The Associated Press. “Past record-cold waves have not dissipated this quickly,” he added. “Here we are going right into spring-like temperatures.”The more than 20 million Americans who experienced the life-threateningly low temperatures will likely welcome the milder weather after thousands of flights were canceled, schools were closed, and the US Postal Service suspended operations because of the severe weather.But the speed at which much of the country is expected to get warmer brings its own problems.
The Sierra Nevada Has Received 8 Feet of Snow (and Counting) Since Saturday – With record-breaking snow in select locations, the Sierra has three solid pow days ahead … until the next storm hits. Since Saturday, the Sierra Nevada mountain range received 8 feet of snow … and still counting. Most notably, June Mountain’s unofficial count was 72 inches in 24 hours, beating the record held by Echo Summit, of most snow received in California in a 24-hour timeframe.Although, the count was unofficially measured, so the record is not broken yet. Either way, California is getting dumped on. According to the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada, The storm-total snowfall at June Mountain from Friday through mid-morning Sunday was measured at 96 inches.Tuesday, the forecast in Lake Tahoe and Mammoth is partly cloudy with an expected 2-5 inches of snow. Blizzard warnings were in effect the past few days and a winter storm warning is still in full effect. However, the next two days are expected to be clear, so it’s time to break those pow boards out.
Polar express: magnetic north pole moving ‘pretty fast’ towards Russia – Something’s up in the Arctic: the north magnetic pole is on the move. But rather than drifting around aimlessly as it has for centuries, the pole has picked up speed and is heading fast for Siberia.The curious shift has caught scientists’ attention and forced them to take rare action. Concerned for those who navigate in the Arctic regions, they have updated the official map of the world’s magnetic field to pinpoint the pole’s location. “We know from old ships’ logs that in the past 400 years, the north magnetic pole has hung around northern Canada. Until the 1900s, it moved perhaps tens of kilometres, back and forth,” said Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. “But in the past 50 years it started to move north, and in the past 30 years it started to accelerate away,” he said. “It went from moving at about five to 10km [ six miles] a year to 50 or 60km a year today. It’s now moving rapidly towards Siberia.” The wandering pole mostly affects those navigating in the Arctic. If GPS systems fail, pilots on planes and ships fall back on compass navigation and so need up-to-date maps on their onboard computers. At high latitudes, the US military has named airport runways after their direction in relation to magnetic north, and changes them whenever the poles move. For example, the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, renamed the 1L-19R runway 2L-20R in 2009.A similar map based on the WMM is used by smartphones and car satnavs to work out what direction they are facing.
Oil giant backs high-tech rescue for collapsing Arctic ice cellars – When Inupiaq hunters wrestle a 100-ton bowhead whale back to land from the high seas, the next challenge is where to store all that meat. For centuries, the Inupiaq, a Native Alaskan group that lives north of the Arctic Circle, have dug cellars into the permafrost as a form of natural refrigeration. Now those “ice cellars” are under threat. Warming temperatures are melting permafrost, while coastal erosion is exposing the underground chambers. Rising water, humidity and warmth create food-safety risks for these once-reliable alternatives to electric freezers. Besides whale meat, Inupiaq hunters use the cellars to store caribou, fish, geese, ducks and walrus, he said. Harcharek, who is at the planning stage of building a family ice cellar, said Utqiagvik, the region’s largest settlement, had less of a problem than outlying villages like Point Lay and Kaktovik, where melting permafrost is more of an issue. In Kaktovik, a coastal Inupiaq village of about 260 residents at the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, nearly all the ice cellars are defunct. Under threat of losing this Inupiaq tradition entirely, the Kaktovik Community Foundation spearheaded a process to design and build a new community ice cellar on the edge of town, which opened in 2017. Unlike traditional cellars that are little more than holes in the ground, this facility is encased in a white metallic shed with reflectors and surrounded by vents. Inside, the cellar is about 3 meters (10 ft) deep, and has enough room for one whale. The community plans to expand it to accommodate up to three whales, the village’s seasonal harvest quota. In addition to a winch for meat and safety harnesses for people climbing in and out, this cellar has high-tech heat siphons that eject warm air before it can cause melting and humidity, along with real-time temperature monitoring. The $120,000 investment needed to install the cellar was donated as an act of corporate philanthropy by petroleum company ExxonMobil, which operates the Point Thomson oil field 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Kaktovik.
A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds report – At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change, according to a landmark report, with serious consequences for almost 2 billion people. Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found. The glaciers are a critical water store for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region, and 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations.“This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” “In the best of possible worlds, if we get really ambitious [in tackling climate change], even then we will lose one-third of the glaciers and be in trouble. That for us was the shocking finding.” Wester said that, despite being far more populous, the HKH region had received less attention than other places, such as low-lying island states and the Arctic, that are also highly vulnerable to global warming. The new report, requested by the eight nations the mountains span, is intended to change that. More than 200 scientists worked on the report over five years, with another 125 experts peer reviewing their work. Until recently the impact of climate change on the ice in the HKH region was uncertain, said Wester. “But we really do know enough now to take action, and action is urgently needed,” he added. The HKH region runs from Afghanistan to Myanmar and is the planet’s “third pole”, harbouring more ice than anywhere outside Arctic and Antarctica. Limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels requires cutting emissions to zero by 2050. This is felt to be extremely optimistic by many but still sees a third of the ice lost, according to the report. If the global rise is 2C, half of the glaciers are projected to melt away by 2100.
Gigantic cavity in Antarctica glacier is a product of rapid melting, study finds – The Thwaites Glacier on Antarctica’s western coast has long been considered one of the most unstable on the continent. Now, scientists are worried about the discovery of an enormous underwater cavity that will probably speed up the glacier’s decay.The cavity is about two-thirds the area of Manhattan and nearly 1,000 feet tall, according to a study released Wednesday by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The hulking chamber is large enough to have contained about 14 billion tons of ice – most of which the researchers say melted in three years.The Thwaites Glacier, which is about the size of Florida, holds enough ice that if it all melted, it would raise the world’s oceans by over two feet, a change that would threaten many coastal cities. Climate scientists tend to watch this glacier closely, usually alongside the nearby Pine Island Glacier, which is also flowing rapidly into the Amundsen Sea. Rising sea levels, among the most obvious threats of global warming, are caused by the melting of ice sheets, as well as the thermal expansions of the ocean. A separate study released last week found that Antarctica was contributing more to rising sea levels than previously thought. The Thwaites Glacier is one of the epicenters of this rapid deterioration. Already, the glacier is responsible for about 4 percent of the world’s rising sea levels, according to a NASA news release.The size and shape of water-filled cavities like the one discovered play an important role in the melting of glaciers, . A cavity is created by relatively warm oceanwater melting the ice shelf. As the glacier becomes exposed to more warm-water currents, the ice will probably melt faster. “This is the ocean eating away at the ice,” “It’s a direct impact of climate change on the glacier.” NASA’s study found that the ice shelf in that area melted at a rate of more than 650 feet per year between 2014 and 2017. That is enormous by Antarctica’s standards, Professor Rignot said. Before the researchers collected this data, they had no idea the cavity existed,. The first clues of the cavern’s existence were revealed about three years ago in data collected by NASA’s radar technology, which is flown above the glacier on airplanes and can penetrate deep below the surface of the ice.
