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<p> <font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>March 25, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ CNBC nails it -- top informative charts..
but the last one is most important - #8 is most important ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>These eight charts show why climate change
matters right now</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">MAR 23 2023</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> <font face="Calibri">KEY POINTS</font><br>
<blockquote><font face="Calibri">- -These 8 charts, included in the
latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent
report, provide visual clarity of the story of climate change.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">- - Current policy implemented to
reduce greenhouse gases are insufficient to meet the goals
established in the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">- - Currently, the globe has warmed by
1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the IPCC report
says.<br>
</font></blockquote>
<font face="Calibri"><b>1. Current action to reduce greenhouse
gasses is insufficient to meet Paris Climate Agreement goals</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214131-1679587163651-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_115807_AM.png?v=1679587499&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214131-1679587163651-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_115807_AM.png?v=1679587499&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>2. Climate change is already having impacts
on human life and well-being</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107213951-1679577935370-Screen_Shot_2023-03-22_at_15737_PM.png?v=1679578299&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107213951-1679577935370-Screen_Shot_2023-03-22_at_15737_PM.png?v=1679578299&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>3. How climate change is addressed now will
determine how future generations are affected</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107213959-1679578423936-Screen_Shot_2023-03-22_at_15830_PM.png?v=1679579391&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107213959-1679578423936-Screen_Shot_2023-03-22_at_15830_PM.png?v=1679579391&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>4. Climate change is not binary: Every
little bit of global warming makes things more dangerous</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214006-1679580107293-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_100052_AM.png?v=1679580259&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214006-1679580107293-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_100052_AM.png?v=1679580259&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<b><font face="Calibri">5. Climate change does not impact everyone
the same: People and animals in some locations are at much
greater risk than others</font></b><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214088-1679583914437-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_110236_AM.png?v=1679584203&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214088-1679583914437-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_110236_AM.png?v=1679584203&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<b><font face="Calibri">6. The largest industries in the world,
including energy and food production, need to change</font></b><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214154-1679588385864-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_121311_PM.png?v=1679588574&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214154-1679588385864-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_121311_PM.png?v=1679588574&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>7. This decade is decisive: More and more
proactive climate change mitigation and adaptation will limit
damage</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214093-1679584388703-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_111142_AM.png?v=1679587134&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214093-1679584388703-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_111142_AM.png?v=1679587134&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<b><font face="Calibri">8. There is a limited window to build a
sustainable future</font></b><br>
<font face="Calibri">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214148-1679588081217-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_120931_PM.png?v=1679588282&w=1910&ffmt=webp">https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107214148-1679588081217-Screen_Shot_2023-03-23_at_120931_PM.png?v=1679588282&w=1910&ffmt=webp</a></font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri"><u>The impacts of climate change are
cumulative, and so it becomes exponentially harder to create
sustainable solutions as time goes on.</u></font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“There is a rapidly closing window of
opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all,”
the IPCC summary report for policymakers says. “Continued
emissions will further affect all major climate system components,
and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial
time scales and become larger with increasing global warming.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/23/these-eight-charts-show-why-climate-change-matters-right-now.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/23/these-eight-charts-show-why-climate-change-matters-right-now.html</a></font><br>
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</font></p>
<p><i><font face="Calibri">[ calm activism report from NYT ]</font></i><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>A ‘Rocking Chair Rebellion’: Seniors Call
On Banks to Dump Big Oil</b><br>
Older climate activists gathered in cities around the country
for a day of action targeting banks that finance fossil fuel
projects.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">By Cara Buckley<br>
March 21, 2023<br>
They were parents, grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles,
ranging in age from their 50s to their 80s and beyond, and
together they braved frigid temperatures to protest all through
the night, and to rock.<br>
<br>
Bundled in long johns, puffer coats, layered knit hats and
sleeping bags, and fortified by cookies sent by courier from a
sympathetic supporter, dozens of graying protesters sat in
rocking chairs outside of four banks in downtown Washington for
24 hours, in a nationwide protest billed as the largest climate
action ever undertaken by older folks.<br>
<br>
Calling themselves the Rocking Chair Rebellion, they were part
of more than 100 climate actions staged across the country
Tuesday by Third Act, a protest group for people aged 60 and
older, co-founded by Bill McKibben, the author and climate
campaigner.<br>
<br>
Their targets were Chase, the subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase,
Wells Fargo, Citibank and Bank of America, the biggest investors
in fossil fuel projects, according to a 2022 report by the
Rainforest Action Network and other environmental groups.
