Environmental News For The Week Ending 16 May 2019

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:

• 16 May 2021 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 16May 2021

• 16 May 2021 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 16May 2021

Covid seemed to drop out of the news this week; usually, I’ll see virus stories on news sites’ “most read” or “recent news” lists; this week I had to go looking for them. Part of the reason was that the East Coast fuel pipeline shutdown dominated the headlines, but the underlying reason is that new cases in the US and globally are falling rapidly, even in India. And the news organizations are reluctant to cover a story that bleeds less this week than it did last week.

In the US, new cases during the week ending May 15th were down 23.4% from the week ending May 8th, and down 54.6% from the 2nd week of April, which was the peak week of our spring surge; new cases over the past 7 days were the lowest since the 7 days ending June 21st of last year. US deaths attributed to Covid during this past week were down 9.0% from the prior week, and down 39.2% from the last week of March, when the slide in Covid deaths that began at the end January appeared to pause. The 7-day death toll is the lowest since the 7 days ending July 8th..

New Covid infections worldwide were 12.4% lower this week than the prior week, and down 16.9% from the peak hit during the last week of April. However, they’re still up 91.0% from the 3rd week of February, which was the low for this year to date. Deaths from the now numerous variants of the virus were down 3.9% week over week, and down 8.4% from the Covid death peak a few weeks earlier. Although new infections in India, which still accounts for nearly half the new cases worldwide, were down 13.1% this week, India’s Covid death toll was still up 3.9% this week to an average of just under 4,000 a day.

Some of the COVID-19 graphics presented in the articles linked at the beginning of this post have been updated below.

Summary data graphics:

Below is a copy of today’s graph of new US cases from WorldOMeters so you can get a visuallization of what the growth and decline of this thing looks like (data through May 18):

New cases and deaths data globally are shown in the Johns Hopkins graphics below. These graphics shows the daily global new cases (red) and deaths )white) since the start of the pandemic up through 11 May.

Here’s the week’s environment and energy news (Ohio corruption stories at the end):

Modern-Day Diets Are Changing Human Chemistry, Study Finds -“Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are,” the French lawyer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in his 1826 opus, Physiologie du Gout. This is quite literally the case, scientists decoding the human body have found.Now, an analysis of chemical signatures in human hair and nails shows that as more of our food is mass-produced, we are beginning to “look” increasingly similar. If not in the flesh, then in the bones.”Reliance on international food distribution and industrial agriculture has changed the chemistry of the entire human race,” said Michael Bird, first author of a recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Only communities that rely on subsistence agriculture have bucked the trend, the paper found. This change is especially true for urbanized and wealthier communities. In nations where annual per capita income exceeds $10,000, supermarkets supply most of the food. Another hallmark of the modern diet is the reliance on wheat, maize, rice, and a handful of other starchy cereals. Archaeologists routinely draw conclusions about past diets from skeletal remains. Bird and his collaborators analyzed hair and nail samples from present-day populations and compared them with archaeological data on the diets of people living before 1910. It was around this time that synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, one of the pillars of industrial farming, came into widespread use.The researchers looked specifically at the ratio of different isotopes of nitrogen and carbon found in corporal remains. Isotopes are versions of the same element that differ in mass. By studying these ratios, scientists can draw conclusions about the food that people eat. In the case of nitrogen-based fertilizers, the proportion of nitrogen isotopes reflects their ratio in the atmosphere, not what would exist in naturally fertile soils. When nitrogen-fixing microbes extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, it yields a different ratio of the two isotopes than chemical fertilizer. For folks buying food at mega marts supplied by factory farms, nitrogen isotope values across populations are in general lower and lie within a narrower band. Carbon isotopes, in turn, shed light on what kinds of foods people consume: a diet rich in corn or one where rice is a staple will leave behind a different carbon isotope signal in human tissue. The range of values for carbon isotopes has also shrunk today, the analysis found, because we’re eating similar kinds of food.

Forever Chemicals Found in U.S. Mothers’ Breast Milk –A study published in Environmental Science and Technology Thursday tested the milk of 50 U.S. mothers and found that every sample was contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). What’s more, the chemicals were found at nearly 2,000 times the levels considered safe by environmental health groups, The Guardian reported. “The study shows that PFAS contamination of breast milk is likely universal in the U.S., and that these harmful chemicals are contaminating what should be nature’s perfect food,” study co-author and Toxic-Free Future science director Erika Schreder told The Guardian. PFAS are a class of chemicals that are used in a variety of consumer products because they are stain, grease, and water resistant, a Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families press release explained. They turn up in everything from food packaging to clothing to carpeting and have been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, liver damage, pregnancy-induced hypertension, fertility problems, thyroid disease and a weakened immune system.Companies have begun to phase out older PFAS and replace them with newer versions that they say do not build up in the human body. The new study gives the lie to those claims. The research was the first to analyze U.S. breast milk for PFAS since 2005. It tested for 39 different chemicals, including nine that are currently in use, and found that both newer and phased-out chemicals were present in the samples. PFAS were found at levels ranging from 52 parts per trillion (ppt) to more than 500 ppt. To put that in perspective, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) recommends a limit of one ppt indrinking water while the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry suggests 14 ppt for children’s drinking water, The Guardian pointed out. “These findings make it clear that the switch to newer PFAS over the last decade didn’t solve the problem,” study co-author and Indiana University associate research scientist Dr. Amina Salamova said in the press release. “This study provides more evidence that current-use PFAS are building up in people. What this means is that we need to address the entire class of PFAS chemicals, not just legacy-use variations.” Further, the international breast milk data from 1996 to 2019 shows that, while the concentration of older chemicals is decreasing, the incidence of newer chemicals is doubling every 4.1 years.

Food Dyes Linked to Attention and Activity Problems in Children – Synthetic dyes used as colorants in many common foods and drinks can negatively affect attention and activity in children, according to a comprehensive review of existing evidence published this month by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). Funded by the California legislature in 2018, the new report involved a literature review, scientific symposium for experts, peer review process, and public comment period. Its conclusions about the behavioral effects of food dyes are grounded in the results of 27 clinical trials in children performed on four continents over the last 45 years, as well as animal studies and research into the mechanisms through which dyes exert their behavioral effects.Food dyes in products such as breakfast cereals, juice and soft drinks, frozen dairy desserts, candies, and icings were linked to adverse neurobehavioral outcomes in children including inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and restlessness. Animal studies also revealed effects on activity, memory, and learning. Lisa Lefferts, a senior scientist with the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, published her own report on the link between synthetic food dyes and behavioral problems in children in 2016. In it she called for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to either revoke approvals for all food dyes or institute a federal labeling rule. The European Union enacted such a law in 2010 that requires most dyed foods to bear a label warning consumers that food colorings “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.” In response, many food manufacturers reformulated their products for the European market to avoid the dyes, and thus the label. But many left the dyes in their products for the U.S. market, where awareness of the issue has remained low, said Lefferts. “In our experience, most consumers have no idea that something that is allowed in the food supply by the FDA could trigger adverse behaviors,” she told EHN.

Chemical giants hid dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ in food packaging – Chemical giants DuPont and Daikin knew the dangers of a PFAS compound widely used in food packaging since 2010, but hid them from the public and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), company studies obtained by the Guardian reveal. The chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH, are now linked to a range of serious health issues, and Americans are still being exposed to them in greaseproof pizza boxes, carryout containers, fast-food wrappers, and paperboard packaging. The companies initially told the FDA that the compounds were safer and less likely to accumulate in humans than older types of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” and submitted internal studies to support that claim. But Daikin withheld a 2009 study that indicated toxicity to lab rats’ livers and kidneys, while DuPont in 2012 did not alert the FDA or public to new internal data that indicated that the chemical stays in animals’ bodies for much longer than initially thought. Science from industry, the FDA and independent researchers now links 6:2 FTOH to kidney disease, liver damage, cancer, neurological damage, developmental problems and autoimmune disorders, while researchers also found higher mortality rates among young animals and mothers exposed to the chemicals. Had the FDA seen the data, it is unlikely that it would have approved 6:2 FTOH, said Maricel Maffini, an independent researcher who studies PFAS in food packaging. And though Daikin may have broken the law, it and DuPont, which has previously been caught hiding studies that suggest toxicity in PFAS, are not facing any repercussions. “Those things shouldn’t happen, and if they do then there should be consequences, but oversight is lax,” Maffini said. In 2020, the FDA reached agreements with some major PFAS manufacturers to voluntarily stop using 6:2 FTOH compounds in food packaging within five years. But documents show that the FDA first became aware of DuPont’s hidden study in 2015, and public health advocates say a 10-year timeline to reassess and remove the chemical is unacceptable.

A Pesticide Linked to Brain Damage in Children Could Finally Be Banned — A federal appeals court has ruled that unless the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can prove that the pesticide chlorpyrifos is safe, it must be banned. The chemical, which has been widely used on agricultural crops for more than 50 years, has been linked to neurological development issues in children, with mounting evidence implicating its role in autism, ADHD, motor skills and loss of IQ. In the 2-to-1 ruling on April 29, judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit gave the federal government 60 days to either rescind all uses of chlorpyrifos related to food or to show evidence that in certain cases it is safe for public health. In the majority opinion in the case League of United Latin American Citizens v. Regan, which was filed in 2007, Judge Jed Rakoff, a Clinton appointee, wrote, “[T]he EPA has spent more than a decade assembling a record of chlorpyrifos’s ill effects and has repeatedly determined, based on that record, that it cannot conclude, to the statutorily required standard of reasonable certainty, that the present tolerances are causing no harm,” adding that “EPA’s egregious delay exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos.” Rakoff was joined by Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, an Obama appointee.”Yet, rather than ban the pesticide or reduce the tolerances to levels that the EPA can find are reasonably certain to cause no harm, the EPA has sought to evade, through one delaying tactic after another, its plain statutory duties,” Rakoff wrote in the opinion, in which he stopped short of requiring the agency to ban the chemical, but left little room to keep it on the market. “The EPA must act based upon the evidence and must immediately revoke or modify chlorpyrifos tolerances.” Pregnant women and their fetuses, young children and farmworkers are particularly at risk from chlorpyrifos, which was first registered for use in 1965. “There are numerous studies showing that exposure to chlorpyrifos in the womb harms children’s brain development,” said Dr. Warren Seigel, chair of New York State American Academy of Pediatrics. “The science is clear, and this pesticide should have been banned years ago.” The ruling comes nearly two years after the Trump administration rejected a proposed Obama-era ban of the controversial pesticide, keeping it on the market despite aggressive calls against its continued use by public health and environmental groups. The Trump EPA decision, made in July of 2019, was a major gift to Dow Chemical, the maker of the pesticide, in what appeared as an act of quid pro quo. On December 6, 2016, less than a month after Trump’s election, the agrochemical giant donated $1 million to his inaugural committee.