The Climate Kids Are Coming – If you don’t know who Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is, you can think of her as an international climate-change counterpart to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like the rock-star congresswoman from New York, Thunberg is a charismatic young woman whose social-media savvy, moral clarity, and fearless speaking truth to power have inspired throngs of admirers to take to the streets for a better world and call out the politicians and CEOs who are standing in the way. Thunberg, 16, is known for launching the #SchoolStrike4Climate movement – tens of thousands of high-school students worldwide are skipping school on Fridays until their governments treat the climate crisis as an emergency – and for torching billionaires and heads of state at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. Demolishing the convenient notion that we are all to blame for climate change, Thunberg told a Davos panel that included president Trump’s former chief economics adviser Gary Cohn, “Some people, some companies, some decision makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.” She paused before a final thrust of the knife: “I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.” Call them the Climate Kids. Like Ocasio-Cortez and Thunberg themselves, the grassroots activist movements they have roused are comprised almost exclusively of teenagers and twentysomethings. These are not your father’s environmentalists: supplicant, “realistic,” and accepting of failure. These young people are angry about the increasingly dire climate future awaiting them and clear-eyed about who’s to blame and how to fix it. And they seem to have the bad guys worried. Greta Thunberg was all of 15 years old when she began her solo weekly protests outside the Swedish Parliament last August. With her round, serious face and light brown hair braided into pigtails, the teenager cut a quixotic figure as she held a handmade sign that said, in Swedish, “School Strike for Climate.” But a BBC reporter filed a story, the story got shared on social media, and before long students as far away as Australia were striking too.
House Committees Hold Hearings on Climate Change For First Time in Years – Climate change is back in the House. Emboldened under a new Democratic majority, two main energy and environment committees are holding simultaneous hearings Wednesday to discuss rising global temperatures and averting climate catastrophe, Roll Call reported.This will be the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s first hearing on climate change in six years, according to hearing host Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), who leads the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. For the Natural Resources Committee, it will be their first hearing on climate change in more than eight years.Climate change has been all but ignored or downright dismissed under years of Republican leadership, but at today’s Energy and Commerce hearing, the Democrats plan to build a “powerful record” in Congress on the costs of federal climate inaction and to better understand the benefits of transitioning to a clean energy economy, Tonko said in a video posted to Twitter. The powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), has oversight on a broad range of agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.Restoring environmental rules rolled back by President Trump are on the top panel’s list, according to the New York Times.The Natural Resources Committee, led by Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), oversees federal conservation and species protection programs, including monitoring onshore and offshore oil and gas, renewable energy development, protecting public lands, species protection and Indigenous peoples affairs.
Let’s Say I Wanted to Escape Climate Change. Where Should I Go? — So you want to escape climate change. That’s a reasonable impulse – climate change rivals nuclear war for the greatest threat to human life in the history of our species’ existence. Every survival instinct we’ve cultivated to date should, understandably, make us want to get away from it. Let’s start by evaluating regions of the U.S. based on the basics of what we expect climate change to bring. We know that the seas will swell and temperatures will go up. So that particularly endangers a host of coastal cities with relatively warm climates, especially in the summer – so Miami, New Orleans, Norfolk, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles. A 2017 paper in Nature Climate Change estimated that the 13.1 million people displaced from those cities by sea level rise could head for more inland locales like Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix. But Hurricane Harvey gave an alarming preview of how Houston will fare in a climate-changed future. Phoenix is in the middle of a desert with no reliable water source, where temperatures can surge to 120 degrees F in the summer. And Atlanta is the third fastest-warming metropolitan region in the country. Forget about those cities. What’s a nice, temperate place? Never gets too hot or too cold, has lots of water? Aha – the Pacific Northwest. Umbra’s home! It’s part-rainforest, after all. But it’s a rainforest that’s seen bigger, hotter, deadlier, and more unpredictable wildfires in recent memory. Even a small increase in temperature has detrimental effects on plant and soil moisture, which will dry out forests and make them into true tinderboxes. And we’ve had warmer winters, which means less snowpack on the mountains and thus a less reliable water source for the region. Hmmm … how about Alaska? Tons of snow. Really cold. Well, except an increase in average temperatures has already begun to displace thousands of the state’s Native inhabitants along the coast. On top of that,millions of ancient viruses and bacteria to which humans have lost immunity will be unearthed as the permafrost becomes, well, less permanent. I called Jesse Keenan, climate-adaptation specialist and a faculty member at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, to get a more informed perspective on where one could limit their exposure to climate change. His suggestion: places that aren’t dependent on snowpack, ground-level aquifers, or reservoirs for their water. More specifically, that tends to be rural, wooded, northern areas with lots of clean water wells – so the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), and maybe parts of Montana.
If Property Rights Were Real, Climate-Destroying Companies Would Be Sued Out Of Existence – If I have a piece of property, and you damage my property, I can sue you. Tort law, which exists to compensate parties for harms, operates on fairly “conservative” premises: When your rights are infringed upon by a private party, and you are harmed, you should receive compensation for your harm. If someone is allowed to destroy my health, my home, and whatever else belongs to me, and there is no legal redress, then my property rights aren’t being enforced. This is a principle that radical free-market libertarians can agree to: They may not believe that “exploitation” is real, but they do think that if you “hurt someone and take their stuff,” the law needs to make sure you get your stuff back and the person who hurt you is punished. Companies that contribute to climate change are, in effect, stealing. They are gaining a benefit at the expense of others, for which they are not paying. First, have a look at the latest National Climate Assessment put out jointly by 13 federal agencies. It documents the staggering economic costs that are expected to result from climate change. For example, “lasting damage to coastal property and infrastructure driven by sea level rise and storm surge is expected to lead to financial losses for individuals, businesses, and communities,” and “changes in extreme events are expected to increasingly disrupt and damage critical infrastructure and property, labor productivity, and the vitality of our communities.” This harm isn’t a mere “act of God.” It results in large measure, as NASA explains, from carbon dioxide emissions through “deforestation, land use changes, and burning fossil fuels,” and methane emissions through “the decomposition of wastes in landfills, agriculture, and especially rice cultivation, as well as ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock.” These are “human activities,” but not just that, they are the activities of particular parties. One report estimated that “over half of global industrial emissions… can be traced to just 25 corporate and state producing entities,” but regardless of whether that number is accurate, there is a well-demonstrated connection between certain activities and the damage caused by climate change.
With Green New Deal Committee Neutered, Energy and Commerce Democrat Says “Smash and Grab” Is Over – House Energy and Commerce Democrats weren’t thrilled about the suggestion of a new select House committee on climate change, worried that its power would creep into their expansive jurisdiction. Committee leaders flexed what internal muscle they had to make sure that the committee, established at the behest of progressives behind the “Green New Deal,” was defanged, withholding subpoena power and the authority to approve new legislation.Rep. Bobby Rush, the No. 2 Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, told The Intercept that he was pleased to see the end of a “smash and grab” that’s pushed the committee to cede “too much of our jurisdiction over the years.”“The grab is over, as far as I’m concerned, in terms of Energy and Commerce, this smash and grab that’s been going on for too long in this Congress,” he told The Intercept in an interview.“We’re gonna return to regular order as we have exercised it in the past, and we stand on it now. You know, we’re not ceding any of the Energy and Commerce jurisdiction. I’m not in favor of not one measure, not one iota of Energy and Commerce’s jurisdiction to be ceded to other committees.”Asked what he planned to do with that power, Rush said, “We’re gonna do what we’ve always done. Legislate, deliberate, legislate, move bills to the floor. And w e’re going to continue to work hard on behalf of the American people.”
