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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Germany named drug use capital following Europe-wide sewage study – Germany has topped a Europe-wide study for crystal meth and amphetamine use following close examination of the country’s wastewater. Sewage in over 70 cities was analyzed to explore the drug-taking habits of residents. Scientists examining the common effluent in 20 European countries discovered residents and visitors to the German city of Erfurt used an inordinate amount of the illicit drug methamphetamine, the most for any of the 73 European towns and cities taking part in Europe’s largest wastewater drug analysis. Samples from an estimated 46 million people across the bloc were analyzed for traces of four illicit drugs – amphetamine, cocaine, MDMA (or ecstasy) and methamphetamine – in an attempt to better understand drug-taking habits. Through daily wastewater analysis, scientists were able to estimate the amount of drugs taken within the community over a one-week period by looking at metabolites, a substance produced when the body breaks down drugs, which is then excreted in urine. Researchers for the Sewage Analysis CORe group Europe (SCORE), in conjunction with the European Union’s drugs agency EMCDDA, found that for each 1,000 residents, a daily average of 211.3 mg of methamphetamine was used. Chemnitz, a two-hour drive east of Erfurt, was second on the list of cities being studied, with a figure of 196.2 mg of the illicit drug per 1,000 people, down from 240.6 in 2017.Dresden, also in the east of the country, came in third with 174.6 mg, down slightly from 180.2 mg the previous year.”Traditionally,” the EMCDDA reported, “methamphetamine use [has been] generally low and historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.” “Now it appears to be present also in the east of Germany and northern Europe, particularly in cities in Finland,” the monitoring center added.
Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution May Increase Asthma Mortality – Just a few days’ exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with increased risk of death from asthma, researchers from China indicated. Earlier studies have linked short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ground-level ozone (O3) in asthma sufferers to increased symptoms, exacerbations, and hospital emergency department visits, but the study is among the first to show a link between short-term exposure and death from asthma. Researchers in China analyzed death records from approximately 4,500 people who died of asthma in a province of the nation with a population of 59 million people and more than 50 air quality monitoring stations. The findings were published online in the American Thoracic Society journal: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Medicine. “Given that short-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with increased risk of death from a variety of causes, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, we hypothesized that air pollution might increase the risk of death from asthma,” said Yuewei Liu, PhD of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, in a press release. For the study, he and his colleagues used a case-crossover design along with conditional logistic regression modeling to analyze the data. Exposures to PM2.5, PM10, sulfur dioxide (SO2), NO2, carbon monoxide (CO), and O3 were estimated using inverse distance weighted averages of all monitoring stations within 50 kilometers of the home address of each deceased case. For each asthma death identified by the researchers, the case day was defined as the death date, and the death case also served as his or her own control. Control days were defined as the days in the same year and month as the death day that shared the same day of the week to control for confounding effects by day of week, long-term trend, and seasonality (3 or 4 control days). The team used inverse distance weighting (ID) to assess air pollutant exposures. Locations of monitoring stations and case home addresses were geocoded, and for each asthma death, the researchers estimated air pollution exposure on the day of death by calculating the inverse distance weighted average of concentrations at all monitoring stations within 50 km of the home address on each of the case and control days.”Our findings provide new evidence that short-term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of dying from asthma and highlight the need for those with asthma to take effective measures — staying indoors with an air purifier or wearing a mask — to reduce air pollution exposure when those levels are very high,” Liu said.
Trump EPA Science Advisers Push Doubt About Air Pollution Health Risks –For two years, the Trump administration has been planting seeds of change in the Environmental Protection Agency – installing allies of regulated industries onto its elite panels of science advisers. That effort now has borne fruit in dramatic fashion. The EPA’s new science advisers, sweeping aside decades of research on the grave health risks of fine particle air pollution, have launched a drive to force the agency to give greater weight to a handful of contrarian studies that dispute the harmful effects of soot.Particulate matter is the pollution caused by combustion, a mixture of solid and liquid droplets that forms in the burning of fossil fuels or wood. The health risks of particulate matter have been an underpinning of the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis of a number of air pollution regulations, including those meant to address climate change, like the Obama administration’s Clean Air Act. The science is well-established – the World Health Organizationestimates that there are 4.2 million premature deaths a year due to fine particle pollution, making it one of the leading environmental health risks globally. But allies of the fossil fuel industry have vigorously disputed the validity of fine particle pollution studies since they first emerged in the 1990s. Significantly, the health damages from particle and other pollution coming from the combustion of fossil fuels have also been used by the EPA to justify controls on carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. The latest scientific dispute centers around the EPA’s draft assessment of the science on particulate matter (PM), a comprehensive review that the agency is required by law to conduct every few years to update the state of the science on several key pollutants. It affirmed the agency’s previous findings that the science points consistently and overwhelmingly to a “causal relationship” between PM pollution and premature deaths. The assessment concludes the greatest risk is due to particles less than 2.5 microns in width, and that PM2.5 is associated with a range of cardiovascular and respiratory effects.
Dormant viruses reactivate during space travel- NASA – Space travel caused herpes viruses to reactivate in more than half of crew aboard Space Shuttle andInternational Space Station (ISS), according to a NASA study, a finding that could jeopardise mankind’s future missions to Mars and beyond.While only a small proportion develop symptoms, virus reactivation rates increase with spaceflight duration and could present a significant health risk on future missions. “NASAastronauts endure weeks or even months exposed to microgravity and cosmic radiation — not to mention the extreme G forces of take-off and re-entry,” said Satish K Mehta at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.“This physical challenge is compounded by more familiar stressors like social separation, confinement and an altered sleep-wake cycle,” said Mehta.”During spaceflight there is a rise in secretion of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are known to suppress the immune system,” said Mehta.”In keeping with this, we find that astronaut’s immune cells –particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses — become less effective during spaceflight and sometimes for up to 60 days after,” he said.In the midst of this stress-induced amnesty on viral killing, dormant viruses reactivate and resurface, according to the research published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.“To date, 47 out of 89 (53 per cent) astronauts on short space shuttle flights, and 14 out of 23 (61 per cent) on longer ISS missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples,” said Mehta.”These frequencies — as well as the quantity — of viral shedding are markedly higher than in samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls,” he said. Overall, four of the eight known human herpes viruses were detected. These include the varieties responsible for oral and genital herpes (HSV), chickenpox and shingles (VZV) — which remain lifelong in our nerve cells — as well as CMV and EBV, which take permanent but uneventful residence in our immune cells during childhood.
Scientists Resume Efforts To Create Deadly Flu Virus, With US Government’s Blessing – Forbes – For more than a decade now, two scientists – one in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands – have been trying to create a deadly human pathogen from avian influenza. That’s right: they are trying to turn “bird flu,” which does not normally infect people, into a human flu.Not surprisingly, many scientists are vehemently opposed to this. In mid-2014, a group of them formed the Cambridge Working Group and issued a statement warning of the dangers of this research. The statement was signed by hundreds of scientists at virtually every major U.S. and European university. (Full disclosure: I am one of the signatories.)In response to these and other concerns, in October 2014 the U.S. government called for a “pause” in this dangerous research. NIH Director Francis Collins said that his agency would study the risks and benefits before proceeding further.Well, four years later, the risks and benefits haven’t changed, but the NIH has (quietly) just allowed the research to start again, as we learned last week in an exclusive report from Science‘s Jocelyn Kaiser.I can’t allow this to go unchallenged. This research is so potentially harmful, and offers such little benefit to society, that I fear that NIH is endangering the trust that Congress places in it. And don’t misinterpret me: I’m a huge supporter of NIH, and I’ve argued before that it’s one of the best investments the American public can make. But they got this one really, really wrong. For those who might not know, the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide (3% of the entire world population at the time), was caused by a strain of avian influenza that made the jump into humans. The 1918 flu was so deadly that it “killed more American soldiers and sailors during World War I than did enemy weapons.” Not surprisingly, then, when other scientists (including me) learned about the efforts to turn bird flu into a human flu, we asked: why the heck would anyone do that? The answers were and still are unsatisfactory: claims such as “we’ll learn more about the pandemic potential of the flu” and “we’ll be better prepared for an avian flu pandemic if one occurs.” These are hand-waving arguments that may sound reasonable, but they promise only vague benefits while ignoring the dangers of this research. If the research succeeds, and one of the newly-designed, highly virulent flu strains escapes, the damage could be horrific.
EPA Announces 20 Toxic Chemicals It Won’t Protect Us From – On Wednesday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first 20 chemicals it plans to prioritize as “high priority” for assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Given the EPA’s record of malfeasance on chemicals policy over the past two years, it is clear that these are chemicals that EPA is prioritizing to ensure that they are not properly evaluated or regulated. Of the 20 chemicals named, the one that immediately jumps out is formaldehyde. EPA’s program for assessing the hazards of chemicals – known as “IRIS,” the Integrated Risk Information System – completed an assessment of formaldehyde that Trump officials have prevented being publicly released, or even undergoing peer review. This is likely because the conclusions of the IRIS assessment are unfavorable to formaldehyde manufacturers and polluters. The Trump administration, along with the chemical industry and allies in Congress, is trying to defund and dismantle the IRIS program (industry has been trying for many years, but now it has serious inside help). EPA’s plan is plainly to create an industry-approved alternative assessment of formaldehyde under TSCA using Trump EPA standard tactics: suppressing independent science; bending (and breaking) the rules of how to evaluate chemical hazards; and, taking only those steps that meet the approval of the nation’s largest chemical manufacturers. There are other important chemicals on the “high priority” list EPA announced Wednesday, including several phthalates, toxic flame retardants and numerous chlorinated solvents. Most importantly, as with the first 10 chemicals that EPA designated for assessment in 2016, and which it is currently evaluating, for these 20 chemicals, EPA’s decisions will ultimately impose preemption on state authority to take stronger action than what EPA concludes is necessary, even if EPA concludes that no action is necessary. This means that for formaldehyde and the other phthalates, flame retardants and solvents on EPA’s list – if EPA concludes that the uses it evaluates do not pose an unreasonable risk – states will be preempted from taking more protective actions.
California bill could ban cosmetics with cancer causing chemicals – California is considering a bill that would ban the sale of all cosmetics in state that contain certain chemicals known to cause cancer and other health effects. State legislators introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban makeup made with 20 highly toxic chemicals including asbestos, mercury, lead, formaldehyde and fluorinated compounds known as PFAS. The cosmetics under the bill would be classified as “adulterated cosmetics,” and would not be able to be sold in the state. Some of the chemicals have been linked to reproductive harm and hormone disruption in addition to cancer. “Californians deserve to know whether the cosmetic products they purchase in the state are not harmful to their health,” said state assembly member Al Muratsuchi (D), a co-sponsor of the bill in a statement. “While cosmetic products sold in the U.S. are largely unregulated, other nations — and even retailers — have proactively banned or restricted the use of hundreds or thousands of cosmetic ingredients. AB 495 will protect consumers by banning the sale in California of cosmetics containing known carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and endocrine disruptors that are harmful to human health.” Environmental and consumer advocacy groups have long argued that the U.S .does not do enough to regulate the chemicals used in makeup and personal care products. “Toxic chemicals that cause cancer or reproductive harm have no place in any consumer products, especially those that adults and children alike apply to their bodies every day,” said Susan Little, senior California advocate for government affairs of the Environmental Working Group. “This common-sense proposal is exactly what is needed to clean up the cosmetics aisle so that Californians can be assured their makeup, soap and shampoos don’t include harmful chemicals.”
Jury Finds Monsanto’s Roundup Was “Substantial Factor” in Causing Man’s Cancer – In a landmark verdict against Monsanto that could have far-reaching implications, a federal jury on Tuesday found that the weed-killer Roundup was “a substantial factor” in causing a 70-year-old plaintiff’s cancer. “Today’s verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people,” Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said in a statement, referring to the active ingredient in Roundup. “As similar lawsuits mount, the evidence will grow that Roundup is not safe, and that the company has tried to cover it up.” Edwin Hardeman, the plaintiff in the case, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) in 2015 after using Roundup to kill poison oak and weeds on his property for over 20 years. In 2016, Hardeman sued Monsanto, which was acquired by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer last year. “The decision by Bayer to purchase Monsanto, a company with a long history of environmental malfeasance, could go down as one of the worst business decisions ever made,” said Cook. “The day of reckoning for Bayer and its cancer-causing weedkiller is getting closer.” The jury’s verdict comes just months after Monsanto was ordered to pay over $200 million in damages to a former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who said Roundup caused his cancer.
Early Pesticide Exposure Linked to Increased Autism Risk – Environmental exposure to pesticides, both before birth and during the first year of life, has been linked to an increased risk of developing autism spectrum disorder, according to the largest epidemiological study to date on the connection. The study, published Wednesday in BMJ, found that pregnant women who lived within 2,000 meters (approximately 1.2 miles) of a highly-sprayed agricultural area in California had children who were 10 to 16 percent more likely to develop autism and 30 percent more likely to develop severe autism that impacted their intellectual ability. If the children were exposed to pesticides during their first year of life, the risk they would develop autism went up to 50 percent.While the results do not prove that pesticide exposure caused the children to develop autism, they do raise concerns about the consequences of pesticide exposure, something it is difficult for pregnant women or new mothers and their partners to control. “I would hope that these findings would make some policy makers think about effective public health policy measures to protect populations who may be vulnerable and living in areas that could put them at higher risk,” lead study author and Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles associate professor Ondine von Ehrenstein told Time Magazine. “Raising awareness in the public may be the way to eventually change practices and agricultural policies.”