Ingredient in common weed killer impairs insect immune systems, study suggests – The chemical compound glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, can weaken the immune systems of insects, suggests a study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round Up, a popular U.S. brand of weed killer products. The researchers investigated the effects of glyphosate on two evolutionarily distant insects, Galleria mellonella, the greater wax moth, and Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that is an important transmitter of malaria to humans in Africa. They found that glyphosate inhibits the production of melanin, which insects often use as part of their immune defenses against bacteria and parasites; it thereby reduces the resistance of these species to infection by common pathogens. The findings were published online May 12 in in PLoS Biology. “The finding that glyphosate appears to have an adverse effect on insects by interfering with their melanin production suggests the potential for a large-scale ecological impact, including impacts on human health,” “Our results show unexpected effects from a widely used herbicide, and alert us to the fact that spreading these chemicals in the environment may have unintended consequences,” The idea that human products and activities can inadvertently disrupt surrounding animal populations through the use of ordinary household or industrial chemicals is by now widely accepted. In recent years, apparent declines in some insect populations have led to concerns among scientists that other common chemicals, including glyphosate, may also be causing harmful disruptions to ecosystems. Prior research suggests that glyphosate may have adverse effects on honeybees and other insect species, linking the effect to oxidation or disrupting gut bacteria, but scientists haven’t investigated additional adverse effects that could occur. In 2001, Casadevall and colleagues found that glyphosate can weaken fungi by inhibiting their production of melanin, a compound that helps pathogenic fungi resist the immune systems of animals they infect.

Bayer-Monsanto Fails (At First Attempt) to Block Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and Ban on GMO Corn – Mexico has already gone mano a mano with Monsanto before, and it came out on top. But this time it’s on direct collision course with the U.S. government. Life used to be a whole lot easier for German pharmaceutical and crop science company Bayer. But that was before it bought the scandal-tarnished US GMO giant Monsanto for $66 billion. And it has paid a heck of a price. Now worth just $53 billion – $13 billion less than what it paid for Monsanto in 2018 – Bayer has faced tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming that Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The German company has agreed to pay as much as $11.5 billion to resolve existing US litigation.It has also proposed to pay a further $2 billion into a fund that would cover people who’ve been using Roundup but haven’t yet developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or just haven’t filed a lawsuit yet. But it also continues to reject claims that Roundup causes cancer even as new lawsuits pile up against it. And it wants to assemble its own panel of expert scientists – as opposed to an independent jury – to rule on the viability of those future claims, which is hardly in the interest of those filing the claims.As all this is going on, a growing list of countries, states and cities around the world are banningRoundup. They include Mexico, whose government issued a presidential decree on December 31 phasing out the use of the herbicide glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, and banning the cultivation and importation of genetically modified (GM) corn. After pulling a few strings, Bayer was able to win a temporary reprieve from the government’s planned three-year phase out of the herbicide. But that decision has now been overturned by Mexico’s Collegiate Court.Bayer insists there’s nothing wrong with the herbicide: “Glyphosate is safe and hundreds of scientific studies support that,” the company said in a recent statement, citing its more than four-decade track record in Mexico.But Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment (Semarnat), formerly a strong advocate of GMOs, is having none of it. The ministry already began restricting imports of glyphosate in 2019, citing the precautionary principle. Glyphosate, it says, has proven to be extremely harmful to both human health and the environment. It has also been classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization (WHO). To justify its new import ban, Mexico’s government cites the threat of GMO products to human health as well as the risk of contamination of native corn varieties. But there’s another motive at work here: to advance the AMLO administration’s goal of achieving greater food self-sufficiency by promoting domestic corn production. And that puts it on direct collision course with Big Ag and the US government.

Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Were Released In Florida – Environmentalist groups have been warning about the danger of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild for years, but a plan to release the GM insects in the United States for the first time is scheduled to continue as planned. Millions of GM mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys as a part of a pilot program that officials hope will reduce the spread of diseases like dengue, yellow fever, and the Zika virus. The unprecedented release is being orchestrated by the British-based biotechnology firm Oxitec, and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD), according to Reuters.. The project hopes to reduce the prevalence of the Aedes aegypti species, which is responsible for spreading many infections diseases. On May 1st, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted an experimental use permit to Oxitecon for the release of the mosquitoes. While regulators have signed off on the program and are confident of its safety, local residents are obviously very concerned about these insects being released in their back yards. The plan has already been set into motion, and some of the insects have already been released. Oxitec opened about 6 boxes containing the OX5034 modified mosquito in the Florida Keys last week. In theory, these genetically modified male mosquitos will mate with wild females, and their genetics will cause the children to die, which they hope will lead to a total collapse of the wild population. However, there are also many different things that can go wrong with this type of live experiment, and there is growing concern among scientists that this technology may not be ready for deployment. Many experts have also suggested that the risks have not been studied thoroughly enough. Some scientists are warning about the potential unintended consequences that can come from unleashing such insects into the wild. For example, researchers are entirely unaware of what type of allergic reactions that these insects could cause if they interact with people.

USDA May Allow Genetically Modified Trees to Be Released Into the Wild – On August 18, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a petition by researchers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) seeking federal approval to release their genetically engineered (GE) Darling 58 (D58) American chestnut tree into U.S. forests. Researchers claim the transgenic D58 tree will resist the fungal blight that, coupled with rampant overlogging, decimated the American chestnut population in the early 20th century. In fact, the GE American chestnut is aTrojan horse meant to open the doors to commercial GE trees designed for industrial plantations.The D58 would be the first GE forest tree approved in the U.S. and the first GMO intended to spread in the wild. (GE canola plants were discovered in the wild in 2010 but that was unplanned.) “This is a project to rapidly domesticate a wild species through genetic engineering and accelerated breeding, and then to put it back into ecosystems to form self-perpetuating populations-an intentional evolutionary intervention that has never been attempted before with any species,” explain scientists at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), which are nonprofits based in Washington, D.C.”The Southern U.S. is global ground zero for the forest products industry and we see genetically engineered chestnut trees as this industry’s sneaky way of opening the floodgates for ‘frankentrees’ that will harm forests, biodiversity and local communities across the region,” explains Scot Quaranda of Dogwood Alliance, a nonprofit based in North Carolina that works to protect Southern U.S. forests. “Our natural forests that support wildlife and the economic sovereignty of rural communities will rapidly be replaced with tree plantations for wood pellets, paper and more, leaving environmental and climate injustice in their wake.” The GE American chestnut faces an uphill battle due to decades of opposition to GE trees by Indigenous peoples, scientists, students, activists, foresters and others, including a GE tree ban by the Forest Stewardship Council and a United Nations decision that warns countries of the dangers of GE trees and urges use of the precautionary principle while addressing the issue.

Many do not recognize animal agriculture’s link to infectious diseases – New research led by the University of Kent has found that people fail to recognise the role of factory farming in causing infectious diseases. The study published by Appetite demonstrates that people blame wild animal trade or lack of government preparation for epidemic outbreaks as opposed to animal agriculture and global meat consumption. Scientists forewarned about the imminence of global pandemics such as Covid-19, but humankind failed to circumvent its arrival. They had been warning for decades about the risks of intensive farming practices for public health. The scale of production and overcrowded conditions on factory farms make it easy for viruses to migrate and spread. Furthermore, the common practice of feeding antibiotics to farmed animals promotes antimicrobial resistance, threatens public health. With the focus now on the need to prevent future pandemics and zoonotic diseases, it is critical that there is more understanding on the causes and risks posed by animal agriculture. Findings show that as well as failing to recognise the detrimental role of factory farming, those who are highly committed to eating meat struggle to acknowledge global meat consumption as a link to the problem. Even after reading about the risks of factory farms in the spread of disease, committed meat eaters were still less convinced of policies to change or ban factory farming than of policies aimed at better preparing for pandemics. Yet, when reading the same information about wild animal markets, they endorsed policies to reduce, regulate, or ban wild animal markets. Dr Dhont said: ‘As world populations swell, our dependence upon meat is likely to grow, making it increasingly pressing to come to grips with the detrimental role of intensive farming and take action to turn the tide. Undoubtedly, humankind needs to be better prepared to handle infectious disease outbreaks – which we are edging closer towards. However, it is vital to identify and uproot the causes of infectious diseases.

Farms’ air pollution contributes to almost 18K deaths in US annually: study – Farming-related pollution leads to nearly 18,000 deaths a year in the U.S., according to a new study published Monday. Reduced air quality from the agriculture industry results in 17,900 deaths annually, with ammonia accounting for 69 percent of those deaths, researchers wrote in the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many of the deaths occurred in California, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest “Corn Belt,” researchers found, noting that about 80 percent of the deaths are related to pollution from animal agriculture. Such pollutants are much more loosely restricted under the Clean Air Act than comparable pollutants from sources such as vehicles and factories. “We find that improvements in agricultural production, such as changing livestock feed practices to reduce the amount of excess protein ingested and therefore excreted as nitrogen, or using fertilizer amendments and inhibitors, can greatly reduce air quality-related health damages,” the study’s conclusion stated. “Implementing measures to reduce agricultural emissions across all producers could prevent 7,900 deaths per year (50% of total deaths from food production).” Researchers wrote that the most substantial benefits could come from altering livestock waste management and fertilizer application procedures, projecting that 3,600 deaths a year could be prevented by producer-side interventions in only the top 10 percent of counties with high death rates from pollution. The study also makes recommendations for demand-side interventions that could reduce risks, particularly reduced consumption of meat. Substitution of poultry in place of red meat could prevent more than 6,000 deaths a year, according to the study. Environmentalists and sustainability advocates have frequently pointed to meat production as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, with Microsoft founder Bill Gates saying in February that “all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.”

Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year, study finds – The smell of hog feces was overwhelming, Elsie Herring said. The breezes that wafted from the hog farm next to her mother’s Duplin County, N.C., home carried hazardous gases: methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide. “The odor is so offensive that we start gagging, we start coughing,” she told a congressional committee in November 2019. Herring, who died last week, said she and other residents developed headaches, breathing problems and heart conditions from the fumes. Now, a first-of-its-kind study shows that air pollution from Duplin County farms is linked to roughly 98 premature deaths per year, 89 of which are linked to emissions directly caused by hogs. Those losses are among more than 17,000 annual deaths attributable to pollution from farms across the United States, according to research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Animal agriculture is the worst emitter, researchers say, responsible for 80 percent of deaths from pollution related to food production. Gases associated with manure and animal feed produce small, lung-irritating particles capable of drifting hundreds of miles. These emissions now account for more annual deaths than pollution from coal power plants. Yet while pollution from power plants, factories and vehicles is restricted under the Clean Air Act, there is less regulation of air quality around farms. “The food system has really flown under the radar” as a source of deadly pollution, said University of Minnesota professor Jason Hill, the lead author of the new report. “But what we eat affects not just our own health, but the health of others. We’re showing that directly.” Jim Monroe, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, criticized the study as “highly suspect,” saying it “irresponsibly draws conclusions based on modeling and estimates.” A spokesman for Smithfield Foods, which operates industrial hog operations in Duplin County, referred The Washington Post to a 2019 report in which the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said it did not find significant air-quality problems in the region. This is the first major report to link air-pollution deaths to specific food items, Hill said. While greenhouse gases cause the same amount of warming no matter where on the planet they’re produced, the health effects of air pollution are dependent on atmospheric chemistry, local weather, and the size and health of communities living nearby. Only with advanced new air-quality models has it become possible to pinpoint the consequences of pollution produced hundreds of miles away.

