Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately: Coronavirus News 08 February 2020
The flu has already killed 10,000 across US as world frets over coronavirus – While the new coronavirus ravages much of China and world leaders rush to close their borders to protect citizens from the outbreak, the flu has quietly killed 10,000 in the U.S. so far this influenza season. At least 19 million people have come down with the flu in the U.S. with 180,000 ending up in the hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The flu season, which started in September and can run until May, is currently at its peak and poses a greater health threat to the U.S. than the new coronavirus, physicians say. The new virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, has sickened roughly 17,400 and killed 362 people mostly in that country as of Monday morning. “In the U.S., it’s really a fear based on media and this being something new,” Dr. Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist at NYU Langone Health, said of the new coronavirus. “When in reality, people can take measures to protect themselves against the flu, which is here and prevalent and has already killed 10,000 people.” The coronavirus outbreak, however, is proving to be more deadly than the flu. It has killed roughly 2% of the people who have contracted it so far, according to world health officials. That compares with a mortality rate of 0.095% for the flu in the U.S., according to CDC estimates for the 2019-2020 flu season. The CDC estimates that 21 million people will eventually get the flu this season. “Two percent case fatality is still a tough case fatality when you compare it to the case fatality for the seasonal flu or other things,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, told reporters Wednesday. “A relatively mild virus can cause a lot of damage if a lot of people get it,” he added. “And this is the issue at the moment. We don’t fully understand it.”
New Outbreak Of H5N1 Bird Flu In China’s Hunan Province During Coronavirus Lockdown – As China’s Hunan province remains in the midst of a quarantine lockdown over a mysterious outbreak of a novel coronavirus, another strange pathogen has been reported in the same area. In addition to the novel coronavirus, a “highly pathogenic” strain of the H5N1 bird flu has also been reported in China’s Hunan province, but luckily, this illness does not appear to have crossed the barrier between animals and humans in this case.According to a report from Reuters over the weekend, the outbreak was initially reported on a farm in the city of Shaoyang, which is also in the Hunan province. However, despite being in the same province, Shaoyang is still about a 6-hour drive from Wuhan where the other outbreak is taking place.China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reported that 4,500 chickens on the farm lost their lives to the H5N1 avian flu, which was over half of the chickens on the farm. A total of 7,850 chickens were on the farm before the outbreak occurred, and the ones that remained alive were culled by the government as a matter of caution.The outbreak may have spread to other farms, because in total, the Chinese government has admitted to euthanizing roughly 17,828 chickens to prevent the outbreak from spreading even further. The United States Geological Survey considers the bird flu to be a “high pathogenic” virus.
Bird Flu Is Back – China Faces Yet Another Viral Plague – First, they faced food shortages (and soaring food costs) as African Swine Fever swept across the nation cutting China’s pork production in half and slaughtering hundreds of millions of their porcine pals. Then, they faced total economic shutdown and social lockdown as the deadly Wuhan Coronavirus spread across the nation faster than a Buzzfeed ‘which cat suits your social justice needs best’ article, killing hundreds and leaving 10s of thousands sick. And now, as if things weren’t bad enough, according to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Information Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, bird flu is back! As Reuters reports, the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak of H5N1 subtype of poultry occurred in Shuangqing District, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province… close to the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The case reportedly occurred on a farm with 7,850 chickens, 4,500 of which have died of the bird flu. Authorities have culled 17,828 poultry following the outbreak. As a reminder, Avian influenza is deadly to most birds, and it’s deadly to humans and to other mammals that catch the virus from birds. Since the first human case in 1997, H5N1 has killed nearly 60% of the people who have been infected. But unlike human flu bugs, H5N1 bird flu does not spread easily from person to person. The very few cases of human-to-human transmission have been among people with exceptionally close contact, such as a mother who caught the virus while caring for her sick infant.
4 Plagues Are Marching Across Asia Simultaneously: Coronavirus, African Swine Fever, H5N1 Bird Flu, & H1N1 Swine Flu – The coronavirus outbreak that is raging all over China right now has been making headlines on a daily basis all over the globe, and rightly so. At this point we don’t know if it will ultimately become a horrifying global pandemic that will affect tens of millions of people, but what we do know is that the virus spreads very easily and the number of cases has been rising at an exponential rate. Meanwhile, three other plagues have also been marching across Asia, and most people in the western world don’t even realize that this is happening. What I am about to share with you in this article is quite chilling, and the months ahead will be very dark if these plagues continue to spread. Long before we ever heard of this new coronavirus, African Swine Fever was devastating pork farms from one end of China to the other. There is no vaccine for “pig ebola”, there is no cure, and once it hits a farm the only thing that can be done is to kill every single pig so that it won’t spread anywhere else. But even though draconian measures have been implemented, it has just kept spreading, and at this point “about two-thirds of China’s swine herd has been lost”… Meanwhile, there has been a very alarming resurgence of the H5N1 bird flu in China. According to the Daily Mail, more than 17,000 chickens have been culled in an effort to keep this new outbreak from spreading further… Unlike African Swine Fever, humans can become infected by the H5N1 bird flu. And according to the World Health Organization, the mortality rate for human cases is approximately 60 percent. On top of everything else, the H1N1 swine flu is starting to spread once again. In fact, more than 100,000 people in Taiwan “sought medical treatment for flu-like symptoms at hospitals across the country over the past week” and there have been 13 confirmed deaths…
Agricultural area residents in danger of inhaling toxic aerosols – Excess selenium from fertilizers and other natural sources can create air pollution that could lead to lung cancer, asthma, and Type 2 diabetes, according to new UC Riverside research. The research team conducted previous UCR studies in the Salton Sea area, which contains selenium rich wetlands and soils toxic to birds and fish. These’ studies also revealed that the area’s concentration of aerosols, which are solid or liquid particles suspended in air, have increased in recent years. However, the full chemical makeup of the aerosols, or whether they would have any effects on humans, remained unknown. This motivated the team to create similar aerosol particles in the laboratory and study them. The team’s new paper, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, details the composition of the selenium-rich aerosols and describes the multiple ways these particles can damage human lungs. According to Bahreini, dangerous aerosols can occur anywhere there’s excessive selenium in the soil, making agricultural workers and those living near contaminated soils more vulnerable to illnesses. Along with naturally occurring selenium in the environment, the excess from manmade sources gets digested by soil microbes and processed by plants. Once excreted, the selenium-containing vapors, which include the compound dimethyl selenide, mix with other airborne chemicals and eventually become the toxic selenium-containing aerosol, which stays in the air for roughly a week. Selenium in small amounts is important for regulating the immune system. Deficiency can cause thyroid issues, slowed growth, and impaired bone metabolism. As with most substances, too much can be poisonous. An excess of selenium can lead to swollen lungs, garlic breath, gastrointestinal disorders, neurological damage, and hair loss. Scientists once believed dimethyl selenide was less toxic than other forms of selenium. In fact, Bahreini said scientists once proposed planting specific grasses in wetlands and soils with excessive amounts of selenium to allow digestion and evaporation of selenium-containing vapors as a way to remediate these sites. However, earlier mouse studies showed the aerosols can cause lung injury and inflammation in mice. According to Ying-Hsuan Lin, an assistant professor of environmental toxicology at UCR, this newest study also shows how dimethyl selenide can form aerosols and affect humans.
Locust Swarms Prompt Somalia to Declare National Emergency — Large swarms of locusts have ravaged crops in East Africa, prompting authorities in Somalia to declare a national emergency, making it the first country in the region to do so, as Al Jazeera reported. As EcoWatch noted last week, this locust storm came across the Red Sea from Yemen and first attacked Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia. Some Ethiopian farmers lost their entire crop yield to the notoriously voracious pests, which can eat their entire weight in 24 hours. Put another way, a small swarm can eat enough food to feed 35,000 people in 24 hours.The ravenous swarms that have migrated over Somalia pose “a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation,” said the country’s Ministry of Agriculture in a statement, as the BBC reported. The invasion has authorities worried that the situation will not be under control by the time the harvest season begins in April.”Food sources for people and their livestock are at risk,” the statement added, according to Al Jazeera. “The desert swarms are uncommonly large and consume huge amounts of crops and forage.”The country’s statement and emergency declaration is designed to focus efforts and raise money to contain the invasion. Because the country has unstable food security, it cannot use planes to spray insecticides from above. Somalia needs surveillance, data collection, reporting and control activities before the April harvest, the agriculture ministry said in an emailed statement, as Bloomberg reported.”Given the severity of this desert locust outbreak, we must commit our best efforts to protect the food security and livelihoods of Somali people,” said Minister of Agriculture Said Hussein Iid, as Al Jazeera reported. “If we don’t act now, we risk a severe food crisis that we cannot afford.” East Africa is already experiencing a high degree of food insecurity, with more than 19 million people facing acute hunger, according to the regional Food Security and Nutrition Working Group, as Al Jazeera reported. To the southwest of Somalia, Kenya is facing the worst locust invasion it has seen in 70 years, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), as the BBC reported. The FAO has asked for international help in fighting the swarms, saying that without containment the swarms may grow 500 times by June. In its update, the FAO warned that the swarms are moving south toward Uganda and that breeding has taken place. “Breeding during February will cause a further increase with numerous hopper bands in all [Kenya, Ethopia, and Somalia],” the FAO said. “Some swarms may still reach Uganda and South Sudan in the coming days.” The FAO’s map of locust swarms shows a migration from Pakistan to Yemen. Pakistan, like Somalia, declared a state of emergency over locust swarms on Friday.
Second monarch butterfly sanctuary worker found dead in Mexico – A second worker at Mexico’s famed monarch butterfly sanctuary has been found murdered, sparking concerns that the defenders of one of Mexico’s most emblematic species are being slain with impunity.The body of Raúl Hernflndez Romero, a part-time tour guide, was found on Saturday, showing injuries possibly inflicted by a sharp object, according to prosecutors in the western state of Michoacfln.Hernflndez had been reported missing on 27 January in the town of Angangueo, in the heart of the federally protected Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a Unesco world heritage site some 180km west of Mexico City.His death came just days after the body of Homero Gómez Gonzfllez, who managed the El Rosario monarch butterfly reserve, was discovered floating in a well with a head wound. Gómez Gonzalez had been reported missing two weeks earlier. Officials in the state of Michoacfln said they were unsure if the two deaths were linked – or related to the men’s work in the butterfly reserve. The state has seen a rising tide of violence in recent years, and the region around the monarch butterfly reserve has been rife with illegal logging, despite a ban imposed to protect the monarchs, which winter in the pine- and fir-covered hills.Some illegal clearcutting is also carried out to allow for the planting of avocado orchards – one of Mexico’s most lucrative crops and an important part of Michoacfln’s economy.The deaths again called attention to the disturbing trend in Mexico of environmental defenders being k illed as they come into conflict with developers or local crime groups, who often have political and police protection.
Fireflies Face Extinction From Habitat Loss, Light Pollution and Pesticides, Study Says – A study published in BioScience Monday set out to assess the greatest threats to the world’s approximately 2,000 species of fireflies. While very little population data exists for most species of the “iconic” glowing beetles, researchers in the field have observed a decline in recent years.”We looked around and said, ‘huh, there just don’t seem to be as many fireflies around as there used to be,'” lead study author and Tufts University biology professor Sara Lewis, who has spent her career studying the mating rituals of a few firefly species, told Popular Science. So the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) established a Firefly Specialist Group in 2018 to assess the glowing insects‘ conservation status. As part of that work, they sent out a survey to 350 members of the Fireflyers International Network asking them the chief risks faced by the species they studied. The answer? Habitat loss, artificial light and pesticides, in that order. “Lots of wildlife species are declining because their habitat is shrinking,” Lewis said in a Tufts press release, “so it wasn’t a huge surprise that habitat loss was considered the biggest threat.” However, some firefly species are particularly vulnerable because they require very specific conditions. The Malaysian firefly Pteroptyx tener, famous for its synchronized light shows, needs mangroves to flourish. Previous research had noted the species’ decline due to the clearing of mangroves to plant palm oil plantations and aquaculture farms. Artificial light is a major problem for fireflies because they use their famous bioluminescence to find mates, and bright human lights can disrupt these courtship signals. “In addition to disrupting natural biorhythms – including our own – light pollution really messes up firefly mating rituals,” study coauthor and Tufts PhD candidate Avalon Owens explained in the press release. The use of agricultural pesticides like organophosphates and neonicotinoids threatens fireflies, especially during their larval stages, when they spend as many as two years living below the ground or underwater. This makes them especially sensitive to pesticides that end up on lawns or in the soil, according to Popular Science. Indeed, the plight of fireflies is reflected across the insect class. A November 2019 study warned that 41 percent of insects are threatened with extinction, which could lead to an “insect apocalypse” with serious consequences for humans and other life on Earth.
Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction – study — Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say. A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”. Peter Soroye, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa and the study’s lead author, said: “We found that populations were disappearing in areas where the temperatures had gotten hotter. If declines continue at this pace, many of these species could vanish forever within a few decades.”The team used data collected over a 115-year period on 66 bumblebee species across North America and Europe to develop a model simulating “climate chaos” scenarios. They were able to see how bumblebee populations had changed over the years by comparing where the insects were now to where they used to be. Dr Tim Newbold, of University College London’s Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, said: “We were surprised by how much climate change has already caused bumblebee declines. Our findings suggest that much larger declines are likely if climate change accelerates in the coming years, showing that we need substantial efforts to reduce climate change if we are to preserve bumblebee diversity.” Bumblebees play a key role in pollinating crops such as tomatoes, squash and berries. The researchers say their methods could be used to predict extinction risk and identify areas where conservation actions are needed. The research is published in the journal Science.
Why rare beetles are being smuggled to Japan at an alarming rate – At 3 a.m. on a February morning in 2019, Reynaldo Zambrana is slashing at vegetation with a machete on a forested mountainside about 60 miles northeast of Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. In the end, this hunt yields three Dynastes satanas, big shiny black scarab beetles endemic to Bolivia and known locally as lightbulb breakers. Along with the Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules), they’re members of the subfamily of rhinoceros beetles. With their impressive horns, they’re coveted by bug lovers, especially in Japan. Every January to May, satanas hunters in the mountainous municipality of Coroico hope to earn up to $30 for each live beetle they snag. On display in pet shops in Japan, the showiest satanas beetles may have a price tag of $500. “On a good morning, we can catch up to five,” he says. “In a season, about 70 beetles can be captured per person. The largest I caught was 14 centimeters [five and a half inches].” In Bolivia, capturing, collecting, or storing wild animals has been prohibited since 1990, and laws allow for prison time of up to six years for people who get caught. Bolivia’s Environment Ministry classifies the satanas beetle as endangered, and under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which regulates cross-border trade in animals and plants, importing and exporting them, is strictly regulated. Japan’s Invasive Alien Species Act – which aims to prevent adverse effects from introduced animals and plants on ecosystems, human security, agriculture, forestry, and fishing – prohibits the import of 148 species of animals and plants. Satanas and Hercules beetles, however, aren’t among them. Entomologist Fernando Guerra Serrudo, an associate researcher at the Bolivian fauna collection, with the Institute of Ecology and the National Museum of Natural History in La Paz, worries about the scale of the trade in Dynastes beetles. “Illegal insect traffic moves a lot of money,” he says. “You can even sell fleas on the internet. Any type of insect has a price, and there are buyers.” He adds, “If high numbers of individuals continue to be extracted, the [beetles] will disappear.’’
Pesticides Are Killing off the Andean Condor – High above the Argentinian plains, an Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) – one of the world’s largest flying birdspecies – catches the distinctive aroma of decaying flesh on the wind. It’s quickly joined by other condors, perhaps a dozen or more, who start circling in the familiar pattern of all carrion-loving vultures. Soon the massive condors spy the source of the delicious smell: a dead sheep or goat lying in a field. The hungry birds quickly angle in for descent, land around the body and begin to feed, tearing into the skin and meat with their sharp beaks.Then the condors also begin to die.At first they appear merely disoriented. Then they start to stumble, convulse and fall around the dead sheep. A few may try to fly, flapping mighty wings that span 10 feet – only to crash to the ground just a few yards away. Eventually the field is littered with dead condors. Few, if any, escape.This gruesome scene has played out several times in Argentina in recent years. In one incident that made worldwide headlines, 34 Andean condors died at a single site in 2018 – a major blow to a species with an estimated population of just 6,700 mature individuals, about 2,500 of which live in Argentina.What’s killing these birds? Tragically, it’s a case of persecution by pesticide. Livestock owners who needlessly fear the imposing condors – which only eat carrion (not live prey) – attract the birds with dead sheep and other animals laced with powerful, illegal neurotoxin pesticides such as carbofuran and parathion. They know that anything that eats the carcasses will quickly die – in theory, leaving the rest of nearby livestock “safe” from predators.Andean condors aren’t the only target. Farmers also use the pesticide-laden bodies to lure in pumas, foxes, lynx, eagles and other predators that really do occasionally prey upon livestock.But it’s condors that have been hit hardest by the practice. A new paper published Jan. 15 in the journalBiological Conservation calls the poisonings “the greatest threat to the Andean condor.”
Armed ecoguards funded by WWF ‘beat up Congo tribespeople’ Exclusive: Inquiry into $21.4m conservation project reports ‘credible’ evidence of abuse Armed ecoguards partly funded by the conservation group WWF to protect wildlife in the Republic of the Congo beat up and intimidated hundreds of Baka pygmies living deep in the rainforests, an investigation into a landmark global conservation project has heard. A team of investigators sent to northern Congo by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to assess allegations of human rights abuses gathered “credible” evidence from different sources that hunter-gatherer Baka tribespeople living close to a proposed national park had been subjected to violence and physical abuse from the guards over years, according to a leaked draft of the report. The allegations, reported to the UN last year, included Baka tribespeople being beaten by the ecoguards, the criminalisation and illegal imprisonment of Baka men, summary evictions from the forest, the burning and destruction of property, and the confiscation of food. In addition, the UNDP’s social and environmental compliance unit heard how the ecoguards allegedly treated the Baka men as “sub-human” and humiliated some Baka women by forcing them to take off their clothes and “be like naked children”. The report says: “These beatings occur when the Baka are in their camps along the road as well as when they are in the forest. They affect men, women and children. Other reports refer to ecoguards pointing a gun at one Baka to force him to beat another and guards taking away the machetes of the Baka, then beating them with those machetes. “There are reports of Baka men having been taken to prison and of torture and rape inside prison. The widow of one Baka man spoke about her husband being so ill-treated in prison that he died shortly after his release. He had been transported to the prison in a WWF-marked vehicle.” The draft report, dated 6 January 2020, adds: “The violence and threats are leading to trauma and suffering in the Baka communities. It is also preventing the Baka from pursuing their customary livelihoods, which in turn is contributing to their further marginalisation and impoverishment.”
State of the Union 2020: Trump touts trillion tree initiative – During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Trump didn’t breathe a word about climate change, the most serious threat to our security, health, economy, and natural world. He did, however, mention his surprising new support for trees.“To protect the environment, days ago, I announced that the United States will join the OneTrillion Trees Initiative, an ambitious effort to bring together government and the private sector to plant new trees in America and all around the world,” Trump said. Last month, Trump announced that the US would join the program at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “We will continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing our trees and our forests,” Trump said at the event, but didn’t add any details about what the US would do to participate.The trillion tree program is also the newfound passion of Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce; at Davos, he launched a platform to manage it, called 1T.org. The company has also pledged to “support and mobilize the conservation and restoration of 100 million trees over the next decade.” The idea is that tree planting is a nature-based solution to climate change, since trees and soil can take in and store the heat-trapping carbon from the atmosphere that is warming the planet. Recently, there’s been a big surge in interest in this approach, especially since a controversial study in 2019 found that fully restoring degraded forests around the world would undo a large share of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.This idea seems to have struck a chord with some Republicans lately. Last year, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AK), wrote an editorial calling for preserving forests by creating markets for sustainable forest products like wood pellet biofuels and timber construction materials. This week, Westerman is expected to unveil a bill that would commit the US to planting 3.3 billion trees a year for the next 30 years. “The pragmatic, proactive thing to do is to plant forests and manage them so that you’re actually pulling carbon out of the atmosphere,” Westerman told the Hill.
Trophy ‘Dream Hunt’ With Donald Trump Jr. Starts Bidding at $10,000 – A national hunting group is under fire from animal rights groups for auctioning off the opportunity to spend a week in close quarters with Donald Trump Jr. in Alaska for a luxury “dream hunt” of Sitka black-tailed deer. The Safari Club International (SCI) will auction the trip at its annual convention. Bidding currently stands at $10,000. “This annual event is the largest meeting in the world of people who celebrate the senseless killing, buying, and selling of dead animals for bragging rights,” Humane Society president and CEO Kitty Block told The Guardian Tuesday. “As our planet suffers an extinction crisis, it is business as usual for the trophy hunting industry and SCI, who continue to revel in spending millions of dollars every year to destroy imperiled wildlife.” According to The Guardian: The four-day event organized by Safari Club International (SCI) and advertised as a “hunters’ heaven,” will culminate on Saturday with an auction for a week-long Sitka black-tailed deer hunt in Alaska with Trump Jr, his son, and a guide. At the time of writing, bidding for the yacht-based expedition stands at $10,000 (£7,685). Other prizes include the chance to shoot an elephant on a 14-day trip in Namibia, an all-inclusive hunt package to Zimbabwe to kill buffalo, giraffe and wildebeest, and a 10-day crocodile hunting expedition in South Africa. The proceeds from the auction, which campaigners say could exceed $5m, will fund SCI’s “hunter advocacy and wildlife conservation efforts,” according to the organization. Trump Jr.’s presence at the event led Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson and member Al Jardine to call on their former bandmates to pull out of a scheduled appearance at the conference. “This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to,” tweeted Wilson, linking to a petition against the performance. The president’s son will deliver a keynote address to the convention, a move that Independent reporter Chris Riotta noted was a bit on the nose for SCI, a group that claims to be concerned with conservation and protection.
Koalas Found ‘Massacred’ at Logging Site — Australia‘s iconic koalas cannot catch a break. Nearly one third of the koalas in the state of New South Wales may have died in the country’s devastating wildfire season, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC). And now, reports have emerged that dozens of the animals were killed at a timber plantation in the state of Victoria.”Australia should be ashamed,” 63-year-old Helen Oakley, who discovered the koalas while hiking in the area Wednesday, said in a Facebook video reported by ABC. “They’ve bulldozed 140 acres down and just killed all of our koalas.”Oakley discovered the dead and injured koalas at a blue gum plantation near Cape Bridgewater in southwestern Victoria. She said she had found 10 dead koalas and dozens more trapped in blue gum stands on the property. Some of the trees had been bulldozed with koalas still in them.Victoria Animal Justice Party member of parliament Andy Meddick visited the scene Sunday and said he had found trees “bulldozed into piles,” according to The Guardian.”I saw at least 10 bodies in just one of those piles. A couple had literally been crushed to death when these trees have been uprooted,” he said. “In one instance, a koala had her arm stuck between two branches and she had starved to death. Animals have been killed, injured and left to starve by whoever has done this.”Friends of the Earth described the scene as a “massacre,” according to AFP. Victoria’s Conservation Regulation said it had looked at more than 80 koalas since arriving at the site Friday and that it had to euthanize around 30, The Guardian reported. Chief conservation regulator Kate Gavens said that at least 40 koalas had died, but that number was expected to rise as officials looked through another 10 kilometers (approximately 6.2 miles) of downed trees.
