[TheClimate.Vote] March 7, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Mar 7 09:31:55 EST 2021
/*March 7, 2021*/
[Carbon Brief]
*Cancel all planned coal projects globally to end ‘deadly addiction’,
says UN chief*
https://www.carbonbrief.org/daily-brief/cancel-all-planned-coal-projects-globally-to-end-deadly-addiction-says-un-chief
[NYTimes warns]
*In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers*
The warming atmosphere is causing an arm of the powerful Gulf Stream to
weaken, some scientists fear.
By MOISES VELASQUEZ-MANOFF and JEREMY WHITE
The Gulf Stream propels the heat of the Caribbean past Cape Hatteras,
N.C., before bending toward the British Isles.
But now, in the North Atlantic, there is the “cold blob.”
The fear: Melting Greenland ice will tip the delicate balance of hot and
cold that defines not only the North Atlantic, but life far and wide.
“We’re all wishing it’s not true,” Peter de Menocal, a
paleoceanographer and president and director of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, said of the changing ocean currents.
“Because if that happens, it’s just a monstrous change.”
The consequences could include faster sea level rise along parts of
the Eastern United States and parts of Europe, stronger hurricanes
barreling into the Southeastern United States, and perhaps most
ominously, reduced rainfall across the Sahel, a semi-arid swath of
land running the width of Africa that is already a geopolitical
tinderbox...
They’ve also revealed a system of currents that’s far more complex than
once envisioned.
Dr. Broecker’s old schematics of the AMOC posit a neat warm current
flowing north along the western edge of the Atlantic and an equally neat
cold current flowing back south below it. In fact, says Dr. Lozier, that
deeper current is not confined to the western edge of the Atlantic, but
rather flows southward via a number of “rivers” that are filled with
eddies. The network of deep ocean currents is much more complicated than
once envisioned, in other words, and figuring out how buoyant meltwater
from Greenland might affect the formation of cold deepwater has become
more complicated as well.
This is the place scientists currently find themselves in. They suspect
the AMOC can work like a climate switch. They’re watching it closely.
Some argue that it’s already changing, others that it’s too soon to tell.
“There’s no consensus on whether it has slowed to date, or if it’s
currently slowing,” said Dr. Lozier. “But there is a consensus that if
we continue to warm the atmosphere, it will slow.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/02/climate/atlantic-ocean-climate-change.html
[ Opinion ]
*The climate crisis can't be solved by carbon accounting tricks*
Simon Lewis
Disaster looms if big finance is allowed to game the carbon offsetting
markets to achieve ‘net zero’ emissions
Wed 3 Mar 2021 ...
- -
The science of net zero is simple: every sector of every country in the
world needs to be, on average, zero emissions. We know how to do this
for electricity, cars, buildings and even a lot of heavy industry. But
in certain areas, including air travel and some agricultural emissions,
there is no prospect of getting to zero emissions in the near future.
For these residual emissions, greenhouse gasses will need to be sucked
out of the atmosphere at the same rate as they are added, so that, on
average, there are net zero emissions.
Making this work requires carbon removal, also known as “negative
emissions”. This can be low-tech, like restoring forests, as this takes
carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it in trees. Or it can be
hi-tech, like using chemicals to strip carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and then pumping it deep underground into safe geological
storage. In theory this is all fine, as pragmatically some carbon
removal is needed to balance hard-to-reduce emissions: but negative
emissions and offsetting alone are not a route to net zero.
In practice, by believing in the promise of these methods, we are too
often deceiving ourselves, in three major ways. The first is an
unrealistic overreliance on carbon removal to preserve the status quo.
Shell recently published its net zero plan, that actually projects high
oil and gas production through to 2050 and beyond, which voila, are
magically removed with negative emissions. Critically, there is far too
little land to plant enough trees to counter today’s emissions, and
large-scale hi-tech methods do not yet exist...
- -
What is to be done? Negative emissions and offsets are here to stay. In
a limited way, they are needed to stabilise the climate as they are the
only way to tackle the hardest-to-eliminate emissions. Urgent discussion
is needed about what comprises a “residual emission” that requires
offsetting. In practical terms, making the carbon accountancy
trustworthy will require truly independent regulation that is based on
science. It is the only way to contain the bad actors and release the
capital of good actors. Solving these carbon deceptions should be a core
outcome of the Glasgow Cop26 climate summit.