Collectively, the four banks have poured more than $1 trillion
between 2016 and 2021 into oil and gas...</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">“This is the world we helped create,” said
Katie Ries, 66, who is retired from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, as she sat in a rocking chair
outside the Chase branch in downtown Washington shortly after an
unseasonably cold dawn on Tuesday. “When you put this temporary
discomfort in perspective, against what we are out here for,
what we are facing, it just pales, it disappears.”<br>
<br>
Formed in 2021, Third Act has some 50,000 members on its mailing
list, according to Mr. McKibben, including a few centenarians.
While the group has staged protests before, sometimes bearing
signs that read “fossils against fossil fuels,” they said that
Tuesday’s actions were the biggest yet, with participants driven
in part by the conviction that it was unfair to lay
responsibility for fixing the climate crisis at the feet of
younger generations who will bear its brunt.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">“For all their energy and intelligence and
idealism, young people lack the structural power to make change
on the scale we need in the time that we have,” said Mr.
McKibben, who is 62, chatting early Tuesday before an anti-big
bank climate rally in Washington’s Franklin Park. “We all vote,
we ended up with most of the resources in our society. If we’re
going to make Washington and Wall Street change, it’ll take a
few people with hairlines like mine.”...</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">For the rockers, the goal was to urge people
to pull their money out of the oil-funding banks, and to goose
the consciences of bank executives.<br>
- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> “I think anybody is complicit that is not
trying to do anything,”</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">“For the banks, this is a very worrisome
signal,” he said. “They can write off young people, they don’t
see them as having a whole lot of money right now. They know
these folks do.”<br>
<br>
For his part, Mr. McKibben conceded that closing personal
accounts in oil-funding banks was not likely to impose enough
financial harm to force change, but said that merely underscored
the urgent need to do more.<br>
<br>
“We can put serious pressure on their reputations, their images,
their brands, and their sense of themselves,” he said. “Right
now, the most powerful people in the world are deeply complicit
in the gravest crisis that the world has ever experienced. So
part of today is an attempt to rouse these guys to some kind of
sense of their place in history.”<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://portside.org/2023-03-23/rocking-chair-rebellion-seniors-call-banks-dump-big-oil">https://portside.org/2023-03-23/rocking-chair-rebellion-seniors-call-banks-dump-big-oil</a></font><font
face="Calibri"></font></p>
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<i><font face="Calibri">[ Youth are the recipients of our justice
system ]</font></i><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a
Landmark Climate Case</b><br>
Sixteen young Montanans have sued their state, arguing that its
support of fossil fuels violates the state Constitution.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">By David Gelles<br>
March 24, 2023<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">In their complaint, filed in 2020, the young
activists seized on language in the Montana state Constitution
that guarantees residents “the right to a clean and healthful
environment,” and stipulates that the state and individuals are
responsible for maintaining and improving the environment “for
present and future generations.”...</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">It is a concise but untested legal challenge to
a state government that has taken a sharp turn to the right in
recent years, and is aggressively defending itself. The trial,
which legal experts say is the first involving a constitutional
climate case, begins on June 12 in the state capital of Helena.<br>
<br>
“There have been almost no trials on climate change,” said Michael
Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at
Columbia Law School. “This is the first that will get into the
merits of climate change and what needs to be done, and how the
state may have to change its policies.”<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">The origins of the case stretch back nearly a
decade. In 2011, a nonprofit called Our Children’s Trust
petitioned the Montana Supreme Court to rule that the state has a
duty to address climate change. The court declined to weigh in,
effectively telling the group to start in the lower courts...</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">The plaintiffs joined a growing global movement
of young people raising the alarm about climate change, most
famously embodied by Greta Thunberg, the 20-year-old Swede.<br>
<br>
But their activism has come at a social cost. “We can’t really
openly talk about this case without being flamed by our friends at
school,” said Badge, 15.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, many of the plaintiffs, including the Busse boys and