Hazard reduction burning had little to no effect in slowing extreme bushfires – Hazard reduction burning had little to no effect in slowing the most severe fires that devastated more than 5m hectares across New South Wales this summer, an analysis has found. Forest scientists from the University of Melbourne said initial results suggested hazard reduction was best used in a targeted way around assets to help protect them from less intense fires. It challenges claims by some politicians that state governments should substantially increase hazard reduction, possibly to meet a target of 5% of land each year. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has suggested he may introduce national standards that would report on how much hazard reduction the states carried out each year. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Morrison said hazard reduction was at least as important as reducing greenhouse gas emissions to protect people as fire seasons worsened. The University of Melbourne desktop analysis used Rural Fire Service data to compare the size and severity of this season’s bushfires area with hazard reduction burns over the past five years. The majority of the area in which there had been prescribed burning had been razed again by bushfire in the past three months. Advertisement Patrick Baker, a professor of silviculture and forest ecology, said the prescribed burning did not “seem to have done much at all” in areas that faced a crowning bushfire that burned the canopy. He said the fire that devastated the NSW south coast between Batemans Bay and Jervis Bay over the new year scored 3.95 out of 4 on a severity scale despite recent hazard reduction burns in the area, some of which scored up to 3.8. “Pretty much the whole area was torched,”
Australia on standby for fire threat as heat, winds return – (Reuters) – Australian authorities warned on Friday of severe fire danger in densely populated areas this weekend, declaring a state of emergency in the capital, Canberra, as soaring temperatures and strong whipped up huge, unpredictable blazes. FILE PHOTO: Melted metal from a vehicle destroyed in the recent bushfires is pictured in Conjola Park, New South Wales, Australia, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott With temperatures above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), emergency officials urged people to prepare for fires in parts of the southeast including hundreds of miles of coast south of Sydney that has already been badly hit in months of blazes. “Tomorrow will be the peak of the heatwave in NSW with some areas expected to reach extreme heatwave conditions,” the New South Wales (NSW) state Rural Fire Service said in a Facebook post late on Friday. Australia’s bushfires that have killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals since September. About 2,500 homes have been destroyed as more than 11.7 million hectares (117,000 sq km) have been razed. Andrew Barr, chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), said the area’s first state of emergency since fatal wildfires in 2003 indicated the danger this weekend. Four people were killed and almost 500 homes destroyed in 2003. Officials said an out-of-control fire in the ACT’s south, on the doorstep of Canberra, had grown to 185 sq km, almost 8% of the territory’s land mass.
Australia floods: Fire-hit Australia faces ‘dangerous’ downpours BBC – The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) is braced for severe wet weather this weekend as downpours ease the bushfire crisis in the region.Severe weather warnings for rain, winds and flooding have been issued for coastal areas of the eastern state.Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) warned of “dangerous conditions” on Saturday and Sunday.There has already been flooding in Sydney and other areas along the coast.Friday was the wettest day recorded in well over a year in Sydney, where roads were closed and public transport delayed.Other NSW towns faced flood waters as well, including Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour, where 280mm and 250mm of rain fell respectively.The heavy rains are expected to continue until early next week, providing relief to some drought and fire-ravaged areas.NSW Rural Fire Service said the rain had extinguished a third of the blazes there, but as of Friday, 43 were still burning.”Good rainfall is being recorded in parts of the state, with a hope it continues to drop where needed most,” the fire service said. A weather system developing off the east coast of New South Wales is forecast to intensify over the weekend, after moving south from neighbouring Queensland. The BOM has issued a severe weather warning for a large stretch of coastline, from Coffs Harbour in the north to Batemans Bay in the south.
The Shocking Number of Florida Manatees Killed by Boats Last Year – Florida manatees had another deadly year in 2019. An estimated 531 manatees died in Florida waters in the past 12 months. That’s a significant decrease from the number of deaths in 2018, when 824 manatees died, but it still represents a nearly 10 percent loss to their population in the state. Some manatees die from natural causes each year, but most of this year’s mortalities were caused by a particularly human element: According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which keeps track of manatee mortality, at least 136 manatees died last year after being struck by speeding watercraft. That’s nearly two times the number of manatees killed by boats in 2014. The number of boat strikes started to climb in 2016 – the same year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed downlisting the species’ conservation status from “endangered” to the lesser category of “threatened.”As a result of this and other threats, manatee populations appear to be on the decline again. The most recent annual synoptic survey, conducted at the beginning of 2019, found 5,733 manatees in Florida waters – down from 6,620 just two years earlier. (Florida uses these surveys to provide a general view of manatee populations and but does not use them to assess long-term trends.) What else killed manatees this past year? Watch our video below to learn more
$1 Million Worth of Shark Fins Seized at Miami Port – U.S. government officials found 1,400 pounds of shark fins worth $1 million hidden in boxes in Miami, Florida,according to CNN.In a news release, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the shark fins were hidden in 18 boxes. The dried fins arrived from South America and were likely headed to Asia, the AP reported.Shark fin soup is a delicacy in Asia, especially in China. To meet the demand for the coveted dish, smugglers kill tens of millions of sharks every year, cutting the fin from a live shark, according to conservation groups, as the AP reported.The practice of shark finning is extremely wasteful and cruel. After the fin is cut off from the live shark, the rest of the shark is discarded. The practice has been a federal crime in the U.S. since 2000, according to the Miami Herald.”The goal of this seizure is to protect these species while deterring trackers from using US ports as viable routes in the illegal shark fin trade,” Christina Meister, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said as the Miami Herald reported.An international agreement between governments around the world is aimed to protect vulnerable animalsand plants. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered S pecies (CITES) protects 12 species of sharks, which are included in Appendix II of CITES, according to CNN.”The shipment violated the Lacey Act and included CITES listed species,” Gavin Shire, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Chief of Public Affairs, told CNN. “We are limited to what we can say about this as it is an ongoing case.” While it is illegal in the U.S. to cut off a fin from a live shark and discard the rest of the animal, it is not illegal to traffic or trade shark fins in the U.S.
Researchers to release information on drinking water risks in NC – Coastal communities don’t need to worry too much about hexavalent chromium in their drinking water, but there are other contaminants to watch out for. This is according to statements Duke University professor of Earth and ocean science Dr. Avner Vengosh gave to the News-Times Wednesday in an interview. Dr. Vengosh is one of several researchers who will provide updates and information at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday on threats to drinking water in North Carolina. Four Duke University faculty and one scientist from NCSU will provide updates and background on threats to drinking water sources in the state. In addition to Dr. Vengosh, the scientists providing the updates and information include: Dr. Vengosh told the News-Times his part of the discussion will focus on two issues: coal ash contamination and hexavalent chromium contamination. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hexavalent chromium is an odorless and tasteless metallic element that may pose health risks if levels in drinking water exceed EPA standards. Coal ash, meanwhile, can contain contaminants such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic that, if left unregulated, may contaminate waterways, ground water, drinking water and the air.
How your clothes become microfibre pollution in the sea – From the polar ice cap to the Mariana Trench 10 kilometres below the waves, synthetic microfibres spat out by household washing machines are polluting oceans everywhere. The world has woken up over the last year to the scourge of single-use plastics, from bottles and straws to ear swabs and throw-away bags, resulting in legislation to restrict or ban their use in dozens of countries. A lot of this visible debris winds up in the sea, where it gathers in huge floating islands called gyres, entangles wildlife from turtles to terns, and hangs suspended in water like dead jellyfish. But a major source of marine pollution – microscopic bits of polyester, nylon and acrylic – has up to now gone largely unnoticed, experts say. Most people don’t realise it, but “the majority of our clothes are made from plastic,” said Imogen Napper, a researcher at the University of Plymouth. “We wash our clothes regularly, and hundreds of thousands of fibres come off per wash,” she told AFP, “This could be one of the main sources of the plastic pollution into the environment.” “How do we remove something that is so small?”, she added. A 2015 report from the Ellen McArthur foundation estimated that half-a-million tonnes of microfibres leached into waterways every year, with 53 million tonnes of new textiles produced annually. The average family in the United States and Canada unleashes more than 500 million microfibres into the environment each year, according to the Ocean Wise organisation. The vast majority of those minuscule bits of textile – whether synthetic or not – are intercepted during water treatment, but nearly 900 tonnes winds up in the ocean all the same.
Could the Ohio River have rights? A movement to grant rights to the environment tests the power of local control – Can you imagine if the Ohio River and its tributaries had legal rights? While speculative, the idea isn’t necessarily far-fetched. This month marks the one-year anniversary of residents in Toledo, Ohio, bestowing Lake Erie with its own bill of rights. In 2014, Ohio declared a state of emergency after about 110 people fell sick from an algae bloom and about half a million area residents were instructed not to drink tap water for three days. Unhappy with existing state and federal environmental protection, area activists got creative. Using an emerging legal strategy termed “rights of nature,” they developed a ballot measure to give residents the ability to sue on behalf of Lake Erie, even if they can’t show harm to humans. It’s a unique move – and it’s been challenged by conservative lawmakers and agribusiness groups like the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. Opponents believe the measure will harm area industry and farmers, and after lobbying by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Republican-controlled state Legislature added language intended to nullify it in an appropriations bill signed into law in May. The lake’s bill of rights also faces an ongoing lawsuit from an area farmer who said it wrongly exposes farmers to liability. Thomas Linzey, co-founder and senior legal counsel of the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund [CELDF], sees the creation of the bill of rights as a tool to go beyond the protection offered by existing environmental regulations. His organization helped draft the measure, which has served as inspiration for similar proposals in cities like Buffalo, New York, and Flint, Michigan. “I think Toledo is a real watershed moment,” Linzey said. Residents took local action because “it got bad enough for people to shift gears.” In Pittsburgh, the idea of extending specific rights to a river is hypothetical – the mayor’s office said that rights-of-nature legislation is not currently being discussed. The city, however, was previously a leader in rights-of-nature legislation with a 2010 ordinance that banned natural gas drilling by giving Pittsburgh residents the legal standing to sue on behalf of the natural environment. Ordinances of this type, however, are largely symbolic until courts either uphold or strike them down. “In Pittsburgh and wherever else these laws exist, they’re just sitting there, not doing any good there,” Linzey said. “Folks need to start picking them up and enforcing.”
High water wreaks havoc on Great Lakes, swamping communities (AP) When Rita Alton’s father built the 1,000-square-foot (93-square-meter), brick bungalow in the early 1950s near Manistee, Michigan, more than an acre of land lay between it and the drop-off overlooking the giant freshwater sea. But erosion has accelerated dramatically as the lake approaches its highest levels in recorded history, hurling powerful waves into the mostly clay bluff. Now, the jagged clifftop is about eight feet from Alton’s back deck. “The destruction is just incredible.” On New Year’s Eve, an unoccupied cottage near Muskegon, Michigan, plunged from an embankment to the water’s edge. Another down the coast was dismantled a month earlier to prevent the same fate. High water is wreaking havoc across the Great Lakes, which are bursting at the seams less than a decade after bottoming out. The sharp turnabout is fueled by the region’s wettest period in more than a century that scientists say is likely connected to the warming climate. No relief is in sight, as forecasters expect the lakes to remain high well into 2020 and perhaps longer. The toll is extensive: homes and businesses flooded; roads and sidewalks crumbled; beaches washed away; parks were rendered unusable. Docks that boats previously couldn’t reach because the water was too shallow are now submerged. At one point last year, ferry service was halted in the Lake Erie island community of Put-In-Bay after the vessels’ landing spot disappeared beneath the waves. On Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, portions of the only paved road washed away. Homeowners and agencies are extending battered seawalls, constructing berms and piling stones and sandbags. Some are elevating houses or moving them farther inland. Even shanties in a historic Michigan fishing village dating to 1903 are being raised. The state’s environment department has issued more than 400 permits for such projects. The situation is inspiring soul-searching over how to cope with a long-term challenge unique to this region. While communities along ocean coasts brace for rising seas, experts say the Great Lakes can now expect repeated, abrupt swings between extreme highs and lows. “It wasn’t long ago they were worried about Lake Michigan drying up. Now it’s full,” said Rich Warner, emergency services director for Muskegon County. “All these ups and downs – I don’t know if that’s something you can truly plan for.”
Thailand scraps China-led project to blast open Mekong River (Reuters) – Thailand has scrapped a Chinese-led project to blast rapids on the Mekong River that had been opposed by local people and environmental groups, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday. China initiated a plan to dredge the Mekong River in 2001 to make room for large ships to carry goods from its landlocked southern province of Yunnan to ports in Thailand, Laos, and the rest of Southeast Asia. The plan had been opposed by conservationists and communities in Thailand living along the Mekong River. They feared it would harm the environment and benefit only China. The Thai cabinet agreed to scrap the dredging plan during a weekly meeting on Tuesday. “The communities affected and non-profit groups were against the plan, fearing it would affect the way of life, and China also had no funding for it … So we ended the project,” said Trisulee Trisaranakul, a deputy government spokeswoman. “It didn’t take off yet. We were only doing environmental and social impact assessments,” she told Reuters.
