Blog Archives

Pebble Mine Permit Denied by Trump Administration

11/27/2020

The Trump administration on Wednesday denied a permit for a controversial gold and copper mine near the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery in southwest Alaska. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said application to build the Pebble Mine was denied under both the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act. The corps said the discharge plan from the Pebble Limited Partnership did not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines. The agency “concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest...” - High Country News

The Pebble Mine was proposed at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay where sockeye salmon migration can exceed 46 million fish annually.

20 Signs the Climate Crisis Has Come Home to Roost

11/27/2020

See the graphics in the High Country News article.

An Unusual Snack for Cows, a Powerful Fix for Climate

11/27/2020

One of the most powerful weapons in the fight against climate change is washing up on shorelines around the world, unnoticed by most beachgoers. It’s seaweed. In lab tests and field trials, adding a small proportion of this seaweed to a cow’s daily feed — about 0.2 of a percent of the total feed intake in a recent study — can reduce the amount of methane by 98%. That’s a stunning drop when most existing solutions cut methane by about 20 or 30%. - Seattle Times

A Desert City Tries to Save Itself With Rain

11/25/2020

In an average year, Brad Lancaster can harvest enough rain to meet 95% of his water needs. Roof runoff collected in tanks on his modest lot in Tucson, Arizona where 100 degree days are common in the summer months — provides what he needs to bathe, cook and drink. When Lancaster gets thirsty, he sips filtered rain “known as sweet water,” he says, having never picked up salt from soil. When he wants a hot shower, he places his outdoor shower’s water tank in the sun. To irrigate his fruit trees beyond the Sonoran Desert’s two rainy seasons, which bring the vast majority of Tucson’s precipitation, he uses fresh rainwater or greywater — the latter being, in his case, used rainwater leftover from the shower, sink, or washing machine. - Bloomberg

New Zealand Geologists Plan to Harness Volcano Heat to Reduce Emissions

11/25/2020

A group of geologists in Dunedin are hoping to reduce climate-damaging emissions by drilling deep into an extinct 11-million-year-old volcano below the South Island city to harness its heat. Geologists hope to drill two bores through the veneer of sedimentary rock, 500 metres deep into the volcano, and are seeking backing for the NZ$1m (US$700,000) project from the government’s Smart Ideas programme. - Guardian

New Zealand lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire with volcanoes and hot springs part of the landscape. Dunedin geologists hope they can harness the Earth’s heat to reduce climate emissions.

Amount of Materials Extracted from Earth Tripled Since 1970

11/25/2020

More than 38 billion tons of material were extracted from the Earth in 2017 for trade, a figure that shows how much the demand for raw resources has increased in recent decades, a new United Nations report has found. The materials include biomass, such as wood and crops for food, energy and plant-based materials; fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas and oil; metals, such as iron, aluminum and copper; and non-metallic minerals, such as sand, gravel and limestone, according to the report. From 1970 to 2017, the amount of materials extracted from the Earth globally tripled, according to the report. - ABC News

Remains of Master & Slave Unearthed from Pompeii Ashes After ~2,000 Years

11/25/2020

Skeletal remains of what are believed to have been a rich man and his male slave attempting to escape death from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago have been discovered in Pompeii. Parts of the skulls and bones of the two men were found during excavation of the ruins from what was once an elegant villa with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea on the outskirts of the ancient Roman city destroyed by the volcano eruption in 79 A.D. It’s the same area where a stable with the remains of three harnessed horses were excavated in 2017. Pompeii officials said the men apparently escaped the initial fall of ash from Mount Vesuvius then succumbed to a powerful volcanic blast that took place the next morning. The later blast “apparently invaded the area from many points, surrounding and burying the victims in ash,” Pompeii officials said in a statement. - NBC

Casts of the bodies of two men, a master and his young slave, after they were found during recent excavations of a Villa in Civita Giuliana in the outskirts of Pompeii.