Ms. Sandoval, expect to testify at trial.<br>
<br>
In its response to the lawsuit, the state disputed the
overwhelming scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels
was driving climate change and denied that Montana was
experiencing increasingly severe weather linked to rising
temperatures.<br>
</font>- -<br>
No matter who prevails, the case is likely to be appealed to the
state Supreme Court. And even if the young Montanans win on appeal,
they are not expecting immediate changes.<br>
<br>
Rather, the plaintiffs are seeking “declaratory relief.” That is,
they want the judge to acknowledge that fossil fuels are causing
pollution and warming the planet and declare the state’s support for
the industry unconstitutional.<br>
<font face="Calibri">- -<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">“It could establish a lot of facts and
principles that are broadly applicable,” said Mr. Gerrard of
Columbia University.<br>
<br>
There is also a chance if the state’s energy policy is deemed
unconstitutional, Montana regulators could be forced to take
climate change into account when approving industrial projects.<br>
<br>
“Coming to trial in June, we will have an opportunity for the
plaintiffs and our experts to testify in open court, to tell a
story about what government’s been doing and how it’s impacting
Montana’s environment,” said Nate Bellinger, the lead attorney for
Our Children’s Trust on the case. “In a courtroom, the truth still
matters.”<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html</a><br>
</font>
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</font> </p>
<font face="Calibri"> <i>[ Dave Roberts talks about thermal
storage ]</i></font><br>
<b>Why electrifying industrial heat is such a big deal</b><br>
A conversation with John O'Donnell, COE of Rondo Energy.<br>
MAR 24. 2023<br>
<font face="Calibri">Electricity gets the bulk of the attention in
clean-energy discourse (this newsletter is, after all, called
Volts) but half of global final energy consumption comes in the
form not of electricity, but of heat. When it comes to reaching
net zero emissions, heat is half the problem.<br>
<br>
Roughly half of heat is used for space and water heating, which I
have covered on other pods. The other half — a quarter of all
energy humans use — is found in high-temperature industrial
processes, everything from manufacturing dog food to making steel
or cement.<br>
<br>
The vast bulk of industrial heat today is provided by fossil
fuels, usually natural gas or specialized forms of coal.
Conventional wisdom has had it that these sectors are “difficult
to decarbonize” because alternatives are either more expensive or
nowhere to be found. Indeed, when I covered an exhaustive report
on industrial heat back in 2019, the conclusion was that the
cheapest decarbonization option was probably CCS, capturing carbon
post-combustion and burying it.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">A lot has changed in the last few years. Most
notably, renewable energy has gotten extremely cheap, which makes
it an attractive source of heat. However, it is variable, while
industrial processes cannot afford to start and stop. Enter the
thermal battery, a way to store clean electricity as heat until it
is needed.<br>
<br>
A new class of battery — “rocks in a box” — stores renewable
energy as heat in a variety of different materials from sand to
graphite, delivering a steady supply to various end uses. One of
the more promising companies in this area is Rondo, which makes a
battery that stores heat in bricks.<br>
<br>
I talked with Rondo CEO John O'Donnell about the importance of
heat in the clean-energy discussion, the technological changes
that have made thermal storage viable, and the enormous future
opportunities for clean heat and a renewables-based grid to grow
together.<br>
</font> <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.volts.wtf/p/why-electrifying-industrial-heat?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=193024&post_id=88697618&utm_medium=email#details">https://www.volts.wtf/p/why-electrifying-industrial-heat?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=193024&post_id=88697618&utm_medium=email#details</a><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font>
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<br>
<p><font face="Calibri"><i>[ Poynter is a journalism expert ]</i><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><b>AP Stylebook expands climate change
guidance, adds plus symbol to LGBTQ+</b><br>
Reporters should be skeptical of companies that say they are
‘green’ but cannot provide details to support their claim.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">By: Angela Fu<br>
March 23, 2023 <br>
The Associated Press Stylebook has added more than 20 entries
related to climate change and revised its entry on LGBTQ+ to add
the + symbol, editor Paula Froke announced Thursday.<br>
<br>
At a time when many newsrooms — including the AP — are investing
in climate coverage, the Stylebook is expanding its guidance on
the issue. The new entries, which Froke revealed at the annual
ACES: The Society for Editing conference, include the terms
carbon dioxide, desertification, fossil fuels and greenwashing.<br>
<br>
The section advises reporters to be specific in their reporting.