Sea level rise accelerating along US coastline, scientists warn – The pace of sea level rise accelerated at nearly all measurement stations along the US coastline in 2019, with scientists warning some of the bleakest scenarios for inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely.Of 32 tide-gauge stations in locations along the vast US coastline, 25 showed a clear acceleration in sea level rise last year, according to researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Vims).The selected measurements are from coastal locations spanning from Maine to Alaska. About 40% of the US population lives in or near coastal areas.The gathering speed of sea level rise is evident even within the space of a year, with water levels at the 25 sites rising at a faster rate in 2019 than in 2018. The highest rate of sea level rise was recorded along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, with Grand Isle, Louisiana, experiencing a 7.93mm annual increase, more than double the global average. The Texas locations of Galveston and Rockport had the next largest sea level rise increases.Generally speaking, the sea level is rising faster on the US east and Gulf coasts compared with the US west coast, partially because land on the eastern seaboard is gradually sinking.Researchers at Vims said that the current speed-up in sea level rise started around 2013 or 2014 and is probably caused by ocean dynamics and ice sheet loss. Worldwide, sea level rise is being driven by the melting of large glaciers and the thermal expansion of ocean water due to human-induced global heating.“Acceleration can be a game changer in terms of impacts and planning, so we really need to pay heed to these patterns,” said John Boon, Vims emeritus professor and founder of institute’s project to chart sea level rise. The US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has also reported an acceleration in sea level rise, warning that if greenhouse gas emissions are not constrained there may be a worst-case scenario of as much as a 8.2ft increase by 2100, compared with 2000 levels.
Sea Level Rise Is Speeding up Along Most of the U.S. Coast — Sea level rise in most of the U.S. is speeding up.That’s the conclusion of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) latest annual sea level “report card” that measures tide gauges at 32 locations along the U.S. coast. At 25 of the 32 sites, sea level rise accelerated at higher rates in 2019 than it did in 2018.”Acceleration can be a game changer in terms of impacts and planning, so we really need to pay heed to these patterns,” VIMS emeritus professor John Boon said in a university press release.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said that if greenhouse emissions are not reduced, sea levels could rise 8.2 feet from 2000 levels by 2100, The Guardian reported.The VIMS researchers said their findings suggest that U.S. coastal cities may need to start planning for that worst-case scenario.”We have increasing evidence from the tide-gauge records that these higher sea-level curves need to be seriously considered in resilience-planning efforts,” VIMS marine scientist Molly Mitchell said in the press release. The researchers said that sea level rise began to accelerate in 2013 and 2014 due to the movement of the ocean and the melting of ice sheets. So far, sea levels are rising faster on the East and Gulf Coasts than on the West Coast. In the case of the Gulf Coast, fossil fuel extraction is attacking the land on two fronts. Emissions contribute to the climate crisis, which raises sea levels, and the pumping of oil causes land to sink. In 2019, the three locations that saw the highest rates of sea level rise were all on the Gulf: Grand Isle, Louisiana at 7.93 millimeters per year (mm/yr), Rockport, Texas at 6.95 mm/yr and Galveston, Texas at 6.41 mm/yr. Sea level rise rates did also accelerate in seven of eight West Coast stations measured, with the exception of Alaska. “Although sea level has been rising very slowly along the West Coast,” Mitchell said, “models have been predicting that it will start to rise faster. The report cards from the past three years support this idea.” This change would be due to shifting wind patterns caused by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In Alaska, meanwhile, all four stations showed sea levels falling because of mountain building.
The Arctic’s thawing permafrost is releasing a shocking amount of dangerous gases – In the black spruce forests along the Tanana River in central Alaska, scientists watched for years as trees tipped, leaned, and toppled into boggy ground. Over time, the earth below weakened and grew soupy. This once-hard soil, thick with ice, was heating up, sinking and filling with rain and snow melt. Scientists have known for decades that as rising temperatures thaw the northern latitudes, previously frozen soil called permafrost will release greenhouse gases, which in turn will speed up global climate change. But based in part on what they learned by studying Alaska’s “drunken forests,” Turetsky, Jones and a team of experts this week confirmed something else: Warming of small patches of frozen ground that contain large veins of ice will release far more emissions than once thought. This process, called “abrupt thaw,” will probably hit just 5 percent of Arctic permafrost. But that will likely be enough, conservatively, to double permafrost’s overall contribution to the warming of the planet, the team of researchers led by Turetsky concluded in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. “It’s a little change, but it can have a big punch,” Permafrost will still produce fewer emissions than our own burning of coal, oil and natural gas. David Lawrence, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said that – until now – thawing permafrost had been expected to amplify human-caused climate change by about 10 percent. But doubling that figure is significant because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the global organization that estimates how quickly we need to stop burning fossil fuels to keep the worst warming at bay – has not taken permafrost fully into account.
Arctic Permafrost Is Melting so Fast, It’s Gouging Holes in the Landscape – Current estimates of carbon emissions from melting Arctic permafrost rely on a model of a gradual melt. New research has found abrupt thawing of permafrost which means carbon emissions estimates should be doubled. The rate at which permafrost is thawing in the Arctic is gouging holes in the landscape, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has not considered the phenomenon of thermokarst – the degraded land ravaged by an abrupt thaw. When the permafrost that supports the soil disappears, then hillsides collapse and enormous sinkholes suddenly appear, as Wired reported. The effect runs through meters of permafrost and takes a matter of months or a few years. That upends the traditional models of permafrost thawing, which look at a few centimeters of permafrost melt over several decades. The rapid change to the permafrost shocks the landscape, causing an enormous release of carbon. The researchers found that abrupt thawing will happen in less than 20 percent of the permafrost zone, “but could affect half of permafrost carbon through collapsing ground, rapid erosion and landslides,” the authorswrote in the study. Not only does an abrupt thaw release carbon, but it also releases a tremendous amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. So, while only 5 percent of the permafrost may experience abrupt thaw at one time, the emissions will be equal to a much larger area going through a gradual thaw. This can rapidly change the landscape drastically.”Forests can become lakes in the course of a month, landslides occur with no warning, and invisible methane seep holes can swallow snowmobiles whole,” Turetsky said in a statement from the University of Colorado Boulder. “Systems that you could walk on with regular hiking boots and that were dry enough to support tree growth when frozen can thaw, and now all of a sudden these ecosystems turn into a soupy mess,” Turetsky added. The most worrisome permafrost is the type that holds a lot of water because frozen water takes up more space than water. When it thaws it loses a lot of volume. “Where permafrost tends to be lake sediment or organic soils, the type of earth material that can hold a lot of water, these are like sponges on the landscape,” Turetsky said, as Wired reported. “When you have thaw, we see really dynamic and rapid changes.”
Deep ocean oxygen levels may be more susceptible to climate change than expected Much more oxygen than previously thought is transported deep into the ocean interior through a ‘trap door” in the Labrador Sea that some researchers say could be closing as a result of climate change. This was reported by scientists from Dalhousie University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego in a paper published today in the journal Nature Geosciences. They measured the transfer of gases, including oxygen and carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere to depths as great as two kilometres. The oxygen taken up by the ocean over a year in the Labrador Sea was 10 times larger than typically estimated. Large numbers of air bubbles, injected during violent, winter storms, were responsible for the difference. The higher oxygen supply also implies higher-than-expected demand for oxygen by deep-sea ecosystems. The Labrador Sea is one of only a handful of locations worldwide, where the atmosphere and deep ocean connect, directly. A ‘trap door’ to the deep ocean opens there for a few months each winter, when surface water becomes cold and dense enough to sink into and mix with deep, oxygen-deficient waters. “While bubble-mediated gas transfer has been recognized for decades, our measurements show how critically important it is when the ‘trap door’ is open and a vast volume of oxygen-deficient deep ocean water is exposed to the atmosphere,” says Dariia Atamanchuk, a research associate in Dalhousie’s Department of Oceanography and lead author of the study.
Scientists find record warm water in Antarctica, pointing to cause behind troubling glacier melt – A team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the presence of warm water at a vital point underneath a glacier in Antarctica – an alarming discovery that points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising concerns about sea-level rise around the globe. “Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” explains David Holland, director of New York University’s Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Global Sea Level Change, which conducted the research. “If these waters are causing glacier melt in Antarctica, resulting changes in sea level would be felt in more inhabited parts of the world.” The recorded warm waters – more than two degrees above freezing – flow beneath the Thwaites Glacier, which is part of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. The discovery was made at the glacier’s grounding zone – the place at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf and which is key to the overall rate of retreat of a glacier. Thwaites’ demise alone could have significant impact globally. It would drain a mass of water that is roughly the size of Great Britain or the state of Florida and currently accounts for approximately 4 percent of global sea-level rise. Some scientists see Thwaites as the most vulnerable and most significant glacier in the world in terms of future global sea-level rise – its collapse would raise global sea levels by nearly one meter, perhaps overwhelming existing populated areas. Scientists find record warm water in Antarctica, pointing to cause behind troubling glacier melt.
Warming oceans could cause Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, sea level rise – A new study suggests the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is less stable than researchers once thought. As in the past, its collapse in the future is likely. The finding is based in part on the results of a paper published this week in Nature, co-led by University of Wisconsin – Madison atmospheric scientist Feng He and Oregon State University’s Peter Clark, which looks back at the last two time periods in which the planet transitioned from a glacial state, when ice sheets covered large swaths of the globe, into an interglacial state, such as the one we are in now. The goal of the study, He says, was to better understand what contributes to rising sea levels. This has challenged researchers because of the large amount of uncertainty involved in understanding the contributions made by the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. “Essentially, we just don’t know how fast they are going to melt, whether the marine-based Antarctic ice sheet will collapse, or how quickly it will happen – whether it’s 100 years or 1,000 years,” says He, associate scientist in the Center for Climatic Research at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. “By 2200, there is a possibility of 7.5-meter sea level rise when accounting for the instability of the western and eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet.” Overall, the study found that warming below the surface of the planet’s oceans is a significant contributor to ice sheet melt, particularly in the Antarctic, where a large portion of the ice sheet exists under the water. During the last two transitions from glacial into interglacial periods, that warming was largely driven by the disruption of a process known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), akin to an oceanic conveyor belt that carries warm waters northward and cold waters south. Sub-surface warming, also referred to as oceanic forcing, was likely responsible for the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice sheet during Earth’s last interglacial period going back 125,000 years, which led to three meters of sea level rise. Overall, seas rose by up to nine meters, or nearly 30 feet, during the last interglacial period.
Antarctica logs hottest temperature on record with a reading of 18.3C Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C. The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015. A tweet from Argentina’s meteorological agency on Friday revealed the record. The station’s data goes back to 1961. Antarctica’s peninsula – the area that points towards South America – is one of the fastest warming places on earth, heating by almost 3C over the past 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Almost all the region’s glaciers are melting. The Esperanza reading breaks the record for the Antarctic continent. The record for the Antarctic region – that is, everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude – is 19.8C, taken on Signy Island in January 1982.
Fridays for Future Movement Urges Greater Global Focus on Africa’s Climate Champions -The Fridays for Future movement held a press conference Friday focused on the need for the world to better recognize the amazing climate activism taking place in Africa – a continent that is already enduring severe impacts of global heating in spite of its limited contributions to creating the crisis.Climate activists and experts joined the event via video, including Vanessa Nakate of Fridays for Future Uganda, who was cropped out of an Associated Press photo with four white school strikers while attending the World Economic Forum’s summit in Davos, Switzerland last week. The incident put a spotlight on the erasure of Africans in conversations and reporting about the climate emergency.Joining Nakate for the live-streamed conference were movement founder Greta Thunberg of Sweden; Fridays for Future activists Ell Ottosson Jarl of Sweden, Makenna Muigai of Kenya, and Ayakha Melithafa of South Africa; and Ndoni Mcunu, a climate scientist at the Global Change Institute at University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. In a Facebook post about the press conference, Fridays for Future International said that following the photo incident, which the AP called a “terrible mistake” and apologized for, “The media must report fairly and justly on the climate crisis throughout the world.” Not only do journalists and news outlets often lack African voices in climate coverage, they also fail to report on how global heating is impacting the continent. A new CARE International analysis that Common Dreamsreported on this week found that nine of the 10 most under-reported humanitarian crises in the world last year were in Africa, and many of those crises were climate-related. Nakate, according to BuzzFeed, now sees the photo incident at Davos as an opportunity to make climate discussions, including in the media, more inclusive: “After the picture and everything that happened, I received quite a number of messages and support from different parts of the world,” Nakate said. “I believe that the media will start to cover stories from different parts of the world, because I believe that each country has an activist, and every activist has a story to tell, a solution to give.” Thunberg, who was in the photo at Davos and expressed support for Nakate after she was excluded from it, said Friday that “the African perspective is always so under-reported” and with the press conference, she hoped to use her platform to direct some focus to activists on the continent.