Sweeping Green New Deal Resolution Unveiled by Ocasio-Cortez, Markey – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced on Thursday their highly anticipated joint resolutions on a Green New Deal. The sweeping 10-year plan aims to “mobilize every aspect of American society … to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all,” according to the resolution’s FAQs section from Ocasio-Cortez’s office posted by NPR. The star freshman Congresswoman acknowledged that the ideas outlined in the non-binding resolution – such as providing “unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security” for all citizens and “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” – are incredibly grand but absolutely necessary. As Ocasio-Cortez said on NPR’s Morning Edition: “Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us, to our country, to the world.” As the resolution points out, the United States has “historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions” so it must take “a leading role” in reducing emissions through economic transformation. The overreaching goal of the Green New Deal is to entirely transition away from nuclear energy and fossil fuels. To do so, the proposal calls for a wide-ranging mobilization of the U.S. economy and creating jobs through infrastructure and industrial projects, such as zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; installing smart grids; updating or creating buildings that are energy efficient; expanding clean energy jobs (like solar, wind turbine, battery and storage manufacturing); cleaning existing hazardous waste sites; and restoration of damaged and threatened ecosystems. Along the same lines, the Green New Deal includes a significant social justice component because it aims to create millions of family-supporting and union jobs and will help protect disadvantaged communities on the frontlines of pollution and climate change.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just released her massive Green New Deal – here’s what’s in it – Freshman Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and veteran lawmaker Sen. Edward Markey are introducing a resolution spelling out congressional support for a Green New Deal – an ambitious plan to remake the U.S. economy and drastically reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The resolution largely sticks to a blueprint Ocasio-Cortez laid out when she proposed creating a House select committee to establish a Green New Deal. That framework called for generating 100 percent of the nation’s power from renewable sources, making all buildings energy efficient and eliminating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and industry – all within about 10 years. The plan also proposes massive investments in research and development to make the U.S. a leader in clean energy technology. In addition, the Green New Deal envisioned by Ocasio-Cortez aims to implement progressive policies such as a federal jobs guarantee, basic income and universal health care. The resolution being introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Markey clarifies the scope and scale of the Green New Deal and paves the way for legislation that would lay out explicit projects and policies. Ocasio-Cortez plans to begin crafting that legislation immediately. The resolution is co-sponsored by 60 members of Congress and nine senators, including 2020 Democratic presidential contenders Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. The same day Ocasio and Markey released the resolution, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the Democratic lineup for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Ocasio-Cortez, who participated in a protest advocating for bold climate action at Pelosi’s office in November, is not on the roster. On Wednesday, Pelosi appeared to cast aspersions on Ocasio-Cortez’s plan, saying it is a “suggestion” that the select committee would discuss. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?” Pelosi told Politico.
Pelosi Mocks Ocasio-Cortez Green New Deal – Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flipped her dentures at the “new face of the Democratic Party,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as the freshman congresswoman unveils the final draft of her ambitious “Green New Deal” legislation. “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi toldPolitico on Wednesday before Ocasio-Cortez released the plan. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”Pelosi’s comments come after the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez was excluded from the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Ocasio-Cortez is rolling out the “Green New Deal” with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), which she says calls for a “national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal,” and is “a wartime-level, just economic mobilization plan to get to 100% renewable energy.” The plan also aims “to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities” and other “frontline and vulnerable communities.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal offers ‘economic security’ for those ‘unwilling to work’ – The Green New Deal that Democrats proposed Thursday looks to create a more environmentally sound country with economic benefits for everyone – even those who don’t want to work. An overview circulated by proponents states the plan seeks a “massive transformation of our society” that could rid the country of fossil fuels and “create millions of family supporting-wage [sic] union jobs.” But for those not interested in working, there’s something in the plan as well. The overview notes that the Green New Deal aims to provide “economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.” While the resolution patterns itself after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was aimed at rescuing the country from the Great Depression, the FDR plan did not include a proviso for those willingly idle. The Green New Deal seeks to shift the U.S. to all renewable energy in 10 years. The actual resolution that outlines the Green New Deal does not include the “unwilling to work” part, but the overview document, released by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office, does include the “unwilling” language. The overview entails the “nuts and bolts” of the plan. Ocasio-Cortez identifies as a democratic socialist. CNBC has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
AOC and Ed Markey Introduce Green New Deal Resolution (and Let’s Remember It’s a DEAL) –Lambert Strether – From the Boston Herald: “Ed Markey pairs with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Green New Deal,” as they introduce “H. RES. 109: Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal,” together. This is remarkable in several ways, first because Markey is a Senator (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is a Represenative), Markey is “the dean of the Massachusetts delegation” (AOC is a freshman), Markey is 73 (AOC is 29), and Markey introduced Waxman-Markey (cap-and-trade) in 2009, back when the greatest orator of our time was President, which narrowly passed the House and was never taken up in the Senate; the previous high-water mark of Democrat efforts on climate change[1]. Markey’s endorsement of the Green New Deal, in other words. is not only an acknowledgement, however implicit, that cap-and-trade isn’t the solution we (and the biosphere) need, but that the other climate policy he endorsed, Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy, was directionally incorrect as well. I point this out not to trash Markey, but to point out that the, er, climate on climate change has changed, dramatically so. Before delving into the resolution itself, the sausage-making that went into it, and the nature of the Green New Deal as a deal, and the politics of it all, let me make this important caveat: The Green New Deal (GND) is not enough. As David Wallace Wells wrote in New York Magazine: As a strategy of avoiding that same threshold of two degrees of warming, the investments of a Green New Deal are what logicians call “necessary but insufficient.”This is not a reflection of the modesty of the legislation, which is not at all modest – in fact, it is perhaps the most ambitious bill put forward in congress in three quarters of a century. It is simply a reflection of the scale of the challenge. In its report, the IPCC compared the transformation required to stay safely below two degrees to the mobilization of World War II. That mobilization was unprecedented in human history and has never been matched since. That time, there was a draft, a nationalization of industry, widespread rationing: The entire American nation turned single-mindedly toward the relevant threat, as did the entire Russian nation – and the two of them, almost inconceivably, in retrospect, allied. That is the kind of mobilization the sober-minded scientists of the world believe is necessary today – to get to half of our current emissions by 2030. AOC agrees: Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us to our country, to the world. And so while carbon taxes are nice while things like cap and trade are nice, it’s not what’s going to save the planet. It could be part of a larger solution but no one has actually scoped out what that larger solution would entail.
The Economic Impact of the ‘Green New Deal’ Bloomberg. Interview with Stephanie Kelton
Manchin: Green New Deal a bust – West Virginia’s senior U.S. senator has a lot to say about coal and natural gas, and his new committee position will give him a platform to have his voice heard. In December, Manchin was named as the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The two-term senator has served on the committee since 2010 when he was appointed to the committee after winning a special election to replace the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd. Manchin told the room filled with reporters, editors and publishers that his new position allows him to advocate not just for West Virginia coal and natural gas, but for greater expansion of the nation’s energy potential. “I’ve got the chance now at my level to make sure the storage hub and the Mid-Atlantic energy region is vital to the security of our nation,” Manchin said. Manchin said he plans to push back against any legislation that creates what some call a “Green New Deal.” A joint resolution introduced Thursday by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., calls for switching to 100 percent renewable energy.“It’s people who want to stop anything having to do with fossil fuels,” Manchin said. “The Green New Deal, you’ve heard about that? That shuts everybody down. They think in 10 years we can be down to no gas, no coal, no oil, no nothing. That is not feasible, not practical, and it’s not going to happen.” According to Manchin, 50 percent of the energy generated by India and China is coming from coal-fired utilities. Until new technologies are developed to make coal cleaner to burn, Manchin said there is very little leverage the U.S. has to influence the behavior of serial polluters.
