January 2023 - News - lists.frackcheckwv.net

Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now U for United Nations Programs
by Frack Check WV: admin 21 Jan '23

21 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now U for United Nations Programs](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/21/alphabet-of-climate-chang… from-a-to-z-now-u-for-united-nations-programs/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/DCE1AD06-5150-406A-A87B-C6C5FD5D9AA5-300x135.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/DCE1AD06-5150-406A-A87B-C6C5FD5D9AA5.jpeg) People protest for reparations for stolen land at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt **United Nations Doggedly Pursues International Climate Agreements Amid Global Turmoil (2022 Year in Review)** >>> From [Collected News by Duane Nichols, FrackCheckWV.net](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/), January 21, 2023 **SUMMARY ~ Despite strong evidence that human activity played a role in catastrophic weather events, and the emergence of a fuel crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise. Nevertheless, the UN kept the climate emergency high on the international agenda, reaching major agreements on financing and biodiversity.** At the end of 2021, when the UN climate conference (COP26) wrapped up in Glasgow, none of those present could have suspected that a war in Ukraine would throw the global economy into turmoil, convincing many nations to suspend their commitments to a low carbon economy, as they scrambled to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies, and secure fossil fuel supplies elsewhere. Meanwhile, a host of studies pointed to the continued warming of the Earth, and the failure of humanity to lower carbon emissions, and get to grips with the existential threat of the climate emergency. Nevertheless, the UN continued to lead on the slow, painstaking, but essential task of achieving international climate agreements, whilst putting sustained pressure on major economies to make greater efforts to cut their fossil fuel use, and support developing countries, whose citizens are bearing the brunt of the droughts, floods and extreme weather resulting from man-made climate change. #######+++++++#######+++++++######## **[Breakthrough agreements reached at UN climate conferences](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131972)** _The year 2022 was punctuated by three important climate-related UN summits – the Ocean Conference in June, the COP27 Climate Conference in November, and the much-delayed COP15 Biodiversity Conference in December – which demonstrated that the organization achieves far more than simply stating the dire climate situation, and calling for change._ At each event progress was made on advancing international commitments to protect the environment, and reducing the harm and destruction caused by human activity. The Ocean Conference saw critical issues discussed, and new ideas generated. World leaders admitted to deep alarm at the global emergency facing the Ocean, and renewed their commitment to take urgent action, cooperate at all levels, and fully achieve targets as soon as possible. More than 6,000 participants, including 24 Heads of State and Government, and over 2,000 representatives of civil society attended the Conference, advocating for urgent and concrete actions to tackle the ocean crisis. They stressed that science-based and innovative actions, along with international cooperation, are essential to provide the necessary solutions. #######+++++++#######+++++++######## **[‘Loss and damage’ funding agreed, in win for developing countries](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131972)** **COP27** , _the UN Climate Conference, which was held in Egypt in November, seemed destined to end without any agreement, as talks dragged on way beyond the official end of the summit._ Nevertheless, negotiators somehow managed to not only agree on the wording of an outcome document, but also establish a funding mechanism to compensate vulnerable nations for the loss and damage caused by climate-induced disasters. These nations have spent decades arguing for such a provision, so the inclusion was hailed as a major advance. Details on how the mechanism will work, and who will benefit, will now be worked out in the coming months. However, little headway was made on other key issues, particularly on the phasing out of fossil fuels, and tightened language on the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. **See this** [Extensive Article](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131972) **explaining the various aspects of climate change in which the United Nations is involved:** <https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131972> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/21/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-u-for-united-nations-programs/>

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The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now T for Temperatures on Earth
by Frack Check WV: admin 20 Jan '23