Video Reveals Water Contamination, ‘Brazen Disregard’ for Amazon by ‘Sustainable’ Palm Oil Industry –During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, revealing impacts including deforestation and water contamination, and what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Para state.In this behind-the-scenes video, Mongabay’s contributing editor in Brazil, Karla Mendes, takes us on her reporting journey as she and the team track how the palm oil industry is changing this Amazonian landscape. Behind the scenes: Reporting on palm oil expansion in the Brazilian Amazon – YouTube Karla herself experienced a rapid onset of coughing, shortness of breath, nausea and headaches when she inhaled fumes from these oil palm trees doused with pesticides. “I came back to the car because the smell is very strong. I started coughing, it’s horrible,” she says. The Mongabay team also witnessed a wide range of wrongdoing, including the dumping of alleged palm oil residue in the Acara River and the lack of a buffer zone around Indigenous reserves, which are all surrounded by oil palm plantations. The Mongabay investigation will be used by federal prosecutors as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in the Ture-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve. The biggest news portal in Brazil, UOL, picked up the Mongabay story, and Karla was also interviewed by the BBC about her investigation. Read the full investigative report here: Deja vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon

Amazon Deforestation Jumps Sharply in April — Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged during the month of April, ending a streak of three consecutive months where forest clearing had been lower than the prior year. The rise in deforestation came despite a high-profile pledge from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to rein in deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest. According to preliminary deforestation alert data released Friday by Brazil’s national space research institute INPE, deforestation in the Brazilian portion of the Amazon amounted to 581 square kilometers in April, a 43% increase over April 2020 and the highest April tally since 2018. However, by INPE’s count, deforestation is still pacing behind last year’s rate: When measured since the start of the “deforestation year” – which begins August 1 – 4,640 square kilometers of rainforest has been lost, a decline of 15% for the nine-month period. But the trend reported by INPE is not matched by data from Imazon, a Brazilian organization that independently monitors deforestation. Imazon’s data shows eight straight months of rising deforestation: Through the end of March, Imazon puts forest loss as 33% above last year’s level. The discrepancies between the systems can generally be chalked up to the different methodologies they use. And both systems generate “preliminary data” which is used primarily for tracking where deforestation is occurring on a near-real-time basis, rather than comprehensively documenting forest loss. The annual assessment, which uses higher resolution imagery and measures loss between August 1 and July 31, is considered the official baseline., Using that approach, deforestation for the 2019-2020 year amounted to 11,088 square kilometers,the highest on record since 2008. Deforestation has accelerated sharply since Bolsonaro took office January 1, 2019. Based on deforestation alert data, forest clearing during his administration to date is about 98% higher than the same period of time under his predecessor, and 206% higher than Dilma Rousseff’s first 16 months in office.

U.S. Lumber Importers Drive Buying Mania for European Wood — Facing skyrocketing lumber prices at home, U.S. importers are driving competition for European wood, and winning.The frenzy comes on the heels of record American forest-products imports from Europe in 2020, when North American demand soared and caught sawmills off guard with low inventories. Lumber prices have reached new peaks on a near daily basis in recent weeks, quadrupling from just a year ago. The unprecedented rally has been spurred by low borrowing rates, an increased appetite for larger homes, and a frenzy of do-it-yourself renovations during the pandemic.Unrelenting building demand means U.S. sawmills have been unable to catch up, causing suppliers to look to Europe for a reprieve as it is one of the few parts of the globe with a surplus due to a beetle infestation that killed large swaths of trees that must now be harvested. Voracious U.S. demand means beetle-killed wood in Europe could sell faster than expected, though international shipping and U.S. trucking constraints limit supply chain capabilities.”The other markets are getting pulled up by the U.S.,” said Geoff Berwick, vice president of business development at Atlantic Forest Products.Berwick has been importing lumber from Europe since 1999 and his job has never been easier, he said. Customers tell him: “Get me covered and let me know what it’s going to cost.” Normally, prices are negotiated.The buying power of lumber importers in the U.S. is strengthened by home builders’ willingness to pay up, as project costs rise by the hour on some days. The cost of lumber for the average U.S. house has increased by nearly $36,000 over the last year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The U.S. continues to buy the biggest share of its foreign forest products from Canada, but imports from the European Union reached an all-time high in 2020, nearly tripling 2019’s amount. The biggest jump from European countries came from Sweden, which rose a dizzying 1,300%. Imports from Europe remained strong in the first three months of 2021, up 37% from the same period a year ago, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service data show.

Urban traffic noise causes song learning deficits in birds – Traffic noise leads to inaccuracies and delays in the development of song learning in young birds. They also suffer from a suppressed immune system, which is an indicator of chronic stress. A new study by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and colleagues shows that young zebra finches, just like children, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of noise because of its potential to interfere with learning at a critical developmental stage. Traffic noise is a pervasive pollutant that adversely affects the health and well-being of millions of people. In addition to severe noise-induced diseases in adults, traffic noise has also been linked to learning impairments and language deficits in children. In order to analyse the causal mechanisms connecting chronic noise exposure to cognitive deficiencies, researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology with colleagues at the University of Paris Nanterre and the Manchester Metropolitan University studied the song learning and immune function of young zebra finches exposed to traffic noise. Like children, songbirds must learn their vocalizations from adult tutors during a sensitive period early in life. Under normal conditions, the songs of the finches become stable and stereotyped at an age of around 90 days, and remain the same for the rest of their adult life, a process called “crystallization”. The researchers found that juvenile zebra finches exposed to realistic levels of city noise had weaker immune responses than chicks from quiet nests, suggesting that noise was a source of chronic stress in these young birds. Furthermore, the birds in the noise treatment were significantly delayed in their vocal development – crystallizing their songs more than 30% later than controls, and with significantly lower accuracy in their song learning.

Doctors raise concerns about bone scans required for claims in the Flint water settlement — Doctors continue to voice their concerns about the use of a portable bone scanning device required for Flint, Michigan, residents to qualify for compensation in the $641.25 million Flint water crisis settlement. In order to qualify for more than $1,000 per household, residents must prove they have lead in their bodies by having their bones scanned by a device not made or approved for use in humans. Lead is a dangerous neurotoxin, which cannot be removed from the body and has serious life-long implications for both children and adults. The portable bone scanner being used is a modified XRF fluorescence device that was originally manufactured to detect lead and other metals in scrap metal, walls, soil and other inanimate objects. The device is not manufactured to be used on humans, nor has it been approved by the FDA for use on humans. The only location available to Flint residents to have the bone test administered is at the Flint Township offices of the law firm Napoli-Shkolnik, which has the sole ownership of the device and is charging $500 per test. The law firm was appointed by US District Judge Judith Levy as the co-liaison counsel and has the majority of clients in the suit. Several residents who were tested told the World Socialist Web Site that the dangers of radiation, particularly in children and pregnant women, were not explained. The wording on the forms deliberately downplays any dangers. To get the test, residents must sign to the following: “I understand this is not a medical test, and not for the purposes of diagnosis or treatment … that the test involves some exposure to radiation, but no more than a typical x-ray.”( Emphasis added.) Dr. Lawrence Reynolds (Kids’ Health Connections Facebook page) Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a Flint pediatrician with 42 years of experience, told the WSWS, “Nowhere on the consent form does it state ‘this equipment was not made for use on humans.” Furthermore, according to Dr. Reynolds, the Thermo Fisher XRF Fluorescence analyzer was modified by Aaron Specht, a research physicist from Harvard whose studies and research are cited by Napoli-Shkolnik, “but who for his part has refused to disclose the modifications he made to the original XRF device to his peers.”

Chicago Mayor Delays Permit for Polluting Facility in Disadvantaged Neighborhood – Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot indefinitely delayed a permitting decision on the relocation of a highly polluting metal shredding and recycling facility after the U.S. EPA said doing so could violate the civil rights of Black and Latino people who live there. Research Management Group, which acquired the General Iron facility in 2019, is seeking to relocate it from the white and wealthy North Side neighborhood of Lincoln Park to a predominantly Black and Latinx community on the Southeast Side already plagued by numerous polluting industries. “When you take a company that has a terrible track record from a predominantly white and wealthy community to a community that is majority Latino and Black, then you’re sending a strong message that you value certain people over others,” Olga Bautista, a member of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, who organized against General Iron’s move to the Southeast Side, told WGN.The delay of the General Iron permit is a major victory for neighborhood and environmental justice groups that fought to protect Southeast Side communities from yet another source of industrial pollution – a campaign that included hunger strikes – but organizers said much more is needed.”Until we have the right policies in Chicago, we are all getting ready, taking this moment to catch our breaths and getting ready to work with the city to stop any companies trying to move in that don’t have our health in mind,” Bautista said.

New Ohio law allows falconers to use owls for hunting -Ohio falconers will soon be allowed to use owls to hunt for small game, under legislation signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Mike DeWine. Under Senate Bill 28, which takes effect in 90 days, the 110 or so Ohioans with a state-issued falconry permit can use owls for hunting animals such as rabbits and squirrels. To become a licensed falconer in Ohio, people must be 16 years old or older, pass a written test, complete a two-year apprenticeship, and keep proper housing and equipment for their birds, among other requirements.

18 Endangered Elephants Found Dead in Indian Forest Preserve – Authorities in India are investigating after at least 18 Asian elephants died mysteriously in a protected area in the northeastern state of Assam.Authorities believe a lightning strike is to blame for the deaths which mark the first time in 20 years that so many elephants have died in Assam at once, as BBC News reported.”Deeply pained by the death of 18 elephants last night due to massive thunderstorm under Kothiatoli Range in Nagaon,” Assam Minister of Excise, Forest & Environment and Fisheries Parimal Suklabaidya tweeted in response to the deaths.The mystery began Thursday when villagers found 14 elephants dead in the Kundoli reserve forest, as Al Jazeera reported. The bodies of four additional elephants were found scattered around the foothills of the reserve, local wildlife official MK Yadava said. Five of the elephants killed were calves, wildlife official Jayanta Goswami told The AP.The deaths followed lightning strikes late Wednesday, and a local forest ranger said he had seen burnt trees in the area, according to Al Jazeera. Veterinarians on the scene also said that lightning was the likely cause of death, The AP reported. However, not all wildlife advocates agree, and officials say they are conducting an autopsy to make sure.