Environmental Groups Oppose DeWine’s Pick To Lead PUCO – Environmental groups are opposing Gov. Mike DeWine’s appointment to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. DeWine picked Sam Randazzo to serve on, and eventually chair, the state regulation panel. Randazzo, who recently retired from representing Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, was one of four nominees selected by a nominating council. The environmental groups are specifically targeting Randazzo for his past opposition to renewable energy projects. “We need someone who’s a visionary, someone who really understands not just what Ohio’s like today but what Ohio needs to be in the future to stay competitive,” says Heather Taylor-Miesle with the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund. Industrial Energy Users-Ohio represents large energy ratepayers, with members such as Marathon Gas and McDonald’s franchises. On behalf of the group, Randazzo consistently opposed proposals that resulted in increases on electric bills. That meant opposing renewable energy standards, but it included opposing a cost recovery plan for coal plants. The Environmental Law and Policy Center, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club Ohio Chapter joined the Ohio Environmental Council in its opposition to Randazzo.
ISO New England’s interconnection queue contains more offshore wind than gas – ISO New England’s generator interconnection queue has significantly grown over the past few months with additions from new resources pushing it to 20,000 MW, 10,000 MW of which is offshore wind, according to a market update presentation given by ISO-NE COO Vamsi Chadalavada at a New England Power Pool meeting Friday. The queue currently contains more offshore wind than gas. A competitive auction for three offshore wind lease areas off the coast of Massachusetts wrapped up in December with winning bids totaling $405 million from Equinor, Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind Energy, a Royal Dutch Shell and EDP Renewables joint venture. Also in December, Connecticut regulators approved a 20-year power-purchase agreement for the 200-MW Revolution Wind offshore wind farm, which is being developed by Orsted US Offshore Wind and will be the first offshore wind project in the state when completed in 2023. MARKET TRENDS The value of ISO-NE’s energy market was $480 million in January, down $50 million from December and down $860 million from January 2018, Chadalavada said in the presentation. The data are through January 23. January natural gas prices over the period were 16% higher than December 2018 average values and average real-time hub locational marginal prices at $53.24/MWh over the period were 27% higher than December 2018 averages, the report said. The average day-ahead price was $54.85/MWh. Average January 2019 gas prices and real-time LMPs over the period decreased 57% and 51%, respectively, from January 2018 averages, according to the report.
CMP Offers Hundreds Of Millions In Incentives To Push Transmission Project Through – Central Maine Power Company and Hydro-Quebec are offering a benefit package worth hundreds of millions of dollars to try to win support of their controversial plan to build a transmission line through western Maine forests.CMP wants to upgrade existing transmission lines and build new line through 50 miles of Maine’s western forests to bring electricity from Hydro-Quebec’s dam systems to customers in Massachusetts.The $1 billion project has drawn fire from local citizen groups and many – but not all – environmental groups. It’s won support from some industrial electricity users, unions, construction companies and the state Chamber of Commerce. Now CMP and Hydro-Quebec are trying to win over more. The companies floated the new offer Tuesday to a group of 30 parties to a permit case before the state Public Utilities Commission. Confidential documents from that meeting were shared with Maine Public Radio and other media outlets. Key elements of the offer made to a group of parties to a case before state regulators in documents shared with Maine Public Radio include:
- $190 million to reduce rates for Maine residents over 40 years – with $50 million of that set aside for low income consumers.
- $200 million to improve transmission interconnections, which CMP says will help renewable energy projects in Maine find “headroom” on the grid.
- $15 million to improve the state’s fiber optic network
- $15 million to subsidize residential heat pump purchases
- $15 million for an electric vehicle charging station network and rebates for electric car purchases
Millions Could Lose Power Under PG&E’s Plan To Prevent Wildfires – Pacific Gas & Electric could shut off power to more than 5 million customers when extreme weather conditions are ripe for wildfires to break out, the company said Wednesday. It’s an expansion of the company’s previous power shutoff program, which only let the company turn off power to about half a million customers. Several power companies submitted their required “wildfire mitigation plans” to California regulators this week. But PG&E’s plan may be especially consequential, given that its power lines have been blamed for several Northern California fires over the past few years. The company filed for bankruptcy last month in the wake of billions of dollars in potential liability after two years of wildfires. The company told the state’s public utilities commission that to address wildfire risk, “shutting off power will likely be necessary and may need to be performed more frequently due to the extreme weather events and dry vegetation conditions.” “We understand the urgency of the situation, that lives could be at stake and that we need to move more quickly,” the company said. In 2018, the company’s “public safety power shutoff” program affected up to 570,000 customers. This year, the company plans to include its entire 5.4 million electric customer base in the shutoff program. PG&E said it would try to alert customers within 48 hours of a power shutoff. PG&E will only turn off power “as a last resort,” a company official told The San Francisco Chronicle. And the company stressed it wouldn’t consider shutting off power to all customers at once, the Chronicle reported.
Future U.S. electricity generation mix will depend largely on natural gas prices – The mix of fuels used to generate electricity in the United States has changed in response to differences in the relative costs of electricity-generating technologies and their fuels. EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2019 (AEO2019) shows that projected generation and capacity is significantly influenced by natural gas prices. In the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology scenario, a sensitivity case with low natural gas prices, natural gas provides 54% of all U.S. electricity generation by the end of the projection period. In the Low Oil and Gas Resource and Technology scenario, a corresponding sensitivity case with high natural gas prices, the natural gas generation share falls to 21%. On an annual basis, natural gas surpassed coal in 2016 as the fuel most used to generate electricity in the United States. In the AEO2019 Reference case, natural gas remains the leading source of electricity generation through 2050. In 2018, natural gas accounted for 34% of total electricity generation, and EIA projects its share to grow to 40% by 2032 and then remain between 39% and 40% throughout 2050. Electricity generation shares from coal and nuclear gradually decline as coal and nuclear become less cost competitive compared with natural gas and renewables. Renewables generation surpasses nuclear by 2020 and surpasses coal by the mid-2020s as tax credits and lower capital costs drive solar photovoltaic and wind capacity additions. The natural gas share of U.S. electricity generation largely depends on natural gas prices. Relatively low natural gas prices lead to higher utilization of existing plants and to more natural gas power plant construction. The price of natural gas delivered to electric power plants averaged $3.42 per million British thermal units (Btu) in 2018, and in the AEO2019 Reference case, EIA projects that it will average (in real dollar terms) $5.36 per million Btu in 2050. In the Low Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, higher extraction costs and lower resource availability result in less natural gas production, and the natural gas price for power plants increases to $8.62 per million Btu in 2050. Conversely, in the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case, which has the opposite assumptions for resource extraction costs and availability, EIA projects that natural gas prices will remain well below $4.00 per million Btu through 2050. Because of lower natural gas prices, the share of natural gas-fired generation in the High Oil and Gas Resource and Technology case is considerably higher than in the Reference case, displacing renewables, coal-fired, and nuclear-powered generation.