Pesticide residues found in 70% of produce sold in US even after washing – About 70% of fresh produce sold in the US has pesticide residues on it even after it is washed, according to a health advocacy group. According to the Environmental Working Group’s annual analysis of US Department of Agriculture data, strawberries, spinach and kale are among the most pesticide-heavy produce, while avocados, sweetcorn and pineapples had the lowest level of residues.More than 92% of kale tested contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the analysis, and a single sample of conventionally farmed kale could contain up to 18 different pesticides. Dacthal – the most common pesticide found, which was detected in nearly 60% of kale samples, is banned in Europe and classified as a possible human carcinogen in the US. “We definitely acknowledge and support that everybody should be eating healthy fruits and vegetables as part of their diet regardless of if they’re conventional or organic,” said Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist working with the EWG. “But what we try to highlight with the Shopper’s Guide to Produce is building on a body of evidence that shows mixtures of pesticides can have adverse effects.” Other foods on the group’s “dirty dozen” list include grapes, cherries, apples, tomatoes and potatoes. In contrast, its “clean 15″ list includes avocados, onions and cauliflower. Leonardo Trasande, an environmental medicine specialist at the New York University medical school, called the EWG report “widely respected” and said it can inform shoppers who want to buy some organic fruits and vegetables, but would like to know which ones they could prioritize.
Strawberries, Spinach Top ‘Dirty Dozen’ List of Pesticide-Contaminated Produce – Which conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables in the U.S. are most contaminated with pesticides? That’s the question that the Environmental Working Group answers every year with its “Dirty Dozen” list of produce with the highest concentration of pesticides after being washed or peeled. This year’s surprise? Kale ranked number three, behind strawberries and spinach. More than 92 percent of conventionally kale samples had residue from two or more pesticides, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tests. The last year that the USDA tested kale was in 2009, when it ranked eighth. “We were surprised kale had so many pesticides on it, but the test results were unequivocal,” EWG toxicologist Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. said in a statement announcing the new list Wednesday. “Fruits and vegetables are an important part of everyone’s diet, and when it comes to some conventionally grown produce items, such as kale, choosing organic may be a better option.” The other items on the list were:
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Grapes
- Peaches
- Cherries
- Pears
- Tomatoes
- Celery
- Potatoes
The “Dirty Dozen” is part of the EWG’s annual “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” which also includes a “Clean Fifteen” list of the produce with the least amount of pesticide residue. Topping that list were avocados, sweet corn and pineapples. The lists are based on more than 40,900 fruit and vegetable samples tested by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Overall, pesticides were found on nearly 70 percent of non-organic produce sold in the U.S., according to EWG. One of the pesticides found was Dacthal, which was found on nearly 60 percent of kale samples. It has been found by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to possibly cause cancer in humans and has been banned from being used on crops in the EU since 2009. Another chemical found on apples, diphenylamine, has also been banned in the EU over cancer concerns.
Restoring Tropical Forests Isn’t Meaningful if Those Forests Only Stand for 10 or 20 Years — Tropical forests globally are being lost at a rate of 61,000 square miles a year. And despite conservation efforts, the global rate of loss is accelerating. In 2016 it reached a 15-year high, with 114,000 square miles cleared. At the same time, many countries are pledging to restore large swaths of forests. The Bonn Challenge, a global initiative launched in 2011, calls for national commitments to restore 580,000 square miles of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020. In 2014 the New York Declaration on Forests increased this goal to 1.35 million square miles, an area about twice the size of Alaska, by 2030. Ecological restoration is a process of helping damaged ecosystems recover. It produces many benefits for both wildlife and people – for example, better habitat, erosion control, cleaner drinking water and jobs. . However, a closer look shows that a struggle remains to fully realize the Bonn Challenge vision. Some reforestation efforts provide only limited benefits, and studies have shown that maintaining these forests for decades is critical to maximize the economic and ecological benefits of establishing them.Benefits for wildlife and Earth’s climate from forest restoration accrue over decades. However, many forests are unlikely to remain protected for this long. In a 2018 study we showed that forests that naturally regenerated in Costa Rica between 1947 and 2014 hadonly a 50 percent chance of enduring for 20 years. Most places where forests regrew were subsequently re-cleared for farming. Twenty years represents about a quarter of the time needed for forest carbon stocks to fully recover, and less than one-fifth of the time required for many forest-dwelling plants and animals to return.
Delhi’s Dying Holy River – Before you can see the Yamuna River or hear its roar, you smell its nauseating stench from a distance. When you finally glimpse it, the waterway looks like a sewer. Originating from the pristine Himalayan ranges further up north, the water of the Yamuna River carries with it raw sewage, untreated industrial runoff, and garbage as it flows through Delhi, destroying not only its marine life and biodiversity, but also the prospects for survival of those who depend on it for livelihood.More than three-quarters of the pollution of the Yamuna, considered one of the most scared Indian rivers in Hindu lore, is found in a small stretch in Delhi – about 14 miles – that covers roughly 2 percent of the river’s total length, according to a monitoring committee overseeing its cleaning.The Okhla area in South Delhi was the city’s prime fishing ground from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, according to the Delhi Gazetteers, but there’s no freshwater anymore. Instead, there’s a flow of untreated sewage, thanks to the discharge of toxic industrial chemicals released into the river.The pollution has killed most of the fish population, but desperate fishermen, mostly migrants from the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, still cast their nets for whatever little they can catch. The river is a testimony to the need for a balance between modern development that comes from industry and the conservation of natural assets. While the Indian government claims that it is spending millions of rupees on the cleaning of the Yamuna, the visible evidence gives a completely different picture, as shown in these photos.
We Are Already Living in a ‘New India’ – and It’s Alarmingly Water-Stressed -Our proprietor says his well has run dry and the municipal water supply has become increasingly erratic. He is now forced to rely on expensive private tankers. The tanker driver tells me that Goa’s wells are running out of water, even though it’s only spring and the hot, dry summer is yet to come.Many have spoken about India’s future water crisis, but the crisis has already begun manifesting itself across the country. A NITI Aayog report stated that 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people. Perhaps more concerning is that Goa, a state with one of India’s lowest populations and highest rainfall rates, is experiencing a shortfall. The proliferation of private water tankers in many Indian cities has masked the severity of the problem. Also according to NITI Aayog, Delhi has been losing 3 cm of water from ground and surface water reserves, and is predicted to hit ‘day zero’ – when its water supply runs out – by 2020 at this rate. Alarmingly, India’s national and state governments have failed to grasp the crisis’s severity. Their apathy stands in stark contrast to the response of policymakers in Cape Town. The South African city had its day zero in 2018, and it was manageable because the city’s residents had curtailed their water usage by almost 60% over three years, achieved through city-wide restrictions and innovative policies. India’s policymakers, on the other hand, don’t have the appetite for demand-side restrictions or higher tariffs that could spur public investment in water infrastructure. The resulting shortfall in municipal water supply creates a perfect breeding ground for water-tanker mafias. Although the middle-class is willing to pay for private tankers, it is the poor who are affected more because they have to part with a larger share of their income.
Britain Will Have Water Shortages In 25 Years Thanks to Climate Change, Environment Chief Says – England could face water shortages in just 25 years due to climate change if radical shifts in consumption and infrastructure aren’t immediately implemented.That’s according to the chief executive of the country’s Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, who described one of the most looming environmental consequences of our time at the Waterwise conference in London on Tuesday, reported the Guardian. “Around 25 years from now, where those [demand and supply] lines cross is known by some as the ‘jaws of death’ – the point at which we will not have enough water to supply our needs, unless we take action to change things,” Bevan told the Guardian.Bevan, who was appointed to lead the agency in 2015, cited population growth and failing infrastructure, such as leaky pipes, as the main reasons for the potential crisis.“We need water wastage to be as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby or throwing your plastic bags into the sea,” he said. Bevan recommended cuts to water consumption by as much as one third, as well as leaks from water pipes by 50 percent, and suggested changes such as more water metering and the building of “mega-reservoirs,” which the Guardian described as controversial and likely to be met by local opposition.Climate change is predicted to usher in UK summers that are roughly 5 degrees Celsius warmer by 2070 – should emissions continue the increase – according to a 2018 reportby the UK Met Officer. It also projected drier conditions within this century, with summer rainfall potentially dropping 47 percent by 2070. More than a quarter of the country’s groundwater sources and 18 percent of surface water resources were “extracted beyond a sustainable level in 2017,” reported NBC News, describing a 2018 study by the Environment Agency that investigated the UK’s water usage. The report called current levels of extraction “unsustainable,” noting that three billion liters of water are lost through leakage each day. More than a third of freshwater extraction, it added, goes toward electricity supply and other industries.
Two Dead, Hundreds Evacuated as ‘Historic’ Flooding Swamps Midwest – Flooding caused by last week’s bomb cyclone storm has broken records in 17 places across the state of Nebraska, CNN reported Sunday. Around nine million people in 14 states along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers were under a flood watch, CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis said.Communities in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa were the most severely impacted, AccuWeather reported. Two Nebraskan residents have died, two are missing and hundreds have been forced to evacuate.”Nebraska has experienced historic flooding and extreme weather in nearly every region of the state,” Nebraska Republican Governor Pete Ricketts tweeted Friday. The flooding is the result of a bomb cyclone that brought hurricane-force winds, blizzards and heavy rain to the central U.S. last week. This caused rivers to overflow, especially as the ground was frozen, causing all of the excess water and snowmelt to flow into waterways, Brian Barjenbruch of Omaha’s National Weather Service told The Washington Post. “It is some of the worst flooding that we’ve seen in many years,” Barjenbruch said. “In some locations it’s the worst flooding on record on many of these river gauges.” The governors of Nebraska, Wisconsin and South Dakota have all declared emergencies, while Iowa’s governor has issued several disaster proclamations. Most of the records broken by flooding were along the Missouri river, where waters crested one to four feet above previous records in different locations throughout Nebraska, CNN reported.More rain is expected in the area Tuesday, AccuWeather reported, which could make the situation worse.
‘Bomb Cyclone’ Triggers Biblical Flooding In Midwest – As students around the country participated in a global strike Friday to demand action on climate change, a powerful “bomb cyclone” ripped through the Midwest, bringing extreme flooding to parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin. The National Weather Service in Omaha issued a flash flood emergency order early Friday for areas west of Omaha after a dike on the Platte River in the town of Valley, Nebraska, failed. “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” NWS wrote before having to evacuate its office. “This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”The Platte River near Leshara swelled to a record 12.63 feet on Friday, topping the previous high of 11.84 feet set in 1996. In the town of Plattsmouth, south of Omaha, the Missouri River reached a record 37.15 feet, breaking the previous high of 36.73 feet in 2011. Several levees reportedly failed and thousands were forced to evacuate across the state. The flooding killed at least one person and left another missing, The Omaha World-Herald reports. Several firefighters were injured Thursday when their boat capsized during an attempted rescue near the town of Arlington, according to the paper.As the Missouri River rose, a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska declared a “Notification of Unusual Event” early Friday, a precautionary low-level alert, and said it would would continue to monitor the the water level. The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang reports that more than 10 million people across the Midwest, from Nebraska to Wisconsin, were under flood warnings Friday. Major to historic river flooding will continue into the weekend for many points throughout the Missouri and Mississippi River basins. Anyone with interests along impacted rivers should monitor closely/take action.https://t.co/0mAgMs2v3P for the latest forecast river levels. pic.twitter.com/wBZmwiEkJh – NWS (@NWS) March 15, 2019 The heavy rains and flooding came after a powerful winter storm battered Colorado, Wyoming and other central states with blizzard conditions and strong winds earlier in the week. Several tornadoes touched down in Kentucky and Indiana. The National Weather Service called it “a Great Plains cyclone of historic proportions.”
11-foot wall of water- One dam breaks, three counties suffer — Earlier, the Niobrara had been running at 5 or 6 feet of gauge height. After it broke through the dam, it measured nearly 17.5 feet. It wasn’t a gradual increase, either.“It started a really fast rise,” he said. “There was an 11-foot wave that rolled through.”And in its wake, three Nebraska counties would learn how that much moving water can become immediately destructive and potentially deadly. How it can cause instant pain and long-term suffering. How it can harm not only those in its path, but those living miles away. First, the wave swept away a section of U.S. 281, a nearby riverside saloon and at least one home, possibly occupied. And it continued downstream, barreling toward the town of Niobrara – and its mouth at the Missouri River – about 40 miles away. Vic’s Service has anchored the west edge of Niobrara for 25 years, and had enough hydraulic fittings and plumbing pieces to serve as a kind of farmer’s supply store, said Ruth Janak, who co-owns the station with her husband, Victor. They returned Thursday, and found most of it missing.“Our main building, the one we did our business at, it’s gone. The gas pumps are gone. We lost the propane tank. So many tools are gone,” Janak said Friday. “Where’s all that stuff at? It’s crazy.”Theirs wasn’t the only missing building. The wall of water had brutalized Niobrara’s west side, a low-lying commercial district, and the part of town closest to the river. Several buildings from a hay business? Gone. A state Department of Transportation garage? Gone. A Knox County road shop? Gone. The Mormon Bridge on Nebraska 12? Stark has video of the deck floating away. The Country Cafe? Still standing, but it had been nearly swallowed by water and ice, with maybe a foot of the roof visible at one point.“A lot of buildings washed away,” he said. “They were pretty much swept right down the river and they’re in the Missouri somewhere.”
