January 2023 - News - lists.frackcheckwv.net

BIG BREAKFAST ~ Blueberry Pancakes, Sausage & Maple Syrup — w/ Coffee
by Frack Check WV: Duane Nichols 31 Jan '23

31 Jan '23

# [BIG BREAKFAST ~ Blueberry Pancakes, Sausage & Maple Syrup — w/ Coffee](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/31/big-breakfast-blueberry- pancakes-sausage-maple-syrup-%e2%80%94-w-coffee/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/B34E5757-0533-429E-B4D9-70B2383A203A-300x230.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/B34E5757-0533-429E-B4D9-70B2383A203A.jpeg) Young sugar maple trees are beautiful in the autumn **Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner: Maple syrup season approaches – but for how much longer?** From the [Opinion Editorial of Rebecca Phillips, Parkersburg News & Sentinel](https://www.newsandsentinel.com/opinion/local-columns/2023/01/mid- ohio-valley-climate-corner-maple-syrup-season-approaches-but-for-how-much- longer/), January 21, 2023 **If you are like me, you look forward to each year’s maple syrup crop. After tasting the real thing, the artificially flavored and colored substance that passes for syrup in most grocery stores is a sad imitation. Ohio has a long history of maple syrup production, going back to its indigenous peoples, and is the fourth-largest producer of maple syrup in the U.S.** **With more than 900 producers, mostly small businesses, the maple industry adds about $5 million to our state’s economy each year, according to the Ohio State University — not bad for a niche crop that can live for over 300 years. In West Virginia, maple products are helping small farmers succeed while preserving woodlands on their property, as witnessed by the state’s annual Maple Days.** Unfortunately, this long tradition and the economic boost it provides are endangered by our changing climate. The sugar maple requires specific conditions to thrive, and even more specific conditions for peak sap production. Scientists are warning that those conditions may cease to exist in our region within the next few decades. During the growing season, maple trees store starch, a process that ends with leaf fall. The starch stored over the summer and fall converts to sugar when the temperature of the tree’s wood reaches 40 degrees or so, and the sap rises. In Ohio, the tapping of maple trees generally begins in late January when, historically, conditions have been right for optimal sap flow — daytime temperatures in the low 40s and nights slightly below freezing. The tapping ends when the trees bud out, something that is happening earlier in the season than it once did due to earlier spring thaws. A shorter season means less maple syrup and reduced income for producers. Higher temperatures also result in reduced sugar content in the sap, making it not as good for syrup production. **Erratic weather is also bad for the trees themselves.** Early extreme cold such as the Christmas freeze we recently experienced can damage roots and slow tree growth, especially when there is no snow pack. Early warmth and late frosts can kill the year’s first leaf buds, forcing trees to expend energy growing a new set of leaves. These combined stresses, besides reducing sap production, can harm the long-term health of the trees. **Climate change is harming maple forests in other ways.** Sugar maples evolved in relatively cool climates with abundant rainfall; they do not tolerate heat or drought well. Unfortunately, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Ohio River Valley is likely to see heavier rainfall over short periods of time interspersed with summer drought. All predictions are for more days exceeding 90 degrees. Increased temperatures mean that insect seasons are longer, and while insects are a vital part of all ecosystems, a warmer climate is allowing certain invasive species to thrive. Pear thrips, tiny insects originally from Europe, are thriving in the northern half of the U.S. and, despite their name, damaging millions of acres of maple forest, over a million in Pennsylvania alone. It is true that we are unlikely to see a massive sugar maple shortage in the near future, these trees being as long-lived as they are. Recent studies from several universities and the Department of the Interior, however, indicate that seed germination is likely to decrease, and the range of these magnificent trees will slowly move north, possibly vanishing from the southern part of their range (Virginia, West Virginia, and southern Ohio) by 2100. It is likely that the cool overnight temperatures required for optimum sap movement will decrease, and that our region may not be able to sustain syrup production for more than a few more decades. This is bad news, but at least for now, we can enjoy this gift of the forest while supporting the small farmers who produce it — before a changing climate takes it away from us. ***#####***#####***#####***#####***##### >>> **Rebecca Phillips is a retired professor from WVU Parkersburg.** A member of [Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action](http://main.movclimateaction.org/), she is also on the coordinating committee for the [Fort Street Pollinator Habitat](https://fuusm.org/index.php?page=gs-projects-programs) in Marietta, OH. $$$$$$$@@@@@@@$$$$$$$@@@@@@@$$$$$$$@@@@@@@ **SEE ALSO:** [Sugar Maple Research to Save the Trees & Syrup Industry](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2017/10/04/sugar-maple-research-to- save-the-trees-syrup-industry/) ~ _Climate research on maple tree sap ~ Maple Watch has its focus on the color of the maple tree sap_ , From a Bulletin of Forest Watch, Univ.of New Hampshire, October 2017 $$$$$$$@@@@@@@$$$$$$$@@@@@@@$$$$$$$@@@@@@@@ **SEE ALSO:** ['This is our forest': Climate change means uncertain future for maple trees, syrup season](https://phys.org/news/2022-05-forest-climate- uncertain-future-maple.html), Dinah Pulver, Phys-dot-org News, May 16, 2022 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/31/big-breakfast-blueberry- pancakes-sausage-maple-syrup-%e2%80%94-w-coffee/>

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COLUMBIA MAGAZINE ~ Can the World’s Religions Help Save Us from Ecological Peril? Part 2
by Frack Check WV: Duane Nichols 30 Jan '23