20 Jan '23

# [The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now T for Temperatures on Earth](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/20/the-alphabet-of-climate-chan… from-a-to-z-now-t-for-temperatures-on-earth/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/F334E3C1-2033-40BC-B188-21EB77B7FA79.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/F334E3C1-2033-40BC-B188-21EB77B7FA79.jpeg) The highest temperature in WV was 115 F, in CA up to 134 F. **T = Temperatures are Rising Locally and Globally** From the [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 The **Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, in Dallas** , offers a hyperbaric chamber where divers can recover from the bends, a pool equipped to continuously measure swimmers’ oxygen use, and a **climate-controlled vault that can be programmed to test the limits of human endurance**. Not long ago, I swallowed a thermometer the size of a pill and had myself sealed in the vault. **Formally known as the environmental chamber, the vault resembled a walk-in freezer, with metal walls and a pressed-metal floor. Pretty much every available surface was occupied by machinery — computer screens, thermocouples, an electrocardiogram monitor, a treadmill, and a sort of stationary bicycle that looked like a suitcase with pedals. In the center sat a lawn chair, which a technician indicated I should take.** With me in the chamber was a researcher named Josh Foster. Before he allowed me to enter the vault, Foster had asked for a urine sample —a first in my reporting career. He’d also stuck some electrodes on my chest and performed an ultrasound scan of my heart, which, he said, was unusually low and hard to find. Foster, who is British, is interested in the effects of extreme heat on the body. To this end, he creates miniature heat waves and solicits volunteers to sweat their way through them. **On the day I volunteered, the temperature in the vault was a hundred and six degrees and the humidity forty per cent.** “Temperature regulation is one of the most important variables the body will try to protect,” Foster told me. “Because as soon as you start to stray from what’s normal, outside of a given quite small range, our ability to tolerate that is very, very low.” **Once a topic of marginal academic interest, the physiology of heat stress is now a subject of widespread practical concern. According to a recent study, two hundred and seventy-five million people around the globe are subjected to life-threatening temperatures at least one day a year, and this number could easily grow to eight hundred million by the middle of the century.** According to another recent study, the incidence of “extreme humid heat” has doubled in the course of the past forty years. Some parts of the world, particularly in South Asia and around the Persian Gulf, are already experiencing temperatures close to the human “survivability limit.” **This past summer, heat record after heat record fell. In Pinhão, in northern Portugal, temperatures topped a hundred and seventeen (117) degrees. In Sacramento, California, the mercury hit a hundred and sixteen (116) degrees. Yanjin City, in southwestern China, saw a hundred and eleven (111); Abilene, Texas, a hundred and ten (110); and London a hundred and four (104).** The human body reacts to such temperatures by sweating and directing more blood toward the skin. Problems arise when people become dehydrated, or their hearts get overtaxed, or it’s just so sweltering that they can’t dissipate enough heat. **The elderly are particularly vulnerable to heat stress, Foster told me, because they sweat less than young people, and their hearts don’t pump as efficiently.** (Humidity impedes the evaporation of sweat, which is why extreme humid heat is so dangerous.) One consequence of prolonged heat exposure can be a kind of blood poisoning. “Increased blood flow to the skin means that less blood is being directed toward the gut,” Foster explained. “And, if that happens for a long enough time, it can damage the cells that line the gut, and bacteria that are normally housed in the gut can leak out. It’s basically the same as having sepsis.” **The heat wave that affected most of Europe this past summer is estimated to have killed more than fifteen thousand people.** Sitting in the environmental chamber, with the pill-size thermometer in my stomach, would, I hoped, be edifying without being too edifying. Until the U.S. and the other big emitters reach net zero — indeed, until the entire world reaches net zero — the planet will continue to warm. What is the future we’re creating actually going to feel like? Every quarter of an hour, I was supposed to ride the stationary bicycle for five minutes; this was to simulate the sort of effort a person would have to make in the course of completing ordinary household chores. I started off strong but after a few rounds began to flag. The humidity made the air seem strangely solid. I tried to imagine what it would be like to perform real work under these conditions but found it difficult to hold on to a thought. **A few days later, when I got back home, Foster sent me the data that had been collected by the various instruments. I had sweated out almost a pint of water every hour. My heart rate had increased by thirty beats a minute and the blood "ow through my brachial artery had more than tripled. Despite all the (admittedly involuntary) effort I had made to thermoregulate, my core temperature had risen to a hundred degrees.** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis | (Sixth IPCC Report)](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/) Results from a wide range of climate model simulations suggest that our **planet 's average temperature** could be between 2 and 9.9°F (1.1 to 5.7°C) warmer in 2100 than it is today. The main reason for this temperature increase is carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases that human activities produce. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/20/the-alphabet-of-climate-change- from-a-to-z-now-t-for-temperatures-on-earth/>

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The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now S for Sand & Sixth Mass Extinction
by Frack Check WV: admin 19 Jan '23