Congress retains most energy programs in 2018 Farm Bill through fiscal year 2023 –On December 20, 2018, theAgricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) was signed into law, continuing federal support to a number of renewable electricity and bioenergy-related programs. Authorizations in the 2018 Farm Bill cover fiscal years (FY) 2019 through 2023, during which time energy programs will receive $375 million in mandatory funding, with up to an additional $860 million in discretionary funding. These spending levels represent a 46% decrease in mandatory funding and a 12% increase in discretionary funding compared with the 2014 Farm Bill. Even though discretionary spending increased, discretionary federal support is inherently uncertain because this funding must be authorized by Congress in future appropriations bills. Farm bills have tended to be large, multi-year pieces of legislation that outline federal support to a diverse set of rural and agricultural programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The 2002 version of the farm bill was the first to include a dedicated energy title, Title IX. Subsequent farm bills in 2008 and 2014 either created, extended, or repealed these programs. The 2018 Farm Bill reauthorized most Title IX programs at the same or lower funding levels relative to the 2014 Farm Bill. Title IX federal subsidies are provided to eligible recipients in the form of project grants, guaranteed loans, and direct payments. The most common form of assistance is a USDA-guaranteed loan, where the USDA assumes the responsibility for the amount of the loan in case of default. The share of USDA-guaranteed loans under Title IX programs more than doubled during the past four years, from approximately 40% during FY 2009 – 2013 to more than 80% during FY 2014 – 2018. Several Title IX programs account for most of the federal support provided, with the largest amount of funding awarded to the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). REAP offers grants and loan guarantees to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to promote the installation of select renewable energy systems, particularly solar, and energy efficiency retrofits. REAP is set to receive $250 million in both mandatory and discretionary funding over the duration of the 2018 Farm Bill, accounting for two-thirds of mandatory funding and nearly one-third of discretionary funding.
Long, strange trip: How U.S. ethanol reaches China tariff-free (Reuters) – In June, the High Seas tanker ship loaded up on ethanol in Texas and set off for Asia. Two months later – after a circuitous journey that included a ship-to-ship transfer and a stop in Malaysia – its cargo arrived in China, according to shipping data analyzed by Reuters and interviews with Malaysian and Chinese port officials. At the time, the roundabout route puzzled global ethanol traders and ship brokers, who called it a convoluted and costly way to get U.S. fuel to China. (MAP: tmsnrt.rs/2HP1ywa) But the journey reflects a broader shift in global ethanol flows since U.S. President Donald Trump ignited a trade war with China last spring. Although China slapped retaliatory tariffs up to 70 percent on U.S. ethanol shipments, the fuel can still legally enter China tariff-free if it arrives blended with at least 40 percent Asian-produced fuel, according to trade rules established between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional economic and political body. In a striking example of how global commodity markets respond to government policies blocking free trade, some 88,000 tonnes of U.S. ethanol landed on Malaysian shores through November of last year – all since June, shortly after China hiked its tax on U.S. shipments. The surge follows years of negligible imports of U.S. ethanol to Malaysia. In turn, Malaysia has exported 69,000 tonnes of ethanol to China, the first time the nation has been an exporter of the fuel in at least three years, according to Chinese import data.
EPA’s Wheeler continues frequent meetings with industry his agency regulates – The Environmental Protection Agency’s acting administrator Andrew Wheeler has maintained the custom of his predecessor Scott Pruitt of meeting with far more industry executives and lobbyists than environmental groups. Wheeler held or attended more than 50 meetings with representatives of companies or industry groups regulated by the EPA between April and August of last year, including a company he previously lobbied for, a CNN review of his internal schedules found. He met with three nonprofit environmental groups during that time. The Senate confirmed Wheeler as the EPA’s second-in-command in April, but he took over as the agency’s acting head after Pruitt resigned in July amidst ethics controversies. President Trump has since nominated Wheeler to serve as the EPA’s permanent administrator, and now he awaits the Senate’s approval. The meetings with industry representatives represent only a fraction of Wheeler’s total meetings during that time. His calendar also shows a variety of talks with federal, state and local government officials, journalists and some political groups. Elena Saxonhouse, an attorney with the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group that obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, said in a statement to CNN the schedules show “just how cozy Wheeler and his deputies are with the polluters they are supposed to be protecting American families from.”
Why Not Start Saving the Biosphere by Outlawing Private Jets? – Lambert Strether – This piece will be a little disjointed, I’m afraid, because saving the biosphere is a large topic, larger even than the aircraft industry, and I don’t feel I’ve quite mastered the material. Note that although the tone will be polemic, this is not a “Modest Proposal“; if indeed “the problem is as dire as much of the science suggests, the policies must match the rhetoric,” and that must include measures like that of the headline, and many more. So, consider this post a forcing device for further discussion. I’ll take a brief tour of the private jet aircraft industry – I’m mostly talking your basic Gulfstream rendition jet, not your Third World dictator Airbus or Boeing, and not your Piper Cub, or hospital helicopter – followed by discussion of the industry’s impact on the biosphere. From there, I’ll discuss how to get rid of them. Finally, I’ll deal with possible objections from the high net worth-owners of private jets. But first, I’ll answer the question in the title, aesthetically: Figure 1: Luxe Interior I submit that no artifact so symbolic of the costly bad taste and wretched excess of the rich should be permitted to exist. (Sadly, I can’t find an image of the interior of Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” that I can use. But it’s equally horrid, and so it should be.) Second, logically, I suggest that those who can afford to own and run private jets should get rid of them, in their own best interests, as today’s equivalent of a “wartime sacrifice” in the fight to save the biosphere from cooking itself and everything in it. Basically, it’s the least they could do (“Paris Climate Accord Backers Won’t Say if They Support Ban on Private Jets“). The Windsors, after all, subsisted or were said to subsist on ration cards during World War II, and very successful propaganda it was for them, too. So much better than peasants burning the land records, eh? And what followed? Now to the private aircraft industry. First, how many private jets are there? From Statista (2017), a handy chart
A climate problem even California can’t fix: tailpipe pollution (Reuters) – For three decades, California has led the fight to control tailpipe pollution, with countless policies promoting cleaner gasoline, carpooling, public transportation and its signature strategy – the electric vehicle. Californians now buy more than half of all EVs sold in the United States, and the state’s auto-pollution policies have provided a model being adopted around the world. But they’re not working at home, by the state’s own measure. Tailpipe pollution here is going up, not down, despite billions of dollars spent by one of the most environmentally progressive governments on earth. “The strategies that we’ve used up until now just haven’t been effective,” Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, told Reuters. That failure has less to do with energy or environmental policies and more with decades-old urban planning decisions that made California – and especially Los Angeles – a haven for sprawling development of single-family homes and long commutes, according to state officials. California’s struggle bodes poorly for other major U.S. cities with similar sprawl and expensive urban housing – such as Houston, Atlanta, and others that planned their cities around cars – and casts doubt on whether the United States can meet its pledged carbon cuts under an international agreement to fight climate change. The state’s troubles also hold lessons for massive economies including China and India, major carbon emitters that hope to control pollution from vehicles as they rapidly urbanize. Transportation is tied with power generation as America’s leading source of carbon dioxide emissions, at 28 percent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – and it takes top billing in California, at about 40 percent. It makes up a smaller share in the rest of the world, where car ownership is lower but likely to grow. California’s carbon emissions amounted to 429 million metric tons in 2016, the last year for which data is available. That’s the lowest level since 1990 thanks to a shift away from coal-fired electricity toward natural gas, solar and wind. But its next target – calling for a further 40 percent cut by 2030 – will be out of reach without transformative changes in state residents’ driving habits, CARB said in a report published late last year.