Youth Activists Call on California State Teachers Retirement System to End ‘Toxic Relationship’ With Fossil Fuel Companies – Youth climate activists in California descended on the state’s capitol Sacramento on Thursday to demand divestment from the fossil fuel industry from public school teachers’ pension system. “You want to be in a relationship with fossil fuel companies?” Sujeith, a sixth-grader from Oakland, asked the board of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS. “What have they done before other than pollute the planet? That sounds like a toxic relationship.” Thursday’s action was aimed at pressuring the board of CalSTRS, which manages pensions for the state’s public school teachers, to divest from fossil fuels. The fund has claimed that divestment would be a financial burden on its members. “CalSTRS is playing roulette with our pensions and our children’s future by holding onto these doomed assets,” said CalSTRS member Paula Buel, a retired teacher who volunteers with climate advocacy group Fossil Free California.As Common Dreams reported, perceiving fossil fuels as “doomed assets” is no longer unique to the climate movement. CNBC anchor Jim Cramer called the industry “in the death knell phase” on Friday and announced he was no longer recommending investing in fossil fuels.While CalSTRS did vote on Thursday to institute “Belief 9,” a policy statement on the risks of climate investment, that’s no substitute for real action, said Fossil Free California executive director Vanessa Warheit. “We appreciate CalSTRS’ efforts to engage corporations to help mitigate their climate-related risk,” said Warheit. “But engaging with the energy sector – which is currently 100% comprised of fossil fuel companies – is a waste of staff time and resources.”
Georgetown Announces Fossil Fuel Divestment, Students Across U.S. Demand Their Schools Follow Suit – Student-led anti-fossil fuel campaigns at universities across the country pointed to Georgetown University Friday as the school’s board of directors announced it would divest from fossil fuels and redouble its efforts to invest in renewable energy instead.The university’s decision came after a sustained pressure campaign from Georgetown University Fossil Free (GUFF), a student group which submitted multiple proposals to the Georgetown Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility before the panel recommended the divestment this week. The school community also voted on a referendum regarding divestment on Thursday, within more than 90 percent voting in favor.GUFF issued a statement thanking the board of directors for its decision to divest and the school community for participating in the campaign.”We are thrilled that our university has taken this important step in supporting climate justice, student voices, and financial accountability,” GUFF wrote.Similar groups at other schools called on administrators to follow suit:Under Georgetown’s new policy, the board of directors said, “The university will continue to make investments that target a market rate of return in renewable energy, energy efficiency and related areas while freezing new endowment investments in companies or funds whose primary business is the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels.” The school will divest from public securities in fossil fuel companies in the next five years and existing investments in those companies in the next decade.
Risk of ‘stranded assets’ from 2025, new oil report warns – The lack of urgency in setting new regulations to drive climate action is likely to result in a “forceful, abrupt, and disorderly” policy response from 2025 that will seriously hit the fossil-fuel industry, a new report has warned. “We do not know when or how an inevitable policy response will come, which makes it hard for companies to plan,” said Andrew Grant, senior analyst and author of the report of the financial think tank Carbon Tracker published on Friday (31 January). However, according to Grant, preparing in advance and the industry aligning their investments with climate targets “will deliver the highest returns for the lowest risk under any outcome”. The report urges governments to implement policies that limit new investment in fossil fuel projects to ensure a smooth transition towards sustainability, stable prices and predictable valuations. Carbon Tracker’s latest analysis warns companies that their future investments on oil and gas projects based on ‘business as usual’ government policies are likely to be in danger as tougher policies enter into force. Oil companies “risk being left with stranded assets” assuming that governments will not take “forceful action” to limit climate change, Grant said. However, the study indicates that a swift in climate change policies from 2025 onwards could cause sharp changes in oil pricing, wiping out the value that was assumed beforehand. The loss of value of new projects will be mainly driven by investing based on signals sent by the oil price, what can lull investors into “a false sense of security”. Oil demand is expected to grow by 0.6 percent a year over the next five years, before a “dramatic” decline in the oil price takes place over the period 2025-2040, the analysis states. However, the longer that price signals lead to over-investment, the more disruption fossil-fuel industry face later on when increasingly drastic measures are required.
‘Uninsurable and Unhedgeable’: Central Banks Warn of Financial Crisis from Climate Change – Like black swan events, “green swan” events will be very difficult to predict and will hit with little warning. The potential for a cascading series of crises stemming from climate change threatens global financial stability, and the world’s central banks are not equipped to respond to them, or even predict what exactly might unfold, the 100-page BIS report said. The financial risk from climate change is typically put into two categories: physical risk and transition risk. The former refers to natural disasters or some other climate-related calamity that imposes steep costs on society from physical damage, such as a drought or a hurricane. Transition risk refers to the repricing of assets as the global economy shifts towards cleaner energy, such as an oil company losing much of its value following the passage of a painful carbon tax. Both types of risk “are characterized by deep uncertainty and nonlinearity,” BIS said. Worse, they will interact with each other, resulting in feedback loops that could deepen financial stress. The destruction of coastal real estate could trigger bank failures or the collapse of insurance marketsas losses pile up, for example. The ripple effects are difficult to predict, and the 2008-2009 financial crisis is a reminder that the financial system can seize up in an instant. However, green swan events are different from a typical “black swan” event in that while the details or timing of the disaster are unpredictable, there is nevertheless a high degree of certainty that climate catastrophes will indeed happen. And they are “even more serious than most systemic financial crises: they could pose an existential threat to humanity,” the BIS report warned. Central banks have dangerously few tools at their disposal to respond to climate-related financial crises. Ahead of time, central banks can do stress tests, work with financial markets on disclosure, study regulation, and recommend certain policies. They can also exclude debt of carbon-intensive industries when they purchase bonds, for instance, or require lenders to hold more capital reserves. But “climate-related risks will remain largely uninsurable or unhedgeable as long as system-wide action is not undertaken,” the BIS said. This is not the first time that someone has warned about climate change bringing down the financial system. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned for years about the financial risks from a changing climate and did so again recently. Various organizations havewarned of “stranded assets” for years. But the latest report from the BIS is notable because of who is issuing the warning. The BIS is an organization made up of 60 central banks from around the world, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. It’s often likened to the central bank of central banks. In other words, this is not an environmental group or even a collection of socially responsible investors urging a greening of finance. Rather, the world’s most powerful financial institutions are sounding the alarm that “a new global financial crisis triggered by climate change would render central banks and financial supervisors powerless,” as the report warned.
Chevron Seeks to Move All Climate Lawsuits to Federal Courts – Chevron attorney Ted Boutrous has sent letters to three appellate courts, arguing that the recent dismissal of the landmark youth climate case, Juliana v. United States, supports the argument by fossil fuel companies that all climate liability suits belong in federal court and should be similarly dismissed.A three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month dismissed Juliana, but the case was significantly different from the climate liability cases Boutrous argues should be dismissed on the same grounds. In Juliana, the young plaintiffs sued the U.S. government for violating their rights by exacerbating climate change. The Ninth Circuit panel ruled they did not have standing because climate change cannot be addressed through the judicial branch of government and instead must be addressed by the executive and legislative branches. The cases Boutrous refers to in the letters, which were sent Wednesday to the Ninth, Fourth, and First Circuit courts, were filed in state courts against fossil fuel companies, alleging they violated state laws by selling a product they knew to be the main driver of global warming. Boutrous argues the Juliana ruling supports the fossil fuel companies’ argument that claims made by municipalities “arise under federal law, and thus support federal jurisdiction, even if those claims ultimately fail for lack of remedy.”Dozens of municipalities across the country have filed lawsuits against Chevron and other companies seeking compensation for impacts that have already happened and for infrastructure improvements needed to protect their residents from the increasing effects of climate change. The communities emphasize that these companies knew decades ago their products would cause these impacts.The jurisdictional question has been hotly contested in all of the suits, with the municipalities trying to get the cases heard in state court under state laws, and the industry fighting to put them in federal court, where they think they have a better chance of shaking the suits – thus the new emphasis on the federal dismissal of Juliana. Doug Kysar, a deputy dean and professor at Yale Law School, said the Juliana case is far different from the liability cases and judges are unlikely to adopt Boutrous’ logic. “From a legal perspective, the relevance of the recent Juliana opinion is slim to nonexistent,” Kysar said. “The defendants’ argument, which … seems to suggest that all climate liability suits must be heard in federal court, is not rooted in law but in a perception that federal courts will cater to the defendants’ economic interests.”
Rex Tillerson Questions Human Role in Curbing Climate Change— Rex Tillerson, the former U.S. secretary of state under President Donald Trump and ex-chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp., told an industry conference in Houston that he questions whether there is anything humans can do to combat climate change. “With respect to our ability to influence it, I think that’s still an open question,” Tillerson said Tuesday at the Argus Americas Crude Summit. “Our belief in the ability to influence it is based upon some very, very complicated climate models that have very wide outcomes.” Tillerson’s comments stand in stark contrast to the scientific consensus that cutting emissions can help slow humanity’s contribution to global warming. The remarks come less than a month after New York’s attorney general said she wouldn’t appeal a court ruling rejecting the state’s claim that Exxon misled investors for years about its internal planning for risks associated with climate change. Exxon doesn’t dispute that its operations produce greenhouse gases or that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change, according to court documents from that case. Within weeks of his promotion to CEO in 2006, the Exxon lifer acknowledged the threat from climate change and the need for alternative fuels to reduce greenhouse gases. Still, while leading the Western Hemisphere’s biggest oil company, Tillerson was an opponent of climate-friendly shareholder resolutions and carbon cap-and-trade systems. He also was a leading proponent of fracking and relished public debates with activists over the technical nuances of the United Nations climate research. On Tuesday, Tillerson said he’s long taken the view that climate change “is a very serious matter.” Scientists should be allowed to continue their work on global warming without fear that their funding will be cut off if they come to “the wrong conclusion.” He went on to say that the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is “fine,” but that modeling the impact of certain mitigation efforts on temperatures is more complicated. “Whether or not anything we do will ultimately influence it remains to be seen,” he said in response to a question on rising concern about climate change. “One day we’ll know the answer to that, but our ability to predict the answer to that is quite complicated.”
Trump’s new trade deal is disastrous for the planet – During the Democratic debate last month, Senator Bernie Sanders was explaining his opposition to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Trump’s climate-destabilizing NAFTA reboot, when he was cut off by a moderator. “We’re going to get to climate change, but I’d like to stay on trade,” she said.”They are the same,” Sanders shot back.Sanders is right. Trade deals can encourage corporations to export both jobs and pollution. They can weaken climate policies and encourage the extraction of more fossil fuels – exacerbating climate change. Or they can be written to address humanity’s most urgent threat.As a number of leading members of Congress and virtually every major environmental group have made clear, Trump’s USMCA opts for ignoring the health of the planet. Despite these warnings, Trump signed his pro-polluter trade deal last week.The deal’s chapter on the environment fails to even mention “climate change.” Nor does it include meaningful standards to prevent corporations from dumping toxic pollution in border communities. Instead, the deal makes it easier for polluters tooverheat our planet – which can lead to more extreme weather, more lost homes, more lost harvests and more lost lives. Trade deals like the original NAFTA have helped make the United States the world’s largest outsourcer of carbon pollution. Thanks to NAFTA, the United States now imports goods like electronics from Mexico that were once made here with substantially fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Because the USMCA fails to include binding climate pollution standards that would apply across borders, companies will simply continue outsourcing pollution to wherever environmental standards are lowest. For US workers, that means lost jobs. For our communities, it means more climate crisis. Whether the emissions are released in Oaxaca or Ohio, they still help cook the planet.
Land Bureau May Exempt Plans From Environmental Review – The Bureau of Land Management may stop studying how its long-term blueprints for millions of acres of public lands would affect the environment, according to a document shared with Bloomberg Environment. Land use plans are updated every two decades or more, and govern the management of more than 245 million acres of public land under BLM control. They determine, for example, which lands are developed for fossil fuels and mining, grazed by livestock, or protected from development entirely. The BLM may propose a land use planning rule that will “remove NEPA requirements from the planning regulations,” referring to the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the document on possible changes to such rules that was shared with states and former BLM officials. “We don’t currently have a timeline to start the rulemaking process for this proposal,” BLM spokesman Jeff Krauss said Tuesday. “If we move forward with a proposed rule, we will notify the public, as required by law.” The BLM didn’t respond to specific questions about the proposal. The Trump administration is considering the BLM changes alongside a broader proposal to exempt some federal projects from NEPA requirements, speed up the permitting process, and overhaul other public lands-related rules, including grazing regulations. Current federal regulations require that all proposed BLM plans for land use undergo environmental studies. An environmental impact statement for each plan must be published, and the public must be allowed to comment. If the BLM’s idea became a new rule, it would eliminate the need for reports on the environmental effects of land use plans. For example, if a plan proposes opening large areas to oil and gas development, the government wouldn’t be required to study the environmental impact of such a plan.