Floodwaters threaten millions in US crop and livestock losses – – Farmer Jeff Jorgenson looks out over 750 acres of cropland submerged beneath the swollen Missouri River, and he knows he probably won’t plant this year. But that’s not his biggest worry. He and other farmers have worked until midnight for days to move grain, equipment and fuel barrels away from the floodwaters fed by heavy rain and snowmelt. The rising water that has damaged hundreds of homes and been blamed for three deaths has also taken a heavy toll on agriculture, inundating thousands of acres, threatening stockpiled grain and killing livestock. In Fremont County alone, Jorgenson estimates that more than a million bushels of corn and nearly half a million bushels of soybeans have been lost after water overwhelmed grain bins before they could be emptied of last year’s crop. His calculation using local grain prices puts the financial loss at more than $7 million in grain alone. That’s for about 28 farmers in his immediate area, he said. Once it’s deposited in bins, grain is not insured, so it’s just lost money. This year farmers have stored much more grain than normal because of a large crop last year and fewer markets in which to sell soybeans because of a trade dispute with China.
Historic Midwest Flooding Has Devastating Consequences for Farmers – The record flooding in the Midwest that has now been blamed for four deaths could also have lasting consequences for the region’s many farmers. Flooding has swamped fields and stockpiles and drowned or harmed livestock in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and other states. In Nebraska alone, the loss of crops and livestock is estimated to total nearly $1 billion, Reuters reported Tuesday. “The economy in agriculture is not very good right now. It will end some of these folks farming, family legacies, family farms,” Iowa farmer Farmer Jeff Jorgenson told The Associated Press. “There will be farmers that will be dealing with so much of a negative they won’t be able to tolerate it.” Not only crops were lost. The floods have damaged roads, bridges and railways farmers rely on to move their products to processing plants and shipping centers, Reuters reported. Such a major blow to U.S. farmers is likely to have national consequences. “This will impact the food on your table,” Chair of Nebraska’s Democratic Party Jane Fleming Kleeb tweeted, as The New Food Economy reported. The floods come at a bad time for farmers for a variety of reasons. Seasonally, the floods have come just as farmers usually start their spring planting and need dry weather in order to get seeds in the ground. At the same time, farmers in the region are generally suffering. The number of farms that filed for bankruptcy last year rose by 19 percent, the highest level in more than ten years. Further, incomes from farming have fallen by more than 50 percent because of a global glut of grain, Reuters reported. To make matters worse, a trade war with China has meant the country has stopped importing U.S. soybeans. Many farmers had stored last years’ crops of grain and soy in hopes of better prices, and now some of those stores have been destroyed.
Home Of Strategic Command And Some Of The USAF’s Most Prized Aircraft Is Flooding (Updated) The home to America’s prized RC-135 “Rivet Joint” strategic reconnaissance and E-4B “Nightwatch” Advanced Airborne Command Post aircraft, as well as others, and the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), is flooding with water from a swollen Missouri River. Offutt Air Force Base sits near Omaha, Nebraska and is considered one of the most critical installations in the U.S. Air Force’s portfolio. Not only does it house extremely high-value, but low density reconnaissance and command and control aircraft – massively expensive platforms that are essential to national security – but it is also the beating heart of STRATCOM that oversees America’s strategic nuclear forces. In fact, a brand new command bunker, buried underground at the base, was just opened in January – which sounds far less than ideal considering water is now nearly covering the end of the base’s runway. A conga line of RC-135s were tracked escaping the impending deluge earlier today. The thing is that the fleet of aircraft housed at Offutt is among the oldest in the USAF’s inventory and has received quite a reputation as of late for less than stellar readiness. In other words, some aircraft may not have been able to fly out. And even if most were good to go, there will almost always be a number left behind due to various circumstances – most commonly of which is being down for deep maintenance. But still, considering the strategic operations centers that are the backbone of STRATCOM are located at the base, many of which are underground, this flood could prove to be way more harmful than the damage done to aircraft and basic infrastructure above ground.
Nebraska floods swamp Air Force base, as devastation from ‘Bomb Cyclone’ seen in satellite photos -The torrent of water from heavy rainfall spawned by last week’s “bomb cyclone” and snowmelt has led to devastating flooding across several Midwestern states, including swamping a major Air Force base in Nebraska that’s key to the nation’s nuclear attack response. About one-third of Offutt Air Force Base — including offices, hangars and nearly 3,000 feet of the base’s 11,700-foot runway — is underwater due to flooding from the Missouri River south of Omaha. Spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 that were completely inundated with as much as 8 feet of water. The runway at Offutt Air Force Base can be seen covered by floodwaters from the Missouri River. Airmen from the 55th Wing had been filling thousands of sandbags in a round-the-clock effort to fortify facilities but were forced to give up after filling 235,000 sandbags and preparing 460 flood barriers. “It was a lost cause,” Blake told the World-Herald. “We gave up.” Col. Michael Manion, commander of the 55th Wing, has been providing updates on the flooding on Facebook. As of Tuesday morning, he reported there has been “slow water regression” that’s allowed some high points that were underwater to be revealed. Disaster recovery crews are expected to arrive by the end of the week to begin work when floodwaters fully recede.
Dramatic Satellite Photos Show Historic Flooding Across Central U.S. in Wake of Bomb Cyclone – (before & after photos) When last week’s bomb cyclone hit the Midwest, it was hard to imagine the inundation it could bring amid whiteout conditions and more than a foot of snow. But the warm weather that wrapped in behind it quickly melted out all that white stuff and unleashed historic flooding across parts of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri. Floodwaters have worked their way down the rivers that run like arteries through the region, overtop the banks of the Missouri, Platte, Elkhorn, and more. Dams have been destroyed, bridges and other infrastructure have been washed away, and small towns have been cut off from the outside world, surrounded by moats of muddy water. The flooding has also paralyzed the various military bases scattered across the region, with waters lapping up against Fort Leavenworth and Offutt Air Force Base, home U.S. Strategic Command. As Task and Purpose helpfully notes, that means the base that “oversees the Pentagon’s nuclear strategic deterrence and global strike capabilities” is largely underwater. As of Monday, nine flood gauges operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration remained at major flood stage with another 17 in moderate flood stages. While the on-the-ground photos show the human toll of the floods, satellites are the best way to get a handle on the full scope of what’s happening in the Midwest. Below are before and after images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites.
Flood waters push up and break natural gas line near Le Mars – A 4 inch natural gas line in the Floyd River ruptured today. The rushing flood waters from the Floyd River has severed a four-inch natural gas line which feeds around 95 Le Mars residents and businesses. Le Mars Fire Chief Dave Schipper says the gas line was located near the Highway 3 bridge.”The line that ruptured was actually bored under the river and I think with the volume of the water and the speed of the current – it uprooted that gas line and broke it,” Schipper says. Residents noticed the broken line at about 10:00 this morning after smelling odor from the leaking gas. Schipper says line provides gas to a trailer court. They are looking at bringing in a gas truck, or possible a temporary fix. He says another options would be to ask the Iowa Department of Transportation if they would allow a temporary gas line to be installed under the Highway 3 bridge. MidAmerican Energy crews are still working to fix the line and spokesman Geoff Greenwood says the flooding has caused a lot of issues. He says they haven’t had a situation like this but have had experience a lot of flooding impact throughout western and southwestern Iowa. Greenwood says they had a lot of concern with the Nishnabotna River. He says the river rose rapidly, but has started to go down. Greenwood says this won’t be the first problem they have with the high water. “We expect some longer term issues along the Missouri River and down the road probably in eastern Iowa along the Missouri River as well – so lots of impacts statewide because of flooding,” according to Greenwood. Greenwood says they hope to find a solution to get the gas back to the area in Le Mars by this evening.
Historic flooding across US Midwest leaves thousands homeless, four dead –Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes as communities throughout the US Midwest experience historic flooding events. States of emergency have been declared in four states, including Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and South Dakota. As of this writing four people have died, while thousands remain in emergency shelters or trapped in their homes, surrounded by water.Seventy out of ninety-nine counties in Nebraska are under state-issued emergency declarations, as are forty-one of Iowa’s ninety-nine counties. In both states, melting snow, ice jams, and falling rain have engorged river systems with rushing water that has overwhelmed insufficient levee systems and destroyed outdated dams.The flooding, which began last week, but was predicted weeks in advance, will continue throughout the week and into Spring, as snow and ice melts while rain continues to fall. According to the National Weather Service, flooding has impacted approximately 9 million people in 14 states.A record-setting winter snowfall season followed by last week’s “bomb cyclone,” which brought high winds and heavy snow across the Midwest, in conjunction with warming temperatures, proved to be a deadly combination that has overwhelmed neglected infrastructure and transportation systems. The latest environmental and social crisis, exacerbated by climate change, will have devastating impacts on local farming economies. Meteorologists have documented an upward trend of between a 15 and 20 percent increase in rainfall since the early 1900s in the Upper Midwest. The frequency of high impact rainfall has nearly doubled in the same timeframe. The message is clear: just as hurricanes and tropical storms have increased in intensity, flooding events in the Midwest are expected to increase as well.
Floods shut nearly a sixth of U.S. ethanol production (Reuters) – Massive flooding in the U.S. Midwest has knocked out roughly 13 percent of the country’s ethanol production capacity, as plants in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota have been forced to shut down or scale back production following the devastation. Production facilities owned by large companies like Archer Daniels Midland Co and Green Plains Inc were still operating despite days of snowstorms followed by rains that sent record floods into the Farm Belt. However, with rail lines are washed out, and corn in storage flooded, production is dropping off, sending prices spiking in markets that buy the corn-based fuel. The U.S. has some 200 ethanol plants capable of producing 1.06 million barrels per day, and about 100,000 to 140,000 bpd of capacity has been taken off line due to the floods, according to three traders who track operations. Crop damage exceeds $400 million in Nebraska alone, according to Nebraska officials. The disruption comes as the ethanol industry is in the midst of a historic downswing due to the ongoing trade conflict with China and sluggish domestic demand growth that has led to high inventories and weak margins. The floods will boost margins for those still operating but could be punishing for firms digging out from the water. Ethanol plants use rail cars to deliver products to the Gulf Coast, East Coast and West Coast markets. Ethanol delivered in the Gulf Coast is trading at 15 to 17 cents per gallon above Chicago’s benchmark price, about double the average gap for this time of year, traders said.
Flood Damage to Midwestern Levees, Roads, Farms May Run Well into the Billions – Costs are mounting quickly from the late-winter/early-spring flood disaster that’s assaulted the Midwest this month. Estimates from several disparate sources now suggest that the total cost of the flooding to date – including agricultural losses, road repair, and levee reconstruction – could end up in the multiple-billions-of-dollars range. At least three deaths have been linked to the flooding. Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts told reporters on Wednesday that preliminary damage estimates in his state alone are more than $1.3 billion, including $439 million in infrastructure losses, $85 million in private homes and business losses, $400 million in livestock and $440 million in crop losses. The total does not apparently include damage to Offutt Air Force Base, where floodwaters covered about one third of the area and inundated dozens of buildings. To make matters worse, the Midwest is highly vulnerable to more flooding this spring, thanks to saturated soil and a large snowpack in the Upper Midwest. It will take weeks if not months to assess the full damage from the March flooding, but it appears to be the costliest U.S. weather disaster of the year thus far by a long shot. “This is virtually guaranteed to be a billion-dollar flooding event. The question is how high will it ultimately go?” said Steve Bowen, director of impact forecasting for the insurance broker Aon. The flooding was triggered after an intense “bomb cyclone” pushed strong winds, mild temperatures, and heavy rain across frozen, snow-covered ground on March 12-14. The result was a flash melt that clogged rivers and streams with huge ice chunks and massive amounts of water. The cyclone itself also caused widespread wind damage and blizzard-related impacts.Here are some of the biggest-ticket items the Midwest is facing:
Unprecedented spring flooding possible, US forecasters say -The National Weather Service says the flooding of Nebraska and Iowa is just a preview of potentially historic widespread major flooding to hit much of America this spring – The stage is set for unprecedented major flooding this spring for most of the nation, U.S. weather officials said Thursday. More than 200 million Americans are at risk for some kind of flooding, with 13 million of them at risk of major inundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its spring weather outlook. About 41 million people are at risk of moderate flooding. Major flooding now occurring in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri and other Midwestern states is a preview of an all-too-wet and dangerous spring, said Mary Erickson, deputy director of the National Weather Service. “In fact, we expect the flooding to get worse and more widespread,” she said. This year’s flooding “could be worse than anything we’ve seen in recent years, even worse than the historic floods of 1993 and 2011,” she said. Those floods caused billions of dollars in damage, and officials said this year’s damage in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota has already passed the billion-dollar mark. Forecasters said the biggest risks include all three Mississippi River basins, the Red River of the North, the Great Lakes, plus the basins of the eastern Missouri River, lower Ohio River, lower Cumberland River and the Tennessee River. “This is the broadest expanse of area in the United States that we’ve projected with an elevated risk that I can remember,” said Thomas Graziano, a 20-year weather service veteran and director of the Office of Water Prediction. “Is this the perfect storm? I don’t know.” A lot depends on how much rain falls in the next couple months, Graziano said, but forecasters say it will be more than average. The Missouri River has already set records with historic flood marks measured in 30 places in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, Kansas City forecaster Kevin Low said. The river “remains vulnerable to moderate flooding for the remainder of the spring and early summer,” Low said. “People should be prepared for major flooding along the Missouri River … going into the future.” Most of Nebraska, except right along the Missouri River, is unlikely to see major flooding again this year, but the rest of the flooded area is still prone to more, Low said. Several factors will likely combine to create a pulse of flooding that will eventually head south along the Mississippi: above average rainfall this winter – including 10 to 15 inches earlier this year in a drenching along the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys; the third wettest year in U.S. history; and rapidly melting snow in the Upper Midwest. Extra rain will bring more farm runoff down the Mississippi, which will likely lead to more oxygen-starved areas in the Gulf of Mexico and likely make the summer dead zone larger than normal, said Edward Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
California is drought-free for the first time in nearly a decade –It’s official: California is 100% drought-free.For the first time since 2011, the state shows no areas suffering from prolonged drought and illustrates almost entirely normal conditions, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Former Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order in 2017 that lifted the drought emergency in most of the state, leaving some breathing a sigh of relief. But he cautioned Californians to keep saving water as some parts of the state were still suffering from extreme drought. Now, two years later, that deficit seems to have been erased, thanks to an exceptionally wet winter.“The reservoirs are full, lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there’s tons of snow,” said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the drought is officially gone.” The Drought Monitor, which collects data from scientists from the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and dozens of weather agencies, last showed a drought map that was clear in December 2011.In updating the map, scientists consult with hydrologists, water managers, meteorologists and other experts to determine the amount of water in the state’s reservoirs, the snowpack level and other key measurements. With the wet winter streak going strong, their reports have been good.In January, storms filled up many of the state’s water reserves almost to capacity and added about 580 billion gallons of water to reservoirs across the state. That month, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, a major source of California’s water supply, doubled – and then doubled again in February. “California has been getting a tremendous amount of rain, storms and snow,” Blunden said. “It’s just been extremely wet and it’s been so wet … that we’ve been able to alleviate drought across the state.”
