Category: Environment,

Scientists certain that drilling is causing earthquakes

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

On Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey released the first comprehensive maps pinpointing more than a dozen areas in the central and eastern U.S. that have been jolted by quakes that the researchers said were triggered by drilling. The report said man-made quakes tied to industry operations have been on the rise.

Scientists have mainly attributed the spike to the injection of wastewater deep underground, a practice they say can activate dormant faults. Only a few cases of shaking have been blamed on fracking, in which large volumes of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into rock formations to crack them open and free oil or gas.

…Yet another study, this one published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, connected a swarm of small quakes west of Fort Worth, Texas, to nearby natural gas wells and wastewater disposal.

…The ground has been trembling in regions that were once seismically stable, including parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

The largest jolt linked to wastewater injection — a magnitude-5.6 that hit Prague, Oklahoma, in 2011 — damaged 200 buildings and shook a college football stadium.

The uptick in Oklahoma quakes has prompted state regulators to require a seismic review of all proposed disposal wells.

…[Trump’s toothless sham, the] Environmental Protection Agency said there no plans for new regulations as a result of the USGS study.

Scientists certain that drilling is causing earthquakes

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Rail or trail? Topsham-Augusta trail proposal could derail the potential future return of passenger train service to Augusta, rail advocates warn.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Advocates for restoring passenger train service to Augusta — and potentially beyond to Waterville and Bangor — fear the Merrymeeting Trail proposal could squash any hopes they have of rail service returning to that corridor. 

…Richard Rudolph and Jack Sutton, directors of the Maine Rail Group, said once the rail corridor is converted to a trail, rail service will never return, due to the difficulty of both restoring the rails and reclaiming the space from those who would be using it as a trail. 

…“There are plenty of places to walk or bike, there aren’t that many places to run a train,” he said. “Common sense will tell you if we lose that rail to a bike or walking trail, it’s not going to be returned.” 

Dale McCormick, a former city councilor, said she loves the Rail Trail and loves the Merrymeeting Trail proposal, but not if it prevents the future development of rail service in Augusta. 

McCormick said if gas prices increase again, rail travel would be more feasible because of its energy efficiency and more popular with passengers. There should be a way to do both the trail project and protect the future of rail, she said. 

Rail or trail? Topsham-Augusta trail proposal could derail the potential future return of passenger train service to Augusta, rail advocates warn. – Portland Press Herald

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Venice canals almost dry, two months after severe floods

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Europe,Leave a comment

In November, Venice experienced its highest water levels in more than 50 years in what some said was a direct result of climate change.

More than two thirds of the city was underwater then, with the mayor estimating damage at over a billion euros ($1.1bn; £850m).

Landmarks like St Mark’s Square were flooded, while shops and businesses had to close.

Venice canals almost dry, two months after severe floods – BBC News

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Revealed: US listed climate activist group as ‘extremists’ alongside mass killers

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Environment,Leave a comment

A group of US environmental activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting the oil industry have been listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists” and some of its members listed alongside white nationalists and mass killers.

…The document points to an uptick in “sabotage attacks” conducted by anarchist extremists, environmental rights and animal rights extremists against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 at the height of the pipeline protest. Nearly 800 activists have been tried on a variety of North Dakota state charges, in relation to the pipeline protests, according to Water Protector Legal Collective, a legal support organization.

This activity was met with heavy law enforcement presence, FBI and DHS surveillance, and aggressive military style tactics deployed by pipeline security contractors.

In addition to providing an overview of domestic terrorism threats the document includes an appendix summarizing select incidents over the past few years. Two of the Valve Turners are listed alongside violent white supremacists such as Dylann Roof and James Fields, who have both been convicted of murdering innocent civilians.

…“Equating mass murder by white supremacists with what Michael and I did is totally obscene,” Jessup said in an email. “This whole infrastructure of so-called security has done little more than secure the future of the fossil fuel industry by terrorizing people into silence.”

…Carl Williams, executive director of the Water Protector Legal Collective, which has defended a number of DAPL protesters, says the push to criminalize dissent is part of a larger rightwing strategy that has also targeted the BDS movement and Black Lives Matter.

“I think there is a strategy that rightwing forces are using to criminalize dissent,” Williams said. “This bulletin shows that dirty hand.”