Trump Blowing Up Arizona National Monument for Border Wall – CONTRACTORS WORKING FOR the Trump administration are blowing apart a mountain on protected lands in southern Arizona to make way for the president’s border wall. The blasting is happening on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a tract of Sonoran Desert wilderness long celebrated as one of the nation’s great ecological treasures, that holds profound spiritual significance to multiple Native American groups. In a statement to The Intercept, U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the blasting began this week and will continue through the end of the month. “The construction contractor has begun controlled blasting, in preparation for new border wall system construction, within the Roosevelt Reservation at Monument Mountain in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector,” the statement said, referring to an area also known as Monument Hill. “The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue intermittently for the rest of the month.” The agency added that it “will continue to have an environmental monitor present during these activities as well as on-going clearing activities.” Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, told The Intercept that he has zero faith that the Department of Homeland Security’s “environmental monitor will do anything to avoid, mitigate, or even point out some of the sacrilegious things that are occurring and will continue to occur, given the way they’re proceeding.” Grijalva’s blunt assessment is based on a visit he made to Organ Pipe last month, alongside archaeologists and leaders of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose ancestral homelands and sacred burial sites are in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s border wall expansion. One of those burial sites lies just beyond the westward advance of the border wall, Grijalva explained. “It’s right in the path,” he said, meaning that “the one indignation of the blasting on the hill is shortly to follow with other indignations and disrespect.”
Kohler to pay $20M penalty for California engine emissions (AP) – Kohler Co. has agreed to pay a $20 million civil penalty to resolve allegations that emissions from its small spark-ignition engines violated the Clean Air Act and California law. The Wisconsin-based company reached the agreement Thursday with the Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. Regulators say the alleged violations involved Kohler’s manufacture and sale of millions of small, non-road, non-handheld spark-ignition engines that did not conform to certification applications Kohler was required to submit to the EPA and the California Air Resources Board. Regulators also allege that more than 144,000 of the engines also were equipped with a fueling strategy known as a “defeat device” designed to cheat emissions testing standards. Small, spark-ignition engines are used in lawn mowers, ride-on mowers, commercial landscaping equipment and generators. The engines in question were sold from 2010 to 2015. “Today’s settlement holds Kohler accountable for flouting federal law, and evens the playing field for others in the regulated community who invest in compliance programs designed to prevent illegal and harmful emissions to the air,”
Electric or Not, Big SUVs Are Inherently Selfish – The Hummer brand – including the original H1 and its successors, the similarly monstrous yet half-priced H2 and even more affordable H3 – sold more than 308,000 vehicles in the U.S. between 2002 and 2010 when it was discontinued as part of General Motors’ restructuring following its 2009 bankruptcy and $50 billion government bailout. During the Super Bowl, GM announced the Hummer is back with a 30-second ad spot featuring Lebron James. And not only is it back, but it’s electric. GM is betting it’ll be able to sell the Hummer for all the same reasons it used to, with the added pitch that electric drivetrains provide better performance, such as a zero-to-sixty time of three seconds. Saving the planet will not, it seems, be a big part of the sales pitch. The sidelining of the environmental benefits of EVs aligns with the role Hummer and other gigantic SUVs have played in our environmental challenges. The Hummer, in all its militaristic aggressiveness, is the very embodiment of the wasteful excess that contributed to the climate crisis in the first place. Cars are inherently about projecting a self-image, and hundreds of thousands of Americans chose to project one of profound, pathological selfishness. The electrification of the Hummer is not a signal of climate progress. It is a declaration that it’s still OK to be an asshole.
Obama Helped Make Cars More Efficient, but Now They Spew Black Carbon –If you’re getting more bang for your buck at the gas pump today than you were a decade ago, you can thank the Obama administration. Obama’s 2012 updates to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, or CAFE standards, made new cars more fuel-efficient and reduced their carbon dioxide emissions. But a study published this week casts a dark shadow over that success story. Researchers found that the path we’ve chosen to better fuel economy could end up costing the U.S. hundreds of lives each year.“I think this was a classic case of unintended consequences,” said Rawad Saleh, an assistant professor at the Air Quality and Climate Research Laboratory at the University of Georgia and a co-author of the study. Here’s what happened. To get in line with the CAFE standards, automakers leapt at a technology called the gasoline direct injection, or GDI, engine. In 2008, GDI engines were in a mere 2.3 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S., but by 2018, that number jumped to 51 percent. The EPA expected it to rise to 93 percent by 2025 under the rules set out under Obama, which the Trump administration is trying to roll back. Before GDIs came along, most cars had port fuel injection engines, or PFIs. With a PFI engine, gasoline mixes with oxygen from the air, forming a vapor, before reaching the engine. In a GDI engine, the liquid fuel is injected directly. GDI engines produce more power for every drop of fuel, but the fuel burns less uniformly. The result is a car that emits less CO2 per mile driven, but the incomplete combustion creates more particulate pollution, like black carbon. Black carbon is one of many pollutants known as “particulate matter 2.5″ or PM2.5 – tiny, inhalable, solid particles that are 2.5 micrometers and smaller and are linked to respiratory diseases, asthma, and premature death for people with heart or lung disease. Exposure to black carbon has also been associated with cancer and birth defects. Unlike CO2, a gas that hangs around in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, black carbon particles float around for a few days to a few weeks before falling back to earth. The dark surface of the particles directly absorbs radiation from the sun, adding heat to the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.
UK government plans to ban the sale of diesel and gasoline cars by 2035 – The U.K. government wants to end the sale of new diesel and petrol (gasoline) cars by the year 2035. The plans, which were announced Tuesday and are subject to consultation, also include hybrid vehicles. U.K. authorities had previously said the sale of new petrol and diesel vans and cars would end in 2040. Grant Shapps, the U.K.’s transport secretary, said that the government’s £1.5 billion ($1.95 billion) strategy to “make owning an electric vehicle as easy as possible” was working, claiming that in 2019 a “fully electric car was sold every 15 minutes.” In practice, ending the sale of petrol, diesel or hybrid cars or vans would leave consumers with a choice between electric and hydrogen vehicles. “Drivers support measures to clean up air quality and reduce CO2 emissions but these stretched targets are incredibly challenging,” Edmund King, the president of driving association the AA, said in a statement issued in response to the government’s new target. “We must question whether we will have a sufficient supply of a full cross section of zero emissions vehicles in less than fifteen years,” King added. Battery electric vehicle registrations in the U.K. grew to 37,850 in 2019, according to recent figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. This represents an increase of 144% compared to 2018, when 15,510 were registered. While this growth is encouraging for advocates of low and zero emission vehicles, the market share for battery electric vehicles in 2019 was just 1.6%, while hybrid electric vehicles had a 4.2% share. At the other end of the spectrum, petrol had a market share of 64.8%, while diesel’s share was 25.2%.
Solar Industry Waits to Assess Ripple Effects From China’s Coronavirus Outbreak -The novel coronavirus, a respiratory illness that’s sickened more than 17,000 and killed more than 360 people in China as of Feb. 3, may impact the Chinese-rooted solar energy supply chain, potentially contributing to labor shortages, equipment delays and global price increases. Determining the full impact of the virus is currently impossible due to high uncertainty. Cases of the virus, which originated in the Chinese province of Hubei, are still rising and have been reported in more than 20 other countries. “At this point, this is still early in the development of the epidemic, and many different scenarios could play out,” Xiaojing Sun, a senior solar analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, said in a Jan. 31 interview. “It’s still very fluid.” Because the virus’ rise occurred during the Chinese Lunar New Year, the Chinese government extended the holiday to prevent its spread. Work shutdowns continue at several module manufacturers, and production is unlikely to start back up again until well into February. “Everything is on hold until at least [February 3], and that’s just official Chinese policy,” said Sun. “Many local governments want their laborers to resume work a little later.” But shutdowns through February 9 apply in several provinces with a solar manufacturing footprint including Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. Companies including Trina, Hanwha Q Cells, JA Solar and Enphase have manufacturing facilities in those locales, according to a Thursday note published by Roth Capital Partners. Hubei, the province where the first case of novel coronavirus was reported, is home to many laborers who work elsewhere, according to Sun. Quarantines there could put further pressure on Chinese companies, which may experience labor shortages as they restart production.
Oak Ridge National Lab scientists make geothermal battery for homes – A modern remix of old technologies that cuts home energy bills has the potential to utterly transform homes in the future, and the system was created in East Tennessee’s own Oak Ridge National Lab. Scientists have developed prototype geothermal “batteries” that, unlike conventional batteries, actually tap and store the heat energy of the Earth to provide heating, cooling and hot water. Unlike natural gas or oil furnaces, there are no emissions and no household pollutants like carbon monoxide. “This is not a small thing,” said Bob Wyman co-founder of Dandelion, a home geothermal company. “This is something you might see installed in tens of millions of homes around the country.” The geothermal battery is a device that uses water tanks, the ambient heat of the Earth and heat pumps (like those you might find in a refrigerator) to maintain a reservoir of hot or cold water that can be used to heat or cool the house. By tapping into and storing the Earth’s heat, the geothermal battery can run at high efficiency regardless of the weather.
Is natural gas a bridge fuel too far with the rise in renewables? – Natural gas has long been seen as the fuel to build the bridge to a clean-energy future, one where dirtier-burning coal plants are phased out and homes, factories and vehicles are powered by electricity from wind, the sun and power stored in batteries. However, as costs of renewable energy projects have plummeted and the number of coal-plant closures in Colorado and other parts of the country has risen, there are questions about the need for natural gas as a bridge fuel. The future that natural gas was supposed to be a transition to is already here, say renewable energy advocates and analysts. New projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration say electricity generated by renewable energy will surpass natural gas generation in 2045. “Our analysis suggests that the bridge is already behind us and it was quite a bit narrower than we thought,” said Mark Dyson, a principal with the Aspen-based Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit research organization that consults with businesses and communities on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Dyson is a co-author of a 2019 report that said renewable energy is cost-competitive with new natural gas facilities. The report, “The Growing Market for Clean Energy Portfolios,” said wind, solar and battery storage would cost less than 90% of the proposed gas-fired plants. Investments in renewable energy instead of gas plants would save customers more than $29 billion and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tons, according to the report.
Gov. Wolf’s budget proposes boosting staff at Pa.’s departments of environmental protection, and conservation and natural resources | StateImpact Pennsylvania – Gov. Tom Wolf proposed money for additional staffing at the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and he renewed his support for a package of pipeline reforms, in his annual budget released Tuesday. The DEP would get $171.6 million from the general fund in Wolf’s proposed budget. Other sources of funding for the agency would result in a total budget of $553.8 million. After decades of cuts to DEP under both Democratic and Republican administrations, it’s the first time proposed spending from the general fund for environmental protection has risen above $165.6 million, the level it reached in 1994-1995, according to former DEP Secretary David Hess. “Those cuts had to be backfilled by permit fee increases,” Hess said. “Those kinds of fee increases were unsustainable.” Hess said when he ran DEP from 2001-2003, funding for the agency did not depend so much on permit fees. About half of DEP’s current budget relies on those fees, while just 20 percent comes from the general fund, he said. Federal funds make up the rest. In the early 2000s, permit fees, general fund dollars and federal funds each contributed about one-third. One result of those cuts has been a 25 percent drop in DEP staff between 2003 and 2018. The budget calls for an additional $1 million for hiring new DEP staff to support the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. Both the state of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation recently said they plan to sue the EPA and Pennsylvania for not doing enough to reduce agricultural run-off that contributes to bay pollution.