30 Jan '23

# [COLUMBIA MAGAZINE ~ Can the World’s Religions Help Save Us from Ecological Peril? Part 2](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/30/columbia-magazine-can- the-world%e2%80%99s-religions-help-save-us-from-ecological-peril-part-2/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/27A6DB66-39E5-4481-877A-4B68748160F7-300x224.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/27A6DB66-39E5-4481-877A-4B68748160F7.jpeg) Back Bay and False Cape State Park adjoin Virginia Beach as the ideal locations to observe the life cycle of turtles **A spiritual connection to nature is essential for environmental recovery** From the [Article “Sacred Trees, Holy Waters” in Columbia Magazine](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/can-worlds-religions-help- save-us-ecological-peril), Winter Edition 2022 – 2023 **Kareena Gore, who is from Tennessee, grew up immersed in American politics.** Her grandfather, Albert Gore, was a US senator, and her father, Albert Gore Jr., was a US senator (1985–1993), vice president (1993–2001), and author of the 1992 book Earth in the Balance, which warned of the global- warming catastrophe (the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth chronicled his campaign to educate people about climate change). Raised in the Baptist tradition, Gore is a remarkably selfless, compassionate advocate who calls her own spirituality “private and ever-unfolding” and whose respect for the power and insights of Indigenous spiritual beliefs is a guiding force in her faith- based environmental work. At Columbia Law School, Gore took a course in copyright law and was absorbed by the concept of intellectual property and, ultimately, she says, of property itself. Being in Manhattan, she thought about the “sale” of the island by the Lenape people to the Dutch colonizers and how the two sides had very different notions of what that transaction meant. And she thought about how we treat the land, and how social norms have blinded us to the environmental impacts of our consumer lifestyle. “We get confused,” she says, “because much of what’s driving ecological destruction is perfectly legal and socially encouraged.” **Karenna Gore graduated from law school in 2000** , which was also the year her father ran for president on a strong environmental platform, winning the popular vote but conceding the race to George W. Bush after the Supreme Court denied a manual recount in Florida. In 2002, President Bush opened previously off-limits federal lands near national parks to oil and gas development, initiating a push for energy independence that has since triggered numerous conflicts over land, water, and air as woods are cleared, roads are built, pipes are laid, and animals are driven from their homes. “We see nature as property rather than as a commonly held or even inhabited community of life,” Gore says. “That we recognize a cathedral as a sacred site but not a rainforest reveals a lot about our thinking.” **James Hansen could not have picked a better day to make his point to Congress.** It was June 23, 1988, and the temperature in Washington was ninety-eight degrees. As director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is housed at Columbia, Hansen, now an adjunct professor at the Columbia Climate School, had come to address the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on the topic of “global warming,” a term popularized by Columbia geochemist Wallace Broecker ’53CC, ’58GSAS in his 1975 paper “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” “The global warming is now large enough,” Hansen told the senators, “that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect” — the process by which carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels collects in the atmosphere, trapping heat. “The first five months of 1988 are so warm globally that we conclude that 1988 will be the warmest year on record.” As if on cue, that summer was unlike any other in living memory. The US saw long, intense heat waves, drought, wildfires, and hundreds of human deaths, even as humans were pumping billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere annually, with no end in sight. **That same year, Thomas Berry published The Dream of the Earth,** a seminal meditation on human–earth relations. Guided by a profound reverence for the beauty and genius of nature, the book articulates a vision of a living earth whose complex life systems, developed over billions of years, are being severely altered, degraded, and extinguished through deforestation, extraction, contamination, and plunder. “If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence,” Berry wrote, “it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants, our sense of gratitude, our willingness to recognize the sacred character of habitat, our capacity for the awesome, for the numinous quality of every earthly reality.” Thirty-five years later, with global carbon emissions near record highs, the earth does seem to be growing inhospitable. The effects are spiritual as well as physical. Ecological anxiety is deepening, especially for children and teenagers, and faith communities have had to find new strategies to address an existential dilemma without precedent. “The psychological breakdown and despair around climate change is so strong that young people are studying for eco-anxiety ministry,” says Tucker. “The next generation gets that climate change is real and caused by human activity. They don’t have to be convinced. Along with religious communities, they are advocating for eco-justice — a concern for the most vulnerable being affected by climate change.” _At the Center for Earth Ethics_ (CEE), **Kareena Gore teaches** that faith leaders can approach the climate crisis in three main ways: **prophetic, pastoral, and practical.** “Prophetic means telling the truth about real value versus GDP-measured value, and about costs that aren’t being counted. Pastoral deals with issues of grief and anxiety as climate impacts — floods, fires — increase. The practical can be things like faith communities greening their land, buildings, and schools and pressuring banks to stop financing fossil fuels.” **Polls show that most religious Americans see climate justice as a political priority, and new expressions of eco-spirituality have appeared, such as the Wild Church movement, in which congregants meet in natural settings, where a pastor might cite the book of Job (“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you, or speak to the earth, and it will teach you”) or repeat a quote attributed to the conservationist John Muir, who fought for the creation of national parks (“I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking about the mountains”).** _“Churches are looking to new ways of being both relevant and in their best forms spiritually,” says Tucker. “The hope is that that ecological anxiety is going to put us back in touch with awe, wonder, and beauty.”_ **>>> A month after Hurricane Ian, as scientists tested the sewage-choked waters of southwest Florida and determined that waterways would be polluted for months, the _Center for Earth Ethics_ hosted a forum at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) on religious freedom for Indigenous people.** >>> **Karenna Gore** , standing in James Memorial Chapel in front of the copse of tall pipes of the Holtkamp organ, opened her remarks by reading the text of a plaque that was to be installed on the seminary grounds, honoring the surroundings as “the homeland and territory of the Lenape people as well as the habitat and dwelling place of the many beings they have been in relationship with.” She then introduced Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who spoke about his report to the UN General Assembly describing how the nature-based ways of life of Indigenous peoples had been violated by forced displacement, intrusion of industry, and disregard for their spiritual practices. >>> **Betty Lyons,** the CEE advisory board co-chair from the **Onondaga Nation,** spoke of “our sacred relationships to the natural world” and argued that the Indigenous value system — a sense of responsibility, respect, and reciprocity with nature — holds the key to survival for everyone. “We see all living beings as relatives and not merely resources,” she said. “The Creator exists in all living beings.” >>> **Bernadette Demientieff of Gwich’in Nation,** who calls herself a “land, water, and animal protector,” appeared via video from her home in Fort Yukon, Alaska, and expressed anguish over the vote of the US Congress, in 2017, to lease land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil exploration to feed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. ANWR is one of the last unspoiled areas on the planet, a critical habitat for many animal species, including caribou, waterfowl, and polar bears. Its coastal plains are so hallowed to the Gwich’in that they won’t even set foot on them. “When we were being told we were going to be rich if we opened up our sacred land to oil and gas development,” Demientieff said, “our elders told us we are already rich: rich in our culture, rich in our way of life. And all we have to do is protect it.” Though the Biden administration has suspended the leases, the threat of future development remains, and the pain was audible in Demientieff’s voice. “Our land that we consider extremely sacred is being turned into an oil field,” she said. “Can you imagine a church that you attend, a place that you hold very sacred, being bulldozed over? That is how we feel about this area. This is not a place we built. This is a place we were blessed with. We hold this place to the highest standard. Our connection to the land, water, and animals — it’s all interconnected. There is no one or the other. This is our survival. This is our entire way of life.” >>> **Mona Polacca, a spiritual elder of Hopi, Havasupai, and Tewa lineage,** spoke of the “original instructions” — the ancient teachings of spiritual interconnectivity with creation that have sustained Indigenous people in the Americas for thousands of years — and stated her purpose: “It’s our responsibility as Indigenous people to be gentle reminders to all people about these basic original instructions,” she said. “We made a covenant with the Creator when we first came into this world to live here. We made a promise that we would take care of it. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re making every effort to now be that gentle reminder about that instruction that all people were given — that we are all related, and that our basic survival needs are not any different from each other’s. It’s all the same.” >>> When the program ended, Gore, the speakers, and the audience members exchanged greetings and chatted. Then they made their way down the halls and went outside, where, in the night sky, a waxing crescent moon hung over the spired city, over the churches, mosques, and synagogues, the temples and shrines, and the ancestral land of the Lenape, where bears and wolves once roamed; and for a moment it was possible to believe that it was all the same, that all religions had something to contribute, and that a re-enchantment with creation was within reach, the one humanity needed in order to tackle the great work ahead. >>> **[For further resources, see:](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/can- worlds-religions-help-save-us-ecological-peril)** 1\. Thomas Berry, The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century, 2. Kimberley Patton and Paul Waldau, A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science and Ethics, 3. Online Courses in Religion and Ecology. **This article appears** in the [Winter 2022-23 print edition of Columbia Magazine](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/can-worlds-religions-help- save-us-ecological-peril) with the title “Sacred Trees, Holy Waters.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/30/columbia-magazine-can-the- world%e2%80%99s-religions-help-save-us-from-ecological-peril-part-2/>