Big Diesel-Burning Pickup Trucks Are Paying for GM’s Electric Future – The vehicles that will secure the next decade for General Motors Co. aren’t covered in self-driving sensors or loaded with batteries. No, the future depends on hulking pickup trucks that often run on diesel and cost more than the average BMW. That’s the irony at the heart of GM’s event this week at its sprawling factory in Flint, Michigan, where the next iterations of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra will be introduced. These revamped heavy-duty pickups, which go on sale in June, feature advanced, lightweight materials and fuel-efficient engines but none of the technology that will supposedly shape the next era of the auto industry. Yet in Detroit that future can’t exist without the profit margins generated by classic pickup trucks. “These vehicles have among the highest margins in the business,” said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive. “You have no tomorrow if you don’t sell these trucks today.” GM’s pickup trucks combine for $65 billion in annual revenue. Heavy duty versions of the Silverado and Sierra make up about 20 percent of GM’s full-size truck sales, the company said, and sell at an average of almost $56,000. Competition in the segment is fierce: Ford Motor Co. is rolling out freshened version of its leading Super Duty models at this week’s Chicago Auto Show. The math makes it clear that GM will ride into the future on trucks that first went on sale decades ago. The operating profit on large pickups, according to Morningstar Inc. analyst David Whiston, are at least $12,000 apiece. GM reported sales of 210,000 heavy-duty pickups last year and hopes the new ones will sell even more. In rough math, they bring in more than $2 billion in pretax income. GM is realigning its manufacturing footprint and workforce to make more pickups and other light trucks, even as it cuts back production of less profitable vehicles like sedans.
Oil companies and utilities are buying up all the electric car charging startups– For decades, oil and gas companies and utilities dismissed electric cars. Now, the old petroleum and power giants are muscling into the driver’s seat of the “new fuels” industry. It’s projected to be a big business. McKinsey counts more than 350 new electric vehicle (EV) models debuting by 2025, one of the conditions for mass-market adoption. Global demand for gasoline is set to peak around 2021 thanks to electric vehicles (EVs) and fuel efficiency gains. The energy research and consultancy Wood Mackenzie predicts charging infrastructure investment in the US will exceed $18 billion annually by 2030 for equipment, installation, operations, and services. China is expected to have three times more energy demand from EVs by then. Now, fossil fuel incumbents want in. They’re investing heavily or outright acquiring electrical infrastructure needed to supply the millions of electric vehicles (EVs) expected in the next few years. Although just 2.2% of the world’s vehicles are electric, a record 2 million or so EVs were sold last year amid exponential growth. While the numbers aren’t huge yet – for example, Shell’s $1 billion in renewable energy and EV investments amounts amounts to just 4% of its annual capital expenditures – they’re growing fast. Globally, $334 billion (pdf) was invested in global clean energy in 2017, reports Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Public charging infrastructure is ramping up almost everywhere, and each region has its own unique mix of players, says BNEF. The most recent move was Royal Dutch Shell’s purchase of Greenlots, a startup offering software and services for EV charging networks. The British-Dutch oil giant says it will use Greenlot’s technology, which combines software to optimize battery charging and grid balancing services in one charging platform, to build the “foundation” of its EV business in North America. The company is pouring about $1 billion a year into such deals, according to BNEF, including the acquisition of 30,000 charging stations in Western Europe, as well as a $31 million investment into EV charging startup Ample in 2018.
Winter Is Wreaking Havoc On Electric Vehicles – If there’s one thing electric vehicle owners are learning, it is that extremely cold temperatures are likely going to lead to frustration if they don’t take extra special care of their battery powered vehicles. As we push through the cold that automakers are using as an excuse for poor sales this winter, customers of some companies – notably Tesla – are starting to realize that things are a little bit different with electric vehicles in the winter. Disgruntled owners of Model 3s have been widespread on social media and online forums, talking about numerous issues they’ve had with cold weather on their vehicles. People have complained about battery range draining and Model 3 door handles freezing up. A new report by Fortune highlights several Tesla owners pointing out their issues: “My biggest concern is the cold weather drained my battery 20 to 25 miles overnight and an extra five to ten miles on my drive to work. I paid $60,000 to not drain my battery so quickly,” said New Jersey based Model 3 owner Ronak Patel. The pro-EV lot over at InsideEVs stated frankly back in December, “Cold weather demands a long range battery” before also encouraging people to shell out more money: “…if you reside in a colder region and can afford to spring for the long-range Model 3, then come winter, you’ll be glad you made that choice.” Salim Morsy, an analyst with Bloomberg, stated: “It’s Panasonic that manufactures Tesla batteries. It’s not something specific to Tesla. It happens to Chevy with the Bolt and Nissan with the Leaf.”
GOP senator targets electric car subsidy – Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wants the federal government to eliminate incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles. In an op-ed published by Fox News Tuesday, Barrasso said electric car technology had reached a point manufacturers no longer need government assistance and eliminating federal incentives could save $20 billion a year. “The program has served its purpose; the electric-car market is established,” he wrote. “Over time, the size of the subsidy has grown. For every electric vehicle sold in America today, U.S. taxpayers pay up to $7,500. It’s time to take taxpayers off the hook.” So far roughly 360,000 electric vehicles have been sold in the United States. But sales are expected to take off in the years ahead, as manufacturers from GM to Tesla release a wave of new models. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects by 2025 there will be 4 million electric cars on U.S. roads. Barrasso has already introduced legislation to end the federal subsidy, as well as create a fee for alternative-fuel vehicles that would be paid into the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, which funds highway and bridge repairs. “Drivers of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles pay into the fund every time they fill their tanks. Drivers of electric vehicles don’t pay this fee,” Barrasso wrote.
Duke agreed to pay record fine for lax security – sources — According to industry sources, Duke agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle 127 violations of security standards. Duke Energy Duke Energy Corp. agreed to pay a record $10 million fine from regulators to settle 127 violations of security standards meant to protect the electric grid from catastrophic outages, according to multiple industry sources. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., which sets and enforces grid security rules, said utilities that sources identified as being owned by the Charlotte, N.C.-based electric power holding company committed the alleged physical and cybersecurity violations over four years. Regulators had chosen to keep Duke’s identity a secret for security reasons, given the potential for Duke to uncover additional gaps in its defenses as it completes a required overhaul of its process for fending off hackers and other threats of sabotage. Industry sources credited Duke for having shored up its security program in recent years, so E&E News is disclosing the utility’s identity. The fine is more than triple the previous record for NERC security violations, a $2.7 million penalty issued to San Francisco-based utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. last year. In that case, sources confirmed that PG&E left sensitive grid schematics exposed to the public internet for 10 weeks in 2016, a cybersecurity lapse that was only uncovered and fixed when a “white hat” hacker tipped off the utility. Sources say NERC’s escalation to its first-ever eight-figure fine is likely to reverberate at other large utilities exposed to newfound cyber and regulatory risks. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has final say over NERC enforcement actions and security standards, could opt to intervene in the settlement by the end of this month. But sources say FERC is expected to sign off on the penalty.