Revealed: US listed climate activist group as ‘extremists’ alongside mass killers | Environment | The Guardian

sigh…

Controversy over giant telescope roils astronomy conference in Hawaii

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Hawaii,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Near the end of the conference, a session that was a late addition to the program gave the podium to two kia’i. They shared with astronomers not their reasons for opposing the telescope, but the daily rituals they are following on Maunakea and an invitation to visit their roadside outpost.

That was a deliberate choice. “This is different, perhaps, from what you thought this would be,” said Pua Case, a native Hawaiian who has been organizing against the TMT for a decade. “We’re not presenting our side to get another side, we’re not going to do that. You know why? Because we’re meeting you for the first time, most of you.”

Instead, she explained that they wanted to offer astronomers a glimpse into their world. “The way we create relationship is through ceremony, ritual, tradition, ancestral passing down of knowledge and protocol,” Case said. That’s also how the kia’i have arrived at their opposition of the project and how their daily prayers on the mountain continue their process of determining how to live with Maunakea. “We have no choice but to stand, so we’re letting you know that,” she said.

Controversy over giant telescope roils astronomy conference in Hawaii | Space

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Puerto Rico emergency director fired after residents discover warehouse full of Hurricane Maria supplies

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island’s emergency manager, hours after a warehouse filled with supplies was discovered.

…Carlos Acevedo, [the] director of Puerto Rico’s Office of Emergency Management, was dismissed Saturday. The governor appointed Maj. Gen. José J. Reyes, the adjutant general of the Puerto Rico National Guard, to replace him.

Earlier on Saturday, numerous pallets of water and other boxes with emergency supplies were found at a warehouse in the earthquake ravaged city of Ponce.

…The emergency aid is believed to be from when Hurricane Maria hit the island two years ago, the governor said.

Puerto Rico emergency director fired after residents discover warehouse full of Hurricane Maria supplies – CNN

wonder how he got the job…

2018: Puerto Rico officials stockpiling radios, water, food as hurricane season nears

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,Leave a comment

MAY 10, 2018

…Federal and local officials said Thursday they are stockpiling food, water, radios and generators in Puerto Rico. …Emergency plans have been changed to warn the island’s 3.3 million people that they need to have enough supplies to survive 10 days.

“After Maria, we learned that three days is not enough,” said Carlos Acevedo, interim commissioner of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency. “Now the minimum is 10 days … 10 days of supplies, 10 days of gasoline, 10 days of everything.”

He said satellite antennas have been installed and 100-watt radios distributed to police stations, emergency management centers, fire stations and hospitals so crews can still communicate in the event of a disaster.

Puerto Rico officials stockpiling radios, water, food as hurricane season nears – CBS News

hmmm

EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

 Asbestos is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a series of loopholes by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

…The EPA’s recently released report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances states that the agency will “no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.” 

…The SNUR greenlights companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without consideration about how they will endanger people who are indirectly in contact with them. 

EPA is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing – Archpaper.com

Jeezus Krrreyest….

A Whole Lot of Water Goes Into That Milk

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

“Cows need to consume between 30 and 50 gallons of water per day,” said Donna Amaral-Phillips, extension dairy specialist for the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. “That’s more than 415 pounds of water every day.”

That number may sound extremely high until the consumer realizes it takes up to 4.5 pounds of water to make just 1 pound of milk, and cows produce, on average, 70 pounds, or 8 gallons of milk each day, which is equal to about 128 glasses.

A Whole Lot of Water Goes Into That Milk | Dairy Herd Management

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Big Island: County Recycling Cutbacks A Sign Of Global Market Changes

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Hawaii,Leave a comment

Hawaii County …[is] no longer accepting plastic or most paper recycling.

……In 2018, about 224,200 tons were landfilled in Hilo and Puuanahulu (Kona) after more than 58,800 tons — about 20.8% — of waste were diverted, including 37,915 tons of green waste and nearly 21,000 tons of recyclables.

…The change will mean that the county will be shipping “possibly 4,000 tons per year of extra material” to the West Hawaii Landfill, the island’s only active facility.

…China’s [new] “National Sword” recycling directive that imports should have only minor contamination such as food particles or incorrectly sorted plastics.

Big Island: County Recycling Cutbacks A Sign Of Global Market Changes

hmm

‘Like sending bees to war’: the deadly truth behind your almond-milk

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

 Commercial beekeepers who send their hives to the almond farms are seeing their bees die in record numbers, and nothing they do seems to stop the decline.