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COLUMBIA MAGAZINE ~ Can the World’s Religions Help Save Us from Ecological Peril? Part 1
by Frack Check WV: Duane Nichols 29 Jan '23

29 Jan '23

# [COLUMBIA MAGAZINE ~ Can the World’s Religions Help Save Us from Ecological Peril? Part 1](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/29/columbia-magazine-can- the-world%e2%80%99s-religions-help-save-us-from-ecological-peril-part-1/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/2B3D0C7A-E2E7-4B84-8183-790632524286-300x193.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/2B3D0C7A-E2E7-4B84-8183-790632524286.jpeg) Mother Nature has many lessons for us! DGN **A spiritual connection to nature is essential for environmental recovery** From the [Article “Sacred Trees, Holy Waters” in Columbia Magazine](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/can-worlds-religions-help- save-us-ecological-peril), Winter Edition 2022 - 2023 **On the morning that Hurricane Ian approached southwest Florida with 155-mile-per-hour winds and a twelve-foot storm surge, Karenna Gore ’00LAW, ’13UTS stood at a lectern in Brooklyn Borough Hall and invoked the divine. Addressing a local interfaith conference on preparing for climate emergencies, Gore said, “When I was a child, my own faith tradition taught me that God looks directly at us through the eyes of someone who is in need: someone who is hungry, thirsty, needs clothes — much like someone affected by a disaster.”** **She acknowledged recent flooding in Pakistan and Puerto Rico, noting that “those who suffer the most from this crisis have done the least to cause it.” She equated climate action with social justice and summoned the civil-rights movement, which inspired people of all religions to transcend their differences and answer a call of conscience. “This,” Gore told the assembled, “is what must happen today around the climate crisis.”** **Gore is the director of the Center for Earth Ethics (CEE), which she founded in 2015 at the Columbia-affiliated Union Theological Seminary (UTS). Its purpose, she says, is to “draw on the world’s faith and wisdom traditions to confront the ecological crisis.” Poised at the crossroads of spirituality, social justice, and environmentalism, CEE is part of a movement known as “religion and ecology,” a new academic field — and a growing moral force in society — that brings people into closer communion with the planet and focuses on honoring and protecting the earth’s life systems. The center grew out of a conference called Religions for the Earth, which Gore and one of her mentors, Kusumita Pedersen ’76GSAS, who is co-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York, organized in conjunction with the 2014 UN Climate Summit.** Gore, who had just gotten her master’s from UTS, was interested in the root causes of the climate problem. She identified two: the widespread belief that humans are separate from, and superior to, all other beings; and a value system that favors profit over environmental health. Wanting to elevate voices outside this worldview, Gore, for CEE’s first academic course, invited a range of Indigenous speakers, including Betty Lyons (Onondaga Nation), the president of the American Indian Law Alliance and co-chair of the CEE advisory board; and Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Cheyenne River Lakota Nation), founder and host of First Voices Radio, who spoke eloquently of the earth as something alive, energy-filled, and communicative. **“We are nature. The air in our lungs, the water we drink, the soil, the sunshine that nourishes the life forms that comprise the food that we eat. "** “Throughout human history,” Gore told the clergy in Brooklyn, “people have understood their relationship with water, wind, fire, and land in the context of their relationship with God or some divine being or beings. This is deep, it’s ancient, sometimes it is unnamed, but it is not to be underestimated.” She echoed UN Secretary General António Guterres, who days earlier had called the climate crisis “a case study in moral and economic injustice” caused by “a suicidal war on nature.” “We are nature,” Gore said. “The air in our lungs, the water we drink, the soil, the sunshine that nourishes the life forms that comprise the food that we eat. We all depend on the health of the biosphere.” As climate-linked weather events intensify and carbon emissions continue to rise globally, faith-based communities and institutions are emerging as pivotal players in the bid for environmental salvation. In 2019, CEE became an affiliate center of the Earth Institute, which is now part of the Columbia Climate School, and brings a moral and spiritual angle to discussions conducted largely among scientists, engineers, businesspeople, lawyers, and policy wonks. In November 2021, the Biden administration formally recognized “Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge” — ways of life that foster respect and care for the environment — as vital to federal science policymaking. This past August, the National Association of Evangelicals, representing a religious group traditionally opposed to climate action, released a hundred- page report laying out the biblical basis for ecological protection, stating, “We worship God by caring for creation.” And a wave of legislation worldwide has granted legal personhood to entities like the Whanganui River in New Zealand, seen by Indigenous Whanganui Maori tribes as a living being. Such laws allow human advocates for these ecological systems to sue for protection on their behalf. Inside Borough Hall, Gore emphasized the need to consider all the planet’s inhabitants in any climate discussion. “A friend of mine from the Church of Sweden, Reverend Henrik Grape, said once that in any room where decisions are being made about climate policy there should be three empty chairs, representing those who are most impacted and least likely to have a voice: the poor, future generations, and all nonhuman life,” Gore said. “If we had been making decisions with those three perspectives in mind, we would not be in this perilous situation. “Realizing this, we can see the connection between Dr. King’s famous statement that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’ and the words of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh when he said that ‘we are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.’” By the end of the conference, at around 3:15 p.m., a thousand miles away, Hurricane Ian made landfall on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, Florida, as one of the strongest storms ever to strike the United States. “The ecological situation requires the moral force of