Water Wells at Risk of Going Dry in the U.S. and Worldwide – As the drought outlook for the Western U.S. becomes increasingly bleak, attention is turning once again to groundwater – literally, water stored in the ground. It is Earth’s most widespread and reliable source of fresh water, but it’s not limitless.Wells that people drill to access groundwater supply nearly half the water used for irrigated agriculture in the U.S. and provide over 100 million Americans with drinking water. Unfortunately, pervasive pumping is causing groundwater levels to decline in some areas, including much of California’s San Joaquin Valley and Kansas’ High Plains.We are a water resources engineer with training in water law and a water scientist and large-data analyst. Ina recent study, we mapped the locations and depths of wells in 40 countries around the world and found that millions of wells could run dry if groundwater levels decline by only a few meters. While solutions vary from place to place, we believe that what’s most important for protecting wells from running dry is managing groundwater sustainably – especially in nations like the U.S. that use a lot of it. Humans have been digging wells for water for thousands of years. Examples include 7,400-year-old wells in the Czech Republic and Germany, 8,000-year-old wells in the eastern Mediterranean, and 10,000-year-old wells in Cyprus. Today wells supply 40% of water used for irrigation worldwide and provide billions of people with drinking water. Groundwater flows through tiny spaces within sediments and their underlying bedrock. At some points, called discharge areas, groundwater rises to the surface, moving into lakes, rivers and streams. At other points, known as recharge areas, water percolates deep into the ground, either through precipitation or leakage from rivers, lakes and streams.Groundwater can remain underground for days to millennia, depending on how deep it sinks, how readily it moves through rock around it and how fast humans pump it to the surface. Groundwater declines can have many undesirable consequences. Land surfaces sink as underground clay layers are compacted. Seawater intrusion can contaminate groundwater reserves and make them too salty to use without energy-intensive treatment. River water can leak down to underground aquifers, leaving less water available at the surface.

Bay Area under extreme drought and wildfire risk as California dry spell worsens, U.S. – The latest version of the federal United States Drought Monitor map has put much of California’s San Francisco Bay area under the extreme drought, as of Thursday, May 6, 2021. The dry conditions also placed almost 3.7 million ha (9.3 million acres) of land under extreme wildfire risk, which is 130 percent higher than the five-year average. “The second-highest level of drought covers just about all of our neighborhood, only that small sliver in northern Mendocino County remains in severe’. It’s not just here,” said ABC7 News Meteorologist Mike Nicco, who described the situation as “unfortunate, but not a surprise.” “The entire state saw that ‘extreme’ category goes from 53 percent to nearly 73 percent,” he added. “Nearly three-fourths of our wonderful, beautiful state is now suffering in the second-highest level of drought.” Richard Heim, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one of the authors of the recent map, also noted that the drought is “no surprise, especially in Northern California,” as the state has seen consecutive dry winters, with the last season being the third driest on record. The map classified the drought levels on a color-coded scale, from yellow or abnormally dry to maroon or exceptional drought. The April 29 map showed the most severe conditions forming along the southern border with Nevada and Arizona, with red code or extreme drought covering much of California’s southern and northern areas, and orange or severe drought spreading across much of the rest of the state.Aside from the dry conditions, the Bay Area is also under extreme risk of wildfire, according to the AccuWeather 2021 Wildfire Risk Outlook. “So what does that mean? Record dry vegetation. It’s going to continue to get drier and drier. Nearly 3.7 million ha (9.3 million acres) ould burn. That’s 130 percent higher than the five-year average,” said Nicco. “It’s going to be a tough season. We need everyone to be prepared and vigilant,” he warned, urging people to build defensible space and keep hot things away from dry vegetation.

Gavin Newsom declares drought across much of California | The Sacramento Bee –Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his drought emergency declaration to 39 more counties Monday, underscoring the rapid deterioration of California’s water supply in recent weeks.The governor broadened his earlier drought order, which was limited to two counties on the Russian River, to cover most of parched California, which is plunging into its second major drought in less than a decade. The new order covers the Sacramento and San Joaquin river watersheds, the Tulare Lake basin region and the Klamath region in far Northern California. About 30% of the state’s population is now covered by the declarations, including the greater Sacramento area and Fresno, Merced and Stanislaus counties in the San Joaquin Valley. Newsom didn’t issue any mandatory drought conservation measures, as his predecessor Jerry Brown did during the last drought. But such mandatory orders, which could force urban Californians to cut back on outdoor usage, “are on the table” if the state has another dry winter, said Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. Newsom issued the declaration shortly before arriving at San Luis Reservoir on the west side of Merced County, where he announced a proposal for a plethora of short- and long-term drought-assistance measures totaling $5.1 billion. If approved by the Legislature, his “drought and water resilience package” would be part of a $100 billion economic stimulus plan he announced earlier in the day in Oakland. Some Newsom critics say he has been reluctant to declare a statewide drought for fear of angering voters with a recall election coming this fall. But hydrology is forcing the issue. Relatively little snowmelt – normally a big piece of the state’s summer and fall supply – reached California’s reservoirs. The Sierra is producing “far less inflow into the reservoirs than any modeling would have predicted,” Crowfoot told The Sacramento Bee. “Much of the snowpack has melted into the ground.” Many of the major reservoirs, such as Folsom Lake and Lake Oroville, are just half as full as they normally are this time of year. Crowfoot said the state has lost 500,000 acre-feet of water in the past few weeks, enough to supply as many as 1 million homes for a year.

California expands drought emergency to large swath of state (AP) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday expanded a drought emergency to a large swath of the nation’s most populous state while seeking more than $6 billion in multiyear water spending as one of the warmest, driest springs on record threatens another severe wildfire season across the American West. The Democratic governor said he is acting amid “acute water supply shortages” in northern and central parts of California as he called again for voluntary conservation. Yet the state is in relatively better shape than it was when the last five-year drought ended in 2017, he said, as good habits have led to a 16% reduction in water usage. His emergency declaration now includes 41 of 58 counties, covering 30% of California’s nearly 40 million people, and he said a further expansion is likely as conditions worsen. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of the state and the American West is in extensive drought just a few years after California emerged from the last punishing multiyear dry spell. “We’re staring down at what could be disastrous summer and fall, with the potential of communities running out water, and fires,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Costa, who accompanied Newsom to the announcement made before a Central Valley reservoir with a deep bathtub ring of dry earth surrounded by browning grass. Like most of the state’s extensive interconnected system of reservoirs and canals, the San Luis Reservoir is at less than 60% of its seasonal average as scarce winter rain and snow turns to a dry summer that Newsom said is imperiled by climate change. Officials fear an extraordinarily dry spring presages a wildfire season like last year, when flames burned a record 6,562 square miles (16,996 square kilometers). “The hots are getting a lot hotter in this state, the dries are getting a lot drier,” Newsom said. “We have a conveyance system, a water system, that was designed for a world that no longer exists.”

Dangerous Fire Season Looms as Drought-Stricken Western U.S Faces Water Crisis — Just about every indicator of drought is flashing red across the western U.S. after a dry winter and warm early spring. The snowpack is at less than half of normal in much of the region. Reservoirs are being drawn down, river levels are dropping and soils are drying out.It’s only May, and states are already considering water use restrictions to make the supply last longer. California’s governor declared a drought emergency in 41 of 58 counties. In Utah, irrigation water providers are increasing fines for overuse. Some Idaho ranchers are talking about selling off livestock because rivers and reservoirs they rely on are dangerously low and irrigation demand for farms is only just beginning.Scientists are also closely watching the impact that the rapid warming and drying is having on trees, worried that water stress could lead to widespread tree deaths. Dead and drying vegetation means more fuel for what is already expected to be another dangerous fire season.U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters on May 13, 2021, that federal fire officials had warned them to prepare for an extremely active fire year. “We used to call it fire season, but wildland fires now extend throughout the entire year, burning hotter and growing more catastrophic in drier conditions due to climate change,” Vilsack said. As climate scientists, we track these changes. Right now, about 84% of the western U.S. is under some level of drought, and there is no sign of relief.

Wildfires Are Contaminating Drinking Water Systems, and It’s More Widespread Than People Realize — More than 58,000 fires scorched the United States last year, and 2021 is on track to be even drier. What many people don’t realize is that these wildfires can do lasting damage beyond the reach of the flames – they can contaminate entire drinking water systems with carcinogens that last for months after the blaze. That water flows to homes, contaminating the plumbing, too. Over the past four years, wildfires have contaminated drinking water distribution networks and building plumbing for more than 240,000 people. Small water systems serving housing developments, mobile home parks, businesses and small towns have been particularly hard-hit. Most didn’t realize their water was unsafe until weeks to months after the fire.The problem starts when wildfire smoke gets into the system or plastic in water systems heats up. Heating can cause plastics to release harmful chemicals, like benzene, which can contaminate drinking water and permeate the system. Our new study identifies critical issues that households and businesses should consider after a wildfire. Failing to address them can harm people’s health – mental, physical and financial. When wildfires damage water distribution pipes, wells and the plumbing in homes and other buildings, they can create immediate health risks. A building’s plumbing can become contaminated by smoke getting sucked into water systems, by heat damaging plastic pipes – or contamination penetrating into the plumbing and leaching out slowly over time. Since 2017, multiple fires have rendered drinking water systems unsafe, including the Echo Mountain,Lionshead and Almeda fires in Oregon, and the CZU Lightning Complex, Camp and Tubbs fires in California. Thousands of private wells have been affected too. Being exposed to contaminated water can cause immediate harm, such as headaches, nausea, dizziness and vomiting. Short-term exposure to 26 parts per billion or more of benzene, a carcinogen, may cause a decrease in white blood cells that protect the body from infectious disease. Multiple fires have caused drinking water to exceed this level. A variety of other chemicals can exceed safe drinking water exposure limits too in the absence of benzene.

Lake Cuitzeo, the second-largest lake in Mexico dries up – At the end of April 2021, drought conditions were covering 85 percent of Mexico. Numerous lakes and reservoirs have dried up, or are in the process of drying up, including the country’s second-largest body of freshwater — Lake Cuitzeo. Before the current drought, Lake Cuitzeo was Mexico’s second-biggest lake, with an area of approximately 300 – 400 km2 (120 – 150 mi2), and the site of a thriving fishing economy in Michoacan. Now, this is a cemetery of abandoned fishing boats and a shortcut for motorists which creates frequent and prolonged dust clouds that reach municipalities 20 km (12.4 miles) away in Guanajuato. That affects the health of residents in nearby communities, causing allergies, respiratory illnesses, and gastrointestinal complications from the bacteria they transport, according to the State Health Ministry. The images below show Lake Cuitzeo on May 4, 2020, and May 4, 2021. The difference is staggering. According to Julieta Gallardo Mora, honorary president of a foundation committed to conserving the lake, its deterioration started in 1941, and authorities have made no effort to stop it. “The first blow was when the Cointzio dam was built in 1941, which meant that two-thirds of Lake Cuitzeo was removed,” she said. The first noticeable impact was the disappearance of fish, starting with the choristoma, which is native to the lakes of Jalisco and Michoacan, followed by whitefish and other water life.

Water reservoirs drop to critical levels as Taiwan suffers worst drought on record – Taiwan’s water reservoirs have dropped to critical levels in May 2021 in what is now the country’s worst drought in 56 years. The government has allotted money to explore new sources of water and is using geoengineering planes to dump cloud-seeding chemicals in hopes of triggering rain. The country’s central regions are the worst affected, with water reservoirs currently below 10%. Rainfall in the seven months through February 2021 was less than half the historic average, after no significant rains hit Taiwan in 2020 for the first time in 56 years, according to the government. The country relies on seasonal typhoons to refill reservoirs, but last year no typhoon made landfall.Taiwan’s last drought occurred in 2015 when its reservoir levels dipped below 50% due to a lack of rain and forced the government to begin rationing water in April.But compared to 2015, this year’s conditions are far more severe, Taiwanese CW reports. This year to date, Taiwan has received less than 800 mm (31.5 inches) of rain, causing the country’s reservoir levels to drop down to 25%, the lowest in a decade.Households in areas under high-level restrictions would go without running water two days every week, including those from Taichung, which has a population of 2.8 million people, as well as Miaoli and Changhua.”Our business is 90 percent less than last year,” said Wai Ying-Shen, chairman of a group of businesspeople who rent boats to visitors. Economics Minister Wang Mei-Hua advised that while light rains fell in some areas last week, restrictions must be tightened. Other cities, including Hsinchu, are restricting total water supplies for each customer.The government has allocated financial assistance to explore new sources of water such as groundwater, seawater desalination, wastewater reclamation, and water transportation, but these efforts will not be able to provide immediate relief. Authorities have also started using military planes to dump cloud-seeding chemicals, hoping to trigger rainfall.