They should describe which gas is being emitted when discussing
polluting activities, for example, and avoid using the term
weather event when referencing a certain flood, hurricane,
landslide, etc. Journalists should also specify which goals they
are referring to when they write about how a policy will affect
climate goals.<br>
<br>
An entry on carbon footprint notes that companies claiming that
they have reduced emissions should be able to provide
year-to-year comparisons. Reporters should be skeptical of
unsubstantiated claims.<br>
<br>
“Organizers of a sporting event may say the event is
‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘green,’” the entry reads. “But if
they can’t give details about the event’s carbon footprint, be
skeptical of the claim.”...<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2023/ap-stylebook-update-2023-climate-change-lgbtq-plus/">https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2023/ap-stylebook-update-2023-climate-change-lgbtq-plus/</a><br>
</font> </p>
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<p><i><font face="Calibri">[ Big opinion --- from Jacobin ]</font></i><br>
<b><font face="Calibri">Only a Mass Working-Class Climate Politics
Can Free Us From the Climate Doom Cycle</font></b><br>
<font face="Calibri">BY MATT HUBER<br>
The latest UN climate report was just released, and it’s brought
the usual doom loop of grave headlines as emissions keep rising.
The way out isn’t getting people to “believe the science” but
building a pro-worker climate politics that can win power.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change released its “synthesis” report summarizing the
findings of its sixth assessment (the last occurred in 2014).
The findings are painfully familiar: the world is falling far
short of its emission goals, and without rapid reductions this
decade, the planet is likely to shoot to beyond 1.5 or even 2
degrees Celsius of warming this century (we are at 1.1 degrees
now).<br>
<br>
We seem to be stuck in a doom-loop news cycle where scientific
reports create headlines, and earnest climate commentators
insist the new report represents a true “wake-up call” for
action, and then . . . emission keep rising. They hit a record
once again in 2022.<br>
<br>
The world of climate politics appears to exist in two completely
different worlds. There is a largely liberal and idealist world
of climate technocrats where science informs policy, and there
is the real, material capitalist world of power.<br>
<br>
In the liberal world, the base assumption is that if we can
communicate the science better — or as one former Extinction
Rebellion spokesperson argues, if we can try “to tell and hear
and live in truth” — our political systems will respond with
action. As the science becomes more terrifying, the moral
righteousness of this approach only seems more vindicated with
each new report.<br>
<br>
Another crucial aspect of this liberal worldview is to map out
and model precise pathways to decarbonization. You probably
heard the Inflation Reduction Act is projected to spur a 40
percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030; what you
don’t hear is that, according to the same models, doing nothing
gets us 24 to 35 percent. As emissions keep rising, the models
become more fantastical in terms of what is required, but they
still give an army of climate technocrats the ammunition to
supply the policy commentariat with a message that following the
science is still possible — if we simply start right away.<br>
<br>
The other world is very different: it is a world of capitalist
and state power. In this world, the market says fossil fuels are
as profitable as ever. ExxonMobil announced record profits in
October and then again in January. Even before the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, the coal industry — the worst of the fossil
fuels — was posting windfall profits. The Financial Times
recently reported on hedge funds making absurd 43 percent
returns betting on coal. One hedge funder bluntly remarked,
“It’s almost immoral not to invest in coal because of the
reliance [by so many countries] on fossil fuels.”<br>
<br>
It is this brute world of power that has also led our alleged
climate president, Joe Biden, to approve the Willow Project in
Alaska. The move has rightly triggered denunciations of
hypocrisy because, upon taking office in 2021, the Biden
administration vowed to embark on “a whole-of-government
[climate] effort in every sector of the economy.” The Willow
“carbon bomb” is projected to unearth six hundred million
barrels of oil, “effectively adding the emissions of the entire
country of Belgium, via just one project.” The New York Times
reports, “ConocoPhillips plans to install devices called
thermosyphons in the thawing permafrost to keep it solid enough
to support the heavy equipment needed to drill for oil — the
burning of which will release carbon dioxide emissions that
scientists say will worsen the ice melt.” This is how the world
of power plans for a warming world.<br>
<br>
Yet we shouldn’t act as if there is zero reason for Biden’s
turnabout. He understands, like every president before him, that
surging gasoline prices are an enormous political liability in a
society where the vast majority of workers still require the
dirty fuel to get to work. As long as Biden acts as if his
administration is helpless in the face of fossil fuel price
volatility — and only increased supply will bring the price down
— political viability will continue to hinge on cheap fossil
fuel prices.<br>
<br>
The Green New Deal was a call to reject the idea that we can
cede climate solutions to markets and price swings. Yet this is
exactly what the Biden administration still believes. In 2021,
Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, insisted, “I think we’re on
the cusp of a massive transformation . . . ultimately, the