all the world’s religions,” says Mary Evelyn Tucker ’85GSAS, a historian of religion who holds a dual appointment at the Yale School of the Environment and the Yale Divinity School. She and her husband, John Grim, lead the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and are recognized as the founders of the field, which began as a series of conferences at Harvard in the late 1990s and today includes sixteen graduate programs nationwide. “We all understand that the awe and wonder of the natural world is something that captivates every human — we see it expressed in art, music, poetry — and if we leave that aside, we lose a sense of motivation, joy, engagement, and all the dynamizing energy that’s needed for ecological movements,” Tucker says. “The energy must come from a love of the earth community in all its complexity and beauty.” There’s no shortage of energy to be tapped. Of the world’s eight billion people, some 85 percent claim religious affiliation. According to the Pew Research Center, Christians are the largest group (2.3 billion), followed by Muslims (1.8 billion), Hindus (more than a billion, around the same number as Confucians, who, says Tucker, are often not counted as a religious group), and Buddhists (500 million). Another 400 million practice traditional folk religions. There are fourteen million Jews, and millions of others follow such faiths as Sikhism, Bahaism, and Jainism. Tucker notes that all the world’s religions have ecological components, from Hindu principles of asceticism and loving devotion toward nature to Buddhist concepts of interconnection and compassion to Jainism’s emphasis on nonviolence to Western traditions valuing creation. And she observes that all religions are broadening their teachings and practices in order to meet the ecological challenge. “Their theologies need to be expanded,” she says. “We call it retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. All religions have something to offer, and that’s really the foundation for this new and emerging field.” The field, like Tucker, has deep Columbia roots. Tucker was raised on Claremont Avenue, in the shadow of Riverside Church. Her grandfather, the historian Carlton Hayes 1904CC, 1909GSAS, 1929HON, taught at Columbia from 1907 to 1950 and was ambassador to Spain during World War II. She lived steps from UTS, at 121st and Broadway, where Reinhold Niebuhr ’54HON preached a gospel of social justice. And across Broadway stood Corpus Christi Church, where Father George Barry Ford counseled Thomas Merton ’38CC, ’39GSAS and Wm. Theodore “Ted” de Bary ’41CC, ’53GSAS, ’94HON when they considered becoming Catholics. Tucker came of age during the civil-rights movement and the war in Vietnam, and after graduating from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in 1971, she set out for East Asia, starting with teaching in Japan. “My disillusionment with Western assumptions was so great that my attraction to a culture that was so different was very strong, and it absolutely transformed my life,” Tucker says. “Buddhism has this tremendous sense of the interdependence of all life, and that’s where I started.” She returned two years later and got her master’s in world religions at Fordham under Thomas Berry, a Catholic monk, cultural historian, and scholar of Eastern and Indigenous religions whose passionate, prophetic writings on what he termed “human-earth relations” inspired a generation of environmentalists. For her doctorate at Columbia, Tucker studied Confucianism with de Bary. “To me, Confucianism has an even more comprehensive philosophy,” she says. “The human is not an isolated individual but is embedded within concentric circles of family, friends, school, society, politics, nature, earth, and the cosmos itself. The most important thing is the triad: cosmos, earth, and human. The human completes this trinity of universe processes, earth fecundity, and human creativity.” Tucker’s two mentors, de Bary and Berry, met on a ship to China in the late 1940s — de Bary was starting a Fulbright scholarship at Beijing University, Berry was a teacher at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing — and both were attracted to Chinese religious traditions, especially Confucianism. De Bary went on to pioneer the field of Asian studies in the West, while Berry preached an ethics based on a deep regard for the natural world. In the 1960s, they started the Oriental Thought and Religion Seminar (later the Asian Thought and Religion Seminar) at Columbia. For both scholars, as for Tucker, Confucianism was central. “We were all looking for something beyond the West — a sense of how culture engages people in a feeling of meaning and purpose,” Tucker says. In the late 1970s, de Bary arranged for Berry to teach one of the country’s first courses in Native American religion at Barnard. Tucker eagerly attended those classes, and she and Grim (who were married by Berry in 1978) became Berry’s editors and continued to promote his work after his death in 2009 at age ninety-four, including the book and Emmy-winning PBS film Journey of the Universe. They also coauthored Thomas Berry: A Biography, published by Columbia University Press in 2019. “Berry saw how the destruction of the environment for massive materialism had spread around the world, and how our institutions — politics, education, economics, and religion — are invested in this economic system and therefore inadequate to address the problem,” Tucker says. As Berry wrote, “The reenchantment with the earth as a living reality is the condition for our rescue of the earth from the impending destruction that we are imposing upon it … Our sense of reality and of value must consciously shift from an anthropocentric to a biocentric norm of reference.” If Berry helped plant the seeds of the movement that Tucker and Grim brought forth, it was Martin S. Kaplan ’61CC who delivered the rain. In 1996, Kaplan, a Boston-based lawyer and partner at the firm of Hale and Dorr, was thumbing through the Harvard Gazette when he saw an announcement for a series of three conferences being held at Harvard Divinity School on world religions and ecology, organized by Tucker and Grim. Speakers would discuss Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintoism. Intrigued, Kaplan decided to attend. One of the speakers was Thomas Berry. “His entire philosophy just blew me away,” Kaplan says. “I was especially taken with his quiet passion for considering the entire earth as a living organism. He was gentle and compelling; you felt his presence. You sensed this was a person of great moral power.” At the conference, Kaplan, exhilarated by what he’d heard, introduced himself to Tucker and told her he