Wolf’s Support for Petrochemicals Raises Climate Worries as Pennsylvania Tries to Cut Carbon Emissions – Since his second term began last year, there’s been a theme for Tom Wolf’s tenure as Pennsylvania’s governor: climate change. After Pennsylvania experienced the wettest year on record in 2018, Wolf said the state would be setting its first-ever carbon reduction targets – 26 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050, compared to 2005 levels. He said floods in 2018 were evidence that climate change had already come to Pennsylvania. Scientists say global warming will make the state’s weather wetter, since warm air holds more moisture. “It’s affected our farmers, and the crops that they grow,” he said. “It’s devastated our homes. It’s affecting us each and every day.” Wolf followed that up with plans to join regional initiatives to reduce carbon from the transportation and electricity sectors. The steps pleased many in the environmental community, includin g Joe Minott of the Clean Air Council. While Minott says Wolf deserves praise, there is a “but.” The governor also supports fossil-fuel and petrochemical industries that contribute to the emissions he wants to eliminate.Wolf has extolled the jobs that Shell’s Beaver County ethane cracker will create for Western Pennsylvania. The cracker, a massive plant that will turn natural gas into plastic pellets, would be “part of (an) energy efficient future,” Wolf recently told a radio interviewer. “I think if we get this right, these are going to be jobs that stay here,” he told a group of local officials in Beaver County in 2016.The plant, which received a $1.65 billion tax credit from Pennsylvania, is under construction, employing around 6,000 people. When it’s built in the next few years, it’s expected to employ 600. Along with jobs, Minott says the ethane cracker will be bringing something else to the region – a large carbon footprint. The Beaver County plant is permitted to emit 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year – the equivalent CO2 of about 400,000 more cars on the road, according to the EPA’s carbon footprint calculator.
Opponents Of CMP Transmission Line Submit Signatures For Statewide Vote On Project – The stage is being set for a statewide battle over Central Maine Power’s plan to build a power line through Maine’s western woods. Opponents today submitted more than enough signatures to put the project’s future on the November ballot. Energized activists who worked on the voter petition drive carted dozens of file boxes filled with petitions into the Augusta state offices for delivery to the secretary of state. “Goodbye corridor!” says Meg Osgood of Portland, one of dozens of canvassers taking a celebratory turn after months of door-knocking and staffing tables. The 141-mile project would bring electricity from Canadian hydropower dams into the New England grid to serve Massachusetts consumers. Mostly it would expand the footprint of existing power line corridors in Maine, but some 53 miles of new corridor would be cut from the Canadian border to cross the Kennebec River Gorge before joining existing lines in Caratunk. The effects on scenic and ecological resources, as well as the region’s outdoors economy, has galvanized the opposition. “The chance for Mainers to have a say is a big thing in this state,” says Steven McCarthy, a building contractor from Rome, Maine. “We’ve been railroaded with a lot of projects, and we didn’t want that to happen with this one. Furthermore, the environmental impacts are not only being affected here in Maine but also in Canada, They’re not being fair to the First Nations and indigenous people. And they’re not being fair to the citizens of the state of Maine, who overwhelmingly do not want this project.” The proposed measure would reverse a decision by state utility regulators to permit the project. Project supporters say that would mark a questionable end-run around the Public Utilities Commission and the statutes its decision was based on. CMP has poured millions of dollars into a political action committee called Clean Energy Matters, which has been placing ads on television and online calling attention to jobs and other economic benefits of the project. The PAC and CMP are also highlighting what they say would be reductions in climate-warming greenhouse gases that would result from bringing low-polluting hydropower into the region. Dickinson notes that some of the project’s opposition is funded by natural gas generation companies who do business in Maine and who could lose profits over the 20-year span of the hydropower contract.
Cuomo OKs $341 million to rebuild 86-mile stretch of transmission lines – The rebuilding of an 86-mile stretch of New York Power Authority transmission lines moved a step closer to the start of construction this year after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced $341 million in funding for the project on Thursday. The Power Authority’s Board of Trustees had authorized the $341 million in funding for the Moses-Adirondack Smart Path Reliability Project during its December meeting. During this week’s meeting, NYPA trustees also approved a five-year, $294 million construction contract to Michels Power to construct the new transmission lines. They had previously approved $142.6 million for phase one of the project, which is estimated to have an overall cost of $483.8 million. The $341 million will support construction of new lines primarily on existing rights of way, except for a small re-route around SUNY Canton, to minimize the impact on the environment and to adjacent property and landowners. The state Public Service Commission announced in November that it had approved the project to rebuild a major north-south transmission line, which runs through St. Lawrence and Lewis counties and includes 78 miles constructed by the federal government in 1942 and acquired by the Power Authority in 1950. With the funding and the previous approval of the project’s first Environmental Management and Construction Plan by the Public Service Commission, construction is expected to begin this year and be completed in 2023. NYPA officials say the project is expected to support hundreds of jobs during its construction.
Indiana coal bill passes in the House, heads to Senate – The controversial Indiana bill that could delay closing coal plants and raise rates for customers is still alive and on its way to the Senate.In a relatively close vote, House Bill 1414 passed out of the House, 52 to 41. In fact, the vote was tight enough that House Speaker Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, cast a “yes” vote – the speaker does not normally vote unless it will make a difference in the outcome. He has previously claimed that the bill – which raises the bar for utilities wanting to close power plants, at a time when coal-fired plants are the only ones closing – is not a bailout for the coal industry. The bill’s author, Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, has echoed that statement.Supporters of the bill, whose provisions are currently set to expire in May 2021, have defended it in part as a stopgap measure to help Indiana as it pivots to cleaner energy sources. The goal of the bill, Soliday said during his comments on the floor, is that “whether it’s coal or rabbits on a treadmill” that provide Hoosiers’ electricity, the state “is in a transition, and all we’re asking is to be able to manage it.”In the Senate, the bill will likely be assigned to the Utilities Committee, chaired by Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis. Merritt said recently that he is aware of the bill, but could not speak to specifics. He added that he is very open-minded about it and knows there are a lot of entities against it. Those entities include Indiana’s five investor-owned utilities, through the Indiana Energy Association; the Indiana Chamber of Commerce; the Indiana Industrial Energy Consumers group; the Indiana Conservative Alliance for Energy; the National Taxpayers Union; the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP; trade associations such as Advanced Energy Economy; consumer advocacy group Citizens Action Coalition; and environmental organizations the Hoosier Environmental Council and Sierra Club. The only group that spoke in favor of this bill during hearings of the House utilities committee, chaired by Soliday, was the Indiana Coal Council.
TVA Takes Its Last Coal-Fired Unit Offline At Western Kentucky Power Plant – The Tennessee Valley Authority shut down the last operating unit at its coal-fired power plant in western Kentucky over the weekend.The TVA board of directors voted last year to retire the unit at the Paradise Fossil Plant in Muhlenberg County.For more than 50 years, the Paradise Fossil Plant has kept the lights on for nearly ten million customers across seven southeastern states, including Kentucky and Tennessee. Unit 3 was one of the biggest power plants in the world when it came online in 1970. TVA determined that it could generate or buy cheaper and cleaner power from other sources rather than continuing to rely upon its aging, coal-fired unit. Engineering Manager Jim Phelps says the plant near the Green River broke several records for run times, and Unit 3 offered environmental protection with the installation of the largest air emissions scrubber in the world. The other two coal-fired units at Paradise were retired in 2017 and replaced by a natural gas plant next to the fossil plant.
TVA asking for help identifying family of cemeteries at Gallatin plant – A federal utility is proposing to relocate 40-50 cemeteries at the Gallatin Fossil Plant property in order to expand coal ash storage. The Tennessee Valley Authority says the cemeteries were there when the utility bought the land in the 1950s. Their proposal is to expand the fossil plant to make room for a coal ash landfill. “This is part of an overall plan to move to a more secure location all the coal ash that we have in Gallatin fossil plant since the 1970’s – so it’s a good move for the environment and we think it’s the best option for the Gallatin fossil plants,” said Scott Brooks, TVA spokesperson. Currently, they’ve only made contact with some family members of the gravesites. “We’re trying to identify everyone we can to make sure that we’re working with family members and loved ones before we take this step ,”
TVA plans new site for soil at Kingston plant – The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to create an new site to dig up soil and other fill material to support projects at Kingston Fossil Plant. The utility has released details on this new site. The site will be on about 62 acres of TVA property at Kingston, a news release stated. The utility has more information in the final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact posted at www.tva.com/nepa. The website and the TVA news release stated TVA anticipates using the soil for a landfill for coal ash and other byproducts of burning coal. “Demand for soil and other material to support current and future projects is expected to be greater than existing supply in the two current borrow areas at Kingston. Additional fill material will be needed for the second phase of a dry storage landfill for coal ash and other coal combustion residuals at Kingston, as well as other future projects at the site,” a news release stated. Ongoing projects such as proposed construction of a waste water treatment plant are expected to exhaust the existing sources of TVA’s dirt for projects the news release stated. The news release refers to these places, the old ones and the new one as “borrow sites.” TVA plans to dig at the new “borrow site” in phases of about five to 10 acres at a time. The utility stated in its news release this phasing will “help minimize visual impacts from removal of trees, vegetation and soil.
Juliette residents outraged over coal ash contamination from Plant Scherer — Dozens of Juliette residents came out to a special called meeting about an ongoing coal ash storage problem they say it plaguing their city. Many outraged residents showed up to The Sanctuary Baptist Church Tuesday night to express worries about their water situation. Fletcher Sounds, Executive Director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper, says the main chemical that has contaminated wells — hexavalent chromium — is highly detrimental to anyone who consumes it. Officials say the contamination comes from the nearby Plant Scherer. The next meeting on this issue is planned for Thursday.
Fee to store toxic coal ash at Georgia landfills could go up – – Legislation increasing the fee to store toxic coal ash in Georgia landfills cleared a Senate committee on Tuesday. Coal ash, the byproduct of burning coal at power plants to generate electricity, can contain compounds that cause cancer after long exposure. The state’s top energy producer, Georgia Power, is moving away from storing coal ash is liquid ponds to instead disposing it in dry landfills going forward. Since July, landfills have charged power companies a lower fee to take coal ash compared to other forms of waste. The fee for almost all landfill garbage is $2.50 per pound, while coal ash is $1. Superior Landfill on Little Neck Road in Savannah, operated by Waste Management, is one of the five landfills that accepts coal ash. That change was made in 2018 legislation that raised the landfill fee for all waste but gave coal ash a special carve-out. Georgia environmentalists worry the lower fee could spark an influx of out-of-state coal ash to Georgia landfills. Five landfills in Georgia have taken in millions of tons of coal ash since 2017, with much of it originating from power plants in Florida and North Carolina, according to state Environmental Protection Division records. House bill 123 would raise the fee for dumping coal ash up to $2.50, the same as all other waste. Its sponsor, Sen. William Ligon, said the uneven fee amounts incentivize outside companies to send their coal ash to Georgia.
Japan to Build 22 Coal-Burning Power Plants – Japan is planning to build as many as 22 new coal plants at 17 different sites over the next five years, The New York Times reports, a sharp uptick in coal-fired power as the rest of the world eases off coal and looks to cut emissions.The projects would collectively emit as much carbon dioxide per year as all of the passenger cars sold in the U.S. Activists say that the Japanese government allowed one of the projects, in Yokosuka, to get the green light without proper environmental review after the country was forced to close its nuclear program because of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The coal plants are coming as the Japanese government touts the environmental friendliness of this summer’s Tokyo Olympics.
Coal industry group revives reliability argument to Ohio lawmakers – A coal industry group leader revived an argument to Ohio lawmakers last week that coal-fired power plants are critically important for electric grid reliability. The claim was the linchpin of a failed attempt last decade for power plants to get guaranteed payments for coal and nuclear plants that had months of on-site fuel storage. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and PJM Interconnection ultimately rejected that proposal for “fuel security,” as proponents called it. The Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee invited Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of America’s Power, to speak at its Jan. 28 session as part of its ongoing effort to develop a “comprehensive energy policy,” committee Chair Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, said. The industry group advocates on behalf of coal-fired power plants. The timing of the testimony, as the committee considers legislation to further hinder wind energy development in the state, concerned clean energy advocates. Among other things, Bloodworth claimed that coal plants with large, on-site fuel storage reserves are critical resources during extreme weather events, such as a prolonged, deep freeze – a conclusion that’s been undercut by recent PJM and FERC decisions, as well as independent studies. “It’s kind of a red herring” to equate so-called fuel security with reliability, said Dan Sawmiller, director of Ohio energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In reality, the vast majority of power outages result from downed wires and otherdistribution problems – not generation issues. And coal plants are vulnerable to weather disruptions. A 2014 report from grid operator PJM Interconnection found that both coal and natural gas plants had generation outages during a polar vortex that year. Coal-fired plants had 34% of the peak problem day’s outages, by fuel type, the report said.