…Beekeepers attributed the high mortality rate to pesticide exposure, diseases from parasites and habitat loss. However, environmentalists and organic beekeepers maintain that the real culprit is something more systemic: America’s reliance on industrial agriculture methods, especially those used by the almond industry, which demands a large-scale mechanization of one of nature’s most delicate natural processes.

…Like all bees, honeybees thrive in a biodiverse landscape. But California’s almond industry places them in a monoculture where growers expect the bees to be predictably productive year after year.

…On top of the threat of pesticides, almond pollination is uniquely demanding for bees because colonies are aroused from winter dormancy about one to two months earlier than is natural. The sheer quantity of hives required far exceeds that of other crops – apples, America’s second-largest pollination crop, use only one-tenth the number of bees.

…One of the most widely applied pesticides is the herbicide glyphosate (AKA Roundup), which is a staple of large-scale almond growers and has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans.

…“We don’t have pests; we have biodiversity,” says Anderson, who primarily sells directly to individual customers through his Anderson Almonds company. Unlike large industrial almond farms that strip the orchard ground bare to more efficiently treat for insects and fungi, Anderson allows a rich understory to grow, which naturally nourishes the soil and strengthens the trees.

Anderson hires a “beekeeper hobbyist” from northern California every spring to install about 20 hives in his orchard. “We have the opposite of colony collapse at my farm,” says Anderson. “My beekeeper brings weak hives down that he wants to recharge on my property.”

Anderson says the tradeoff for not using pesticides is that his annual crop yield is lower – typically about 10,000 pounds – and he keeps his orchard small in order to manage its wildness. “

‘Like sending bees to war’: the deadly truth behind your almond-milk obsession | Environment | The Guardian

hmmmm

Sanders’s Climate Ambitions Thrill Supporters. Experts Aren’t Impressed.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Bernie Sanders’s $16 trillion vision for arresting global warming would put the government in charge of the power sector and promise that, by 2030, the country’s electricity and transportation systems would run entirely on wind, solar, hydropower or geothermal energy.

…The federal government to build and generate renewable energy, and sell it to publicly owned distribution systems, with preferential prices for utilities that pledge to break themselves of fossil fuels.

….Mr. Sander’s plan envisions expanding the four existing federal agencies that market electric power …[and] create a fifth such agency that would spend $1.52 trillion on developing renewable energy and another $852 billion on technology like advanced batteries to store energy for days when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.

…Congress would have to create and fund these new entities, a heavy lift even with a Congress in Democratic control.

…Economists said, his climate plan fails to consider his larger agenda, such as the new infrastructure projects in his economic plan that would create a burst of new emissions. High-speed rail, wind turbines and mass transit need steel and concrete, the production of which requires energy.

…[Oppenheimer] said he was disappointed that Mr. Sanders no longer supported a carbon tax, a position he embraced in 2016. Economists say a fee on the burning of fossil fuels is the most efficient way to drive down global warming, but Mr. Sanders says that would not work quickly enough.

…Other analysts criticized Mr. Sanders’s rejection of nuclear energy and technology to capture and store carbon emissions. His plan calls both of those “false solutions” to climate change and calls for a moratorium on the renewal of nuclear power plant licenses.

Yet nuclear power currently accounts for 20 percent of the nation’s energy mix and more than half of its carbon-free power. Allowing aging plants to close would likely mean that natural gas, a fossil fuel, would fill the void and emissions would rise.

…Mr. Sanders is not a newcomer to the climate issue; he has spent decades fighting, largely unsuccessfully, for ambitious legislation to increase clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, and end fossil fuel subsidies. He distinguished himself in the 2016 Democratic primaries by calling for a tax on carbon emissions and declaring global warming a national emergency.

…Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said Mr. Sanders was more focused on signaling his ambitions to the party’s liberal wing than sweating policy details.

“People who care about these issues want a warrior,” Mr. Payne said. “Whether or not the battle plans they draw up exactly check out is kind of beside the point.” [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]

Sanders’s Climate Ambitions Thrill Supporters. Experts Aren’t Impressed. – The New York Times

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Leaked Trump Administration Memo: Keep Public in Dark About How Endangered Species Decisions Are Made

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In a Trump administration memorandum leaked to the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is directing its staff to withhold, or delay releasing, certain public records about how the Endangered Species Act is carried out. That includes records where the advice of career wildlife scientists may be overridden by political appointees in the Trump administration.