was the managing trustee of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, a philanthropic fund with an environmental bent. He invited Tucker to a grant-making meeting, and the trustees were so impressed with her pitch that they provided money to increase the number of conferences on religion and ecology from three to ten. Those conferences marked the birth of the field. "To make progress on climate you need more than policy and science — you need a commitment to human life and all the life on the planet." Kaplan, who received the Columbia Alumni Medal in 1992 and the John Jay Award in 2000, has directed support to a host of Columbia initiatives, including the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (known today as the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability), which led to the creation of Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. But when it came to dealing with climate change, Kaplan, like Tucker and Gore, felt that something was missing from the conversation. “To make progress on climate you need more than policy and science — you need a commitment to human life and all the life on the planet,” Kaplan says. “That’s essential. We want this idea to be accessible to the people I call the ministering class — current and future clergy — so that they speak of these issues in their religious events and not just on Earth Day. They need to do this in a meaningful fashion and on a continuing basis.” On September 26, 2009, three months after Berry’s death, a memorial service for the self-described “geologian” was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The service featured readings from Thomas Aquinas, who wrote that “the whole universe together participates in and manifests the divine more than any single being whatsoever,” a key idea for Berry. Toward the end of the service, Kaplan ascended to the high pulpit. The Thomas Berry Foundation, founded in 1998 by Berry, Tucker, Grim, Kaplan, and Berry’s sister, Margaret Berry, had honored Kaplan with the 2009 Thomas Berry Award, and now Kaplan offered an address on the “Great Work,” as Berry called it, of reestablishing our connection with nature. “Berry believed that we must expand the scope of religious and humanist concerns to embrace the larger life systems and all species of the planet,” Kaplan told the gathering. “As a lawyer, I am intrigued by Berry’s call for a broader vision of rights.” Kaplan then quoted Berry’s statement that there can be no sustainable future “unless these inherent rights of the natural world are recognized as having legal status.” For the past twenty-five years, Kaplan has been trumpeting Berry’s message. At a UN panel on religion and the environment held in 2000, Kaplan examined the crucial passage in the book of Genesis in which God tells humans to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” The King James Version translates the Hebrew word radah as “have dominion,” implying domination — resulting, as Berry saw it, in our indifference to nonhuman life, since it has no inherent rights. “Only in this detached situation,” Berry wrote, “could we have felt so free to intrude upon the forces of the natural world.” **As Kaplan told the UN panel, “dominion” is just one translation. “Another is ‘stewardship,’ which is very different,” he says. “Stewardship means that, given our power, we humans have a responsibility to take care of God’s creation.”** This idea, radical in its implications, has reached the highest echelons of organized religion. In 2015, Pope Francis published Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home, a 184-page encyclical that blends science and spirituality and warns of “desolation” if humanity does not change its ways. Says Gore, “One of the main contributions of Laudato si’ — although not explicit — was to unravel that toxic theology of seeing dominion as this domination. Pope Francis says there has been a mistake in interpretation.” The encyclical, which environmentalist Bill McKibben called “probably the most important document yet of this millennium,” was extolled in eco-spiritual circles. Through CEE, Gore convened an interfaith working group around Laudato si’ with Rabbi Burton Visotzky, a professor of interreligious studies at Jewish Theological Seminary, also a Columbia affiliate. Visotzky brought in theologian Hussein Rashid ’96CC, who was exploring similar questions from a Muslim ethical standpoint. The scholars, who had spun off from a larger interfaith study group at Fordham Law School, decided to examine the issue of water as a way to focus their work, and for World Water Day 2017 they published a series of tracts around water-related themes. That got them invited to the Vatican to meet with the pope about Laudato si’. “For me, reading the encyclical made me think of an eighth-century figure named Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq,” says Rashid, who teaches at the New School and UTS. “There’s a work attributed to him where he says for a believer there are four relationships that keep you in balance: to God, to yourself, to other people, and to the rest of creation. My understanding of what Pope Francis was doing really resonated with that.” It was a far cry from another influential Vatican tract, one that Gore learned about as a student at UTS and which supplied an “aha” moment that reshaped her understanding of current social and environmental iniquities. On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull that was part of a body of papal edicts known as the doctrine of discovery. These statements decreed that the lands encountered by Columbus on his voyages, populated by “Saracens, infidels, or pagans,” were Spain’s for the taking. “They proclaimed that the original peoples of Africa and the Americas were merely part of the flora and fauna to be ‘conquered, vanquished, and subdued,’” says Gore, adding that this was occurring just after the crusades against Muslims and during the expulsion of Jews from Spain. “Racism, colonization, exploitation — it all ties together. The military forces and economic interests of those European nation- states were being wed to theology that sees certain people as being subhuman, an interpretation that can be heard in the white Christian nationalism of today.” **TO BE CONTINUED AS “PART 2” ….** **This article appears in the[Winter 2022-23 print edition of Columbia Magazine with the title "Sacred Trees, Holy Waters."](https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/can-worlds-religions-help- save-us-ecological-peril)** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/29/columbia-magazine-can-the- world%e2%80%99s-religions-help-save-us-from-ecological-peril-part-1/>