Worst drought in 40 years hits southern Madagascar – Parts of southern Madagascar are under the worst drought conditions since at least 1981. The region is now in its fifth year of drought which wiped out harvests and hampered access to food. In three months to January 2021, there was less than 50% of the normal quantity of rainfall. In addition, up to 60% of harvests are expected to be lost in the coming months.Southern Madagascar recorded another below-average cumulative rainfall this season, particularly in the Alaotra Mangoro, Analamanga, Haute Matsiatra, and Ihorombe regions.This is the fifth below-average rainy season reported in southern Madagascar in the last six years, with the Grand Sud affected by its most severe drought since 1981.The worst affected are children and women, with three out of four children quitting school, mostly to help their parents forage for food.As of May 12, there are at least 70 000 children who are acutely malnourished and the number is rising daily, Welthungerhilfe (WHH) reports.If rapid emergency assistance is not provided, there is a risk that the famine will spread, endangering the lives of up to a million people, WHH said.Marlene Muller, WHH Programme Director described the situation in the south as dramatic.”Our colleagues in the south report that some fields have turned to dust and sand because of the lack of rain,” said Muller.”The small farmers normally harvest their crops at this time of year to feed their families. Instead, the children must go hungry because they are not getting enough to eat. People are feeding on leaves, berries, and locusts. The small farming families have no way to get enough healthy food, or to earn an income.””They have no reserves left. Without rapid assistance from outside, they are threatened by starvation.”

Large landslide blocks Colca River in Arequipa, Peru – (satellite image) A large landslide hit the Caylloma Province, Peru at around 07:30 LT on May 9, 2021, blocking the Colca River in the district of Chivay and forming a natural dam.The landslide took place close to the city of Chivay and is about 300 m (985 feet) long.Authorities estimated the river is blocked by at least 800 m3 (28 250 feet3) of rock and earth, and ordered the clearing of the debris to drain the accumulated water. There are no reports of the affected population.

Rivers overflow as heavy rain hits Uganda – Heavy rains affecting eastern and northern Uganda since May 6, 2021, have caused rivers to overflow leading to severe damage and at least 1 fatality. More than 15 000 people have been affected. The Manafwa and the Nakwasi Rivers in the Butaleja District overflowed after two days of heavy rain across Eastern and Northern regions. Local authorities are reporting damaged homes, blocked roads, and crops destroyed in 7 sub-counties and describing the flooding as one of the worst on record for the area. Media report one fatality and around 15 000 affected families in Eastern Region. The victim was a trader from Manafwa who was crossing a flooded road. The water also covered many areas like the Doho-Manafwa bridge and Leresi trading center, NTV Uganda reported. “Roads to leading to Kasensero landing site via Mutukula road are cut off due to floods,” Uganda Red Cross reported today. “From Bukoola to Kateera, close to 20 km [12.4 miles] River Bukoola and River Kagera overflow ends up into the nearby communities. Transport is a challenge, affecting all businesses and livelihoods.”

Heavy rains leave 25 people dead, more than 150 000 at risk in days ahead, Somalia – Heavy rains lashed many parts of Somalia over the past few days, triggering flash floods that affected around 25 000 people and killed at least 25. This included nine children who died due to flooding in Banadir on Friday, May 7, 2021, and six others in Mogadishu on Saturday, May 8. More inundations are expected along the Shabelle River in the coming days, putting at least 150 000 people at risk. The main rivers are overflowing in Somalia, in particular the Shabelle and the Juba Rivers, and floods have resulted in considerable casualties and damage, DG ECHO reports. This has been attributed to unprecedented rains in the upper parts of the Ethiopian highlands, especially in the last three days. Inundations due to heavy rain have affected an estimated 25 000 people in Jowhar. At least 25 fatalities have also been reported, including nine children who died in the recent flooding in Wadajir on Friday. “Sadly 9 children rushed to hospital following the collapse of a house in Mogadishu have succumbed to their injuries,” Abdulkadir Afi confirmed, the Director of Organizational Development and Communication of the Somali Red Crescent Society. Five of the children, all under 10 years old, were from the same family. “Rescue efforts still ongoing and our Somali RC ambulances continue to attend to the wounded. Heavy rains have caused flash floods and structural damage in the area,” he said in a statement. On Saturday, authorities reported six more fatalities– four of which were from the same family– after a wall collapsed on makeshift shelters for internally displaced people (IDP) in Garasbaley, Mogadishu.There are hundreds of IDPs in the city, most of whom ran away from catastrophes such as the Al Shabaab menace and disasters like flooding– a common occurrence in the country during the rainy season. In Puntland, heavy rains in the past days caused damage to the main bridge, making it impassable for traders. Two other bridges on Qayaadsame River also sustained damages, affecting the movement of goods from Bossasso. More than 1 250 heads of livestock perished in the low-lying areas of Ceel Daahir. The Puntland Disaster Management Authority also reported at least three fatalities due to lightning strikes.

Severe storms claim 16 lives, affect 70 000 people across Ethiopia —Severe weather affecting Ethiopia since late April 2021, has left at least 16 people dead and 70 000 affected in the regions of Afar, SNNP, and Somali.Around 27 400 people were displaced in Afar Region due to flooding and strong winds in Gulina, Ewa, Beyalo, Dulecha, Haruka, and Mile Woredas.In Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNP), some 250 ha (617 acres) of land has been flooded while hailstorms damaged crops in the Wolayta Zone.7 people died and around 11 200 families displaced after heavy rains hit Shabelle, Jarar, Dolo, Afder, Fafan, and Korahe Zones of the Somali Region.9 people died after a 50 m (165 feet) high wall in Dire Dawa city collapsed on three houses during heavy rains on May 2. In neighboring Somalia, heavy rains over the past 7 days triggered flash floods that affected around 25 000 people and killed at least 25. This included nine children who died due to flooding in Banadir on Friday, May 7, 2021, and six others in Mogadishu on Saturday, May 8.

Heavy rainfall and flash floods kill at least 84, destroy 2 600 homes in Afghanistan –(video) At least 84 people have died and almost 2 600 residential houses have been destroyed as heavy rainfall and flash floods hit Afghanistan in the past week, the National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) reported. Recent fatalities include six persons in Takhar Province after downpours struck Monday night, May 10. The severe weather began on May 2, with the province of Herat being the worst affected. Days of heavy rainfall have affected 17 provinces in the country, said ANDMA.Nearly 2 600 residential houses have been partially or totally destroyed, around 3 600 animals have perished, and more than 2 023 ha (5 000 acres) of farmland have been ravaged.As of Monday, at least 84 fatalities have been reported, six of whom died on Monday night following heavy downpours and flash floods that swept away parts of Takhar, including provincial capital Taluqan.Provincial police spokesman Abdul Khalil Asir added that several houses, gardens, and agricultural lands in Taluqan have been damaged, as well as properties in some districts, including Namakab, Kalafgan, and Bangi”We have sent heavy machinery to clean and open the closed roads and highways,” ANDMA spokesman Ahmad Tamim Azimi told the media. Search and rescue operations are underway to locate 32 people missing.

Destructive tornado rips through Wuhan, killing 8 people and injuring 280 (videos) A destructive tornado ripped through the city of Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei Province, at around 20:39 LT on Friday, May 14, 2021, killing at least 8 people and leaving 280 injured. This is the second extreme weather event to hit the city in just 4 days. Another tornado hit the city of Shengze on May 14, killing 4 people and injuring 149.According to local authorities, the tornado ripped through the district of Caidian, destroying 27 houses and damaging 130.In addition, two tower cranes were toppled and 8 000 m2 (86 100 feet2) of sheds at construction sites as well as trees and electricity poles, leaving 26 600 homes without power. At least 2 people have been killed after a severe thunderstorm hit the city on May 10, 2021, turning day into night.According to the Wuhan Emergency Management Bureau, parts of the city encountered a level 10 thunderstorm which resulted in the deaths of two workers who were on gondola cleaning windows at Sanyang Road.The maximum rain intensity in the urban area reached 99.6 mm (3.9 inches) in 1 hour. Authorities reported the city was also hit by record-breaking wind gusts, which destroyed roofs and windows on many buildings.”I’ve grown up in Wuhan and I’ve never seen anything like it,” one Wuhan resident said early Saturday, May 15. “There’s been so much extreme weather recently.” Another destructive tornado hit the town of Shengze, in the Suzhou area of Jiangsu Province at around 19:00 LT on May 14, killing 4 people and injuring 149. Shengze is about 400 km (250 miles) east of Wuhan. The tornado destroyed several factory buildings and damaged electricity facilities.

Earliest tropical storm on record forms in East Pacific — The first tropical system of 2021 in the Western Hemisphere developed early Sunday morning EDT, before hurricane season even officially started, and continued to strengthen, setting a record.AccuWeather meteorologists were monitoring a disorganized area of low pressure was noted a few hundred miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec much of last week, allowing for thunderstorms to cluster and bubble up over the anomalously warm water for this time of year. This low pressure then developed into a tropical depression on the morning of Sunday, May 9.Later that morning, Tropical Depression 1-E strengthened, and with sustained winds of 40 mph became Tropical Storm Andres, the first named storm of the season. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average date for the first named storm of the season in the East Pacific is June 10. Additionally, Andres forming on Sunday morning, local time, makes it the earliest ever tropical storm to form in the East Pacific Basin. Previously, the record was held by Tropical Storm Adrien, which formed in the afternoon, local time, on May 9 of 2017, according to the National Hurricane Center.

4 dead, over 42,000 affected by heavy rains, flooding in Sri Lanka – At least four people had died and over 42,000 others had been affected by days of strong winds and heavy rains which lashed the country due to the formation of a super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Center (DMC) said in its latest weather report Saturday. According to the DMC, the deaths had been a result of severe flooding. Over 200 houses had been fully or partially damaged, while 175 people belonging to 42 affected families were housed in temporary shelters. The National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) also issued a landslide warning for several districts in the country including the capital Colombo and the south. The NBRO requested people living in high-risk areas to move to safer grounds. The army has dispatched rescue teams in several districts affected by the floods and has rescued several people who were trapped by the rising water levels. The Disaster Management Center officials were also deployed in the worst affected districts, setting up facilities to accommodate those displaced by the adverse weather conditions. According to weather reports, the powerful cyclone that formed in the Bay of Bengal is now headed directly for the India-Bangladesh border, bringing with it the potential for major destruction and upheaval. Sri Lanka’s Meteorology Department, in its latest weather update, said that more rains were expected over the country in the coming days and urged everyone to be cautious.