Putin Orders Russian Government to Work Towards Paris Climate Goals

11/21/2020

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ordering the Russian government to work towards meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change, but stressed any action must be balanced with the need to ensure strong economic development. Russia, the world’s 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has previously signalled its acceptance of the accord even as environmentalists have criticised Moscow for shunning compulsory emissions targets for companies backed with fines. In a decree published on Wednesday, a public holiday in Russia, Putin formally ordered the government to work towards a cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 of up to 30% below emission levels in 1990. - Reuters

How Utah Cities Are Pursuing 100% Renewable Energy

11/21/2020

In the absence of federal action on climate change, local communities have taken on the responsibility of reducing their greenhouse emissions. To date, more than 150 cities, counties and states across America have passed resolutions to commit to 100 percent net-renewable electricity in the coming years, defined as meeting the city’s total electricity demand with the gross amount of electricity generated and purchased from renewable sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal as well as energy efficiency, demand management and energy storage. Six cities already have achieved this goal: Kodiak Island, Alaska; Aspen, Colorado; Georgetown, Texas; Greensburg, Kansas; Rock Port, Missouri; and Burlington, Vermont. In Utah, 23 cities and counties have resolved to adopt 100 percent net-renewable electricity by 2030, representing about 37 percent of Utah’s electricity load. - GreenBiz

Carbon-Free Energy Required by 2050 Under ACC Proposal

11/21/2020

tates across the Southwest have adopted clean energy plans that regulate utility companies and work toward carbon-free goals. After lagging for several years, Arizona is starting to catch up. The Arizona Corporation Commission on Friday passed a proposal requiring utilities to be 100% free of carbon emissions by 2050 and meet particular benchmarks along the way. According to the commission, carbon free requires the use of resources that do not generate carbon emissions “resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum, natural gas, oil, shale, and bitumen.” Nuclear and hydroelectric generators are considered carbon free, as are wind and solar. The 4-1 vote initiated the commission’s formal rulemaking process, which includes opportunities for customer comment and will provide the foundation for a final commission vote in 2021. - Cronkite News

One of America’s Most Famous Lakes Is Disappearing. Utah’s Next governor Can Help.

11/16/2020

Opinion - Green lawns will soon need to become a thing of the past in Northern Utah, difficult though that may be for many who have a traditional view of the suburban family home. Also, the average new home lot will need to shrink by 14% to 24%. Without these measures, the Great Salt Lake, one of the region’s environmental, tourism and economic giants, will continue to dwindle away. Currently, it is shrinking because of drought and diversions upstream to handle growth in Utah’s largest metropolitan areas. Imagine Northern Utah without the lake. The consequences would be enormous. It serves as an ecosystem to millions of birds and other wildlife. It often creates its own localized weather patterns that provide much-needed snow to Wasatch Front mountains. Its loss could cost the state’s economy more than $2 billion a year and 6,500 jobs in the mineral, brine shrimp and tourism industries. The more the lake dries away, the greater the risks of dust storms accentuated by the dry lake bed, which could create environmental and health dangers in populated areas. Saving the lake ought to become a priority of the new administration of Utah Gov.-elect Spencer Cox. - Deseret News

Water recedes at the Great Salt Lake on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. A new study shows water conservation could put off the need for new water development by as long as 2065 and help save the dwindling Great Salt Lake

The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us.

11/16/2020

The world watched as California and the Amazon went up in flames this year, but the largest tropical wetland on earth has been ablaze for months, largely unnoticed by the outside world. South America's Pantanal region has been hit by the worst wildfires in decades. The blazes have already consumed about 28% of the vast floodplain that stretches across parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. They are still not completely under control. The Amazon's frontline defenders are under siege The fires have destroyed unique habitats and wrecked the livelihoods of many of the Pantanal's diverse indigenous communities. But their damaging impact reaches far beyond the region. Wetlands like the Pantanal are Earth's most effective carbon sinks -- ecosystems that absorb and store more carbon than they release, keeping it away from the atmosphere. At roughly 200,000 square kilometers, the Pantanal comprises about 3% of the globe's wetlands and plays a key role in the carbon cycle. - CNN

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Gravimetry

11/16/2020

Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers store a vast amount of water on land—as much as 69 percent of the planet’s fresh water, according to the U.S. National Snow & Ice Data Center. But when this ice melts and flows downslope, water once stored on land now contributes to the volume in the seas. The planet’s seas have been rising for more than a century, with adverse effects such as increased coastal flooding, beach erosion, and saltwater intrusion into fresh groundwater supplies. There is more than one cause for the rise, but the largest contributor over the past few decades comes from the planet’s melting ice sheets and glaciers. One way to track how much sea level rise comes from melting ice sheets and glaciers is to measure how much mass they are losing. Scientists have been making repeat ground-based measurements at select sites for decades—an approach that continues today and extends important long-term records of change. Traditional field measurements are also important for calibrating models and for understanding what causes the changes observed by satellites. But research has shown that field measurements can overestimate ice loss when they are used to extrapolate over larger areas with few observations. - NASA