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United Nations Foundation Seeks to Protect Species Diversity Globally
by Frack Check WV: Diana Gooding 28 Jan '23

28 Jan '23

# [United Nations Foundation Seeks to Protect Species Diversity Globally](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/28/united-nations-foundation- seeks-to-protect-species-diversity-globally/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/D08DC6F5-7568-477C-B257-E3C8E4E0D014.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/D08DC6F5-7568-477C-B257-E3C8E4E0D014.jpeg) The Fourth Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO) covered 2011 to 2020 **Biodiversity Explained: Facts, Myths, and the Race to Protect It** From the [Blog Article by M. J. Altman, United Nations Foundation](https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/biodiversity-explained-facts- myths-and-the-race-to-protect-it/), January 4, 2023 **Biodiversity is the interconnectedness of all forms of life on our planet — is in jeopardy as ecosystems and habitats degrade and disappear. On the heels of a landmark global agreement to protect our lands, ocean, and waters, discover what biodiversity really means and what it will take to preserve life on Earth.** From microscopic fungi to mega forests, “biodiversity” is the collective term for the variety of life on Earth in all its forms. It is 4.5 billion years of evolution, embodied. Biodiversity is responsible for our food, our soil, our water, our weather, even the air we breathe. Yet despite being a crucial foundation for our collective future, biodiversity is often lost amid conversations on climate change — until recently. In December 2022, leaders from nearly 200 nations adopted a landmark UN agreement to reverse nature’s rapid decline before it’s too late. Known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, it calls for protecting 30% of the planet’s land, ocean, and inland waters and includes 23 other targets to help restore and protect ecosystems and endangered species worldwide. **§§§ ~…Here are 12 things you should know:** **1\. Biodiversity is more than just the total number of species on Earth.** “It is actually more complex than that,” Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, the late ecologist, told the United Nations Foundation in 2018. “It’s about the genetic diversity within species, the diversity of habitats, and the large biological units known as biomes.” This includes the interactions that occur between species within ecosystems – primordial relationships that shape our environment in countless, often unseen ways. “Without biological diversity, there is no other life on Earth — including our own,” he explained. “Even though we are often oblivious to it, this diversity of life is what provides clean water, oxygen, and all other things that end up being part of our diet, as well as clothing and shelter. It provides a lot of psychological benefits too, which are not much appreciated.” **2\. We’re only just beginning to understand biodiversity’s influence and importance in our lives.** Earth’s many ecosystems rely on a delicate, complicated, and fascinating tangle of life that, in many ways, remains a mystery. In fact, the term “biological diversity” wasn’t introduced to the scientific community until 1980 in a research paper on species loss by Dr. Lovejoy. Scientists still haven’t identified all forms of life on the planet. New species are discovered every year. Take kelp, for example. These undersea forests provide sustenance and shelter for marine species like chinook salmon, which, in turn, serve as a staple food for orcas. And kelp also absorb excess carbon dioxide, which can help mitigate climate change. **3\. The planet’s biodiversity holds enormous, untapped potential for medical and scientific breakthroughs.** Lovejoy described each species on the planet as a unique set of solutions for a particular set of biological problems. “Whoever would have thought a bacterium from a Yellowstone hot spring would revolutionize forensic and diagnostic medicine, make the human genome project possible, and confer benefits in the trillion-dollar range?” he wrote as a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation, citing a previously unknown and seemingly inconsequential microbe discovered in 1966 that revolutionized genetic testing and immunization development, including the COVID-19 vaccine. Today, one-fourth of all modern medicines are derived from tropical plants, and 70% of all cancer drugs are natural or bio-inspired products. In the past decade, researchers in Nova Scotia found a soil fungus that can disarm antibiotic-resistant bacteria — a discovery that could transform the fields of medicine and agriculture. The possibilities for discovery and innovation are monumental. **4\. Climate change and biodiversity are interconnected.** Climate change is causing biodiversity loss, and biodiversity loss is causing climate change. Here’s how: Destroying and degrading ecosystems release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the consequences of burning fossil fuels — rising global temperatures, an increase in wildfires, and ocean acidification, to name a few — are devastating to the planet’s biodiversity by destroying habitats and animals alike. In late 2019 and early 2020, for example, more than 60,000 koalas were killed by wildfires in Australia so massive that nearly 3 billion species died or were displaced. Earlier this year, the Australian government officially listed koalas as an endangered species. At COP 27 last year, world leaders reached a historic agreement to create a “loss and damage” mechanism to support vulnerable communities that are already feeling climate change’s disastrous impact, including biodiversity loss and the resulting impact on livelihoods. **5\. Biodiversity can help us adapt to climate change.** The UN considers biodiversity our strongest natural defense against climate change. Land and ocean ecosystems currently absorb 60% of human-caused emissions, and they are the planet’s only way of storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Coastal wetlands, for example, protect against storm surges and flooding during extreme weather while also storing carbon dioxide and creating oxygen. According to a joint estimate by the UN Development Programme and the Government of Papua New Guinea, every dollar invested in environmental protection generates more than $2,500 in so-called ecosystem services — water regulation, coastal protection, carbon storage, and other invisible functions that nature provides. It’s one of the reasons that Papua New Guinea launched the first-ever national, independent Biodiversity and Climate Fund to protect its status as one of just 17 “megadiverse” countries. **6\. Less biodiversity means a higher risk of disease.