19 Jan '23

# [The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now S for Sand & Sixth Mass Extinction](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/19/the-alphabet-of-climate- change-from-a-to-z-now-s-for-sand-sixth-mass-extinction/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/4713BA97-EEA5-448A-9F73-25CB893A104D-233x300.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/4713BA97-EEA5-448A-9F73-25CB893A104D.png) Frac Sand Sentinel is crying out for sanity ~ “sand sanity” for Earth’s sake! **Frac Sand Sentinel #427 ~ “Sixth Mass Extinction”** From the [Newsletter by Patricia Popple, Frac Sand Sentinel](https://wisair.wordpress.com/frac-sand-sentinel/), January 15, 2023 If the Planet is Warming, Why am I Freezing? ~ Scientists for a long time have been looking at the causation of changing weather patterns and climate and how these two elements are instrumental in making changes for us all. Take a look at [this 5 minute link](https://youtu.be/Pe9SbC1D-sk) to help resolve this question in your mind. <https://youtu.be/Pe9SbC1D-sk> Once you have viewed the response to the question above, the concerns regarding the [Sixth Mass Extinction](https://youtu.be/6TqhcZsxrPA) become even clearer by watching this clip from the 60 Minutes broadcast: <https://youtu.be/6TqhcZsxrPA> Paul Ehrlich was on the 60 Minutes show (I could not believe he is 90) but immediately friends recalled seeing him several times on the Johnny Carson Show, beginning in the early 70s. [Paul Ehrlich on Johnny Carson ~ YouTube](https://youtu.be/29PwAu-6oGA) “Who is going to change their living habits?” There are some folks out there who deny and obstruct science of any kind. Those of us who have been involved in fighting the frac sand issues realize the value of our experiences with the hazards of this activity as well as the political differences that divide and conquer us whenever issues of this nature arise. Yet we do have a planet to protect and preserve and make healthier, not only for ourselves but for those who come after us. **NOTE** ~ _Patricia Popple is the Editor_ of the Frac Sand Sentinel in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The web site is [wisair.wordpress.com](https://wisair.wordpress.com/) and for additional information, [click here for panoramic aerial views](https://lookdownpictures.com/) of frac sand mines, processing plants, and trans-load facilities. [FracTracker.org](https://www.fractracker.org/home/) is also an excellent source of information and a picture source. FRAC SAND SENTINEL | 561 SUMMIT AVENUE, Chippewa Falls, WI 54729 **See Also:** [Climate Change and the New Age of Extinction,](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/climate-change-a… the-new-age-of-extinction) Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine, May 13, 2019 People easily forget “last of” stories about individual species, but the loss of nature also threatens our existence. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/19/the-alphabet-of-climate-change- from-a-to-z-now-s-for-sand-sixth-mass-extinction/>

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The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now R for Republicans
by Frack Check WV: admin 18 Jan '23