‘Monster’ El Nino a chance later this year, pointing to extended dry times – Relief for Australia’s drought-hit regions could be a long way off, with climate influences in the Pacific and Indian oceans tilting towards drier conditions and a large El Nino event a possibility by year’s end. Climate scientists said the conditions in the Pacific were particularly concerning given an unusual build-up of equatorial heat below the surface that could provide the fuel for a significant El Nino. If such an event transpires, the Great Barrier Reef would face another bout of mass coral bleaching while the drought gripping southern and eastern Australia could intensify. Agus Santoso, a senior scientist at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said there were two likely outcomes from the developments in the Pacific. “We could have an El Nino fully formed by the end of May and then it could dissipate,” Dr Santoso said. “The other is that by May it’s already formed and it still keeps building up… and by the end of the year we could have a monster El Nino.” The prospect of a big El Nino later this year was raised at an international conference of climate scientists in Chile earlier this month.They considered parallel years, such as 2014 when a near-El Nino was reached before conditions revived a year later, creating one of the three most powerful such events in the past half century. “There is more heat now below the surface waiting to be tapped than there was in early 2015,” said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration who attended the Chilean event. “If westerly wind bursts of sufficient amplitude, duration and zonal extent develop along the equator in the next couple of months, 2019-20 could be very exciting,” he said.
Senator Sanders’ claim that climate change is making tornadoes worse isn’t supported by published research – Andreas Prein, Project Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research: Sen. Sanders’ is partly correct since there is a lot of scientific evidence that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of many extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, or extreme rainfall. However, it is not clear if climate change will make U.S. tornadoes worse or more frequent. The observational record does not show any significant change in the frequency of U.S. tornadoes in the last 60 years but there is a tendency that more tornadoes occur during big outbreak days such as in the recent Alabama event[1] and there are spatial shifts in the occurrence of tornadoes[2]. Whether these changes are related to climate change is, however, unclear. Adam Sobel, Professor, Columbia University: Sen. Sanders’ statement is inaccurate with regard to tornadoes. It is possible that climate change may be influencing tornadoes, but the evidence for that so far is weak, and our understanding of the problem is poor at this point. So it is not true that “the science is clear” on this topic. Sanders would have been broadly correct if he had left out the “including tornadoes” phrase. There is strong evidence that climate change is making some kinds of extreme events worse. Heat waves and heavy rain events are perhaps the best examples; hydrological drought and wildfire (both being influenced by warmer temperatures in relatively simple ways) are others. The influence of climate change on some other kinds of extreme events is more uncertain, and tornadoes are perhaps the most uncertain of all. There is no agreement among scientists about even what influence climate change should have on tornadoes. Our physical understanding of what controls tornadoes suggests that global warming should have at least two different effects[see below]; these act in opposite ways and we don’t know which is stronger, so we don’t know if there should be more or fewer tornadoes with warming, for example. Climate models can’t simulate tornadoes so they are little help, and the observations thus far are not much help either.
At Least 150 Dead, 1.5 Million Impacted as Cyclone Idai Slams Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe — At least 150 people have died in a cyclone that devastated parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi over the weekend, The Associated Press reported Sunday. Cyclone Idai has affected more than 1.5 million people since it hit Mozambique’s port city of Beira late Thursday, then traveled west to Zimbabwe and Malawi. Hundreds are still missing and tens of thousands are without access to roads or telephones. “I think this is the biggest natural disaster Mozambique has ever faced. Everything is destroyed. Our priority now is to save human lives,” Mozambique’s Environment Minister Celso Correia said, as AFP reported. The storm, which had wind speeds of more than 124 miles per hour before making landfall, was the worst to hit Mozambique in at least a decade, Bloomberg News reported. While the storm was less intense than cyclones that hit the country in 2000 and 2008, it may have more of an impact because more people now live in affected areas.
Beira city ’90 percent destroyed’ by Cyclone Idai, hundreds dead —President Filipe Nyusi feared the death toll could rise to 1,000 in Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Idai he said in a nationwide address on Monday. “For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area … this morning to understand what’s going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths,” he said. So far the total death toll has risen to at least 215 after the storm tore into central Mozambique last week before continuing on to Zimbabwe and Malawi, bringing flash floods and ferocious winds. At least 126 people were killed in Mozambique and Malawi, according to the Red Cross, and Zimbabwe’s information ministry on Monday put the number of dead at 89 in the country. Hundreds are missing and more than 1.5 million people have been affected across the three countries by widespread destruction and flooding. Most of the deaths in Mozambique happened in the central port city of Beira, 90 percent of which was destroyed, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). A large dam burst on Sunday in the city, cutting off the last road to the city of about 530,000 people, the IFRC said in a statement. “The scale of damage caused by Cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying,” it said. The IFRC warned that the death toll could rise once the full scale of the devastation is known, with further heavy rains expected..
In photos: Cyclone Idai lays waste to parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi – WaPo – Four days have passed since Cyclone Idai barreled into the coast of southeastern Africa, and the extent of the damage is only now becoming clearer.The storm, packing winds that topped 100 mph, landed a direct hit on Mozambique’s fourth-largest city, Beira, home to half a million people. The city is almost totally submerged. Idai then stalled out over the mountainous border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe, causing massive landslides that swept away roads and homes.On Monday, after flying over Beira, President Filipe Nyusi told a radio station that the death toll could reach 1,000 in Mozambique alone. The official death toll in the country stands at 84, and it is 80 in Zimbabwe. Before the storm even made landfall, its outer bands caused flooding in neighboring Malawi, killing more than 120, demonstrating just how huge the storm was.The Red Cross said in a statement Monday that 90 percent of Beira was either damaged or destroyed. Communication out of the city has been slow, with telephone lines knocked out. The city is connected to Mozambique’s road network by a single highway through a low-lying plain. Beira is home to a major port that is essential for the supply of goods to the central part of the country, as well as Zimbabwe and Malawi, which are landlocked.
Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi face a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of Cyclone Idai -Large swathes of Southeast Africa face a humanitarian crisis in the wake of Cyclone Idai which swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi this past week. The storm, categorized by the United Nations as the “worst ever disaster to hit the southern hemisphere,” has already destroyed crops, caused massive flooding, rendered hundreds of thousands homeless.While the official death toll as of this writing stands at 552, Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed by high winds and widespread flooding. The storm is believed to have affected over 2.6 million people.Mozambique, the country where the storm first made landfall, is perhaps the worst hit, with vast swathes of land completely submerged. The port city of Beira, home to 500,000 people, was hit on Friday. Media reports indicate that the city appears to be an “island in the ocean” and was initially completely cut off from the rest of the world.Jill Lovell, an Australian running a missionary school in Beira, was able to send out an email message, cited by the Guardian, describing the situation: “It is a total mess here … People are in trees and on rooftops. Emergency relief crews are slowly coming in. Rains continue to make it all even harder. So many lives lost and homes destroyed.” Reports from pilots attempting rescue missions describe chaotic and heart-wrenching scenes of completely submerged homes, with people clinging on to what remains of roofs, tree trunks and small islands that have appeared overnight without any possibility of accessing food or clean water. The situation is so grim that pilots have been forced to make the difficult call of having to decide whom to save.
Who’s to blame for the neurotoxin that’s poisoning the Pacific? (video) There’s a fight brewing in the Pacific about toxic algae, climate change, and crabs. It has the commercial crab industry squaring off against Big Oil. So for our latest Verge Science video, I took some motion-sickness meds and hopped on a boat to find out what’s really threatening commercial crabbing and what can be done about it.At the heart of this fight is a neurotoxin called domoic acid, which causes something calledamnesic shellfish poisoning. The symptoms can range from stomach problems, confusion, short-term memory loss, seizures, and even death. For three of the past four years, elevated levels of the toxin have forced California’s commercial crab fishery to stay closed for weeks to months past the usual opening day until the levels drop. Domoic acid is produced by algae that bloom regularly along the Pacific coast. These blooms aren’t always dangerous. There’s some combination of nutrients, light, and, perhaps most importantly, warm water that can create a toxic soup. The toxin travels up the food chain from filter-feeding shellfish to creatures like crabs, marine mammals, and, rarely, to humans. To keep the food supply safe, state officials close fisheries when levels get too high.An organization called the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations is bracing for a future where climate change ensures that there’s plenty of that key ingredient for toxic blooms: warm water. These fishers have connected some worrying dots, from the toxic blooms and warming oceans to climate change and fossil fuels. So the group has taken the extraordinary step of suing 30 major fossil fuel companies: it wants Big Oil to pay for the harm to members’ livelihoods, and they want their industry to survive even in a changing climate. Our new Verge Science video dives into this fight from a boat called the Karen Jeanne.
Researchers embrace a radical idea: engineering coral to cope with climate change – That imperative – to move, and move fast – is now the mantra for an entire field of coral research and for coral geneticist Madeleine van Oppen in particular. The relentless rise of global temperatures is imperiling coral reefs around the world. Just 75 kilometers offshore from the research center, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest – has been battered by a string of marine heat waves that have killed half its coral. The threat has transformed Van Oppen into a leading advocate for something considered radical just a few years ago: creating breeds of coral that can withstand underwater heat waves. And it has helped make Australia, which recently committed a hefty $300 million to coral research and restoration, a global magnet for reef scientists. One major attraction is the National Sea Simulator, a $25 million facility nestled in eucalyptus-lined hills on the shore of the Coral Sea, which was opened in 2013 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). Here, in dozens of seawater tanks where conditions can be precisely matched to those of the ocean today or in the future, Van Oppen and other scientists are tinkering with creatures that are the very cornerstones of reef ecosystems. Imagine ecologists cultivating whole new breeds of trees to restock a devastated wilderness. In the minds of some researchers, the work could help shape the future of some of the world’s richest underwater places. But the endeavor will first have to overcome formidable technical challenges – and concerns that such interventions could bring new problems. Van Oppen and others are re-engineering corals with techniques as old as the domestication of plants and as new as the latest gene-editing tools. And the researchers are adopting attitudes more common to free-wheeling Silicon Valley startups than the methodical world of conservation science. Just as tech entrepreneurs are urged to “fail fast, fail often,” scientists are pushing to quickly test ideas and ditch the least promising ones in the hunt for results that can be moved from the lab to the ocean.
What’s the cost (in fish) between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming? – Climate change is already affecting oceans, fisheries, and the livelihoods that depend on them. Some local fish stocks are declining, while other fish populations are shifting their distributions, forcing fishers to travel farther to make their catch. It stands to reason that fighting climate change would also help protect fisheries and the fishing economy. Now, researchers have quantified these benefits, calculating just how much fish stocks, fishers, and seafood consumers worldwide would gain from meeting the climate benchmarks set out in the Paris Agreement. In a study published 27 February in Science Advances, the researchers combed through U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other databases for information on fisheries catch levels and prices from 2001 to 2010. They gathered data on the 10 most valuable marine fisheries in each country – a total of 381 different species worldwide. Then, they used a series of climate, ecosystem, and economic models to project what will happen with those fisheries in two climate change scenarios. They found that if climate change is limited to 1.5 °C, the biomass of the top revenue-generating fish species will be on average 6.5% higher than it would be with 3.5 °C of warming. Sustainable catch levels of these species will be 7.3%, or 3.3 million metric tons, greater than they would be if we stay on our current trajectory. Extrapolating from the top revenue-generating fish species to the total global seafood catch, the researchers estimate that meeting the Paris Agreement benchmark “could protect a total of 9.5 million metric tons of catch annually,” they write. In turn, that translates into $13.1 billion annually in fishers’ revenues, and $10.6 billion in seafood workers’ income. Meanwhile, consumers save $18.3 billion annually because fish is more abundant and lower in price.