** For decades, the scientific community has warned that biodiversity loss increases the spread of infectious disease. Why? Because extinction upsets the ecosystem in unpredictable ways, and the destruction of natural habitats increases interaction between humans and wildlife. Biodiversity essentially acts as a barrier between humans and animal-borne disease. Species that tend to survive logging, farming, mining, wildlife trade and consumption, and other human activities behind widespread biodiversity loss are often “vectors of disease” like mice and mosquitoes, which host pathogens that are able to make the jump to humans. It’s one of the reasons that cases of Lyme disease in the northeast United States have spiked in recent decades: With fewer mammals to prey on, ticks are increasingly seeking out people. In fact, roughly 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. It’s also why researchers like Dr. Alessandra Nava and her team of virus hunters at Brazil’s Fiocruz Amazônia are tracking the spread of disease in bats, monkeys, and rodents in the world’s largest rainforest. Their goal is to stay a step ahead of future pandemics by better understanding the pathogens contained within the jungle’s creatures before they come in contact with humans — encounters that become more likely as the human footprint expands. **7\. Biodiversity on land depends on biodiversity in water.** Maintaining the ocean’s ecological balance is crucial for protecting biodiversity on land, as well as maintaining our ability to feed future generations. The ocean plays a vital role in regulating the planet’s weather and water and the air we breathe. It is also the planet’s largest source of protein, feeding more than 3 billion people every day who rely on fish as a staple food. Yet the ocean remains a vastly unexplored ecological frontier. While scientists have identified 200,000 marine species, the actual number is estimated to be in the millions. Unsustainable fishing practices, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction are threatening creatures that may vanish before we even knew they existed. **8\. Our planet’s biodiversity is on the brink.** Some 1 million species are threatened with extinction right now. That’s more than any other time in history, and they’re disappearing at a rate that is 1,000 times the norm. The culprit is the way most humans consume, produce, travel, and live. A 2019 UN report found that we have altered 75% of the planet’s terrestrial environment, 40% of its marine environment, and 50% of streams and rivers. Nearly three-fourths of our freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production, which often means using pesticides, fertilizers, fuels, and antibiotics that pollute our rivers, streams, seas, and soil. Every day we are destroying habitats and degrading massive amounts of soil and water through industrial manufacturing and agriculture while jeopardizing precious natural resources that could be lost forever in our lifetime; in the past two decades, we’ve lost half of the planet’s coral reefs. Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest hit a record high last year; some 18% is gone already, with scientists warning that we’re approaching a tipping point toward potential collapse. **9\. Sustainability is the only way forward.** Such irresponsible production and consumption of our natural resources come at a catastrophic cost. We are destroying our planet at an unprecedented rate and losing a vast number of plants, animals, insects, and marine life in the process — to the detriment of our own future. Humanity’s health and well-being are dependent on a biodiverse planet. Fortunately, examples are emerging of a greener, more sustainable way of doing business. Circular economic models are becoming more common as companies realize the economic and environmental value of reducing, reusing, and recycling their supply chain. At the same time, more citizens are demanding sustainable sourcing and socially just labor practices from their consumer goods. In 2022, the founder of the outdoor retailer Patagonia announced plans to invest all of the company’s profits toward combating climate change. “If we have any hope of a thriving planet — much less a business — 50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have,” Yvon Chouinard wrote. **10\. Indigenous communities are crucial.** For thousands of years, Indigenous communities have served as the planet’s most effective environmental stewards. Today, according to the UN, Indigenous people manage more than 20% of the planet’s land and 80% of its biodiversity. “For us, it is not a passion, or a job,” Hindou Ibrahim of the Mbororo tribe in Chad, an SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) Advocate and Indigenous rights activist, told the UN last year. “It is our way of living. And that’s what we have done for all generations.” In 2015, the UN created the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform to ensure their formal participation in global negotiations on climate change. **11\. Conservation is critical.** One of our most promising solutions is preservation. Restoring degraded ecosystems alone could provide up to one-third of the climate mitigation needed to keep the Earth from warming too far above preindustrial levels. This means creating protected areas, curbing extractive capitalism, and restoring the planet’s enormous amount of degraded land. People across the globe are leading efforts to do just that. One inspiring example is Rita Mesquita, who expanded the amount of protected rainforest in Brazil by 76% during her time in the country’s Ministry of the Environment. Today, she oversees programs that encourage residents and visitors alike in Manaus to interact with the surrounding Amazon rainforest. **12\. We need cooperation — and revolution — at all levels.** We need partnerships among countries, communities, consumers, and corporations. And we’re seeing signs of progress every day. In fact, at COP 27, the Governments of Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia announced an alliance to protect their respective rainforests. Their historic agreement could pave the way for more multilateral action and impact. Coming just a month later, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework represents an enormous and long-awaited step toward halting extinction rates that some scientists are calling an existential crisis akin to climate change. A huge part of the solution to the biodiversity challenge will be transforming how we approach the natural world and our place within it. As Dr. Lovejoy told the UN Foundation in 2018, “There needs to be a major shift in perception from thinking of nature as something with a fence around it in the middle of an expansive, human-dominated landscape … to thinking about embedding our aspirations in nature.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/28/united-nations-foundation-seeks- to-protect-species-diversity-globally/>