TVA admits potential liability in case of sickened coal ash workers, may hit ratepayers – The Tennessee Valley Authority is admitting publicly for the first time that it made a deal that could put ratepayers on the financial hook for the misdeeds of a contractor accused of poisoning an entire workforce.TVA is publicly acknowledging – via a small section in a 2019 quarterly earnings report – ratepayers may have to foot the bill for Jacobs Engineering’s treatment of disaster cleanup workers at thenation’s largest coal ash spill at the public utility’s Kingston plant a decade ago. TVA put Jacobs Engineering in charge of cleaning up the 7.3 million ton coal ash spill at the TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in December 2008 and keeping workers and the community safe, despite the global contractor’s history of worker safety lawsuits and test tampering allegations. Jacobs supervisors have since admitted – under oath – they lied to the estimated 900 workers employed at the height of the cleanup effort about the dangers of coal ash while exposing them – unprotected – to it for as much as 50 to 55 hours a week for months and years. More than 40 workers are now dead, and more than 400 are sick.
Chinese Coal Mine Emissions Soar, Despite Public Pledges – Emissions of potent methane gas from the country’s enormous coal mining industry soared by 50 percent from 2010 from 2015, despite an ambitious and well-publicized pledge to start capturing the greenhouse gas, according to a study published Tuesday by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The increase – roughly 5.5 teragrams over the five-year period – was comparable to the total methane emissions from Russia or Brazil, themselves the second- and fifth-largest emitters of methane gas, according to a 2012 inventory. China is the world’s largest source of methane by orders of magnitude. The U.S., which in 2012 was the fourth-largest emitter of the gas, that year produced only a quarter of the methane released by China. “Our study indicates that, at least in terms of methane emissions, China’s government is ‘talking the talk’ but has not been able to ‘walk the walk,'” Scot Miller, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. China is the world’s largest coal producer, and it’s heavily dependent on the fuel for electricity: nearly three-quarters of the country’s power was generated from coal. Such dependence brings significant climate implications: coal not only produces enormous amounts of air pollution when burned, but mining it also releases large amounts of methane gas. The sector in China is so large, and the emissions from mining so great, that coal mining is believed to be the greatest source of human-induced methane emissions in the country.
‘We won’- Landmark climate ruling as NSW court rejects coal mine – Environmental groups are cheering a decision in NSW’s Land and Environment Court that found the emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change from a proposed coal mine were among the reasons to reject the project. Brian Preston, chief judge of the court, handed down his judgment in a case between Gloucester Resources Ltd and the NSW Planning Minister in Sydney on Friday. He concluded the mine project was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. He dismissed an appeal by developers of the controversial Rocky Hill open-cut coal mine near the Mid North Coast town of Gloucester against any earlier planning rejection.Last April, the Environmental Defenders Office of NSW secured approval from the court to join the case, arguing on behalf of its client Groundswell Gloucester that the mine’s detrimental impact on climate change and on the social fabric of the town must be considered.
San Francisco gas explosion shoots fire that burns multiple buildings – A gas explosion in a San Francisco neighborhood shot flames into the air Wednesday and burned five buildings, sending panicked residents and workers fleeing into the streets.Utility crews put out the fire about three hours after private construction workers cut a natural gas line, igniting the towering flames, San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. Authorities initially said five workers were missing, but the entire construction crew was found safe, and no other injuries were reported. Officials evacuated several nearby buildings, including a medical clinic and apartment buildings, Hayes-White said. Vehicles on a busy street got rerouted as authorities cordoned off the bustling retail and residential neighborhood. The fire damaged a building housing Hong Kong Lounge II, a popular dim sum restaurant frequented by students at the University of San Francisco and tourists. The restaurant made many “best of” lists. Caroline Gasparini, 24, who lives catty-corner from the fire, said she and her housemate were in their living room when the windows started rattling. She looked up to see flames reflected in the glass. Gasparini said they saw employees of the burning restaurant run out the backdoor and people fleeing down the block. Firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading while Pacific Gas & Electric crews tried to shut off the natural gas line. “It’s complicated,” Hayes-White said of stopping the flow of gas through the damaged pipe. Though she later acknowledged that “as a fire chief and a resident, yes, I would have liked to see it mitigated.”
Gas line explosion in SF sends people running for lives – A gas line explosion at a busy San Francisco intersection shot flames 40 feet into the air, sent people running for their lives and set five buildings on fire Wednesday afternoon.Crews working for Verizon dug into the street at Geary Blvd. and Parker Ave. in the Inner Richmond and struck a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. gas line, setting off the blast at around 1:18 p.m.At nearby Mel’s Drive-In, diners began running out of the restaurant when they heard a booming “rumble and felt the windows shake,” said Antelmo Faria, who had just sat down to have lunch with his girlfriend at the counter.The fire shot out of the ground for more than two hours before PG&E crews shut off a gas valve to stop it. At the scene, PG&E spokesman Blair Jones explained why it took so long: utility workers had to painstakingly used shovels to hand-dig into asphalt in order to shut off the gas valves feeding the flames. Machinery couldn’t be used due to the proximity of the gas line to the surface of the street.“You can imagine having to hand-dig in asphalt. It takes time,” Jones said. “It’s also very cold right now. If we do this wrong, and we shut off gas, to potentially hundreds, maybe thousands of more people in San Francisco, so we’re trying to do this in a way that is safe.”Dozens of residents were displaced and as many as 2,500 customers lost electricity. Wednesday evening, PG&E said power was restored to all but 235 customers. Additionally, about 300 gas customers lost their service.
Rate Counsel Says PSEG, Exelon Failed to Show Need for $300M Nuclear Subsidies – The state should deny $300 million in ratepayer subsidies to PSEG Nuclear and Exelon Generation as the two companies failed to prove their three nuclear power plants in South Jersey will close without the incentives, according to a filing by the New Jersey Rate Counsel.Rate Counsel Stefanie Brand said the two companies, in making a case for nuclear subsidies, have overstated their costs and underestimated revenues. “When their assumptions are examined closely, their claims of financial hardship fall away,’’ Brand said in a redacted filing to the state Board of Public Utilities.The filing is among the responses received by the board on applications submitted by the two companies seeking so-called zero-emission certificates in the form of ratepayer subsidies to keep the Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek nuclear units from closing within the next three years.The BPU is about to begin a proceeding to determine whether PSEG Nuclear and Exelon, which owns a share in Salem I and Salem II, should be awarded the subsidies. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a controversial law last May establishing a process where the companies could seek subsidies from ratepayers to avert the closing of the units. The Division of Rate Counsel, among a broad coalition of business, consumer and environmental groups, opposed the bill and the award of any subsidies to PSEG during the legislative hearing. The Rate Counsel’s filing responds to an application by the companies filed late in December. In the filing, Brand questions many of the companies’ underlying projections of future energy prices and associated costs, mostly involving operational and market risks. In essence, the filing argues the companies overstated negative outcomes while minimizing possible positive results.“Now, with the applicants providing the best case they could make, we can see that these subsidies are not only unfair and inappropriate, they also are unneeded,’’ the filing said. “The only way the applicant could justify their request is to over-count their costs and under-count their revenues.’’