18 Jan '23

# [The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now R for Republicans](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/18/the-alphabet-of-climat… change-from-a-to-z-now-r-for-republicans/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/A8B0AEB9-E0CD-439F-9E2C-97D58E8895DC.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/A8B0AEB9-E0CD-439F-9E2C-97D58E8895DC.jpeg) Republicans seem to be going from bad to worse! **The Letter R for Republicans ~ Republicans Show No Concern for Global Climate Change** From the [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/climate-change-from… to-z), November 28, 2022 **Reaching net zero in the U.S. will require putting such wrangling aside. It will require building out the transmission system while, at the same time, expanding its capacity so that hundreds of millions of cars, trucks, and buses can be run on electricity.** It will require installing tens of millions of public charging stations on city streets and even more charging stations in private garages. Assembling the electric cars and trucks will, in turn, necessitate extracting nickel and lithium for their batteries, which will mean siting new mines, either in the U.S. or abroad. The new cars and trucks will themselves have to be manufactured in an emissions-free manner, which will involve inventing new methods for producing steel or building a new infrastructure for capturing and sequestering carbon. **The list goes on and on.** The fossil-fuel industry will essentially have to be dismantled, and millions of leaky and abandoned wells sealed. Concrete production will have to be reëngineered. The same goes for the plastics and chemicals industries. Currently, ammonia, a critical and water heaters that now run on oil or gas, commercial and residential, will have to be replaced. So will all the gas stoves and dryers and industrial kilns. **The airline industry will have to be revamped, as will the shipping industry.** Farming is responsible for roughly ten per cent of America’s greenhouse-gas emissions, mostly in the form of nitrous oxide and methane. (Nitrous oxide is a by-product of fertilizer use; methane is released by rotting manure and burping cows.) Somehow, these emissions, too, will have to be eliminated. All of this should be done — indeed, must be done. **Officially, the U.S. is committed to reaching net zero by 2050. But a task of this scale has never been attempted before. Zeroing out emissions means rebuilding the U.S. economy from the bottom up. Perhaps Americans recognize this, perhaps not.** In early July, at a time when much of the country was baking in ninety-five- degree-plus heat, the Times took a poll of registered voters. Asked to name the most important problem facing the nation, twenty per cent of the respondents said the economy, fifteen per cent said inflation, and eleven per cent said partisan divisions. Only one per cent said climate change. Among registered Republicans, the figure was zero per cent. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Despite Net-Zero Vows, Wall Street 'Climate Arsonists' Still Pumping Billions Into Fossil Fuels](https://www.commondreams.org/news/wall- street-fossil-fuels), Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, January 18, 2023 It is business as usual for most banks and investors who continue to support fossil fuel developers without any restrictions, despite their high-profile commitments to carbon neutrality. Top banks in the United States and around the world have made a show of embracing net-zero emissions pledges, portraying themselves as allies in the fight against the global climate emergency. But a [new analysis entitled “Throwing Fuel on the Fire”](https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Throwing- fuel-on-the-fire-GFANZ-financing-of-fossil-fuel-expansion.pdf) by a group of NGOs makes clear that the world's leading financial institutions — including major Wall Street banks such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America — are still pumping money into fossil fuel expansion, bolstering the industry that is primarily responsible for worsening climate chaos. According to the report, 56 of the largest banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) — a coalition convened by the United Nations — have provided nearly $270 billion in the form of loans and underwriting to more than 100 "major fossil fuel expanders," from Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil to Shell. Additionally, 58 of the biggest members of the Net-Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative — including the investment behemoths BlackRock and Vanguard — held at least $847 billion worth of stocks and bonds in more than 200 large fossil fuel developers as of September. Both the NZBA and the NZAM are under the umbrella of the **Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ)** , a campaign launched in 2021 with the goal of expanding "the number of net zero-committed financial institutions." Climate advocates have long argued that net-zero pledges are fundamentally inadequate to the task of stopping runaway warming. "The science is very clear: we need to stop developing new coal, oil, and gas projects as soon as possible if we want to meet our climate goals and avoid a worst-case scenario," said **Lucie Pinson, the executive director and founder of the watchdog group Reclaim Finance**. "Yet, it is business as usual for most banks and investors who continue to support fossil fuel developers without any restrictions, despite their high-profile commitments to carbon neutrality." URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/18/the-alphabet-of-climate-change- from-a-to-z-now-r-for-republicans/>

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The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now Q for Quagmire
by Frack Check WV: admin 17 Jan '23