If such deceptions remain, disaster looms. Big finance, led by Carney,
is planning to massively expand carbon markets. Conceivably, new
carbon-based financial products could boom, with little impact on
emissions. Just like the sub-prime crisis, few will understand what they
bought, and another globe-spanning crash could sweep the world,
compounding economic and climate crises causing mass suffering, as we
realise again that the Earth owes us nothing. Nature doesn’t do bailouts.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/03/climate-crisis-carbon-accounting-tricks-big-finance
[China aspires]
*China aims to be carbon neutral by 2060. Its new 5-year plan won’t cut it.*
The plan could allow for emissions to keep growing through 2025.
The new plan’s 2025 emissions goals reflect an ongoing contradiction
between China’s short-term and long-term climate goals.
In the long run, China has expressed a strong commitment to climate
action. President Xi Jinping surprised the world last September when
he announced that China would aim to reach carbon neutrality by
2060. Climate scientists have called for countries to hit that goal
by 2050, but it was still a significant step forward for China — the
first time the country made any formal commitment to zeroing out its
emissions.
And yet, even as Xi made that announcement, CO2 emissions in China
were soaring. Like the rest of the world, the pandemic had initially
caused economic activity to plummet in China in early 2020. But
after swiftly bringing the pandemic under control within its
borders, the Chinese government funneled stimulus dollars into the
heavily polluting construction and manufacturing sectors, stoking
steel and cement production. As a result, China’s emissions rose an
estimated 1.5 percent in 2020, even accounting for the initial drop.
https://www.vox.com/22313871/china-energy-climate-change-five-year-plan-wind-solar-coal-oil-gas
[complex consequences]
*UN Human Rights Experts Condemn Expanding Petrochemical Industry in
Louisiana’s Cancer Alley as 'Environmental Racism'*
By Julie Dermansky • March 3, 2021
Human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights
Council issued a statement on March 2 raising concerns about the further
industrialization of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” This largely
Black-populated stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and
Baton Rouge is lined with more than a hundred refineries and
petrochemical plants. The experts said additional petrochemical
development in this region, which U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) data shows has some of the country’s highest cancer risks from air
pollution, constitutes “environmental racism” that “must end.”
“This form of environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate
threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African
American residents, including the right to equality and
non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an
adequate standard of living and cultural rights,” the experts said.
The statement calls for U.S. officials to reconsider allowing FG LA LLC,
a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Group, to build its proposed “Sunshine
Project” in St. James Parish, in the middle of the region. That
development, one of several new petrochemical projects slated for the
region, would be a massive complex. Its 14 units would produce two types
of plastic and the petrochemical ethylene glycol, which is used to make
polyester fabrics and antifreeze.
It is a development that Sharon Lavigne, founder of the faith-based
grassroots organization RISE St. James, has been trying to stop ever
since learning in 2018 that the company planned to build its complex
less than two miles from her home.
If built, “Formosa Plastics' petrochemical complex alone will more than
double the cancer risks in St. James Parish affecting disproportionately
African American residents,” the human rights experts wrote. Their
statement also took government regulators to task for their role.
“Federal environmental regulations have failed to protect people
residing in ‘Cancer Alley,’” they said, calling for the U.S. Government
“to deliver environmental justice in communities all across America,
starting with St. James Parish,” by stopping the Formosa Plastics
project...
- -
The UN experts’ statement comes after years of campaigning and protests
by Louisiana residents, community organizations, and environmental
advocacy groups. In November last year, Loyola University law students,
with the support of many of these same groups, sent a letter calling for
intervention to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary
forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related
intolerance.
In response to the UN statement, FG LA LLC called “protecting health,
safety, and the environment” a priority for the company and emphasized
that the Sunshine Project meets all regulatory criteria.
“We are constructing this project with advanced emissions reduction
mechanisms in place and extensive measures to protect the environment,
and also plan to keep pace with technological advances that may enable
the company to further strengthen those measures,” Janile Parks,
Director of Community and Government Relations for FG LA LLC, told
DeSmog by email. “As the project continues forward, FG will uphold its
commitment to operate safely, listen to community concerns, keep the
community informed, support real needs in the parish, and continue to be
a responsible corporate citizen.”