Legislators pitch a bill to rescue Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants – Pennsylvania lawmakers took the first step toward proposing a rescue of the state’s financially challenged nuclear power plants on Monday, setting the stage for a battle of energy giants in the Legislature this spring.Six state senators from both parties and Rep. Thomas Mehaffie, a Republican from Dauphin County, circulated memos inviting other members of the House and Senate to sign on to bills they said could forestall early retirements of the state’s nuclear plants by rewarding them for generating electricity without emitting climate-warming gases.Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants are struggling to compete against a wave of natural gas plants in the electricity market that are taking advantage of cheap, local fuel flowing from the region’s Marcellus Shale wells. Exelon Generation plans to close its money-losing Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg in September. And though the financial picture for the Beaver Valley nuclear plant in Shippingport looks better – the independent market monitor for the regional grid said the plant had a $165.2 million operating surplus last year – its bankrupt owner, Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Solutions, plans to shut down the two reactors in 2021.Without action, the legislators said, “The commonwealth’s three other nuclear power plants are likely not far behind.”The legislators propose to integrate nuclear power into the state’s existing Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, a 2004 law that requires power companies to get an increasing percentage of their electricity from sources like wind, solar, hydropower, landfill methane and waste coal. Currently, 15.2 percent of the electricity sold in each utility’s service territory must come from portfolio sources, with the level rising to 18 percent in 2021.
New House speaker says saving nuclear plants benefits state – New House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford) on Friday voiced support for preserving Ohio’s two nuclear power plants as state assets and recognized the narrow window of time to get a rescue plan in place. “We generate a tremendous amount of zero emissions energy in this state,” he said. “And we’ve got to decide whether we’re willing to give that up or whether we’re going to try to work to keep that energy source here.” FirstEnergy Solutions, now in bankruptcy court, has said it will close its nuclear power plants on the shores of Lake Erie – the Davis-Besse plant in Ottawa County and the Perry plant east of Cleveland. They’ve been unable to compete economically with cheap and abundant natural gas as well as increasing access to renewable sources such as wind and solar power. One of Mr. Householder’s top priorities as the newly elected leader of the Republican-controlled House is to create a subcommittee dedicated to energy generation issues in the state. Those issues would also include whether to continue current mandates in state law that utilities find more of their power from renewable sources. Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. and its marketing spinoff FirstEnergy Solutions have come up empty in attempts to convince lawmakers to save the plants. The Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance – consisting of representatives of local government, schools, economic development groups, skilled trade unions, and businesses – has pushed to put the issue in front of the new two-year legislative session. It’s an issue for the state, not just the lakefront communities where the plants are located, Mr. Householder said while meeting with Statehouse reporters. “I think it’s a benefit to the entire state of Ohio to have those non-emission plants,” he said. Past discussions about requiring electricity customers to pay for more expensive nuclear power to keep the plants humming have gone nowhere.
South Carolina Spent $9 Billion to Dig a Hole in the Ground and Then Fill It Back In — The objection raised most frequently when it comes to a Green New Deal is its cost. It’s preposterous; it’s too expensive; we just can’t afford it. But before scoffing at the prospect of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world funding such a project, it’s worth taking a look at what one of the country’s poorest states was recently able to spend. South Carolina, in a bid to expand its generation of nuclear power in recent years, dropped $9 billion on a single project – and has nothing to show for it. The boondoggle, which was covered widely in the Palmetto State press but got little attention nationally, sheds light on just how much money is genuinely available for an industrial-level energy transformation, if only the political will were there. In South Carolina, lawmakers greenlighted a multibillion-dollar energy project and stuck utility customers with the tab. “In the private sector,” former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Gregory Jaczko told The Intercept, “you would never be able to justify this.” The saga, and related nuclear project failures, calls into question the role of new nuclear energy production in the effort to decarbonize the economy. New plants, Jaczko said, take too long to build for the urgency of the climate crisis and simply aren’t cost effective, given advances in renewable energy. “I don’t see nuclear as a solution to climate change,” Jaczko said. “It’s too expensive, and would take too long if it could even be deployed. There are cheaper, better alternatives. And even better alternatives that are getting cheaper, faster.”
How do you dismantle a nuclear power plant? Very, very carefully Behind the locked gates of Building 372 at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, past the door to the huge containment vessel where a sign warns of radiation, a large button on the control panel is covered in red plastic and reads: “manual scram.” This is the emergency shutdown button, which nuclear legend says was pushed when it was time to scram. But these days, the dark interior of the Army’s historic nuclear reactor, once called an “atomic-age miracle machine,” is a maze of rusted pipes, peeling paint and pressure gauges reading zero. Keys in the control panel haven’t been turned in years, and switches are set to “off.” The world’s first nuclear plant to supply energy to a power grid has been defunct for years. But the Army is preparing to break it up, check it for lingering radiation and haul it away piece by piece. Dedicated in 1957, as the government was promoting “Atoms for Peace,” the facility was a training site and a prototype for small reactors that could produce power for bases in remote places around the world, the Army said. Hundreds of nuclear plant specialists trained at the SM-1 before it was shut down in 1973. By then, the military’s need for such expensive plants had dwindled, The plant’s uranium-235 fuel and reactor waste were removed in 1973 and ’74 and taken to a storage site in South Carolina. The 64-foot-high concrete-and-steel containment vessel that housed the smaller reactor vessel and other equipment was sealed. But all these years later, there is probably still residual nuclear contamination of some of the internal structures, Army experts said.
Cost to Taxpayers to Clean Up Nuclear Waste Jumps $100 Million in One Year – The estimated cost of cleaning up America’s nuclear waste has jumped more than $100 billion in just one year, according to a DOE report – and a watchdog warns the cost may climb still higher. The Energy Department’s projected cost for cleanup jumped from $383.78 billion in 2017 to $493.96 billion in a financial report issued in December 2018. A government watchdog and DOE expert said the new total may still underestimate the full cost of cleanup, which is expected to last another 50 years. “We believe the number is growing and we believe the number is understated,” said David Trimble, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environment team. The cost was calculated by the accounting firm KPMG under contract to DOE. Eighty percent of the increase comes from new projections of the costs of cleaning up radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals at the Hanford site in southeastern Washington. The 586-square-mile site, home to nine former production reactors and processing facilities, produced plutonium for America’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. Cleaning up Hanford has already cost taxpayers $170 billion over 30 years, but government auditors say the most challenging parts of the clean-up work are yet to be done. Still not cleaned up are 56 million gallons of what the DOE’s inspector general has described as “hazardous and highly radioactive waste.” The rise in projected cost is due to updated estimates for building and running a waste treatment plant, including “operating costs, tank farm retrieval and closure costs” at the site, according to the report. The report also refers to changes in “technical approach or scope” and “updated estimates of projected waste volumes.”
India-Pakistan Nuclear Standoff: What Does the West Have at Stake in South Asia? – The West, particularly the United States and Canada, are geographically far removed from South Asia. This distance makes many think that any nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would not have a significant impact on life in America and Europe. Dr. Owen Brian Toon and Professor Alan Robock dispute this thinking. They believe the nuclear winter following an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange will kill crops as far as the United States and cause a global famine. Another study by Nobel Peace Prize- winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility reached the same conclusion. Professors Robock and Toon have calculated that the smoke from just 100-200 Hiroshima sized atomic bombs exploding in South Asia would cover the entire globe within two weeks. This smoke would hang 30-50 miles above the surface of the earth where it never rains. This thick layer of smoke would block the sun causing farmers to lose their crops for years to come. The resulting famine would kill billions of people around the globe. In “Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia“, Pakistani-American analyst Dr. Moeed Yusuf talks about the US efforts to prevent India-Pakistan war that could escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange. Yusuf argues that the US-Soviet Cold War deterrence model does not apply to the India-Pakistan conflict and offers his theory of “brokered bargaining”. Here is a TED talk by Dr. Owen Brian Toon, professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at University of Colorado at Boulder. He’s citing research he did with Professor Alan Robock, professor of climate research at Rutgers University.
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