market is going to make the decisions, not the government.”<br>
<br>
For all the grandiose claims of “industrial policy,” the
Inflation Reduction Act is simply a generous set of market
incentives — tax credits, to be exact — that aim to spur mostly
private investment in clean energy and private consumer
purchases of low-carbon commodities like electric vehicles and
heat pumps.<br>
<br>
If Biden were really acting according to the science, rather
than approve Willow he would launch a large-scale plan of public
investment to build the clean energy transition we need. Such a
plan could only be viable politically if accompanied with
serious redistributionist programs that shield workers from any
energy price spikes.<br>
<br>
A public works plan to vastly expand union jobs and
manufacturing alongside guaranteed stable and affordable energy
prices for the working class could actually create the mass
constituency needed to intervene in the real world of capitalist
power and climate politics. But no one in the ruling class seems
willing to challenge the capitalist stranglehold over the energy
sector to embark on such a project. And the Left, for the time
being, remains too weak. As such, the liberal climate
technocrats and those with real power remain worlds apart.<br>
<br>
This will not be the last terrifying scientific report on
climate change. But the only path out of the dull repetitiveness
of increasingly dire headlines is a politics that acknowledges
that science and truth won’t automatically lead to change. The
struggle for the planet is a struggle for political power.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Matt Huber is a professor of geography at
Syracuse University. His new book, Climate Change as Class War:
Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, is out from Verso Books
in 2022.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://jacobin.com/2023/03/ipcc-report-climate-doom-cycle-science-technocracy">https://jacobin.com/2023/03/ipcc-report-climate-doom-cycle-science-technocracy</a></font><font
face="Calibri"> </font></p>
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</font></p>
<p><i><font face="Calibri">[ looking at future risks - text and
audio reading ]</font></i><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>The Toxic Threat in Thawing Permafrost</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">CHRISTIAN ELLIOTT </font><br>
<font face="Calibri">03/23/23</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Trapped in all that permafrost is 30 billion
tonnes (33 billion US tons) of carbon. It’s an unfathomable
amount, says Kirkwood. With global warming, the permafrost is
thawing, threatening to release a “carbon bomb” of heat-trapping
methane gas to the atmosphere. But there’s something else
lurking in the permafrost, too. Something that has the potential
to be more immediately dangerous to the people and wildlife
living in the area: mercury.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Wildfires and volcanoes belch mercury and
since the Industrial Revolution so, too, do coal-burning power
plants and factories. Warm air currents carry mercury in its
inorganic heavy metal form to the Arctic where it settles into
the soil and vegetation before being safely locked away in the
deeply frozen permafrost.</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">In its inorganic form, mercury is less
threatening to people. But as the permafrost thaws, says
Kirkwood, mercury is finding its way into the soil and into the
regions’ many ponds, rivers, and lakes. Once there, microbes can
convert inorganic mercury into the form to be concerned </font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">For the Indigenous peoples of northern
Ontario who have lived off the peatlands for thousands of years
— hunting caribou, catching fish, and gathering native plants —
the lurking threat poses a risk to their way of life.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">So for the past six years, Kirkwood has been
coming to this remote environment every summer, helicoptering in
to drill thick cores of peat and bringing them back to his lab
for analysis. On these trips, Kirkwood often has help from Sam
Hunter, a self-taught independent scientist from Peawanuck,
Ontario.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Back in the 1970s, Hunter saw how scientists
studying the Hudson Bay Lowlands used Indigenous peoples as
guides, but didn’t involve them in their research. Now, he says,
there’s a comanagement process — he accompanies researchers on
their fieldwork and helps bring their findings back to local
communities. Bringing together outside scientists and
traditional knowledge is important, he says, because Indigenous
peoples have seen firsthand how the permafrost is changing.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">“Walking on permafrost is like walking on
really hard ground, like gravel,” says Hunter. When there’s
permafrost, he says, “there’s all kinds of flora. There’s
berries, vegetation that animals feed on. We collect wild tea.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Please Donate to WhoWhatWhyBut once the
permafrost thaws, he says, “the environment turns into a
swampland. … You can’t even walk, you’d sink.” Along with the
disappearing permafrost “go the animals. They move higher and
higher into the Arctic. Muskox has disappeared and a few
shorebirds we used to have — they’re moving north.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Methylmercury seeping out of the permafrost
is the latest water-quality issue First Nations communities in
the region have faced. Closer to the Manitoba border, industrial
mercury pollution from the 1960s still affects 90 percent of the
Anishinaabe community Grassy Narrows. Many First Nations
communities across Canada still lack clean drinking water. In
the absence of government support for water-quality testing,