88 Pounds Of Plastic Found In Stomach Of Dead Whale In The Philippines — Darrell Blatchley received a call from the Philippines’ Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources early Friday morning reporting that it had a young Cuvier’s beaked whale that was weak and vomiting blood. Within a few hours it was dead. Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, gathered his team to drive two hours to where the whale had washed up. When the necropsy was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach. “It was full of plastic – nothing but nonstop plastic,” he said. “It was compact to the point that its stomach was literally as hard as a baseball.” “That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added. He noted that among the 88 pounds of plastic were 16 rice sacks – similar to potato sacks – and plastic bags from local Philippine grocery chains, Gaisano Capital and Gaisano grocery outlet.
Coca Cola Admits It Produces 3 Million Tonnes of Plastic Packaging a Year — Coca-Cola has revealed for the first time it produces 3m tonnes of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute – as a report calls on other global companies to end the secrecy over their plastic footprint. The data from the soft drinks manufacturer was provided to the campaigner Ellen MacArthur, who is pushing for major companies and governments to do more to tackle plastic pollution. The figures – which the company has refused in the past to disclose – reveal the amount of plastic packaging Coca-Cola produced in 2017. The company did not reveal the scale of its bottle production but when its packaging footprint is translated into 500ml PET plastic bottles, it amounts to about 108bn bottles a year, more than a fifth of the world’s PET bottle output of about 500bn bottles a year. Coca-Cola is one of 31 companies – including Mars, Nestlé and Danone – that have revealed how much plastic packaging they create as part of a drive for transparency by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Combined, they produce 8m tonnes of plastic packaging a year. But the majority of the 150 companies who have signed up to MacArthur’s global commitment to reduce plastic pollution are still refusing to publicly disclose figures on their own plastic packaging production. These include Pepsi Co, H&M, L’Oréal, Walmart and Marks & Spencer.
Hundreds of US cities are killing or scaling back their recycling programs – For plenty of Americans, recycling is practically second nature. It’s mandated by law in cities such as New York, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, where apartment buildings, office spaces, and restaurants must recycle plastics, cans, cardboard, and glass, unless their owners want to face a fine. But even in cities where it’s not required by law, recycling is mainstream. It has turned into a virtue boasted by restaurants like Sweetgreen and fashion brands like Gap, H&M, and Madewell, which recycle clothes in stores and produce clothing lines made of recycled materials.The problem, though, is that while recycling has become trendy, it’s also becoming harder to do.You might not know where all your recycled goods go, but they’re a part of a vast ecosystem that spans the globe and contributes to a $200 billion industry. One country that used to be the biggest importer of recycled materials, especially for the US, is China. But last year, it stopped accepting most foreign recyclables as part of an effort to crack down on thecountry’s pollution. As a result of this ban, the global recycling system has been crumbling, and plenty of cities in the US are now struggling to figure out what to do with their recycled goods.According to a recent report from the New York Times, hundreds of local recycling programs in American cities and towns are collapsing. In states like Tennessee, Florida, and Pennsylvania, cities are reportedly sending newspapers, cans, and bottles to landfills, while others are burning their waste instead. As the treasurer of California put it, “We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now.” The University of Georgia has estimated that China’s ban on imported recyclables will leave 111 million metric tons of trash from around the world with nowhere to go by 2030. But we don’t even need to look ahead to the next decade for consequences because they’re already happening. Tons of recycled paper and plastics are piling up across the country, and this problem has only just begun.
Recycle Crisis Sweeps Across America After China Halts Plastic Waste Imports – The green movement of the 1970s formed the modern American recycling industry, although there is some concern today that it could be collapsing in many parts of the country, The New York Times warned. “The sooner we accept the economic impracticality of recycling, the sooner we can make serious progress on addressing the plastic pollution problem,” said Jan Dell, an engineer who leads Last Beach Cleanup. The report cited Philadelphia, Memphis, and Sunrise and Deltona, Florida, as metropolitan areas where the economics of recycling are not feasible anymore. “We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now,” California state treasurer Fiona Ma told the Times. The major dilemma, per the Times, is China’s ban on imported plastic waste. Recovered plastic shipments to China collapsed by 99.1% in 2018 versus 2017. The government halted mixed paper and post-consumer scrap plastic on Jan. 1, 2018. “Recycling has been dysfunctional for a long time,” nonprofit Recycle Across America Executive Director Mitch Hedlund told the Times. “But not many people really noticed when China was our dumping ground.” It seems like Americans are recycling more than they need too, blending trash with recycled items, which triggered the Chinese to ban plastic waste shipments from abroad. With China no longer a buyer of American post-consumer plastics, recycling and waste companies are now slapping municipalities with higher service fees. “Amid the soaring costs, cities and towns are making hard choices about whether to raise taxes, cut other municipal services or abandon an effort that took hold during the environmental movement of the 1970s,” the Times reported. Sunrise, Florida is now burning its recycled waste and transforming it into energy. Philadelphia has also resorted to burning its recycled waste.
Beer and pop cans are not being recycled because car and airplane makers don’t like recycled aluminum Remember how aluminum cans are “100 percent recyclable into pure aluminum”? They lied. We go on about how recycling is broken, and noted earlier that even aluminum recycling was a mess. Now it turns out that used aluminum cans are piling up in scrapyards because the aluminum producers don’t want them. Aluminum is always pitched as being 100 percent recyclable – and it is – but there are different grades and alloys of aluminum. According to Bob Tita of the Wall Street Journal, car and airplane makers want the pure new stuff and are willing to pay more for it. “Old cans are less versatile than other scrap. The makers of airplane and car parts prefer not to use aluminum made from recycled cans.” Producing aluminum for cans isn’t as profitable as rolling sheet for car companies. Aluminum rolling mills are paid about $1 a pound above the market price for the raw-aluminum ingots they use to make auto-body sheet, compared with about 35 cents a pound for converting can sheeting. Tesla body © Tesla aluminum body Recycled cans might be good enough for making new cans, but not for an F150, Tesla, or a 737-8 and certainly not for a MacBook Air. So the rolling mills would rather roll car body sheet than can sheet and the cans pile up. Meanwhile, Molson-Coors and Pepsi still need cans, so they buy imported aluminum, even though it is costly thanks to tariffs.
U.S. weakens first global commitment on curbing single-use plastics – (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Nations made their first global commitment towards curtailing the surging consumption of single-use plastics on Friday, but critics said it failed to confront the planet’s pollution crisis with the United States blocking efforts for more radical action. After five days of talks in the Kenyan capital, ministers at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) agreed to curb items like plastic bags, bottles and straws over the next decade as part of moves aimed at creating a more sustainable planet. “We will address the damage to our ecosystems caused by the unsustainable use and disposal of plastic products, including by significantly reducing single-use plastic products by 2030,” said a ministerial declaration at the end of the summit. The nearly 200 environment ministers also made a host of other commitments – ranging from reducing food waste and marine litter to developing and sharing innovative technologies and consulting indigenous people when developing policies. But environmental campaigners said the governments’ commitment on curbing plastic was disappointing and failed to urgently confront the ever-growing pollution crisis threatening the world’s waterways, ecosystems and health. Negotiators said most nations, including the European Union, at the UNEA backed stronger action suggested by India which wanted governments to commit to “phasing-out most problematic single-use plastic products by 2025″. But a few countries led by the United States – and including Saudi Arabia and Cuba – played “spoiler” by watering down the text, replacing it with a commitment to “significantly reduce” single-use plastics by 2030, said negotiators and campaigners. “The vast majority of countries came together to develop a vision for the future of global plastic governance,” “Seeing the U.S., guided by the interests of the fracking and petrochemical industry, leading efforts to sabotage that vision is disheartening.”
Destruction from sea level rise in California could exceed worst wildfires and earthquakes, new research shows – In the most extensive study to date on sea level rise in California, researchers say damage by the end of the century could be far more devastating than the worst earthquakes and wildfires in state history. A team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists concluded that even a modest amount of sea level rise – often dismissed as a creeping, slow-moving disaster – could overwhelm communities when a storm hits at the same time.The study combines sea level rise and storms for the first time, as well as wave action, cliff erosion, beach loss and other coastal threats across California. These factors have been studied extensively but rarely together in the same model.The results are sobering. More than half a million Californians and $150 billion in property are at risk of flooding along the coast by 2100 – equivalent to 6% of the state’s GDP, the study found, and on par with Hurricane Katrina and some of the world’s costliest disasters. The number of people exposed is three times greater than previous models that considered only sea level rise.And at a time when marshes are drowning, cliffs eroding, beaches disappearing and severe storms likely to become more frequent, scientists say even a small shift in sea level rise could launch a new range of extremes that Californians would have to confront every single year. “It’s not just some nuisance that’s going to pop its head up once in a while,” said Patrick Barnard, research director of the USGS Climate Impacts and Coastal Processes Team and lead author of the study. “These are significant events that are going to recur and be ten times the scale of the worst wildfires and earthquakes that we’ve experienced in modern California history.”
The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change –Nature is in freefall and the planet’s support systems are so stretched that we face widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. That’s the warning hundreds of scientists are preparing to give, and it’s stark.The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May. The study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), expected to run to over 8,000 pages, is being compiled by more than 500 experts in 50 countries. It is the greatest attempt yet to assess the state of life on Earth and will show how tens of thousands of species are at high risk of extinction, how countries are using nature at a rate that far exceeds its ability to renew itself, and how nature’s ability to contribute food and fresh water to a growing human population is being compromised in every region on earth.Nature underpins all economies with the “free” services it provides in the form of clean water, air and the pollination of all major human food crops by bees and insects. In the Americas, this is said to total more than $24 trillion a year. The pollination of crops globally by bees and other animals alone is worth up to $577 billion. The final report will be handed to world leaders not just to help politicians, businesses and the public become more aware of the trends shaping life on Earth, but also to show them how to better protect nature.
EIA projects U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions will remain near current level through 2050 – Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. energy consumption will remain near current levels through 2050, according to projections in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2019. The AEO2019 Reference case, which reflects no changes to current laws and regulations and extends current trends in technology, projects that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will be 5,019 million metric tons in 2050, or 4% below their 2018 value, as emissions associated with coal and petroleum consumption fall and emissions from natural gas consumption rise. Energy-related CO2 emissions generally follow energy consumption trends. In the United States, emissions associated with the consumption of petroleum fuels – motor gasoline, distillate, jet fuel, and more – have consistently made up the largest portion of CO2 emissions. In 2018, the transportation sector’s consumption accounted for 78% of U.S. CO2 emissions from petroleum and more than one-third of all U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. Petroleum emissions from other sectors have fallen in recent years as equipment and processes that use petroleum fuels have been replaced by those using other fuels, in particular, natural gas. In the transportation sector, consumption and emissions trends in the past have been driven by changes in travel demand, fuel prices, and fuel economy regulations. In EIA’s AEO2019 Reference case projection, current fuel economy standards stop requiring additional efficiency improvements in 2025 for light-duty vehicles and in 2027 for heavy-duty vehicles, reflecting existing regulations. As travel demand continues to rise, transportation consumption and emissions increase. Natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel, and for decades natural gas made up the smallest portion of U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. However, in 2015, natural gas emissions surpassed coal emissions, and the AEO2019 Reference case projects that natural gas CO2 emissions will continue increasing as natural gas use increases. The U.S. electric power sector – now the largest consuming sector for natural gas – has added generating capacity from natural gas in recent years and has used those power plants more often. Natural gas surpassed coal to become the most prevalent fuel used to generate electricity in the United States in 2016. Other sectors have also increased their consumption of natural gas. By the mid-2020s, EIA projects that the industrial sector will again become the largest consumer of natural gas, using natural gas as a feedstock in chemical industries, as lease and plant fuel, for industrial heat and power applications, and for liquefied natural gas production. The residential and commercial sectors are also expected to continue using more natural gas.
Factcheck: Is 3-5C of Arctic warming now ‘locked in’? – A new UN Environment report on the Arctic was released last week, which covered a broad range of changes to the region’s climate, environment, wildlife and epidemiology. The accompanying press release focused on the report’s section about climate change. It warned that, “even if the Paris Agreement goals are met, Arctic winter temperatures will increase 3-5C by 2050 compared to 1986-2005 levels” and will warm 5-9C by 2080. The report was covered by a number of news outlets, including the Guardian, Wired, Hill,CBC and others. Media coverage focused on the idea – promoted in the press release – that large amounts of Arctic warming is “locked in”, “inevitable” or “unavoidable”. However, an investigation by Carbon Brief has found that the section of the report on climate change erroneously conflates the Paris Agreement target – which is to limit warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century relative to pre-industrial levels – with a scenario that has much more modest emission reductions which result in around 3C of global warming. In climate-model runs using a scenario limiting global warming to below 2C, the Arctic still warms faster than the rest of the world. But future Arctic winter warming will be around 0.5-5C by the 2080s compared to 1986-2005 levels, much lower than the 5-9C values stated in the report. This means that much of the future warming in the Arctic will depend on our emissions over the 21st century, rather than being “locked in”, as the report claims.