17 Jan '23

# [The Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z ~ Now Q for Quagmire](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/17/the-alphabet-of-climate- change-from-a-to-z-now-q-for-quagmire/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/2E5C74AD-1F0E-4251-913C-66A8E1E6481F-300x157.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/2E5C74AD-1F0E-4251-913C-66A8E1E6481F.jpeg) High voltage electrical transmission lines operate up to 765,000 volts, for example. (Click image to expand). **The Letter Q for Quagmire ~ The National Electric Transmission Grid System** From the [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 Take what’s been called the “transmission quagmire.” To clean up America’s grid, it’s not enough to build new generating capacity, or even new generating capacity plus new storage capacity. Power has to be transported from places that have a lot of wind and sun to urban centers that use a lot of electricity. Decarbonizing the grid will, by one estimate, demand more than a million miles of new transmission lines, and the cost of stringing all these lines will, by another estimate, come to more than two trillion dollars. Managing such a gargantuan project would be difficult enough if someone were in charge. But thanks to the way the grid was put together — bit by bit, over many decades — jurisdiction over transmission lines is divided among an electoral map’s worth of competing authorities. **Whenever lines cross state borders, this Q-mire becomes particularly quaggy. In that case, each state’s utility commission has to sign off. In some states, every affected county does, too. Then there are the local utility companies, which may, officially or unofficially, hold veto power.** “Let’s say I’m a local utility, and you tell me all this low-cost power is going to come in from out of state with a new transmission line,” Steve Cicala, an economics professor at Tufts, said to me. “My reaction is ‘Absolutely not. It’s a threat to my business model.’ And a lot of public- utility commissions are pretty much captured by the local utilities.” The seven-hundred-and-twenty-mile (720 miles) Plains and Eastern Clean Line was supposed to link wind farms in Oklahoma to customers in Tennessee; it was killed by opposition from Arkansas. The Grain Belt Express was designed to run from southwest Kansas to Indiana; it’s been delayed for a decade thanks to resistance from Missouri. The TransWest Express is intended to bring wind power from Wyoming to cities on the West Coast; construction has been held up for years, in good part owing to a single litigious family in Colorado. Northern Pass was a transmission line designed to bring hydropower from Quebec to Massachusetts via New Hampshire. After New Hampshire rejected the project, in 2018, Massachusetts announced that it would try going in a different direction. It would build a line, dubbed New England Clean Energy Connect, that would cut through Maine instead. Work on NECEC was already under way when, in the fall of 2021, Maine voters approved a referendum effectively killing it. Much of the money spent on campaigning in favor of the referendum — and against NECEC — was supplied by NextEra, which owns the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, a potential competitor to the hydro project. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** **[“Tracking Transmission Reform”](https://stateimpactcenter.org/insights/tracking-transmission-refor… The State Energy & Environmental Impact Center,** New York University, School of Law, January 13, 2023 Hear from state attorneys general about why transmission reform is a critical aspect of climate response and what’s at stake, learn about the broad reform needs in this space, and keep track of opportunities to engage in pushing towards more equitable transmission policy. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/17/the-alphabet-of-climate-change- from-a-to-z-now-q-for-quagmire/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now P!
by Frack Check WV: admin 16 Jan '23

16 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now P!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/16/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-p/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/88569E3E-F61A-4B17-98F0-D9CD1B502281.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/88569E3E-F61A-4B17-98F0-D9CD1B502281.jpeg) The ACP and MVP at 42 inches and 300 miles were too damaging to hills, valleys, farms, forests, rivers, creeks and wetlands **“P” = Pipelines Making News About Fossil Fuels** >> **RE** : [“Fractured Sanctuary: A Chronicle of Grassroots Activitists Fighting Pipelines of Destruction in Appalachia”](https://appalachianchronicle.com/book-fractured-sanctuary/) by Michael Barrick, January 12, 2023 **‘From Almost Heaven to Almost Hell’** ~ Containing articles written between 2014 and 2022, it is an account of reluctant, citizen activists who rose up organically in grassroots resistance to the natural gas industry as it has attempted to complete two, 42” pipelines carrying natural gas hundreds of miles through the Appalachian Mountains from the fracking fields of northern West Virginia, southwest Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. It is a first draft of a chapter in a history that is old. The fossil fuel industry has siphoned off billions of dollars of wealth – timber, oil, coal, gas – from Appalachia for well over a century, benefiting corporations, but devastating people and the earth. Indeed, the experience of dealing with the gas companies and dangers of the pipelines led one longtime resident of Lewis County, West Virginia to leave the state. When doing so, she said the state had gone “from Almost Heaven to Almost Hell.” Thousands of people agree with her. This books captures just a few of their stories. Their fight is not over. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) intends to complete construction by the second half of this year. Powerful interests and people have invested far too much on the project to surrender just yet. The same is true with the activists; they have lost far too much to the MVP to surrender now. So, these accounts, taken together, can be used as a playbook for citizens wishing to ally themselves with MVP opponents and other grassroots activists working to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency in Appalachia – while there is still time. We will soon share additional details regarding signings, town hall-style meetings and other ways to hear the stories, and if you wish, purchase the book. So, please check back soon or go ahead and subscribe so that you can receive every article we publish. There is no cost for the subscription. [Simply enter your email address in the “Follow” box at the top right hand side of the page.](https://appalachianchronicle.com/book-fractured-sanctuary/) January 12, 2023 – MMB. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **Update Article:** [Amended Forest Service guidelines could remove Mountain Valley Pipeline roadblock,](https://roanoke.com/news/local/amended-forest- service-guidelines-could-remove-mountain-valley-pipeline- roadblock/article_a23f0bb0-82e1-11ed-be34-3351f7d5d1e9.html) Roanoke Times, December 23, 2022 The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests have issued a revised environmental impact statement that could remove a major obstacle to completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The U.S. Forest Service has proposed new construction guidelines that, if adhered to, would enable the 303-mile intrastate natural gas pipeline to traverse a 3.5-mile section of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles and Montgomery counties, the project’s final missing link. The revised environmental impact statement considered two alternatives. One would have taken no action to revise the regulations, which could have dealt the controversial project a potential death blow. It would have required the project to remove sections of pipe currently stored above ground and to restore soil and vegetation altered by digging or timbering. The second alternative, which the Forest Service has recommended, would “allow for the construction, operation, and maintenance” of the pipeline. (This would permit a 600 foot long borehole under the Appalachian Trail.) …. **more at** ….. <https://roanoke.com/news/local/amended-forest-service- guidelines-could-remove-mountain-valley-pipeline- roadblock/article_a23f0bb0-82e1-11ed-be34-3351f7d5d1e9.html> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/16/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-p/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!
by Frack Check WV: admin 15 Jan '23