Hunter has trained three community members in Peawanuck to test
their water and fish.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Whether all of the mercury idling in the
permafrost will become a significant threat to locals hinges on
the answers to a few outstanding questions — questions Kirkwood
aims to answer.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">A decade ago, scientists discovered that
certain microbes with a specific gene can convert inorganic
mercury into toxic methylmercury. Scientists know some microbes
have this ability and others don’t, but efforts to relate the
abundance of microbes with mercury methylating potential to the
amount of methylmercury in the environment have been
unsuccessful. That’s led scientists studying mercury cycling,
like Andrea Bravo at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Spain,
to theorize that there’s more at play dictating the pace of
methylmercury production, like the complex relationships between
the entire community of microbes in the soil.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">That’s where Kirkwood’s research comes in. By
drilling and taking core samples of the permafrost, then
measuring the amount of inorganic mercury while at the same time
sequencing the DNA of everything in the soil, he hopes to better
understand how methylmercury gets produced in thawing
permafrost. Once he knows that, he can figure out where the
threat is largest by looking at where mercury methylating
microbes and inorganic mercury overlap.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“It’s a hot topic, a timely research
question,” says Bravo, who isn’t involved in Kirkwood’s
research. “We are suddenly having a surface of soil that was not
reactive before, and it’s becoming reactive. … We don’t know how
much mercury is coming from this permafrost.”</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">- -</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Bravo points out there are still many
unknowns in efforts to gauge the mercury threat. For one, it’s
still not yet possible to accurately predict methylmercury
levels in freshwater waterways or the ocean based on land
sources. Despite global research efforts, “we still don’t
understand the process completely,” she says. “We’ve put in a
lot of effort, but we aren’t there yet.”</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">So far, Kirkwood’s initial findings show
reason for hope. Previous Arctic-scale estimates of inorganic
mercury abundance have vastly overestimated how much mercury is
being stored in the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Kirkwood’s cores show
mercury levels 10 times lower. But that doesn’t mean all is
well. In thermokarst fens, meltwater ponds created when
iceberg-like permafrost chunks thaw, methylmercury levels are
higher than in the surroundings. As more permafrost thaws and
these ponds connect, methylmercury production will likely
increase. And if this mercury reaches the bay, biomagnification
could cause it to build up to high concentrations, making its
way up the food chain from algae to the tissue of fish that
people catch and eat.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">One of the things Hunter says he’s been told
by the scientists who come up from the south is that the polar
bear is the barometer for climate change. “And I don’t agree
with that. I think the barometer for climate change is the
palsa, the melting permafrost,” he says. “And I think that we
need to understand what’s coming out of the ground now.”</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://whowhatwhy.org/science/environment/the-toxic-threat-in-thawing-permafrost/">https://whowhatwhy.org/science/environment/the-toxic-threat-in-thawing-permafrost/</a></font><br>
</p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font> </p>
<font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - looking back
California attitudes ]</i><br>
<font size="+2"><i><b>March 25, 2017</b></i></font> <br>
March 25, 2017:<br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
</font>
<blockquote><font face="Calibri">“California’s clean-air agency
voted on Friday to push ahead with stricter emissions standards
for cars and trucks, setting up a potential legal battle with
the Trump administration over the state’s plan to reduce
planet-warming gases.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“The vote, by the California Air Resources
Board, is the boldest indication yet of California’s plan to
stand up to President Trump’s agenda. Leading politicians in the
state, from the governor down to many mayors, have promised to
lead the resistance to Mr. Trump’s policies.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“Mr. Trump, backing industry over
environmental concerns, said easing emissions rules would help
stimulate auto manufacturing. He vowed last week to loosen the
regulations. Automakers are aggressively pursuing those changes
after years of supporting stricter standards.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">“But California can write its own standards
because of a longstanding waiver granted under the Clean Air
Act, giving the state — the country’s biggest auto market —
major sway over the auto industry. Twelve other states,
including New York and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington,
D.C., follow California’s standards, a coalition that covers
more than 130 million residents and more than a third of the
vehicle market in the United States.”</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/california-upholds-emissions-standards-setting-up-face-off-with-trump.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/california-upholds-emissions-standards-setting-up-face-off-with-trump.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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