‘We won’t stop striking’: the New York 13 year-old taking a stand over climate change – Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming. The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards. But some mutter words of support, while the odd passing driver rolls down their window to offer a thumbs up. There is media interest, too. On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew. “I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards. Her concern drove her to help organize the first nationwide strikes by US school students over climate change, on 15 March. Villasenor was born and raised in Davis, California, in the teeth of the state’s fiercest drought in at least 1,200 years. She recalls seeing the dead and dying fish on the shores of nearby Folsom Lake as it dried up. In November, Davis was shrouded in a pall of smoke from record wildfires that obliterated the town of Paradise, 100 miles to the north. “I have asthma so it was a very scary experience for me, I couldn’t leave my house at all,” Villasenor said. Villasenor’s family subsequently moved to New York, the switch hastened by concerns over her health due to the smoke. The young student then swiftly became an activist after reading how warming temperatures are making the western US far more prone to the sort of huge wildfires that menaced her hometown.
Students at UN stage ‘die-in’ to protest climate inaction (AFP) – Dozens of young climate change activists staged a “die-in” in front of the United Nations on Friday, lying sprawled on the pavement to draw attention to the lethal consequences of global warming. “Today, the young people of the US are declaring the era of American climate change denialism over,” said Alexandria Villasenor, a 13-year-old who has been staging a climate strike outside the UN headquarters every Friday since December. “We are here to tell leaders that they urgently act.” Tens of thousands of teenagers and schoolchildren took to the streets worldwide on Friday to push world leaders to take action to combat climate change. “I ask politicians to think about what will happen when they are gone and think about the kids that are going to suffer because of their choices,” said Emma Rose, 15. “None of the government officials are doing anything to change this and we need to make an impact to change this and we want to stop climate change,” said 12-year-old Ella Goodman, carrying a sign that read “I’m With Her” pointing to an image of the Earth. The students carried banners that highlighted their frustration with the lack of action from leaders. “When adults act like children, children must take action,” read one banner. Another said: “You are failing us.” “We’re striking for our future and at this rate, we don’t have one,” said 17-year-old Sarah Bennett. “Generations before us have ignored these issues. We are the one who will live with the consequences.”
Climate Change Means ‘Real Death, Real Blood’ – Extinction Rebellion Paints Downing Street Red – ‘Blood’ was spilled outside Downing Street on Saturday as campaign group Extinction Rebellion kickstarted its spring action with a graphic sea of red.Protestors emptied buckets of artificial blood, made from a mixture of syrup, food colouring, water, and cornflour, on the pavement outside Downing Street to represent the “loss of life that will be inflicted on the next generation,” said an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.It also represents those lives which have “already been lost around the world as a result of the climate crisis,” they added.In February 2018, the World Health Organisation suggested that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 globally deaths a year. Saturday’s protest was to highlight the UK government’s inaction in dealing with the climate crisis. Hundreds of police officers blocked the entrance to the Prime Minister’s residence, where young people gave speeches. After pouring the blood, protesters sat down on the pavement to await arrest. Ultimately, no arrests were made at the protest. Extinction Rebellion, which launched in October 2018, commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience in order to bring attention to the climate crisis.
Help from fracking campaigner, or manipulating students? – Nicole Pietsch, a prominent activist against fracking, was directing the chanting by students participating in the “School Strike 4 Climate Action” in Alice Springs yesterday. While taking photographs and possibly videos of the group, Ms Pietsch (pictured at the rally) said “shall we say no fossil fuels three times? … Say no fossil fuels … Why don’t we do climate actions now? … Really loud”. The group followed her leads (see video at bottom). There has been much discussion about the possibility of the world-wide school strike movement being exposed to influence from established pressure groups. In fact, earlier in yesterday’s rally a mother drew attention to that in a short speech, which was followed by articulate presentations by several young people. (This article is not to suggest that they do not genuinely hold the views they expressed nor that they do not have reason to do so.) And yesterday’s The Australian newspaper, under the heading “School students’ strike: adults organised climate rally” reported: “A school strike today promoted as a ‘student-led protest’ by thousands of children skipping classes to attend climate change rallies around the nation has been organised by a network of adult activists from climate campaign organisations.” Ms Pietsch is the Strategy and Communications Manager of the influential Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC) which, according to its CEO Jimmy Cocking, has 350 paid up members. Triangular yellow “No Fracking” signs were prominent in the rally. Mr Cocking, when asked whether the students were being taken advantage of said they were being “supported”. NEWS: Ms Pietsch was telling them what to say and how to say it and how often to say it. She is guiding them. She was giving instructions to the supposedly independent student protesters. COCKING: The adults there were giving support. It was the first time [the students] have done this sort of stuff. It’s important to do it safely. NEWS: There was no safety issue. They were standing on a lawn. There was no traffic.
Would the Green New Deal survive the supreme court? – How the United States confronts climate change will be decided whenever the Democratic Party regains control of the White House and Congress. But it may ultimately be Chief Justice John Roberts who decides whether they succeed. Every major Democratic policy would need to survive scrutiny by the justices. So how would the Green New Deal fare if it reaches the high court? This isn’t an easy question to answer, partly because lawmakers have yet to draft a proposal. Early last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a resolution recognizing “the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal”; 90 House Democrats have cosponsored it, and multiple Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for it. But the resolution lacks the specificity of a bill. In fewer than 2,000 words, it outlines the Green New Deal’s goals, which include not only net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and renewable-energy investment but a job guarantee, universal healthcare, and more. While the resolution does not describe in detail how the government could achieve these goals, left-wing policy wonks have been working to fill in the gaps. Data for Progress, a progressive think tank with close ties to Ocasio-Cortez, released its own proposal for a Green New Deal last September. It provides a road map for what a legislative package could look like if Democrats win unified control in Washington – and thus serves as a useful guide for what the courts would have to wrestle with, once conservatives mount the inevitable legal challenges. One of the Green New Deal’s key components is a familiar one: implementing the Clean Power Plan. The plan called for drastically curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, namely those powered by coal, and was meant to persuade other countries to put forth their own plans ahead of the Paris climate summit later that year.The plan was soon challenged in court, and in 2016 the Supreme Court blocked it from going into effect until the legal questions were resolved. Justice Antonin Scalia’s death a few days later effectively tied the plan’s long-term fate to the outcome of the presidential election later that year. After Donald Trump took office, his first EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, began the process of repealing the Clean Power Plan.
Global Banks, Led by JPMorgan Chase, Invested $1.9 Trillion in Fossil Fuels Since Paris Climate Pact – A report published Wednesday names the banks that have played the biggest recent role in funding fossil fuel projects, finding that since 2016, immediately following the Paris agreement’s adoption, 33 global banks have poured $1.9 trillion into financing climate-changing projects worldwide.The top four banks that invested most heavily in fossil fuel projects are all based in the U.S., and include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America. Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays in Europe, Japan’s MUFG, TD Bank, Scotiabank and Mizuho make up the remainder of the top 10.This report comes as March has already brought deadly weather to places such as the American Midwest, where historic flooding has left four dead and farm losses could reach $1 billion, and Mozambique, where Tropical Cyclone Idai has devastated the East African country and President Filipe Nyusi estimated that more than a thousand people are likely dead.Both disasters have been linked to climate change. “Increased flooding is one of the clearest signals of a changing climate,” said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in a statement published by ThinkProgress, adding that flooded Nebraska’s “current trauma is part of everyone’s future.” “One inescapable finding of this report is that JPMorgan Chase is very clearly the world’s worst banker of climate change,” the report, titled “Banking on Climate Change,” found. “The race was not even close: the $196 billion the bank poured into fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018 is nearly a third higher than the second-worst bank, Wells Fargo.” A half-dozen environmental groups – Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth – authored the 2019 report, which was endorsed by 160 organizations worldwide. It tracked the financing for 1,800 companies involved in extracting, transporting, burning, or storing fossil fuels or fossil-generated electricity and examined the roles played by banks worldwide.
We need to talk about the ethics of having children in a warming world — In a recent Instagram live stream from her kitchen, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raised a taboo dimension of climate change few politicians would dare to touch. “Basically, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question: Is it okay to still have children?” she said. The criticism from conservatives that followed was predictably swift and hollow. Fox News’s Steve Hilton called it “fascistic” and a “no-child policy.” But Ocasio-Cortez was voicing a genuine concern of many young prospective parents today who can plainly see that climate change is already here and its worst effects are still to come. These anxieties are beginning to appear in pop culture – they were a major theme in the 2018 film First Reformed. Business Insider conducted an online poll this month that found that 38 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 agreed that climate change should be a consideration in the decision to have children. For Americans between the ages of 30 and 44, 34 percent said climate change should be a factor in having children.As we’ve learned from climate scientists in several recent bracing reports, a child born today will be living on a planet that’s likely to be dramatically warmer by the end of the century. We’ve already experienced 1 degree Celsius of average warming since preindustrial times, and we’re currently on track to reach as much as 4 degrees by 2100.One degree of warming has already delivered rising sea levels, deadly heat waves, wetter hurricanes, droughts, costlier disasters, bigger wildfires, and more illnesses, to name a few impacts, and these effects are only going to compound. So clearly, young people have good reason to be worried, not just for themselves but for their future families. Many also feel angry that decades of political intransigence on climate change has forced them to make such a calculation at all. “The fact that our generation has to ask these questions is politically forceful and massively fucked up,” said Meghan Kallman, a co-founder of Conceivable Future, a group that frames climate change as an issue of reproductive justice.
John Bellamy Foster on the ‘Green New Deal’ – Capitalism is not just a system, it is a system of social relations and socio-metabolic processes, and we have to change many of those relations and processes radically from within and very quickly in order to deal with the current ecological emergency. In the long run, of course, we have to have a full ecological and social revolution, transcending existing capitalist relations of production. But right now, we are in an emergency situation, and the first priority is eliminating fossil fuels, which entails the destruction of what is called fossil capital. The object is to avoid what Earth system scientists are calling “hothouse Earth” where catastrophic climate change is locked in and irreversible, and which could set in a couple of decades or less. With respect to Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal on the Green New Deal, I am impressed by some aspects of it. She calls for mass mobilization, which is indeed necessary. She also calls for innovative forms of financing, such as setting up a network of public banks to finance it directly, modeled after the New Deal, and through much higher marginal tax brackets on the rich and corporations, going back to what we once had in the United States. The revenues could be used to finance a massive shift toward solar and wind power. She connects this to a wide array of social issues. But none of this will really work, even if it were possible to legislate it, given the system, unless it takes on the character of an ecological revolution with a broad social base. Hence, a radical Green New Deal is, at best, just the entry point to such wider, eco-revolutionary change, involving the self-mobilization of the population. If it does not spark an ecological revolution, its effect will be nil.As far as your question on the role of financial incentives and regulation, none of this will work as a strategy. It would be mere spitting into the wind. What kind of financial incentives could be given to energy companies when they own trillions of dollars in fossil fuel assets, and they have a vested interest in this system? Exxon-Mobil has declared hey will extract and burn all the fossil fuel assets that they own, which are buried in the ground, because they own them and because they can profit from them – knowing full well that this would be a death sentence for humanity. There is no way that mere incentives are going to change that. So far, even the subsidies for fossil fuel exploration have not been removed. Regulation won’t work in the present system since corporations always capture the regulatory process. To alter the present political-economic-energy matrix would require changes in ownership of means of production – in this case, fossil fuels. It would not mean just the transfer of ownership but the destruction of trillions of dollars of financial assets globally, since fossil fuels would need to remain in the ground.
Who’s Behind Trump’s Claim the Green New Deal Will Cost $100 Trillion? — President Trump’s claim that the Green New Deal would cost $100 trillion can be traced back to the Manhattan Institute, a think tank backed by fossil fuel investor Paul Singer and companies like ExxonMobil. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey made waves at a press conference in February when they rolled out a Green New Deal resolution that called for the nation to transition to 100 percent clean energy in ten years. Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute, attempted to “cost out the Green New Deal” in a Twitter thread the next day. Riedl admitted he had “No idea” how much things like “Installing renewable energy everywhere” would cost. Riedl nonetheless floated his own guesstimate that the cost of the Green New Deal “… must be heading towards $100 trillion.” The claim reverberated across social media and right-wing media outlets like Townhall.com, and soon found its way onto President Trump’s bully pulpit. “They want to take away your car, reduce the value of your home, and put millions of Americans out of work, spend $100 trillion, which, by the way, there’s no such thing as $100 trillion,” President Trump said a few days later at a rally in El Paso, as he attacked the Green New Deal. The American Action Forum run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Manhattan Institute fellow, later put out an “Initial Analysis” that Republicans have used to falsely claim the Green New Deal would cost $93 trillion, a similarly massive number that was not quite big enough for some pundits. “We should make it an even $100 trillion,” wrote Allahpundit, an anonymous blogger for the conservative blog HotAir. “People love round numbers. We’ll find another $7 trillion in the couch cushions.” President Trump stuck with the $100 trillion number during his speech at CPAC last week. “But perhaps nothing is more extreme than the Democrats’ plan to completely takeover American energy and completely destroy America’s economy through their new $100 trillion Green New Deal,” Trump said at CPAC.The $100 trillion guesstimate that originated with a Manhattan Institute fellow’s Tweet remains a fixture of the debate over the Green New Deal. Charles Payne of Fox News used the figure during an interview last week with Andrew Wheeler, President Trump’s EPA administrator. Others like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have preferred to say that the Green New Deal will cost $93 trillion, a “bogus figure” according to an analysis by Politico reporter Zack Coleman.