15 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08-234x300.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08.jpeg) The objections & limitations to technological solutions necessitate human interventions **OBJECTIONS or Limitations to Progress for Tech Solutions!** . . >> From an [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 . . **“SEEKING NETZERO”** . . . **“The gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast. “So observes Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba.** The observation could apply to almost anything; Smil, who has written more than a dozen books about energy and society, is concerned with the gap between the aspiration to fight climate change and the immense on-the-ground effort entailed in actually doing so. Studies that purport to show how the world could radically reduce or eliminate its carbon emissions by one date or another tend, he argues, to presuppose what they claim to be proving. To arrive at their foregone conclusions, many tech projects are based on a variety of unreliable assumptions — that project renovations can take place very rapidly, or that nonexistent technologies will be deployed at fantastic rates, or that humanity’s ever-growing appetite for energy will suddenly be curbed, or some combination of all three. Smil labels such studies “the academic equivalents of science fiction.” **Everything I have written, from “despair” onward, is vulnerable to Smilian objections.** Consider “flight.” It’s possible that, in a few years, Alias ferrying pallets of cargo will zip between regional airports. It’s also possible that electric passenger planes will one day make short hops, between, say, Boston and Hyannis. But that could be the limit. The world’s best-selling passenger plane, the Boeing 737, can transport some two hundred people coast to coast. To electrify such a "flight would require more than eight hundred tons’ worth of current-generation lithium-ion batteries, or four hundred tons of lithium-ion batteries functioning at their maximum theoretical capacity. To get off the runway, though, a 737 can’t weigh more than eighty tons, passengers and crew included. **A recent paper by researchers at Carnegie Mellon concluded that the demands of larger aircraft lie beyond the “feasibility limits” of known battery technologies.** **Or consider “green concrete.” As promising as CarbiCrete may be, the niche it fills, much like the Alia’s, is a narrow one. Since it has to be cured in chambers filled with concentrated CO2, CarbiCrete can’t be poured at a work site; it can be used only for pre-cast products, such as cinder blocks or patio tiles.** Meanwhile, though the blocks and tiles absorb CO2 as they harden, a great deal of CO2 is released in the process of producing the slag that went into them; globally, the steel industry is responsible for roughly the same number of tons of emissions as the concrete industry — around three billion. **To say that amazing work is being done to combat climate change and to say that almost no progress has been made is not a contradiction; it’s a simple statement of fact.** At the time of the Rio summit, fossil fuels provided roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. Thirty years later, fossil fuels still provide roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. In the meantime, total global energy use has increased by almost two- thirds. As Smil puts it, “The inertia of large, complex systems is due to their basic energetic and material demands — as well as the scale of their operations.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See also:** [Tech Can’t Fix It - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/technology/tech-solutions.html), Shira Ovide, New York Times, October 14, 2022 Climate Change and other big problems won’t be solved by technology alone. Think about some of the big issues that Americans are facing, in no particular order: the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, disagreements over the appropriate role of government, a reckoning over systemic racism, inequality in wealth and health, increases in homicides and other public safety threats and educational and social safety systems that fail many people. Technology didn’t cause these problems, nor should we put too much faith that technology can solve them. I worry that when we vilify or glorify what technology and tech companies do, it makes us lose focus on what’s actually important. Technology is part of the solution, perhaps, but mostly we have to find the answers through collective human will and effective action. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!
by Frack Check WV: admin 14 Jan '23