…The memo recommends that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service limit the information released to the public for decisions regarding species protected under the Endangered Species Act. It provides a list of types of records for agency staff to withhold, including drafts of policies and rules, briefing documents and decision meeting notes and summaries.

The agency has already implemented aspects of this guidance in actions like the Keystone XL pipeline construction lawsuit, and in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision last year to prematurely remove endangered species protection from Yellowstone grizzly bears, as the memo confirms.

Leaked Trump Administration Memo: Keep Public in Dark About How Endangered Species Decisions Are Made – EcoWatch

Agggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh

Farmers Are Using Food Waste To Make Electricity

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using food waste to create electricity. They feed waste into anaerobic digesters, built and operated by Vanguard Renewables, which capture the methane emissions and make renewable energy.

…The machine will grind up all kinds of food waste — “everything from bones, we put whole fish in here, to vegetables to dry items like rice or grains,” Franczyk says as the grinder is loaded. It also takes frying fats and greases.

…While Whole Foods donates a lot of surplus food to food banks, there’s a lot waste left over. Much of it is generated from prepping prepared foods. Just as when you cook in your own kitchen, there are lots of bits that remain, such as onion or carrot peel, rinds, stalks or meat scraps. 

…In the digester, he combines all of this waste with manure from his cows. The mixture cooks at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. As the methane is released, it rises to the top of a large red tank with a black bubble-shaped dome.

“We capture the gas in that bubble. Then we suck it into a big motor,” Melnik explains. Unlike other engines that run on diesel or gasoline, this engine runs on methane.

“This turns a big generator, which is creating one megawatt of electricity” continuously, Melnik says — enough to power more than just his farm. “We only use about 10 percent of what we make, and the rest is fed onto the [electricity] grid,” Melnik explains. It’s enough to power about 1,500 homes.

He says times are tough for dairy farmers, so this gives him a new stream of revenue. Vanguard pays him rental fees for having the anaerobic digester on his farm. In addition, he’s able to use the liquids left over from the process as fertilizer on his fields.

Chew On This: Farmers Are Using Food Waste To Make Electricity : The Salt : NPR

cool!

Economists and climate change: Building castles in the sky

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The problem with Nordhaus’ thinking (and that of many others like him) is that he cannot conceive of abrupt discontinuities in the workings of the planet or the workings of human society. In short, he cannot conceive that climate change could alter our environment so thoroughly and disrupt our agriculture so completely that it would lead to catastrophic results.

It is for this failure of imagination that economist Steven Keen recently took Nordhaus to task, showing through a careful critique of Nordhaus’ equations, that even those equations demonstrate catastrophe ahead when provisioned with the proper numbers and understanding. When Keen adds in what we know about tipping points in the climate system, he finds that Nordhaus’ own equations reveal that “[a]t 3 degrees, damages are 8 times as high. At 4 degrees, the ratio doesn’t matter, because the tipping point function says there would be no economy.” What a difference understanding the nonlinearity of the climate system makes!

Economists and climate change: Building castles in the sky – Resilience

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Monsanto pleads guilty to illegally spraying banned pesticide on Maui

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Hawaii,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

[Monsanto] plead guilty to spraying a banned pesticide on research crops in Maui, Hawaii, the US Department of Justice said.

Monsanto Co., also the maker of weedkiller Roundup, will pay the fines for storing the pesticide Penncap-M, an “acute hazardous waste” at sites [on] Maui and Molokai.

…The company knew that its use was prohibited after 2013. Penncap-M is considered an “acute hazardous waste.” The company also told employees to reenter the area only seven days after the spraying, when it knew that years earlier, 31 days was set as the required amount of time. 

Monsanto pleads guilty to illegally spraying banned pesticide in Maui – CNN

Consequences for willful and flagrant endangerment of employees, locals, and the environment should include criminal prosecution for the decision makers involved.

Carnival to pay $20 million after admitting to violating settlement

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Princess Cruises, a Carnival subsidiary, admitted to violating the terms of its probation from a 2017 conviction for improper waste disposal.

…In 2017, Princess Cruises pleaded guilty to illegally releasing oil into the ocean and deliberately hiding the practice

…Carnival released food waste and plastic into the ocean, failed to accurately record waste disposals, created false training records, and secretly examined ships to fix environmental-compliance issues before third-party inspections without reporting its findings to the inspectors.

Carnival to pay $20 million after admitting to violating settlement – Business Insider

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