Oil Field Operations Likely Triggered EQs in CA Near the San Andreas Fault

11/16/2020

The way companies drill for oil and gas and dispose of wastewater can trigger earthquakes, at times in unexpected places. In West Texas, earthquake rates are now 30 times higher than they were in 2013. Studies have also linked earthquakes to oil field operations in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Ohio. California was thought to be an exception, a place where oil field operations and tectonic faults apparently coexisted without much problem. Now, new research shows that the state's natural earthquake activity may be hiding industry-induced quakes. - Phys.Org

Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback

11/16/2020

Royal Dutch Shell Plc will push for the reversal of President Donald Trump’s rollback of methane emissions rules and the introduction of carbon pricing when Joe Biden moves into the White House next year. “Some of the regulatory rollbacks that we’ve seen under the current administration haven’t actually benefited our industry,” Shell U.S. President Gretchen Watkins said Tuesday on a webcast hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership. The easing of direct regulation of methane emissions put the energy industry in a “backwards-facing position,” while the absence of carbon pricing makes it harder to incentivize new technologies like carbon capture, Watkins said. “Whoever is in the White House, we will work constructively with them and are actually very much looking forward to building that relationship with the new administration that’s coming in in January,” she added. - Bloomberg

Occidental Petroleum Announces Net-Zero Target for greenhouse Gas Emissions

11/16/2020

Occidental Petroleum Corp OXY.N on Tuesday laid out a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its operations to net zero by 2040, becoming the latest oil and gas company to set long-term climate goals. Oil and gas producers, under pressure from investors who want to see the industry operate more cleanly, have announced new emissions targets this year even as they have slashed spending and production following a coronavirus-driven plunge in crude prices. Occidental will provide detail on its net-zero target by the end of November when it releases its sustainability report, Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said on an earnings call with analysts. - Reuters

Trump Administration, in Late Push, Moves to Sell Oil Rights in Arctic Refuge

11/16/2020

In a last-minute push to achieve its long-sought goal of allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to oil companies. That sets up a potential sale of leases just before Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. The Arctic refuge is one of the last vast expanses of wilderness in the United States, 19 million acres that for the most part are untouched by people, home instead to wandering herds of caribou, polar bears and migrating waterfowl. It has long been prized, and protected, by environmentalists, but President Trump has boasted that opening part of it to oil development was among the most significant of his efforts to expand domestic fossil fuel production. - NYTimes

Trump Admin. Removes Scientist in Charge of Assessing Climate Change

11/9/2020

The White House has removed the scientist responsible for the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s premier contribution to climate knowledge and the foundation for regulations to combat global warming, in what critics interpreted as the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to use its remaining months in office to continue impeding climate science and policy. Michael Kuperberg, executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the climate assessment, was told Friday that he would no longer lead that organization, people with knowledge of the situation said. According to two people close to the administration, he is expected to be replaced by David Legates, a deputy assistant secretary at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who previously worked closely with climate change denial groups. - NYTimes

Blue Wave or Not, a Green Wave is Sweeping the Canadian Oil Patch

11/8/2020

In a sign of the changing environment in the oil patch, North America’s largest pipeline company Enbridge Inc. set new net-zero emissions targets Friday and outlined how the company sees the global energy transition from carbon-based energy to renewables playing out over the next few decades. Enbridge’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050 aligns the Calgary-based pipeline and utilities giant with the country’s three largest oil producers Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc. and Cenovus Energy Inc., along with European oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc. — all of whom have adopted net-zero targets. - Financial Post

“We’re going to need all sources of supply to meet demand until at least 2040 and very likely beyond,” said Enbridge president Al Monaco.

New Mexico’s Oil Fields Have a Sinkhole Problem

11/5/2020

On a July morning in 2008, the ground below southeastern New Mexico began to shift and crack, shooting a huge plume of dust into the air. Within minutes, a massive sinkhole emerged, which eventually grew to roughly 120 feet deep and 400 feet in diameter.
“At the time, it was an unfortunate situation, but most people considered it to be a one-off,” says Jim Griswold, a special project manager with New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department. But a few months later, in November, dust once again streamed toward the sky as another similarly sized sinkhole opened, cracking a nearby roadway. - High Country News

AZ Power Must Be 100% Carbon-Free by 2050 Regulators Decide

11/4/2020

AZ utility regulators approved a plan for utilities to get all of their energy from carbon-free sources like solar and nuclear energy by 2050, bringing the state closer in line to other Western states. The new regulations require electric utilities to get half their power from renewable energy like solar and wind in 2035. - AZ Central