14 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/) [![Professor Sarah Marie Wiebe addresses the Climate Emergency](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)**“N” = Narratives as Spoken or Written Accounts of Connected Events, Now the Climate Change Emergency** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **Narratives are socially constructed ‘stories’ that make sense of events,” thereby lending “direction to human action.” So observes a paper published recently in the journal Climatic Change by a team of European researchers.** Climate-change **narratives** , the team notes, typically foreground “doom and gloom.” Often they emphasize risk. If they’re not retailing the latest warming-related disasters (fires, floods, food shortages), they’re predicting a future !lled with even grimmer warming-related disasters (bigger fires, more severe "flooding, famines that threaten entire regions). This approach, the researchers argue, can be counterproductive: “ **Narratives** of fear can become self-fulfilling prophecies.” If people believe that things will only get worse, they feel overwhelmed. If they feel overwhelmed, they’re apt to throw up their hands, thus guaranteeing that things will only get worse. A diet of bad news leads to paralysis, which yields yet more bad news. What’s needed instead, the paper goes on, are **narratives** that “empower people to act.” Such narratives tell a “positive and engaging story.” They “articulate a vision of ‘where we want to go’ ” and outline steps that could be taken to arrive at this metaphorical destination. **Positive stories** can also become self-fulfilling. People who believe in a brighter future are more likely to put in the effort required to achieve it. When they put in that effort, they make discoveries that hasten progress. Along the way, **they build communities** that make positive change possible. Particularly compelling, by the researchers’ account, are “win-win” speech pressing for a “ **global green new deal** ,” Achim Steiner, then the administrator of the U.N.’s Environment Programme, described the “enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits likely to arise from combatting climate change.” One of the key proponents of the Green New Deal in the U.S., Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, has argued that a crucial step toward building a more just, more environmentally sustainable future is **imagining** what this future would look like. “We can be whatever we have the courage to see,” she has said. “ **Optimism** is a choice,” notes Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who led the effort to get the Paris climate accord approved. “Do you know of any challenge that mankind has had in the history of humankind that was actually successful in its achievement that started out with pessimism, that started out with defeatism?” Figueres asked at a conference a few years ago. “There isn’t one,” she said, answering her own question. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [**What Does it Mean to Declare a Climate Emergency?**](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah- Climate-Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) [Why Narratives Matter in the Movement to Address Climate Change](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah-Clima… Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, Department of Political Science | Assistant Professor January 14th 2020 | Hā o ke kai Climate Change Conference East-West Centre, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!
by Frack Check WV: admin 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF- BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF-BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg) OMG! Have you seen the most recent Lancet Countdown on the climate — code red! **Math Matters to Climate Crisis ~ Why do small degrees of warming matter?** From an [Article by Seth Borenstein & Dana Beltaji, Associated Press](https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment), November 6, 2022 On a thermometer, a tenth of a degree seems tiny, barely noticeable. But small changes in average temperature can reverberate in a global climate to turn into big disasters as weather gets wilder and more extreme in a warmer world. In 2015, countries around the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and pursue a goal of curbing warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as part of the Paris Agreement. Two degrees of difference might not be noticeable if you’re gauging the weather outside, but for global average temperatures, these small numbers make a big difference. “Every tenth of a degree matters,” is a phrase that climate scientists around the world keep repeating. The Earth has already warmed at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, giving the world around 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 Fahrenheit) of more heating before passing the goal and suffering even more catastrophic climate change events, scientists have said. These tenths of a degree are a big deal because the temperatures represent a global average of warming. Some parts of the world, especially land mass and northern latitudes like the Arctic have already warmed more than the 1.1 Celsius average and have far surpassed 1.5 Celsius, according to estimates. It’s helpful to look at temperatures like a bell curve, rather than just the average which doesn’t reveal “hidden extremes,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi. “On the far end where the bell shape is very narrow, that is telling you the odds of very extreme events,” he said. “If you have a slight shift of the average of the peak of that bell to the warming direction, what that results in is a substantial decrease in the odds of extremely cold temperatures and a substantial increase in the odds of extremely warm temperatures.” It’s a similar picture with sea level rise, where the average obscures how some places are seeing much higher sea level increases than others, he said. Most nations — including the