Years After the Pacific Marine Heat Wave, Ecosystem Shifts Persist –From 2014 to 2016, the Gulf of Alaska experienced the worst marine heat wave of the decade. From single-celled organisms to top predators, practically no level of the ecosystem was left unscathed. During the Pacific marine heat wave, tens of thousands of dead seabirds washed up on beaches, unusually low numbers ofhumpback whales arrived in their summer habitats, and toxic algal blooms spread along the West Coast of North America.Now, a new study in Scientific Reports casts doubt on whether Gulf ecosystems will be able to return to their pre-heat wave conditions. This study-a collaborative effort between researchers at NOAA and several other government and research organizations-combined dozens of data sets to build a detailed picture of how many heat wave-induced changes have persisted. Thanks in part to long-term monitoring efforts by Gulf Watch Alaska, a program established in 2012 to assess the ongoing effects from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists were able to compare pre-heat wave and present conditions in several different sections of the ecosystem. “We were able to show these impacts-from the intertidal out to the pelagic [open ocean] ecosystem, and from algae and phytoplankton on up to whales and commercial fisheries, and a lot of different species in between,” said Robert Suryan, a NOAA marine biologist and lead author of the study. “The ecological significance is huge,” In addition to impacts on the animals that make their homes in the Gulf of Alaska, changes in the Gulf ecosystem could have major implications for the livelihoods of many Alaskans as well. This region supports subsistence fisheries, commercial fisheries, and a major tourism industry.

High-level eruption at Sinabung volcano, ash to 12.9 km (40 000 feet) a.s.l., Indonesia — A high-level eruption took place at Sinabung volcano on May 13, 2021. The Aviation Color Code was raised to Red at 19:35 UTC.According to the Darwin VAAC, the volcanic ash is clearly identifiable on the latest satellite imagery, rising up to 12.9 km (40 000 feet) above sea level and moving NW at 20:20 UTC. Height and movement were based on Himawari-8 satellite and model guidance. The Alert Level remains at 3 (of 4). Sinabung on May 11, 2021. Sinabung on May 10, 2021. The last major eruption at Sinabung volcano took place at 23:42 UTC on March 1, 2021, ejecting ash up to 12.2 km (40 000 feet) above sea level. It was the volcano’s first major eruption since August 2020.Sinabung woke up in 2010 after 4 centuries of sleep. Since then, at least 23 people have been killed and more than 30 000 displaced.

Lava flow at Fagradalsfjall increases by 70 percent amid ongoing eruption, Iceland – (video) Lava flow at the Fagradalsfjall eruption site on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula has increased by around 70 percent, according to the latest data from the University of Iceland’s Institute of Earth Sciences (IES). Experts also noted that there are no signs that the ongoing volcanic eruption will stop soon. Despite the dangers, many visitors ventured near the perimeter to witness the spectacular sight of lava geysers. Data gathered on May 10 showed that lava flow at the Geldingadalir eruption increased significantly in the past week, from 8 to 13 m3 per sec (282 to 459 cubic feet per sec). Although a security perimeter has been enforced to protect people from the hazards of falling hot rocks, many locals walk near the volcano to witness huge lava geysers. “It’s not every day we can go to look at a volcano so close. It’s just really amazing and so beautiful,” said Freyja Wappler-Fridriksdottir, who was among more than 2 500 people who visited the site on the weekend. According to the national meteorological office, some lava geysers have reached unusual heights beyond 460 m (1 500 feet). As of Monday, May 10, authorities have closed the eruption site due to the risk of wildfires. The police initially received a report of a fire at Laugarnestangi, which turned out to be an isolated case. “Increased flow has gone hand in hand with rising lava fountains and a powerful advance of lava into Meradalir valley,” the institute said in a statement issued Tuesday, May 11. “The eruption is now twice as powerful as it has been for most of the active period.” The volume of lava emitted, which has lasted for nearly eight weeks so far, has now reached more than 30 million m3 (1 billion cubic feet). The Geldingadalir eruption is particularly exceptional in that the wide majority of eruptions decrease in intensity after they begin. “An increase with time indicates that the channel is widening, probably due to a break in its walls. It can not be seen that the pressure in the source has decreased to a certain extent and therefore the flow increases over time as the channel expands,” wrote IES. “There is currently no way to predict how long the eruption will last or whether lava flows will continue to increase.”

Incoming CME, impact expected early May 12 — Two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) with Earth-directed components were produced on the Sun on May 9, 2021. The impact is expected early Wednesday, May 12. Active Region 2833 produced a long-duration C-class solar flare measuring C4.0 at its peak at 14:49 UTC on May 9 with an associated Type II radio sweep (estimated velocity 407 km/s), indicating a CME was associated with the flare event. A 10cm Radio Burst with peak flux of 130 sfu was detected at 13:54 UTC. A 10cm radio burst indicates that the electromagnetic burst associated with a solar flare at the 10cm wavelength was double or greater than the initial 10cm radio background. This can be indicative of significant radio noise in association with a solar flare. This noise is generally short-lived but can cause interference for sensitive receivers including radar, GPS, and satellite communications. Additionally, a 15-degree filament centered around S22E10 erupted at 10:00 UTC on May 9. This event was also associated with a CME, observed in STEREO-A COR2 imagery starting at 11:23 UTC. This appears to be a faint, partial-halo CME. The two CMEs are still being analyzed at the time of this report with the potential for at least one having an Earth-directed component. While the analysis is still in progress, two of the world’s experts of space weather prediction, Dr. Tamitha Skow and Erika Palmero, agreed that the CME impact of the filament eruption will be more than a glancing blow as a more central part of the CME may hit us.

CME impacts Earth, sparking G3 – Strong geomagnetic storm (video) A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by a filament eruption around 10:00 UTC on May 9, 2021, has reached Earth at 06:43 UTC on May 12. G3 – Moderate geomagnetic storm levels were observed at 12:59 UTC. The CME arrived at the DSCOVR spacecraft at 05:47 UTC. Solar wind speed increased from an average of 320 km/s to 430 km/s at 05:48 UTC and to 450 km/s at 07:41 UTC Similar jumps were observed in density, temperature, and magnetic field. After a short period of southward Bz (-7nT) immediately after shock arrival, Bz was predominantly positive. The Bt reached 20 nT but had declined to around 10 nT by 12:30 UTC. Bz also reached 20nT, but it was stubbornly positive during that roughly two-hour period. Earth’s magnetic field was quiet until 06:43 UTC when the CME arrived. The arrival was marked by a 51 nT sudden impulse at the Fredericksburg, VA ground magnetometer, SWPC said. Geomagnetic K-index of 5 (G1 – Minor geomagnetic storm) threshold was reached at 12:30 UTC, followed by K-index of 6 (G2 – Moderate) at 12:32 UTC and K-index of 7 at 12:58 UTC.
ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 7
Threshold Reached: 2021 May 12 1258 UTC
Synoptic Period: 1200-1500 UTC
Active Warning: Yes
NOAA Scale: G3 – Strong . NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at
www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 50 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.
Induced Currents – Power system voltage irregularities possible, false alarms may be triggered on some protection devices.
Spacecraft – Systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites and orientation problems may occur.
Navigation – Intermittent satellite navigation (GPS) problems, including loss-of-lock and increased range error may occur.
Radio – HF (high frequency) radio may be intermittent.
Aurora – Aurora may be seen as low as Pennsylvania to Iowa to Oregon.
CME was produced by a filament eruption at 10:00 UTC on May 9.

Asteroid 2021 JQ2 flew past Earth at 0.17 LD — A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2021 JQ2 flew past Earth at a distance of 0.17 LD / 0.00045 AU (67 320 km / 41 830 miles) at 10:47 UTC on May 8, 2021. This is the 55th known asteroid to fly by Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year.

Youth Climate Activists to March 400 Miles From New Orleans to Houston –Following the path of thousands of families who permanently fled the lowest-lying major city in the United States in the wake of storms like Hurricane Katrina, a group of activists from the youth-led Sunrise Movement on Monday began a 400-mile march from New Orleans to Houston to demand President Joe Biden include “good jobs for all” and a Civilian Climate Corps in his $2.26 trillion infrastructure plan. Participants in the Sunrise Movement’s “Generation on Fire” campaign set out from the New Orleans Superdome – the site of so much suffering and a symbol of state failure following Katrina in 2005 – and walked along the Mississippi River following a delay due to flash flood warnings. The climate campaigners are marching “to make clear that young people are unsatisfied with Biden and Congress’ incremental, watered down proposals,” according to a statement from the group. With Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House, “young people expect more from their political leaders,” the statement added. The activists will stop in cities and towns along the march route to stage protests, rallies, and visioning sessions with community members. They will be joined by political leaders, environmental justice advocates, and other supporters. “As a young person in the Gulf South, we’re living in constant crisis: hurricanes, superstorms, jobs that break our bodies and could be taken away at any minute,” said Chante Davis, a high school senior and Sunrise Movement organizer. “This is an emergency, but it isn’t an accident,” Davis continued. “We know there is money that can provide living wages, stop the climate crisis, and take us back from the edge of survival. There’s always money to rebuild rich neighborhoods after storms, always money for petrochemical plants and oil wells, always money for border walls and jails.” “This march symbolizes my story as a climate refugee who fled New Orleans and moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina destroyed my city,” Davis added. “This is me claiming agency over my future.”

UK Police Arrest Extinction Rebellion Cofounder Gail Bradbrook –A spokeswoman for the Extinction Rebellion group on Tuesday said one of its cofounders had been arrested by officers from London’s Metropolitan Police.The group, whose stated aim is to use nonviolent protest to force government action on climate change, has staged numerous high-profile protests in the UK, US and other developed nations including Germany.The group said Bradbrook had been arrested on charges relating to its action campaign against financial institutions known as “Money Rebellion.””Extinction Rebellion cofounder Gail Bradbrook was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police at her home in Stroud at around 5:30 a.m. this morning for conspiracy to cause criminal damage and fraud in relation to Money Rebellion’s debt disobedience,” a spokeswoman for the group said.Activists from the Extinction Rebellion smashed window frontages of HSBC and Barclays in the British capital in March. The group also targeted the Lloyds of London insurance market as part of its action.The spokeswoman added that the fraud allegation stems from a campaign to use personal credit card debt to make donations to groups allegedly damaged by banks. The borrower would then refuse to pay off the debt.The 49-year-old Bradbrook, who holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics, has said she believes only large-scale civil disobedience can bring about government action on climate change.She started Extinction Rebellion in 2018 along with her former partner Simon Bramwell, and organic farmer and activist Roger Hallam. The group says the UK and other countries are acting too slowly to stop climate change. It also accuses the Western financial system of fueling the abuse of the planet.