China’s Unrelenting Season of Flooding

11/3/2020

The 2020 summer monsoon season has delivered historic amounts of rain to China. Since June, unusually strong, stationary weather systems have produced frequent storms and heavy rainfall in major river basins in central, southwestern, and northeastern China. By September, news outlets reported that the country had experienced at least 21 large scale floods in 2020—the most floods since 1996. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these scenes of Songhua River in the Heilongjiang Province of northeast China on November 1, 2019 (left) and October 25, 2020 (right). These false-color images use infrared and visible light (bands 7-2-1) to better distinguish water from land. Vegetation appears green, water appears dark blue, and bare land appears brown. In September, Typhoon Maysak brought persistent rainfall to the Heilongjiang Province and flooded nearby areas. The rains submerged buildings in Harbin, the provincial capital, and caused rivers to overflow. Water levels on the Songhau River, as well as 14 other rivers, exceeded warning levels, and authorities suspended water travel on the Songhau. Flood waves from the Mudan River also broke a dam located on the outskirts of Harbin. - NASA

Large, Deep Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2020

11/3/2020

Persistent cold temperatures and strong circumpolar winds supported the formation of a large and deep Antarctic ozone hole in 2020, and it is likely to persist into November, NOAA and NASA scientists reported.On September 20, 2020, the annual ozone hole reached its peak area at 24.8 million square kilometers (9.6 million square miles), roughly three times the size of the continental United States. Scientists also detected the near-complete elimination of ozone for several weeks in a 6-kilometer (4-mile) high column of the stratosphere near the geographic South Pole.v This year brought the 12th-largest ozone hole (by area) in 40 years of satellite records, with the 14th-lowest ozone readings in 33 years of balloon-borne instrumental measurements. However, scientists noted that ongoing declines in the atmospheric concentration of ozone-depleting chemicals (which are controlled by the Montreal Protocol) prevented the hole from being as large as it might have been under the same weather conditions 20 years ago. - NASA

Severe Drought in South America

11/3/2020

Large parts of South America are in the grip of a serious drought. Signs of the drought began to appear in satellite gravimetry observations of southeastern Brazil in mid-2018, and had spread into parts of Paraguay, Bolivia, and northern Argentina by 2020. “This is the second most intense drought in South America since 2002,” said Matthew Rodell, a hydrologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The calculation is based on the extent, duration, and volume of water lost during the drought as measured by the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites.” A drought in eastern Brazil and Venezuela in 2015-16 is the only more intense drought on the record. - NASA

Ohio House Speaker and 4 Others Arrested in $60 Million Bribery Case

11/3/2020

The powerful Republican speaker of the Ohio House and four associates were arrested Tuesday in a $60 million federal bribery case connected to a taxpayer-funded bailout of Ohio's two nuclear power plants. Hours after FBI agents raided Speaker Larry Householder's farm, U.S. Attorney David DeVillers described the ploy as "likely the largest bribery scheme ever perpetrated against the state of Ohio." Householder was one of the driving forces behind the nuclear plants' financial rescue, which added a new fee to every electricity bill in the state and directed over $150 million a year through 2026 to the plants near Cleveland and Toledo. After Householder's arrest, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine called on him to resign.

<<Previous

Pebble Mine Permit Denied by Trump Administration

20 Signs the Climate Crisis Has Come Home to Roost

An Unusual Snack for Cows, a Powerful Fix for Climate

A Desert City Tries to Save Itself With Rain

New Zealand Geologists Plan to Harness Volcano Heat to Reduce Emissions

Amount of Materials Extracted from Earth Tripled Since 1970

Remains of Master & Slave Unearthed from Pompeii Ashes After ~2,000 Years

Putin Orders Russian Government to Work Towards Paris Climate Goals

How Utah Cities Are Pursuing 100% Renewable Energy

Carbon-Free Energy Required by 2050 Under ACC Proposal

One of America’s Most Famous Lakes Is Disappearing. Utah’s Next governor Can Help.

The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us.

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Gravimetry

Oil Field Operations Likely Triggered EQs in CA Near the San Andreas Fault

Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback

Occidental Petroleum Announces Net-Zero Target for greenhouse Gas Emissions

Trump Administration, in Late Push, Moves to Sell Oil Rights in Arctic Refuge

Trump Admin. Removes Scientist in Charge of Assessing Climate Change

Blue Wave or Not, a Green Wave is Sweeping the Canadian Oil Patch

New Mexico’s Oil Fields Have a Sinkhole Problem

AZ Power Must Be 100% Carbon-Free by 2050 Regulators Decide

China’s Unrelenting Season of Flooding

Large, Deep Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2020

Severe Drought in South America

Ohio House Speaker and 4 Others Arrested in $60 Million Bribery Case

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