The company also said it included “the remoteness or distance from
nearest residents” as an important criterion in choosing the location of
the facility. Its choice of location — a former sugar plantation — has
also raised concerns after an archeologist hired by a nonprofit law firm
representing RISE St. James identified the gravesites of former enslaved
ancestors on the property in 2019.
Diane Wilson, a Texas-based activist who sued Formosa Plastics Corp. USA
over its plastics water pollution in her state and won, disagrees with
Parks’s statement. According to Wilson, Formosa is anything but a
responsible corporate citizen. Despite a $50 million settlement and
agreement not to release any more plastic into waterways, Wilson
continues to report instances of the company releasing the nurdles it
manufactures into local waterways in Point Comfort, Texas.
In addition, Texas state regulators recently fined that same Texas plant
$333,638 for air quality violations, including for the unauthorized
release of carcinogens, feeding further skepticism in the mind of Wilson
about the company’s claims of corporate responsibility.
Parks also pointed out that FG’s air quality permits were approved by
the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, adding, “Any claim
that FG will greatly increase 'toxic emissions' in the area is a
misrepresentation and inaccurate.”
Lavigne finds this claim — that the petrochemical complex won’t further
pollute the area because it received government permits — laughable. The
other factories releasing pollution around her were permitted by the
government too, she pointed out.
At a February 12 press conference, a Louisiana-based community coalition
known as the Coalition Against Death Alley (CADA) cited federal data
showing Louisiana has the highest toxic air emissions per square mile of
any state. That data comes from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory, and
the EPA’s most recent National Air Toxics Assessment (2014) showed that
parts of Louisiana have high potential cancer risks.
In her response to the UN human rights statement, Parks also took issue
with the region’s moniker “Cancer Alley,” a moniker that came from
residents starting in the 1980s. “Simply stated, there is no scientific
proof that cancer rates in the Industrial Corridor, including St. James
Parish, or District 5 where The Sunshine Project is located, are higher
due to industrial activity,” Parks said. “In fact, cancer rates and
deaths are lower than, or there is no significant difference from, the
rest of the state.” As evidence, she pointed to reports from the
Louisiana Tumor Registry, which aggregates data on cancer incidences in
the state...
- -
“The 1.6 million pounds of toxic air pollutants to be released by
Formosa’s planned petrochemical complex includes thousands of metric
tons of known carcinogens, such as ethylene oxide, benzene,
1,3-butadiene, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde,” Dr. Marcos A. Orellana,
who is also an adjunct professor at the George Washington University
School of Law, told DeSmog. “Exposure to these hazardous substances
poses a clear and grave risk to the right to life and the right to health.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/03/03/un-human-rights-formosa-petrochemical-cancer-alley
- -
[consequences]
*Pennsylvania Families Exposed to Unusually High Levels of Oil and Gas
Industry Chemicals, Report Finds*
By Sharon Kelly • Wednesday, March 3, 2021
A groundbreaking four-part report by Environmental Health News (EHN)
offers new scientific evidence that living near oil and gas development
can expose people to a wide array of hazardous and carcinogenic
chemicals — not just those living near shale drilling and fracking, but
also those living near older conventional oil and gas wells.
- -
The researchers discovered striking levels of chemicals associated with
oil and gas and their “biomarkers,” substances produced when the body
processes chemicals — like mandelic acid, which can be evidence of
exposure to ethylbenzene or styrene, or hippuric acid, a biomarker for
toluene. The compounds they found biomarkers for, which also included
benzene, can cause irritation of the skin, nose, and eyes, central
nervous system problems, and liver and kidney damage; some are also
carcinogens.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/03/03/pennsylvania-families-exposed-unusually-high-levels-oil-gas-chemicals
- -
[Study publication]
Mar 01, 2021
*Fractured: The body burden of living near fracking*
EHN.org scientific investigation finds western Pennsylvania families
near fracking are exposed to harmful chemicals, and regulations fail to
protect communities' mental, physical, and social health.
It's been 12 years since fracking reshaped the American energy landscape
and much of the Pennsylvania countryside.
And despite years of damning studies and shocking headlines about the
industry's impact—primarily on the state's poor and rural
families—people that live amongst wellpads remain in the dark about what
this proximity is doing to their health and the health of their
families. A two-year investigation by EHN set out to close some of those
gaps by measuring chemical exposures in residents' air, water, and bodies.