world’s two largest emitters, the U.S. and China — aren’t on track to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius or even 2 Celsius, according to scientists and experts who track global action on climate change, despite promises to cut their emissions to “net zero”. If temperatures increase by about 2 more degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the world will experience five times the floods, storms, drought and heat waves, according to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “All bets are off” when it comes to how climate systems will respond to more warming, warned Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb. The threat of some irreversible changes and feedback loops that amplify warming, such as the thawing of permafrost that traps massive amounts of greenhouse gas, could trigger even more heating. “It’s just staggering to think about how many people will be under immediate threat of climate-related extremes in a two degree world,” Cobb said. >>> Follow Associated Press (AP) climate and environment coverage at <https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment> #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The 2022 Global Report of the Lancet Countdown**](https://www.lancetcountdown.org/2022-report/) The health of people around the world is at the mercy of a persistent fossil fuel addiction. People around the world are increasingly feeling the impact of climate change on their health and wellbeing and these compounding crises are amplifying those harms. Yet governments and companies in both high- and low-income countries continue to prioritise fossil fuel interests. This year’s report launches as countries and health systems grapple with the health, social and economic implications of climate change, which now compound the impacts of the the global energy crisis, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our 2022 Report tracks the relationship between health and climate change across five key domains and 43 indicators, revealing that the world is at a critical juncture. While a renewed overreliance on fossil fuels could lock in a fatally warmer future with exacerbated health impacts, a health-centred, low-carbon response offers a renewed opportunity to deliver a future in which world populations can not only survive, but thrive. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!
by Frack Check WV: admin 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B-300x300.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B.png) African and Asian countries should leapfrog to renewable energy **“L” is for Leapfrogging! India is Overdue to Leap Forward!** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 In 1947, the year India gained its independence, telephones were a rarity in the nation; there were fewer than a hundred thousand in the entire country. In the decades that followed, they remained scarce; as late as 1989, India had just four million phones for eight hundred and fifty million people. Three- quarters of rural villages lacked any phone connection at all; the official wait time for a line was almost four years, and, when one was finally installed, service was often dismal. Then, practically all at once, phones were ringing everywhere. In 1994, the country auctioned off its first round of cellular licenses. The auction process was deemed “a mess”; nevertheless, cell service exploded. By 2010, six hundred million Indians were subscribers. (The country’s 2011 census revealed that more households had phones than had toilets.) In 2015, cell subscriptions hit a billion. **India effectively skipped fixed-line phones and went straight to wireless, a process that’s become known as leapfrogging.** **Today, India is home to 1.4 billion people. They consume a thousand watts per person, less than one-tenth of what Americans use. Were India to follow the fossil-fuel-slicked development path pursued by China, Europe, and the U.S., the result would be planetary disaster. Yet asking India to forgo prosperity on the ground that prosperous nations have already consumed too much is obviously impossible.** Fewer than half of all households in the country own a refrigerator. Only one in ten owns a computer. And, even though temperatures in Delhi reached a hundred and twenty-one degrees this past spring, just one in four has air- conditioning. **Leapfrogging represents a way — maybe the best way, maybe the only way — out of this dilemma. India is sun-drenched. Instead of building out a grid that relies on coal and natural gas, it could shift to one that relies on solar power and iron-air batteries.** Most Indians have never owned a car, so the country could skip over gas- guzzlers and go straight to E.V.s. Ditto for flying. The vast majority of Indians have never been on a plane; the first one they board could be an electric aircraft like the Alice. The same holds true even for stoves. More than five hundred million people in India still cook with wood or dung; instead of transitioning through gas, they could jump straight to induction. In other words, electrify everything! “India is in a unique position to pioneer a new model for low-carbon, inclusive growth,” the International Energy Agency recently declared. And what goes for India, the I.E.A. noted, also goes for “a whole group of energy- hungry developing economies.” India “hasn’t contributed much to the climate problem,” Ashish Gulagi, a researcher at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, told me. “But it can contribute to the solution.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Light Pollution ~ National Geographic Society](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution), World Wide Web, January 2023** **People all over the world are living under the nighttime glow of artificial light, and it is causing big problems for humans, wildlife, and the environment. There is a global movement to reduce light pollution, and everyone can help.** <https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/>

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