On Paying for a Green New Deal with Modern Monetary Theory — Dean Baker – Much of the Democratic Party, including almost the entire pack of contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, has embraced the concept of a Green New Deal (GND). This is an ambitious plan for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time creating good-paying jobs, improving education, and reducing inequality.At this point, the specific policies entailed by these ambitious goals are largely up for grabs, as is the question of how to pay for this agenda. One way of paying for it, borrowing from the economic doctrine know as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), is that we don’t have to. Modern Monetary Theory argues that a government that prints its own currency is not constrained in its spending by its tax revenue. Some on the left have argued that we can just print whatever money we need to finance a GND. This claim does not make sense.The logic of MMT’s claim is that, since the US government prints its own currency, it is not constrained by revenue from taxes, or what it borrows in credit markets. It can always just print the money it needs to cover its spending. If the government wants to spend another billion dollars paying workers to build roads or paying contractors for steel, who is going to turn down its money? They will just be happy to get the money, end of story.The limiting factor is that, at some point, this process can lead to inflation. If an economy has a substantial amount of excess capacity, meaning that there are a large number of unemployed workers and idle factories and other facilities, the additional spending due to printing money will just put some workers and factories to use. There should still be plenty of competitive pressure to limit wage and price increases.This was quite effectively demonstrated in the recovery from the Great Recession, in which the United States, the eurozone, and Japan have all struggled to increase their rates of inflation. In all three cases, the large-scale printing of money had a modest impact, at best, in raising the rate of inflation. The predictions of runaway inflation made by conservative economists were shown to be completely wrong. While it’s true that countries could print money to boost their economies to recover from the Great Recession, that doesn’t mean that the United States could now spend a large amount of money on GND projects, without tax increases and/or offsetting spending cuts. The reason is that we have largely recovered from the Great Recession.
Energy Execs’ Tone on Climate Changing, But They Still See a Long Fossil Future – A weeklong energy industry conference that came to a close on Friday revealed an oil and gas industry in the midst of a working contradiction.In speeches that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, executives from some of the world’s largest oil companies said the future is low-carbon and the industry needs to reinvent itself or risk becoming irrelevant as the world turns to cleaner energy.Yet at the same time, their peers talked about a future where oil and gas demand would remain strong for decades. They spoke of natural gas not as a bridge to some fossil-fuel-free world but as a “forever fuel.”The public debate highlighted the gap between a stated desire to become part of a climate solution and the reality of a booming oil and gas industry that remains the biggest part of the greenhouse gas problem. The CERAWeek conference, hosted by the research and analysis firm IHS Markit, occupied the entire Hilton Americas hotel in downtown Houston, where $8,500 tickets bought thousands of executives, financiers and analysts access to the industry and an unending supply of food, drink and, in one tech-focused display, espresso served by a robotic arm.Maarten Wetselaar, a Royal Dutch Shell executive, spoke on one of the first panels about “Fuels of the Future.” Shell has presented perhaps the most expansive vision of how the industry might change, and Wetselaar described a company that, a few decades from now, will service an electrified, hydrogen- and bio-fueled vehicle market and provide natural gas for heavy transportation. To meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, he said, electricity may be the only energy consumers buy within 20 years, although he said natural gas will still fuel ships and heavy transportation.The following day, Shell urged the Trump administration to halt its proposed reversal of limits on methane emissions from new oil and gas development, and to go farther than the Obama administration had in cracking down on emissions from existing operations. Later in the conference, executives with BP and Equinor, the Norwegian energy company that last year changed its name from Statoil, stressed many of the same points as Wetselaar. BP’s chief executive, Bob Dudley, told the conference that his industry needs to engage in a discussion with supporters of the Green New Deal.
Study shows IPCC is underselling climate change – A new study has revealed that the language used by the global climate change watchdog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is overly conservative – and therefore the threats are much greater than the Panel’s reports suggest. Published in the journal BioScience, the team of scientists from the University of Adelaide, Flinders University, the University of Bristol (UK), and the Spanish National Research Council has analysed the language used in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (from 2014). “We found that the main message from the reports – that our society is in climate emergency – is lost by overstatement of uncertainty and gets confused among the gigabytes of information,” says lead author Dr. Salvador Herrando-Pérez, from the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute and Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. “The IPCC supports the overwhelming scientific consensus about human impact on climate change, so we would expect the reports’ vocabulary to be dominated by greater certainty on the state of climate science – but this is not the case.” The IPCC assigns a level of certainty to climate findings using five categories of confidence and ten categories of probability. The team found the categories of intermediate certainty predominated, with those of highest certainty barely reaching 8% of the climate findings evaluated. “The accumulation of uncertainty across all elements of the climate-change complexity means that the IPCC tends to be conservative,” “The certainty is in reality much higher than even the IPCC implies, and the threats are much worse.” “Uncertainty is to science what the score is to music – but it’s a two-edged sword: what the IPCC and the majority of the scientific community regard as a paradigm of rigour and transparency is exactly what the ‘merchants of doubt’ put forward as a weakness,”
Donald Trump is using Stalinist tactics to discredit climate science – Americans should not be fooled by the Stalinist tactics being used by the White House to try to discredit the findings of mainstream climate science. The Trump administration has already purged information about climate change from government websites, gagged federal experts and attempted to end funding for climate change programmes. Now a group of hardcore climate change deniers and contrarians linked to the administration is organising a petition in support of a new panel being set up by the National Security Council to promote an alternative official explanation for climate change. The panel will consist of scientists who do not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are behind climate change and its impacts. Americans should not be conned by the Trump administration’s climate lysenkoism The petition is being circulated for signature by Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a lobby group for “free market” fanatics which has become infamous for championing climate change denial. It does not disclose its sources of funding, but is known to have received money from ExxonMobil and conservative billionaires such as the Koch brothers. Mr Ebell, who has no expertise whatsoever in climate science – or any kind of science for that matter – was a member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team and diverted the focus of the Environmental Protection Agency towards weakening and removing policies that limit pollution by companies, including President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The Trump administration’s “climate lysenkoism” is being led by William Happer, a retired professor from Princeton University who was hired by the National Security Council in September 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for emerging technologies. Media reports suggest that Professor Happer and his fellow propagandists will target the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was prepared by leading researchers in the United States, and concluded last November: “The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country.”
Radical plan to artificially cool Earth’s climate could be safe, study finds – A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, the analysis finds that cooling the Earth enough to eliminate roughly half of warming, rather than all of it, generally would not make tropical cyclones more intense or worsen water availability, extreme temperatures, or extreme rain. Only a small fraction of places, 0.4 percent, might see climate change impacts worsened, the study says. Many climate experts have warned that cooling the Earth but keeping twice as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as before industrialization could put some regions at risk. One scientist who read the paper published on Monday said it was not comprehensive enough to conclude that solar geoengineering – most likely involving spraying sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, thereby mimicking gas from volcanoes and reflecting the sun’s heat – would be safe.Some climate advocacy groups argue that banking on an unproven technology could hamstring efforts to reduce carbon dioxide still spewing from power plants and cars.But study coauthor David Keith, a Harvard professor who works in engineering and public policy, said researchers should not rule out geoengineering yet.“I am not saying we know it works and we should do it now,” he said. “Indeed, I would absolutely oppose deployment now. There’s still only a little group of people looking at this, there’s lots of uncertainty.”Keith said the study’s main message was that “there is the possibility that solar geoengineering could really substantially reduce climate risks for the most vulnerable.”The findings come as Nairobi hosts a United Nations Environment Program meeting on limiting climate change. A U.N. report last year said geoengineering by injecting su lphur dioxide into the atmosphere may be necessary but would come with major uncertainties.
The very optimistic new argument for dimming the sky – The year is 2055, and climate change has fully set in. Months-long heat waves regularly kill infants and the elderly, and food shortages are testing governments on every continent. While the world is finally reducing its carbon emissions, the cuts aren’t happening fast enough, and scientists say Earth will keep rapidly warming for at least another century.To stave off a crisis, China and the United States jointly propose an audacious scheme: They will inject sulfate aerosols into the high atmosphere to dim the sun’s rays, as happens naturally after a huge volcanic eruption. The two countries say the plan will restore order and lower the planet’s fever. But critics assert that the aerosols will distort the planet’s climate even further, weakening the monsoon and setting off droughts across Asia and Africa.The scenario may sound like science fiction, but the debate over the prudence of this technique – called solar geo-engineering – has already begun.On Monday, a new paper from a team of researchers claimed that it is possible to dim the sky in such a way that no region of the planet will be made significantly worse. No major land area will face more intense temperature, precipitation, or drought extremes under a specific solar geo-engineering scenario than would occur instead under climate change, the paper asserts. The study, which relies on a relatively rosy and moderate geo-engineering scenario, was co-authored by several widely recognized climate scientists who had never published on the topic before: Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who specializes in tropical cyclones, and Gabriel Vecchi, a geoscience professor at Princeton. David Keith, an author of the paper and a professor of applied physics at Harvard, believes that these optimistic early results should justify the establishment of a new international research program on solar geo-engineering.
After years of rejection, Missouri regulators give nod to Grain Belt Express transmission line – After faltering before Missouri regulators for years, the state Public Service Commission finally gave a nod Wednesday to the Grain Belt Express transmission line – a project aiming to bring Kansas wind energy east to Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, and then into the grid beyond.The unanimous decision from PSC commissioners grants the project “a certificate of convenience and necessity” – a designation recognizing it as being in the public interest, and lending developers the right to use eminent domain as needed to construct the line.The move from the PSC capped a series of developments that built momentum for the long-stalled project. Last year, for instance, an appeals court judge said the commission “erred” in its controversial legal interpretation that it was unable to approve the line without first attaining assent from individual counties the project would pass through. That sentiment was echoed in a July ruling from the Missouri Supreme Court, which redirected the matter to the PSC. Despite the PSC’s earlier interpretation that it could not authorize the project, commissioners had firmly expressed at the time that it would enable millions of dollars in energy cost savings and benefit the public. “The Order confirms that the Grain Belt Express project is in the public interest and is good for Missouri,” Invenergy said in a statement released after Wednesday’s decision from the PSC.
New York develops plan to ease nat gas shortage – The state of New York will invest $250mn in renewable energy and efficiency measures in response to a natural gas service moratorium in Westchester County that stems from a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity. Utility Con Edison in January said that after 15 March it would no longer accept applications for new natural gas connections in the majority of its service area in Westchester County, New York, because of pipeline constraints. The New York Department of Public Service (DPS) in February said it would review natural gas supply and demand in the county to develop recommendations. The DPS, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Power Authority late last week announced a plan to address the shortage, including: $165mn in grants to Con Edison for heat pumps and increasing gas efficiency for its residential, commercial and industrial customers; $32mn in financing services for customers to retrofit heating systems with alternatives to natural gas; $28mn for grants to new customers to use alternatives to natural gas for heating and cooling; and $25mn to improve energy efficiency to lower overall demand. The agencies said the investments are expected to reduce energy consumption equivalent to the amount of gas to heat more than 90,000 homes. The investments are not considered a complete fix for the critical lack of pipeline capacity in the state. While the state’s initiatives are a “step in the right direction,” state assemblyman Nader Sayegh (D)said he hopes the collaboration will enable the state to “find a long-term solution.” White Plains mayor Thomas Roach said the program is a “vital first step” in ensuring the county’s residents have access to energy. Con Edison in September 2018 requested a six-year $305mn budget for a portfolio of non-pipeline gas projects, including targeted energy efficiency and heating electrification measures, three renewable gas production plants and up to five gas storage facilities in Westchester County. The state approved $222.6mn for the energy efficiency and heating electrification, but denied the utility’s other requests, saying it should pursue or seek cost recovery in other ways. The utility delivers gas to about 1.1mn people in New York City and Westchester County.
Millions awarded to local states for cleaning up coal mines— Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri are among 25 states given a total of more than $290 million to clean up abandoned coal mines. U.S. Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt today announced that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) will provide $18,678,495 to Illinois, $18,296,295 to Kentucky, and $2,814,000 to Missouri to clean up and repurpose abandoned coal mines. The money is part of Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation grants. More than $291 million in AML Reclamation funding will be available to states and tribes in FY 2019. “These grants are a great example of Interior partnering with states, Tribes, and local governments to provide resources for conservation efforts and infrastructure and public safety improvements, like fixing embankments, stabilizing land above underground mines, and restoring streams,” said Acting Secretary Bernhardt. “The investment we’re making back into coal country helps protect people, land, water and property, and enhances the lives of local citizens.” AML grants, funded in part by a fee based on coal produced in the United States, help to eliminate dangerous conditions and pollution caused by past coal mining. AML-funded projects have closed dangerous mine shafts, eliminated highwalls, reclaimed unstable slopes, treated acid mine drainage, and restored water supplies damaged by mining.