In the summer of 2019, we collected air, water, and urine samples from
five nonsmoking southwestern Pennsylvania households. All of the
households included at least one child. Three households were in
Washington County within two miles of numerous fracking wells,
pipelines, and compressor stations. Two households were in Westmoreland
County, at least five miles away from the nearest active fracking well.
Over a 9-week period we collected a total of 59 urine samples, 39 air
samples, and 13 water samples. Scientists at the University of Missouri
analyzed the samples using the best available technology to look for 40
of the chemicals most commonly found in emissions from fracking sites
(based on other air and water monitoring studies).
https://www.ehn.org/fractured-series-on-fracking-pollution-2650624600/far-reaching-impacts
- -
[Frequently Asked Questions - what to do about it, learning more]
Feb 25, 2021
*Fractured: FAQs page*
We found alarming exposures to likely fracking pollution. But that's
just the beginning of the story.
https://www.ehn.org/fractured-faqs-page-2650790584/scientific-studies-on-fracking-and-exposures
- -
[State by state information]
*State Oil and Gas Boards*
State Oil and Gas Board and Commission sites are related to oil and gas
production, well sites, and any other relevant data and information. The
Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission is a multi-state government
agency that promotes the quality of life for all Americans. This list is
where information for OpenEI pages is held, and also, in most cases,
where oil and gas data can be derived, open to the public. In many
cases, EIA may hold the data related to Oil and Gas. Also, some datasets
may only contain a state report pdf, in which case the data would need
to be pulled out of the pdf and put into an excel or xml. Here are the
states:
https://openei.org/wiki/State_Oil_and_Gas_Boards
[Two Paul Beckwith lectures]
*Science Behind a Completely FRESH Arctic Ocean Under a Kilometer Thick
Ice Shelf Cap: Part 1 of 2*
Mar 5, 2021
Paul Beckwith
Part 1 of 2
I delve into the details of the science behind the remarkable new
finding that the entire Arctic Ocean was essentially fresh water trapped
beneath kilometer thick ice shelves that extended from Arctic coastlines
to essentially create a thick ice cap over the entire Arctic Ocean,
extending from the landlocked Bering Strait region all the way across
the Arctic region to the Greenland-Scotland Ridge.
The scientific evidence behind this incredible finding is very strong.
Within salty sea water, there is naturally occurring dissolved uranium,
with concentrations proportional to the dissolved salt content. This
uranium decays to Thorium-230 which then goes into the seafloor
sediments close to the site of production. There is also Calcium, and
Manganese, and Sulphur in the salts. During the time periods when the
Arctic Ocean was fresh water, with no salt content, these components
drop to near zero levels.
How could this happen? With global sea levels 130 meters lower, and a
sea ice shelf cap over the Arctic nearly 1 km thick, connections to the
other oceans were basically closed off. Over thousands of years, the
freshwater discharge into the Arctic Ocean, estimated at 1,200 cubic
kilometers per year (20% of Amazon River discharge) filled the Arctic
volume under the ice shelf cap, forcing out all the salt water.
Amazing stuff. Not only that, but as the glacial periods ended and the
ice shelves receded, the 9 million cubic kilometers of fresh water under
the Arctic cap was rapidly released to the Atlantic Ocean and then later
the Pacific Ocean, causing abrupt global climate system lurches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dbGzwNTjEg
- -
[follow-up video]
*Science of a Completely FRESH Arctic Ocean — Thorium-230, Calcium,
Beryllium-10: Part 2 of 2*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPoAvJWfiaw
[information warfare - history documentary video]
*How We All Became Richard Nixon by Adam Curtis*
Premiered March 5, 2021
Adam Curtis Documentary
This short film uses the story of Richard Nixon’s paranoia to explore
how a similar outlook has been perpetuated on the larger social scale by
the new media age. Skimming through the evolution of the mainstream
media via television and newspapers, this short film comments on how
politics has been paralysed by a media that has taken serious threats
and sensationalised them, resulting in political cynicism and
disengagement, which in-turn feeds a viscous cycle of nihilism and
further sensationalist politics and media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6-IuHtthcM
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 7, 2013 *
Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones reports:
"Despite record heat and extreme weather disasters in recent years,
insurers aren't adequately planning for climate change, according to a
report issued Thursday. Only 13 percent of insurance companies have a
'specific, comprehensive strategy' to deal with global warming."
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/03/report-insurers-still-ignoring-climate-change
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