Why Biden’s Carbon Pricing and Electric Vehicle Plans Won’t Avert Climate Crisis -The Biden administration recently announced that it hopes to achieve so-called “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2050, to contribute to the goal of keeping global temperatures at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But how to get there?The policy proposals vary, but there is widespread agreement that a carbon tax or price on carbon emissions should be part of the policy mix. The idea is to raise the cost of emitting the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, thereby encouraging consumers and producers to switch to alternative non-greenhouse gas emitting energy sources. Such a policy, though, raises a number of questions. The most important is how high would the carbon tax have to be to incentivize a strong transition to renewable energy that could actually reach the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.New School economist Lance Taylor recently looked into precisely this question from a macroeconomic perspective. He has worked on climate change for many years and is well known for his view that it does indeed pose serious problems for economies. (See, for example, his recent discussion in Nature Climate Change.)His most recent study for the Institute of New Economic Thinking looks closely at how effective a carbon tax might be compared to alternative approaches, for example, programs that set technical standards and aim directly to develop new technologies. Non-fossil fuel primary energy supply will have to play a central role, e.g. much less use of oil, coal, and natural gas and much more electricity production based on wind and solar sources.He found that carbon taxes, as they are currently being proposed, as well as a parallel increase in the use of electric vehicles, would not achieve these goals. A key problem is that two-thirds of primary energy output does not feed into economically useful services, to a large extent because of the laws of thermodynamics. Petroleum accounts for one- third of primary production, most of which is used for transportation. This petroleum demand is relatively “inelastic.” That is, people need to drive a certain amount and to consume gasoline, no matter whether the cost is high or low. As a result, a proposed 50 percent surtax on gasoline would have only a minimal impact on actual gasoline demand. Taking into account the amount of primary energy that is wasted, the same goes for petroleum demand.

Goodbye, Climate Deniers. Hello, Climate Bullshitters” – How to spot carbon greenwash? A good rule of thumb is whether the proposal actually cuts emissions, by a significant amount, and soon.” –Damian Carrington“America can’t be fixed because Americans don’t want it to be.” –Umair Haque, who’s only partly right. The Americans who don’t want it to be fixed own the place.As Damian Carrington points out in a recent Guardian piece, we live in a time when the “impacts of the climate emergency are now so obvious, only the truly deluded still deny them.”And he’s right. Almost no one today – at least among the civilian population, those not engaged in politics professionally – really doubts that climate change is happening.Yet we still all go about our merry social way as though the problem will fix itself (it won’t); or the next generation will deal with any real crisis (they won’t get the chance, since it will hit this generation first); or the election of Joe Biden means the nation is back on track for curbing emissions (it isn’t, not with anything close to the speed required).And that’s the problem: the speed required. If a giant meteor were barreling toward the earth and the best scientific minds said it would hit for sure, ending almost all life on the planet, would we start working now to end the threat, even if it were predicted for decades in the future? Or would most of us go back to television and our (economically miserable) lives and say, “Cool. Tell me again when it matters”? Frankly, and I say this with all the love I can muster for our easily deluded species, if the meteor were predicted to hit in, say, 2060 – for all practical purposes, hit the next generation – I’d bet on the delay; I’d bet that next year’s Super Bowl mattered more. But the climate crisis is not a meteor. Altering a meteor’s deadly course through space is not an existential threat to our ruling class and its self-dealing, self-enriching economic system. Only its impact poses such a threat. The climate crisis, however, threatens to end our economic system not only if it’s ignored. It threatens to end our system if it’s addressed. And no one, not Joe Biden, not any ruler of any major nation in the world, not banks, corporations, fossil fuel companies, hedge funds, or the whole of the investor class, wants that.And yet each of these entities – governments, corporations, the finance system, the whole of the investor class – will be SOL the day that death ship reaches the harbor of a panicked and pants-soiled public’s active awareness.The day the public truly figures out the mess we’re in is the day the world changes forever, never to go back. And on that day, everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike, will ask a single question: Where can I go that’s safe?The answer for most will be: Nowhere; nowhere at all. And yet that day is further out than the day when we must force capitalism to be transformed so we can solve the problem it cannot. That day, the day of needed transformation, if we truly take the crisis seriously, is today. Thus the bullshit, all to serve delay, all to keep our capitalist rulers rich and in their chairs.It’s really that simple. By praising profit-first, or empowering those who worship that gold calf, we doom ourselves to die before our time – among the young, only the lucky will see natural deaths.

WV clean energy advocates seek to reframe infrastructure debate as Manchin, Capito have Biden’s ear How big is too big? That’s the all-important question shaping the debate over new federal infrastructure spending. West Virginia’s senators and clean energy advocates disagree on the answer heading into President Joe Biden’s meeting Thursday with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and a group of other Senate Republicans to negotiate an infrastructure agreement. “[I]f you’re talking to somebody on the ground in West Virginia, one way to sort of [ask the question] is, are the needs and challenges that your community faces small?” said Dan Taylor, West Virginia-based Appalachian field organizer for the BlueGreen Alliance uniting labor unions and environmental organizations. “And I think that you’ll find very few people who think that is the case.” Taylor was responding to a viewer’s question during a discussion that West Virginian environmental and progressive groups held via Zoom teleconference Tuesday highlighting federal policies designed to ease Appalachia’s economic and energy transition. Taylor and other clean energy advocates touted the importance of preserving as much of Biden’s $2.2 billion jobs and infrastructure proposal as possible. They highlighted Biden’s proposed $16 billion investment in reclaiming abandoned mines and plugging abandoned oil and gas wells, which the White House has estimated would put hundreds of thousands to work in union jobs, and establishment of a national clean electricity standard aimed at decarbonizing the nation’s power sector by 2035. The Capito-backed GOP proposal lacks those provisions. Capito has led the group of six Senate Republicans pushing an initial $568 billion counterproposal to Biden’s sweeping $2.2 trillion plan that would limit investment priorities to traditional travel infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, plus broadband, water and wastewater improvements. “The first thing we’re going to talk about is narrowing the focus to physical infrastructure,” Capito said looking ahead to the senators’ meeting with Biden Thursday during a Fox News appearance hours before the clean energy advocates’ virtual discussion sponsored by West Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, a state affiliate of the national Interfaith Power & Light organization that mobilizes people of faith to fight climate change. Interfaith Power & Light federal policy associate Jonathan Lacock-Nisly predicted that, in an evenly divided Senate, swing voter Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., probably would be “the decider” on an infrastructure plan.

Tesla Changes Stance on Bitcoin Amid Climate Concerns –The U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla suspended its plans to accept Bitcoin as a payment method, CEO Elon Musk announced in a Twitter statement late Wednesday. Musk, who has become notorious for moving the price of cryptocurrencies via tweets, cited the massiveamount of energy required to keep Bitcoin running and its environmental impacts as the reasoning behind Tesla’s turnaround. “We are concerned about rapid increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” the statement said. While cryptocurrency is a “good idea on many levels,” it comes at a “great cost to the environment,” Musk said. The price of Bitcoin dropped nearly 13% late Wednesday after Tesla’s announcement, according to Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency website coindesk showed Bitcoin’s dollar value dipped to a 24-hour low of just above $46,000, before rebounding slightly to hover around $50,000. Tesla sparked a Bitcoin boom in February, after announcing it would invest some $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency with the intention to allow customers to buy their e-cars with it. The fair market value of Tesla’s Bitcoin by the end of March was $2.48 billion, securities filings showed. Tesla said it was not planning to sell its Bitcoin holdings. “Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy,” the statement said.

ADM to Build New Soy Crushing Facility in North Dakota to Meet Increasing Demand for Renewable Products – ADM today announced its plan to build North Dakota’s first-ever dedicated soybean crushing plant and refinery to meet fast-growing demand from food, feed, industrial and biofuel customers, including producers of renewable diesel. Based in Spiritwood, ND, the approximately $350 million crush and refining complex will feature state-of-the-art automation technology and have the capacity to process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day. Strategically located in a major soybean producing area, ADM’s global logistics network will enable the facility to access both domestic and global markets for soybean oil and meal. The facility is expected to be complete prior to the 2023 harvest. “ADM’s commitment to preserving and protecting our planet’s resources stretches from the farm gate to the food on our tables and the renewable fuel we put in our vehicles,” said Greg Morris, president of ADM’s Ag Services & Oilseeds business. “This exciting new project allows us to partner with North Dakota farmers to further advance the role of agriculture in addressing climate change through the production of low carbon feedstocks for products such as renewable diesel.”-

‘Exceptional New Normal’: IEA Raises Growth Forecast for Wind and Solar by Another 25% -The International Energy Agency (IEA) has raised its forecast for the global growth of wind and solar by another 25% compared to figures it published just six months ago.Furthermore, the IEA’s “renewable energy market update” forecasts nearly 40% higher growth in 2021 than itexpected a year ago, putting wind and solar on track to match global gas capacity by 2022.The Paris-based agency says a “huge” 280 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity – primarily wind and solar – was installed globally last year, some 45% higher than the level in 2019, after the largest annual increase in more than 20 years.This “exceptional” level of annual additions will become the “new normal” in 2021 and 2022, the IEA says, with the potential for further acceleration in the years that follow.Overall, the IEA says that renewables accounted for 90% of new electricity generating capacity added globally last year and that they will meet the same share in each of the next two years.In its latest update, the IEA says wind and solar growth forecasts have been “revised upwards by over 25% from last year.”This is based on comparing the new forecast for growth in 2021 (red line in the chart below) to the “main case” published in November 2020 (dashed mid blue). Looking at the figures for 2022, the IEA’s new forecast is 30% higher than the main one it published last November.

Copper Price Hits All-Time-High In Commodities Bull Run – Copper price hit a record high on Thursday as Chinese investors unleashed fresh demand following a five-day holiday. Copper for delivery in July was up 1.71% by 1:42 pm (EDT), with futures at $4.6015 per pound ($10,123 a tonne) on the Comex market in New York, over the $4.58 per pound high reached in February 2011.The reopening of major industrial economies is sparking a surge across commodities markets from corn to lumber, with tin climbing above $30,000 a tonne for the first time since 2011 also on Thursday.Copper has gained 28.1% since the end of last year and is up 114.9% from its 2020 low, hit in March of that year amid the global economic fallout as countries locked down their populations to contain the spread of covid-19. Trading house Trafigura Group, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America also expect copper to extend gains.”Copper could spike to $13,000 a tonne in coming months, partially over low inventories,” Bank of America said.”Copper prices will remain strong as a continued rebound in global PMIs bolstered investors’ bullish sentiment,” Citic Futures Co. said in a note.On the supply side, Peru reported a 19% jump in March copper output, potentially offering some relief to tight global supplies.