Congress’ inaction endangers black lung fund (AP) – Former coal miner John Robinson’s bills for black lung treatments run $4,000 a month, but the federal fund he depends on to help cover them is being drained of money because of inaction by Congress and the Trump administration. Amid the turmoil of the government shutdown this winter, a tax on coal that helps pay for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund was cut sharply Jan. 1 and never restored, potentially saving coal operators hundreds of millions of dollars a year. With cash trickling into the fund at less than half its usual rate, budget officials estimate that by the middle of 2020 there won’t be enough money to fully cover the fund’s benefit payments. As a surge of black lung disease scars miners’ lungs at younger ages than ever, Robinson worries not only about cuts to his benefits, but that younger miners won’t get any coverage. “Coal miners sort of been put on the back burner, thrown to the side,” “They just ain’t being done right.” President Donald Trump, who vowed to save the coal industry during the 2016 campaign, has repeatedly praised miners. At an August rally in West Virginia filled with miners in hard hats, he called them “great people. Brave people. I don’t know how the hell you do that. You guys have a lot of courage.” Trump made no mention of restoring the 2018 tax rate in his proposed budget released in mid-March. The White House said in a statement Tuesday that “President Trump and this administration have always supported the mining industry by prioritizing deregulation and less Washington interference.”
Wyoming governor vetoes coal-export terminal lawsuit bill . (AP) – Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed the Legislature to sue the state of Washington over coal exports. It’s important for Wyoming to “speak with one voice” on coal-export litigation, Gordon said. Wyoming is the top coal-producing state. Wyoming’s coal industry seeks to export more coal overseas to offset declining demand for coal from electric utilities in the U.S. A developer is suing Washington state for denying a crucial permit for a $680 million coal-export facility. Wyoming and five other states – Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah – have filed friend-of-the-court briefs siding with the developer. Six states – California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Oregon – have filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s administration. Wyoming lawmakers argued that a friend-of-the-court brief doesn’t go far enough and Wyoming should file its own lawsuit. The bill would have authorized legislators in the months ahead to look into filing their own lawsuit. A lawsuit from Wyoming’s legislative branch threatened to introduce a “whole new set of topics” and delay the case, said Gordon. “We just wanted to make sure we have a coherent approach that wasn’t confusing,” Gordon said. Gordon said he would continue to discuss with Wyoming Attorney Bridget Hill, an appointee of his who was sworn in Friday, how to best approach the litigation. Gordon and a substantial majority of the Wyoming Legislature are Republicans.
Devastation at blast site after China chemical plant explosion leaves at least 64 dead, 640 injured – Executives of a chemical plant in China’s Jiangsu province have been taken into police custody after an explosion on Thursday killed at least 64 people, injured 640 others and polluted areas several kilometres away. Cao Lubao, mayor of Yancheng, where the blast occurred, said on Friday that nearly 3,000 people – employees of nearby plants and residents – had been evacuated after the explosion at the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant in the township of Chenjiagang, which left a giant crater. Schools and kindergartens had been closed while the authorities monitored air and water quality, Cao said. President Xi Jinping, who is visiting Italy, said no effort should be spared to rescue trapped people and treat the injured. He also demanded that all levels of government strengthen inspection procedures. Thirty-four people were in a critical condition and 60 were seriously injured, while 28 were still missing as of late Friday. The Ministry of Emergency Management said 88 people were rescued from the scene. Visible flames had been put out but the whole of Xiangshui Ecological Chemical Industrial Park, where the plant is situated, was still engulfed by heavy smoke on Friday morning. Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant was flattened and 16 neighbouring factories were left with varying degrees of damage. The impact smashed windows and uprooted roofs of some buildings and reduced others to rubble. Early on Friday, injured people streaming into the emergency ward at Xiangshui People’s Hospital – one of the biggest in Xiangshui county, about 300km north of Shanghai. The plant had been flattened and reduced to rubble, with only part of the workshop frame still standing. A survivor who was standing by the roadside 1½km from the factory said the impact blew him and two of his friends off their feet, sending them tumbling in the air. “The air blast hit us and sent us up in the air,” the man, surnamed Lan, told the Beijing News. “I can’t describe it. It was horrifying.”
Despite closures, U.S. nuclear electricity generation in 2018 surpassed its previous peak – Electricity generation from U.S. nuclear power plants totaled 807.1 million megawatthours (MWh) in 2018, slightly more than the previous peak of 807.0 million MWh in 2010, based on preliminary annual data. Although several nuclear power plants have closed since 2010, a combination of added capacity through uprates and shorter refueling and maintenance cycles allowed the remaining nuclear power plants to produce more electricity. In the near future, however, EIA expects that U.S. nuclear power output will decline. Between 2010 and 2018, only one new nuclear power plant came online in the United States. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear power reactor came online in the fall of 2016, providing 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of additional power. Seven plants with a combined capacity of 5.3 GW had retired since 2013. As of the beginning of 2019, the United States had 98 nuclear power reactors at 60 plants, but two plants – Pilgrim, Massachusetts’s only nuclear plant, and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania – are expected to retire later this year, based on announced retirements.Despite changes in capacity from plants coming online or retiring, the U.S. nuclear power fleet maintained electricity generation near 800 million MWh for over a decade for several reasons. Several plants commissioned uprates, which involves modifying the plant to increase its generating capacity. EIA recorded 2.0 GW of thermal power uprates between 2010 and 2018, nearly the equivalent of adding two new reactors similar to Watts Bar Unit 2. Nuclear power plants have also shortened the time they are out of operation for refueling or maintenance. Nearly all of the recent reduction in outage duration is attributed to shorter outages for refueling operations. In 2018, the average nuclear reactor outage was about 25 days. Nuclear power plants typically refuel every 18 to 24 months, so some of the annual fluctuations in nuclear output are largely attributable to how maintenance cycles align across the fleet.
Ohio, Pennsylvania consider nuclear plant bailouts – Subsidizing nuclear power to fight climate change is one thing in liberal states like New York and New Jersey. It’s quite another in the natural gas bastions of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Drillers and gas-fired power plant operators are girding to fight measures to save money-losing reactors in the Keystone and Buckeye states, saying they’ve learned from past defeats and are better positioned to win. The looming debates are a key test of how far lawmakers in shale gas country are willing to go to fight climate change. Four left-leaning states have already approved bailouts for reactors, in step with aggressive targets to replace coal and gas with clean energy. This time, fossil-fuel proponents are fighting on their home turf. In Pennsylvania, a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill Monday to support the state’s five plants, owned by Exelon Corp., FirstEnergy Solutions and Riverstone Holdings LLC’s Talen Energy Corp. Ohio legislators are preparing their own measure. Time is critical for nuclear plants. Reactors are struggling to stay solvent as the fracking boom has made gas cheap and abundant, pushing down wholesale electricity prices. At least six have closed since 2013, including in New Jersey and Vermont. FirstEnergy Solutions said it will close its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants in Ohio without subsidies. Exelon needs to order a new reactor core by May for its Three Mile Island plant – site of the infamous 1979 meltdown – making it crucial for lawmakers to pass legislation this spring, Chief Executive Officer Chris Crane said on a call with analysts last month. New York became the first state to throw reactors a lifeline in 2016, followed by Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. In each case, fossil fuel generators fought back, saying the bailouts were an intrusion into free markets and would drive up electricity prices. But all four states have aggressive clean-energy targets, and without reactors they’d need to rely more heavily on power plants fueled by coal and gas.
Millstone deal reached, set to run for another 10 years – The Millstone Nuclear Power Station will stay open for another 10 years – a prospect that had been in some doubt recently even after it was selected in December as a winner of the final carbon-free energy competition by the Malloy administration.Dominion, Millstone’s owner, had been negotiating with Connecticut’s two utilities – Eversource and United Illuminating – against a March 15 deadline for coming up with a long-term contract to purchase Millstone’s power. The contract was announced just hours before the deadline was set to expire.Dominion threatened to shut the plant’s two units in 2023 if an agreement wasn’t reached today. That would have stripped 2,100 megawatts of carbon-free power from New England’s electric grid, including about half of Connecticut’s power. That loss would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for the state to meet its long-term clean energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction mandates. “The loss of Millstone would have been catastrophic for our state and our region,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement announcing the agreement. “The shutdown of the plant would have exposed the New England region to a nearly 25 percent increase in carbon emissions, increased risk of rolling blackouts, billions of dollars in power replacement costs, and the loss of more than 1,500 well-paying jobs.”
What will become of Three Mile Island’s nuclear waste if the plant closes?— THREE MILE ISLAND’s short-term survival currently rests with Harrisburg lawmakers and lobbyists but the storied nuclear power plant’s ultimate fate is already known: It will eventually be decommissioned and, for now at least, its radioactive waste will be stored on site for years to come. The specifics are still murky but the outcomes of other shuttered reactors illustrate a long and often fraught process. In decades past, spent fuel and other contaminated materials were shipped to federal compounds where they were warehoused or buried underground. Growing health and environmental concerns put a stop to that practice, resulting in radioactive elements being stored at dozens of reactors across the country. “Nobody wants the spent fuel near them,” said Don Hudson, who lives downstream from the defunct Maine Yankee plant and chairs its community advisory panel. “It’s the biggest NIMBY on the planet and nobody wants to deal with it.” For decades, federal officials sought a location to serve as a permanent repository – one remote, secure and stable enough to avoid calamity or widespread contamination. Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada was designated as just such a place in 1987 but it faced numerous setbacks and was abandoned by the Obama administration in 2011. The Trump administration sent mixed signals in its first two years. The president’s 2020 budget proposal asked Congress for billions of dollars to restart the project. If Congress approves, the repository would still be years (and potentially decades) in the making. In the absence of a long-term solution, the country’s nuclear power plants are left with one option: indefinite on-site storage. That’s what will happen at Three Mile Island, where Exelon plans to build an interim spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) that will hold spent fuel in the middle of the current plant, between the two units’ cooling towers. As of 2017, the first phase of that project was expected to cost $85 million.
US is losing the nuclear energy export race to China, Russia. Here’s the Trump plan to change that – The Trump administration is preparing a new push to help American companies compete in the race to build the next generation of nuclear power plants around the world – a competition the U.S. is currently losing.In doing so, the administration also aims to push back on the growing dominance of Russia and China in the space, preventing them from expanding their international influence by forging long-lasting nuclear ties with foreign powers. The State Department plans to expand cooperation with countries pursuing atomic energy long before those nations ever purchase a nuclear reactor. By facilitating early stage talks, the U.S. intends to put American companies first in line to build tomorrow’s fleet of nuclear power plants overseas. “We still lead the world in nuclear technology innovation. Our big challenge is taking that incredible IP and those incredible technological innovative breakthroughs and bringing them to market.” -Ed McGinnis, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy To be sure, the Energy and Commerce departments actively facilitate U.S. nuclear cooperation with their foreign counterparts. But the State Department now intends to push the issue in talks at the highest levels of government, making it clear that Washington believes cooperation in the nuclear realm is central to its strategic relationships. But even with the State Department lending its diplomatic heft, winning nuclear energy contracts won’t be easy. Russia and China are aggressively pursuing those deals at a time when the U.S. has struggled to build reactors at home and no longer enriches uranium to fuel those facilities. “We have lost tremendous ground. We were once 90 percent of the market globally. We’re down to 20 [percent] if we’re lucky,” Ed McGinnis, the Department of Energy’s principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in an interview.
San Diego judge dismisses U.S. sailors’ Fukushima radiation lawsuits, rules Japan has jurisdiction – A San Diego federal judge has dismissed two class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of hundreds of U.S. sailors who claimed they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during a humanitarian mission in Japan following 2011’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. In the end, the case came down to a jurisdiction issue. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino ruled in orders Monday that Japanese law applies to these claims and leaves open the possibility for the sailors to pursue recourse there. The sailors were serving on the then-San Diego-based carrier Ronald Reagan off Korea when the earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. The quake set off a tsunami that flooded Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing the plant’s radioactive core to melt down and release radiation. The Reagan and other crew in the vessel’s strike force responded under a relief effort known as Operation Tomodachi – a Japanese word meaning “friends” – staying off the coast for more than three weeks aiding Japanese survivors. The Navy detected low levels of contamination in the air and on 17 crewmembers two days after the disaster and repositioned the ship. Attorneys for the sailors said the radiation caused several ailments, including thyroid and gallbladder cancer, rectal bleeding, headaches and hair loss. Some have died. The lawsuits blamed “negligently designed and maintained” boiling water reactors at the plant and also accused the power utility of denying and underplaying the disaster. The sailors sued the Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as TEPCO, as well as U.S. company General Electric, which designed the reactors in California. The suits sought at least $1 billion each and include more than 400 sailors.
Brazilian Nuclear Fuel Convoy Attacked By Heavily Armed Gangsters – Brazillian gangsters armed with assault rifles attacked a convoy of trucks carrying nuclear fuel in Southern Brazil earlier this week, according to police reports. The convoy left the headquarters of Indústrias Nucleares de Brasil in Resend around 6:20 am Tuesday and headed towards the Angra Nuclear Power Plant located at the Central Nuclear Almirante Álvaro Alberto on the Itaorna Beach in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Within the convoy, there were two specialized trucks hauling uranium pellets were escorted by the Federal Highway Police and vehicles of the State Environmental Institute. According to Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, the convoy was peppered by heavy fire two miles north of the power plant. The Brazilian Federal Highway Police said in a statement that its vehicles were escorting the nuclear fuel convoy when the attack occurred. Law enforcement returned fire, which developed into a fierce shootout. The statement from authorities said attackers retreated when law enforcement personnel returned fire.The convoy arrived at its final destination [nuclear power plant] without further incident 20 minutes following the attack.
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