FirstEnergy foray into energy brokering raises issues of fair competition – A FirstEnergy subsidiary is seeking permission from Ohio regulators to advise customers on which electricity suppliers they should choose. The company’s application to operate as an energy broker and aggregator is an apparent reversal for FirstEnergy, which spent years legally separating from its non-regulated electricity businesses, including its former generation subsidiary.Critics say the move raises potential conflict of interest questions. It also comes as state lawmakers consider a bill that would broaden the range of services that regulated utilities could offer customers.FirstEnergy owns three regulated utilities in Ohio: Ohio Edison, Toledo Edison and the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company. They have a monopoly on providing electricity distribution services in their respective territories, and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio regulates their rates. Under a 1999 law, electricity generation is supposed to be a competitive market. Over the following years, utilities transferred their power plants to separate affiliates. Different companies compete with each other to supply electricity, and the law lets customers choose their supplier.Customers can also obtain electricity through brokers or aggregators. They act as intermediaries, basically doing the shopping for the customer and either choosing or recommending a supplier. Community aggregators such as NOPEC work with large groups of customers from different municipalities, following a vote by the community to allow aggregation. Brokers tend to be for-profit companies, which individual customers choose and which can provide various services besides shopping for electricity supply.
Anti-House Bill 6 group misses deadline to report campaign donors, spending details – cleveland.com – The group that unsuccessfully pushed for a referendum overturning Ohio’s nuclear bailout law missed a state deadline last week to disclose its campaign donors and spending activity, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office. However, it remains to be seen whether the group, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, will be penalized for missing the reporting deadline, as state officials in general give ample opportunity for political organizations to file late before imposing fines. The group, along with other political organizations, had until last Friday to submit its campaign-finance information for 2019. Under state law, if LaRose’s office (or another outside party) files a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission about a group that won’t submit a campaign-finance report, the OEC is allowed to fine the group as much as $100 per day until the group complies. In practice, however, the OEC rarely imposes fines that heavy, especially against first-time offenders like Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, according to OEC officials. LaRose spokeswoman Maggie Sheehan said in a statement that the secretary of state’s office “will be reaching out to give them the opportunity to submit a report.” Sheehan continued: “If there comes a determination that the committee will not be submitting the appropriate report, our office will refer the campaign committee to the Ohio Elections Commission for their consideration.” A spokesman for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts didn’t return a phone call seeking comment Monday
Backers on both sides of nuclear bailout remain secret – The first campaign finance deadline since passage of the nuclear plant bailout law has come and gone, and Ohioans still have little idea whose deep pockets poured millions into the fight. Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs, the political action committee for the pro-House Bill 6 group Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance, filed its annual report by Friday’s deadline indicating that it had raised $90,000 from a single source, 17 Consulting Group LLC. Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, the group behind the failed petition effort to put the law on the Nov. 3 ballot, did not file an annual report, although Maggie Sheehan, spokesman for Secretary of State Frank LaRose, said it was required to do so. Gene Pierce, the group’s spokesman, did not return messages on Monday. Failure to file could carry daily fines of $100. “…since it has already come to our attention that this campaign committee has not properly filed, we will be reaching out to give them the opportunity to submit a report,” Ms. Sheehan said. “If there comes a determination that the committee will not be submitting the appropriate report, our office will refer the campaign committee to the Ohio Elections Commission for their consideration.” The group also had created an LLC, so even if it had met the deadline Ohioans were unlikely to know specifically which individuals, corporations, and organizations poured money into the referendum effort. As expected, another nebulous group calling itself Ohioans for Energy Security filed no reports despite having purchased millions in TV and radio ads and direct mailings to claim the Chinese were behind the effort to undermine Ohio’s energy security. Unlike the referendum group, Energy Security never registered as a PAC with the secretary of state’s office, which would have triggered subsequent campaign filings. “We were not required to (file),” spokesman Carlo Loparo said. “The group is an LLC, which has the right under the First Amendment to advocate for public policy positions.” Meanwhile, House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford), who successfully pushed for passage of the law, reported receiving for his own campaign committee nearly $45,000 total from interests related to FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and Perry plant east of Cleveland. John Judge, FES’ president and CEO, and FirstEnergy PAC, the committee for the Akron-based corporation that spun off FES, each gave $13,292. Anthony Alexander, FirstEnergy Corp.’s former president, contributed $5,000, as the speaker’s committee took in just over $1 million total during the second half of 2019.
Judge sets trial in lawsuit involving Santee Cooper (AP) – A state judge has set April 20 as the start date for a trial deciding whether state-owned utility Santee Cooper should refund possibly billions of dollars to some 2.2 million ratepayers. The date set Thursday by state Judge Jean Toal was a victory for Santee Cooper’s ratepayers, who have been certified to join together to sue the utility, and whose lawyers had been pushing for more time to prepare their case. The trial previously was slated to begin Feb. 24. The lawsuit involves the $9 billion failed V.C. Summer nuclear project. For years, Santee Cooper’s ratepayers have paid extra fees on their monthly bills to pay for what turned out to be a doomed and very expensive project to build two nuclear powered electric generators in Jenkinsville, about 25 miles northwest of Columbia. Santee Cooper was the junior partner on the project with the now former Cayce-based SCE&G, which was acquired by Dominion Energy in January 2019. The case seeks to force Santee Cooper to refund customers what they have already paid in higher power bills for the project while also preventing the utility from charging customers any further for the unfinished plant, news outlets reported. “The heart of this case is that the plaintiffs don’t want to pay for something they have never received a benefit for,”
The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants – In December federal regulators approved Florida Power & Light’s request to let the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant’s twin nuclear reactors remain in operation for another 20 years beyond the end of their current licenses. By that point they’ll be 80, making them the oldest reactors in operation anywhere in the world. “That’s too old,” said Rippingille, a lawyer and retired Miami-Dade County judge. “They weren’t designed for this purpose.” With backing from the Trump administration, utilities across the nation are preparing to follow suit, seeking permission to extend the life of reactors built in the 1970s to the 2050s as they run up against the end of their 60-year licenses. “We are talking about running machines that were designed in the 1960s, constructed in the 1970s and have been operating under the most extreme radioactive and thermal conditions imaginable,” said Damon Moglen, an official with the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “There is no other country in the world that is thinking about operating reactors in the 60 to 80-year time frame.” Indeed, the move comes as other nations shift away from atomic power over safety concerns, despite its appeal as a carbon-free alternative to coal and other fossil fuels. Japan, which used to get more than a quarter of its electricity from nuclear power, shut down all its plants in 2011 after a tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown at three reactors in Fukushima. Only a handful have restarted while others that can’t meet stringent new standards are slated to close permanently. Germany decided that year to shutter its entire fleet by 2022 and is now having trouble meeting its ambitious climate goals. Other nations such as France and Sweden are allowing reactors to retire while they diversify into solar and wind power.
First Nation rejects nuclear waste site near Lake Huron, utility now looking at “alternatives” – Activists are wary of declaring total victory after plans for a permanent nuclear waste storage site near the Canadian shore of Lake Huron were voted down Friday. Members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation overwhelmingly voted against Ontario Power Generation’s plan to create a Deep Geologic Repository for low and intermediate nuclear waste less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron. The project has been opposed by environmentalists and residents who feared the potential damage to the Great Lakes. The utility insisted the project was safe. Beverly Fernandez is with the group “Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump.” She says they’re happy a negative vote by a First Nation community in Canada stopped the project. But Fernandez expects there will be efforts to place future nuclear waste storage facilities in the Great Lakes basin. “You know we will continue to need the involvement of the U.S.,” says Fernandez, “People in Michigan who have stood up to oppose this. Their voices will certainly be needed again in the future.” Ontario Power Generation says it will now examine “alternate” solutions for a future low and intermediate-level nuclear waste repository. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint Township) hopes the Canadian government will locate the facility outside the Great Lakes basin.
Japan panel recommends ocean release for contaminated Fukushima water(Reuters) – A panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant on Friday recommended releasing it into the ocean, a move likely to alarm neighboring countries. The panel under the industry ministry came to the conclusion after narrowing the choice to either releasing the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean or letting it evaporate – and opted for the former. Based on past practice it is likely the government will accept the recommendation. The build-up of contaminated water at Fukushima has been a sticking point in the clean-up, which is likely to last decades, especially as the Olympics are due to be held in Tokyo this summer with some events less than 60 km (35 miles) from the wrecked plant. [nL4N29R14D] Neighboring South Korea has retained a ban on imports of seafood from Japan’s Fukushima region imposed after the nuclear disaster and summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last year to explain how the Fukushima water would be dealt with. Its athletes are planning to bring their own radiation detectors and food to the Games. In 2018, Tokyo Electric apologized after admitting its filtration systems had not removed all dangerous material from the water – and the site is running out of room for storage tanks. But it plans to remove all radioactive particles from the water except tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is hard to separate and is considered to be relatively harmless. “Compared to evaporation, ocean release can be done more securely,” the committee said, pointing to common practice around the world where normally operating nuclear stations release water that contains tritium into the sea.
Japan Set To Release 1.2 Million Tons Of Radioactive Fukushima Water Into Ocean, Causing “Immeasurable Damage” Just in case a global viral pandemic, whose sources are still unclear and apparently now include human feces, wasn’t enough, the global outrage meter is about to go “up to eleven” with Japan now set to flood the world’s oceans with radioactive water. In a move that will surely prompt a furious response from Greta Thunberg’s ghost writers (unless of course it doesn’t fit a very narrow agenda), a panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for the millions of tons of radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant on Friday recommended releasing it into the ocean. And, as Reuters notes, based on past practice it is likely the government will accept the recommendation. Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has collected nearly 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water from the cooling pipes used to keep fuel cores from melting since the plant was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The water is stored in huge tanks that crowd the site. The panel under the industry ministry came to the conclusion after narrowing the choice to either releasing the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean or letting it evaporate – and opted for the former, even though it means that Japan’s neihgbors will now have to suffer the consequences of the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Previously the committee had ruled out other possibilities, such as underground storage, that lack track records of success. At the meeting, members stressed the importance of selecting proven methods and said “the government should make clear that releasing the water would have a significant social impact.” Japan’s neighbor, South Korea, has for much of the past decade retained a ban on imports of seafood from Japan’s Fukushima region imposed after the nuclear disaster and summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last year to explain how the Fukushima water would be dealt with. They will soon have a very unsatisfactory answer. The build-up of contaminated water at Fukushima has been a major sticking point in the clean-up, which is likely to last decades, especially as the Olympics are due to be held in Tokyo this summer with some events less than 60 km from the wrecked plant and the Fukushima seclusion zone which will remain uninhabitable for centuries. According to Reuters, athletes are planning to bring their own radiation detectors and food to the Games.
More than half of the world’s millennials fear a nuclear attack will happen in the next decade – A report released in January found that a majority of millennials around the world fear it is more likely than not that a nuclear attack will happen sometime in the next decade. The study was conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which surveyed 16,000 millennials (defined in this study as adults between the ages of 20 and 35) in 16 countries in 2019: Afghanistan, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States. Half of the countries in the study are currently experiencing military conflict. Millennials consider war and armed conflict to be among the top five most important issues affecting people around the world today. Notably, unemployment and poverty also ranked in the top five most important issues for millennials. Despite the glorification of the military by the media and politicians, youth and workers across the world are overwhelmingly hostile to war and militarism in all forms. The report reflects an understanding among youth that nuclear weapons pose an immediate threat to all of humanity. The study found that millennials overwhelmingly oppose the use of weapons of mass destruction, in any form – nuclear, biological or chemical – and in all circumstances. More than three in five millennials have the same opinion opposing anti-personnel landmines, at 63 percent, and cluster bombs, at 64 percent. Unsurprisingly, after nine years of war stoked by American imperialism and its Islamist proxies, Syrian millennials showed the highest levels of disapproval for weapons of mass destruction, with 96 percent saying that it is never acceptable to use chemical or biological weapons, while 98 percent said it is never acceptable to use nuclear weapons. Over the last five years, the United States has carried out a direct bombardment of Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS, which has included leveling entire cities in the country. Many youth throughout the world have drawn their conclusions about war and militarism from firsthand experience. Across all 16 countries surveyed, one in four millennials, 27 percent, said they have had direct experience of war and armed conflict. For this study, direct experience includes participation in combat, being wounded, being forced to leave their home, losing contact with a close relative, or any other situation that could arise due to armed conflict.
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