Clean energy minerals shortage: Who knew it could happen? – Kurt Cobb – The race for so-called green energy has spawned another race, one for the minerals needed to make the devices such as solar panels and batteries that produce, store and transmit that energy. A hitherto largely unchallenged economic idea-that we will always have supplies of everything we need at the time we need it at prices we can afford-is in the process of being tested. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world will need to produce six times more of these critical metals than we are producing now to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a target widely held out as an essential goal for avoiding catastrophic effects from climate change. The need for lithium-the key component in lithium batteries that are prized for light weight and the ability to charge quickly-will grow 70 times over the next 20 years, the IEA predicts.One wonders what the price trajectories of the minerals IEA mentions will look like in the coming years. The long-term charts are concerning for nickel, lithium, cobalt and others since this appears to be just the beginning of the run-up.The world is experiencing shortages already of many key commodities and manufactured items (such as computer chips). This is, in part, due to lack of investment over the last decade after a general slump in commodity prices following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and a broad moderation in worldwide economic growth. Certainly, we can expect increased investment in these critical metals. But will it be sufficient to match our dreams for a green technology future? The alarm sounded by the IEA last week is not the first since my 2009 piece. But the alarms are coming more frequently. Just last December I wrote about a report from the European Commission touching on the same issue. Usually, when high government officials start talking publicly about critical shortages, the world is already far along into the shortage. That’s when such problems get moved from the back burner-if they are on any burner at all-to the front burner because they are now visible and officials are forced to acknowledge them. Acknowledgement is not resolution, however. Part of the difficulty in solving this emerging shortage is that the mining required to solve it is unspeakably polluting. This cements my belief that the chief source of problems is solutions to other problems. We have gotten ourselves into such loops because we believe that technology itself equals solutions rather than simply more and different problems. To get out of that loop we would need to go beyond technology to rethinking our entire way of life.

China building massive power farm near US Air Force base in Texas – A Chinese firm is building a massive wind farm near Laughlin Air Force base in southwest Texas, and both state and federal lawmakers are advancing legislation to stop it. The wind farm project, known as the Blue Hills Wind development, is being managed by GH America Energy, the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese Guanghui Energy Company according to a 2020 report by Foreign Policy. The project entails the purchase of around 140,000 acres of land located about 70 miles from Laughlin Air Force Base. Guanghui Energy is owned by Sun Guangxin, a Chinese billionaire who reportedly has ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The Blue Hills wind farm has raised concerns of efforts to spy on or otherwise interfere in U.S. flight training. The wind power project has also raised concerns the power supply to the Air Force base could be vulnerable to hostile actors. Local officials reviewing the wind farm project wrote a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett, expressing concerns the project could pose challenges to the base’s regular flight training operations. “Our greatest concern is the long-term implications this will have on the Air Force’s mission of pilot training not with a single application, but rather a cumulative strategy that cannot be evaluated in the first filing,” Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. and Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano wrote in a letter obtained by Foreign Policy. “We believe that this project and all future projects of a similar nature will result in unacceptable risk to national security of the United States.” Despite the concerns raised about the wind farm project, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) – a panel of different federal agencies that looks at the national security risks posed by foreign investments in the U.S. – approved the project. CFIUS said that while GH America Energy must prevent the wind turbines from interfering with low-level flight training routes at Laughlin Air Force Base, the project can proceed. While CFIUS has given the green light for the wind farm, lawmakers in the Texas state legislature are rapidly advancing legislation to stop the project.

Biden Administration Approves 1st Major Offshore Wind Energy Project –The U.S. Interior Department approved the country’s first large-scale offshore wind project Tuesday, a final hurdle that reverses course from the Trump administration and sets the stage for a major shift in the energy landscape.This “is a significant milestone in our efforts to build a clean and more equitable energy future while addressing the climate emergency,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said during a press briefing. She said an expansion of wind energy is critical to President Biden’s ambitious climate goals to make the electricity sector carbon-neutral.The $2.8 billion project, known as Vineyard Wind 1, will consist of 62 turbines spaced about a mile apart, each standing about 837 feet above the water’s surface. Cables buried beneath the ocean floor will connect the power from these turbines with the New England grid onshore.The project is expected to produce enough renewable electricity to power 400,000 Massachusetts homes every year while also saving ratepayers billions of dollars and reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions in the state by about 1.68 million metric tons. Lars Pedersen, Vineyard Wind’s CEO, recently told public radio station WBUR that he expects offshore construction to begin next year, with renewable energy flowing to the grid by the end of 2023.

TVA Takes First Small Steps Toward Closing Its Largest (And Dirtiest) Power Plant -Tennessee’s electric utility is starting the long process that could eventually lead to closure of its most-polluting coal plant.Tennessee Valley Authority Jeff Lyash has already announced this month that it plans to end all coal power generation by 2035. And TVA spokesman Scott Brooks says the utility is beginning the preliminary review with the Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County, which has two separate coal-fired units.”These are the two largest coal units we have in our fleet,” Brooks says. “So if there’s any logic to it, it would make sense that we would start with our two largest units.”The Cumberland plant produces enough power for more than 1 million homes. It also releases 8 million tons of carbon emissions into the air each year, as well as especially high mercury releases into the Cumberland River, according to the Sierra Club of Tennessee.“This is an opportunity for TVA to show that it is listening to the people of the Tennessee Valley when they ask for clean technologies such as solar power and battery storage,” says JoAnn McIntosh, a Sierra Club representative in Clarksville.TVA has four remaining coal sites operating, including the one in Stewart County and one in Gallatin. Another is in Kingston, with the fourth being Shawnee in Kentucky. All four would close or convert to other fuels by 2035.The question right now at Cumberland is whether to keep the coal plant running or shut the units down ahead of schedule and transition to natural gas and solar at the site. So TVA is drafting a formal environmental report that will include feedback from the community and environmental advocates.

Pa. bill seeks to stop municipalities from restricting certain utilities – Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a bill that would prevent local governments from restricting the type of energy its residents use.Senate Bill 275 is being called an “energy choice” bill by its supporters. Opponents of the bill say it’s unnecessary and problematic.The Senate Local Government and Environmental Resources and Energy committees held a hearing May 11 on the bill, introduced by Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming. This bill is one of many being introduced across the country, in response to some cities prohibiting or limiting the use of natural gas in new buildings. Similar legislation has popped up in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and other states this year. Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arizona and Louisiana enacted laws in 2020 prohibiting bans on natural gas.Yaw said the bill is “energy neutral,” during the committee hearing. He said the legislation has the support of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Pennsylvania Builders Association, Pennsylvania Propane Gas Association and Pennsylvania Petroleum Association. The only groups opposed to it are PennFuture and the Sierra Club, he said.”It doesn’t favor any particular type of energy, but it makes it open to everyone,” he said.Sen. Tim Kearney, D-Delaware, said his interpretation of the bill was a bit different.”It seems to be geared strictly only toward one utility, towards the natural gas utility,” Kearney said.”It seems it may be a bit of a solution in search of a problem.”The movement against natural gas started in Berkley, California. The city council there passed the nation’s first ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings in 2019. Since then dozens of other cities, mostly in California, have passed similar restrictions. It’s not clear that any municipalities in Pennsylvania are considering such a ban, according to officials representing Pennsylvania’s township, borough and city governments, who spoke during the May 11 hearing.

Planned legislation would protect gas, electric supplies in Ohio – Ohio drivers have yet to see gas shortages and steep price increases after the cyberattack on a major pipeline Friday, but there has been pain. The national average for gas passed $3 a gallon Wednesday, and the state’s average price rose 4 cents overnight to $2.87 a gallon. The rising costs and long lines at the pump in other states prompted Ohio Rep. Mike Loychik, R-Bazetta, to announce plans to introduce legislation to protect the state’s pipelines and electrical grids. Loychik said he will ask for $1 million in additional funding each year from the state’s general fund for a cybersecurity grant program. “We’ve recently seen hackers take control of one of our major pipelines, which has led to gas shortages and price surges on Americans,” Loychik said. “It’s clear the Biden administration is not doing anything to protect our energy sector. It’s up to our state to take action to ensure our grids are protected and Ohioans are not being hurt at the gas pumps.”

FBI agents overseeing Ohio’s biggest corruption case talk to press (interview transcript) FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman and Supervisory Special Agent Matthew DeBlauw oversee the biggest public corruption case in the the country right now and the largest in Ohio history. In July 2020, federal investigators detailed how Akron-based FirstEnergy, its subsidiaries and other energy companies gave nearly $61 million to help elect Rep. Larry Householder, pass House Bill 6 containing $1.3 billion to subsidize two nuclear plants and defend the law against the ballot effort to block it. More: ‘In a league of its own’: Ohio is No.1 state when it comes to public corruption, experts say Householder, R-Glenford, and four others were indicted. Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges have pleaded not guilty. Lobbyist Juan Cespedes and political strategist Jeff Longstreth pleaded guilty in October. Lobbyist Neil Clark died by suicide in March. In an exclusive interview with USA Today Network Ohio reporters, Hoffman and DeBlauw were generally tight-lipped about the investigation but they did share some nuggets we think you’ll find interesting.

Fresh from Icahn settlement, FirstEnergy weighs divestitures… (Reuters) – FirstEnergy Corp, the U.S. utility that gave activist investor Carl Icahn seats on its board this year, is exploring divestitures as an alternative to raising cash by selling stock, according to four people familiar with the matter. Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy is trying to recover from the fallout of accusations it was involved with a $60 million bribery scheme involving financial aid for troubled nuclear power plants in its home state. The utility replaced its chief executive and let go of employees suspected of being linked to the corruption case, in a bid to assuage investor concerns. Its shares have recovered most of the value they lost when federal prosecutors unveiled the bribery scheme last July. However, credit rating agencies have warned the episode may continue to affect FirstEnergy’s ability to access bond markets. FirstEnergy said last month it was seeking alternatives to issuing up to $1.2 billion of stock over 2022 and 2023, to help finance its spending plans. The firm is working with an investment bank as it considers divesting stakes in some of its subsidiaries as one such alternative, according to the four people. This includes selling part of Monongahela Power Company, which provides electricity to nearly 400,000 customers in West Virginia, as well as pieces of West Penn Power and Potomac Edison, power companies serving 720,000 customers in Pennsylvania and more than 400,000 people in Maryland and West Virginia respectively. FirstEnergy could fetch $1.5 billion by selling all three outright, according to one of the sources.

Bills To Repeal More Portions Of HB6 To Get Senate Hearings –Ohio lawmakers are going bit-by-bit in their attempt to repeal HB6, a controversial energy law. While the nuclear power plant bailout portion of the bill has already been eliminated, legislators are targeting other portions of the measure.There are two bills set for hearings in the Senate. One, SB117, would eliminate the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for two coal plants, owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, or OVEC.The other bill, SB89, would restore Ohio’s renewable energy standards. Both bills reverse actions taken through HB6 which is now at the center of a federal bribery investigation.Rep. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) has signaled that there’s not much support for these bills in the House.”I don’t anticipate that any of the bills that have been introduced on these subjects will pass,” Seitz says. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has also started an audit of the ratepayer money going towards OVEC.

Records show lawmakers returned AEP checks – Records show Ohio state politicians refunded nearly $50,000 in recent months to a political action committee of American Electric Power, a beneficiary of a massive coal-fired power plant bailout via scandal-tainted legislation enacted last year. Nine state senators and two House representatives, all Republican, returned a total of $19,500 in campaign contributions to an AEP political arm between October and December, campaign finance records show. Additionally, Gov. Mike DeWine in January returned a $10,000 check to the utility, which sells electricity to about 1.4 million Ohioans. The utility’s PAC also reported contributing nearly $20,000 to the House Republican Campaign Committee July 9, which was returned Sept. 24. DeWine said he returned the money to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Several senators said they didn’t return the checks, but they were lost or delayed in the mail, possibly due to widespread delays from the U.S. Postal Service last year.

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