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Projects Aim to Remove CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) Directly from the Atmosphere
by Frack Check WV: S. Tom Bond 27 Jan '23

27 Jan '23

# [Projects Aim to Remove CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) Directly from the Atmosphere](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/27/projects-aim-to-remove- co2-carbon-dioxide-directly-from-the-atmosphere/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/770AA86B-BABE-4690-8725-7E361B5E0CF5-300x220.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/770AA86B-BABE-4690-8725-7E361B5E0CF5.jpeg) Oxidential Petroleum plans to build the world’s largest “direct air carbon” removal facility **Direct air carbon capture sets up shop in the oilfields of Texas** From the [Article by Ari Phillips, Oil and Gas Watch](https://news.oilandgaswatch.org/post/direct-air-carbon-capture-sets-… shop-in-the-oilfields-of-texas), January 24, 2023 **A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum is planning to build the world’s largest plant designed to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air in the oil and gas fields of West Texas, with a start-update sometime in 2024.** **Once fully operational, the plant will capture up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the capability to scaleup to 1 million metric tons per year. Direct air capture is a nascent technology that extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere and stores it underground (or uses it to make fizzy drinks or other products).** **While many carbon sequestration experts see the technology as a promising, if expensive, process to remove climate-warming greenhouse gases from the air, major concerns remain about how much of the captured carbon will be pumped back down into the Permian Basin to help Occidental to extract more oil or gas from difficult-to-reach reserves. Critics also wonder how trustworthy the monitoring will be, and how communities and the environment might be impacted by its large-scale application.** **For now, Occidental – one of the largest petroleum producers in the country – has a subsidiary, called 1PointFive, that is taking advantage of billions of federal decarbonization dollars up for grabs under new government subsidies to invest in climate tech solutions to global warming. Meanwhile, Occidental will still be pumping out oil and gas responsible for heating the atmosphere. It will be simultaneously profiting from fossil fuel extraction and carbon capture.** The oil and gas company is also attracting revenue from corporate partners. These partners claim that it is good for the climate that they will be paying Occidental to “offset”– or make up for – their greenhouse gas emissions through direct capture while the partners continue to pollute. For example, the National Football League’s Houston Texans recently announced that they have selected Occidental’s subsidiary as a “preferred carbon removal partner” to offset their flight emissions. Occidental is marketing not only carbon credits but also what they call “net-zero oil” to NFL teams and airlines. According to Occidental, net-zero oil will be attained by removing, via direct air capture, enough emissions to offset all the emissions associated with the oil’s lifecycle from extraction to consumption. **In November, Occidental announced plans for an even bigger direct air capture site in Texas. Occidental has leased 106,000 acres of the 825,000-acre King Ranch, located in South Texas near the Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas field. The company says the land can support up to 30 direct air capture projects that could potentially remove up to 30 million metric tons of CO2 per year, storing up to up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 in the geologic reservoirs below the ranch.** **This storage capacity would be orders of magnitude larger than that provided by the 18 existing direct air capture plants around the world, which capture just 0.01 million metric tons of CO2 each year.** While the latest United National Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate report calls carbon removal essential to meeting climate targets, it also warns of over-relying on notions like direct air capture, which may lull policymakers and perhaps the general public into a false sense of security as to the necessity of deep cuts to emissions now. Anthony R. Kovscek, a professor of petroleum engineering at Stanford University who studies carbon sequestration, worries that the public might reach a different misunderstanding relating to direct air capture. “My most substantial concern about direct air capture is that lack of public understanding of the capture process will lead to negative opinions and the withdrawal of government support before the technology is fully developed and evaluated,” said Kovscek. Currently, initiatives taken through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are providing the incentive to advance carbon sequestration projects and for businesses to seek out credits. Federal tax credits within the Inflation Reduction Act designate direct air capture projects a $180-per-metric-ton credit, far above the previous $50 allotment. Kovcek believes Occidental’s efforts to be aimed at developing a technology that allows them to use their existing engineering and geosciences expertise as well as sequestration storage space that the company already has rights to use. "If it’s successful, they will have a new business that potentially outlasts hydrocarbon production and performs a necessary service,” said Kovcek. “Because they are trying to develop a new business, I don’t think that what they are doing is greenwashing.” **Greenwashing or not, for the time being direct air capture and carbon sequestration overall face no shortage of obstacles on the road to contributing significantly to decarbonization. The process remains very expensive and energy intensive and could divert resources and attention from renewable energy projects with more clear-cut benefits. Furthermore, the geologic reserves capable of sequestration are often located far away from carbon emitters such as steel plants and might require substantial investment in new pipelines.** Kenneth B. Medlock III, Senior Director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said he believes even if Occidental is not generating truly “net-zero” oil, it is still resulting in a net CO2 reduction, which can buy time for other technologies. “It is an intriguing step in the multitude of options being presented for reducing the net carbon footprint of energy,” Medlock said. “It also can leverage existing infrastructures and business models, which can bode well for its future as the technology develops.” **The Infrastructure Bill designated $3.5 billion towards the establishment of large-scale, regional direct air capture hubs across the U.S. In response to the announcement, the Climate Justice Alliance released a letter calling direct air capture, “an unproven technology that allows fossil fuel extraction and use to continue, resulting in ongoing harm to frontline communities.”** “To have any significant effect on global CO2 concentrations, DAC would have to be rolled out on a vast scale, demanding very large amounts of water and energy, and raising environmental justice concerns about the toxic impacts of the chemical absorbents used in the process,” the letter states. Medlock believes that environmental justice (EJ) concerns about Occidental’s direct air capture are minimal, since the projects are set in remote locations, but that going forward they must be kept front-and-center in the discussion. “As with all new energy infrastructure, EJ assessments are critical to siting and operation,” he said regarding Occidental’s plans. “So, it is incumbent on the industry to internalize EJ asit moves forward, which requires direct engagement with communities and a conscious effort to avoid injustices.” ‍ **Erin Burns, Executive Director of Carbon180** , a climate nonprofit organization focused on carbon removal solutions, said that direct air capture is “an effective means of removing emissions that drive climate impacts and injustice.” But she added that, more broadly: “carbon removal can’t slow efforts to rapidly decarbonize and can't be an excuse to keep using fossil fuels in the US.” **Because of this, Burns believes that federal government should not fund enhanced oil recovery projects in which the sequestered CO2 is used to extract more fossil fuels , such as the Occidental Permian Basin project, and Carbon180 has advocated for its specific exclusion from key federal direct air capture projects.** Burns said trust underpins the success of this field and the ability to achieve gigaton scale carbon removal by 2050. “But before we can build trust in direct air capture, robust monitoring, reporting, and verification – MRV – is a fundamental prerequisite,” Burns said. “MRV is the process of accounting for all the emissions, energy use, environmental and public health impacts associated with a carbon removal project to determine its net climate impact. It tells us if the work was done safely and effectively and provides receipts.” According to Occidental’s agreement with the Houston Texans, the carbon credits purchased will not be linked to any new oil and gas extraction. Instead, the CO2 will be sequestered in reserves not associated with fossil fuel production. However, this agreement is specific to a carbon offset agreement with one NFL team. And it is not clear how much independent verification there will be, or if – in other business agreements or contexts -- Occidental will use captured carbon to inject into shale formations to help extract oil and gas. Aside from the two Texas direct air capture projects, Oil & Gas Watch is also tracking the Sweetwater Carbon Storage Hub, a proposed direct air capture project in Wyoming that would consist of modular carbon capture units capable of removing 12,000 tons of CO2 per year from the air. #######+++++++#######+++++++######## **See Also:** [Direct Air Capture: 5 Things You Need to Know About This Climate Scam](https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/01/19/direct-air-capture- climate-scam/) ~ Oakley Shelton-Thomas & Mia DiFelice, Food & Water Watch, January 25, 2023 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/27/projects-aim-to-remove- co2-carbon-dioxide-directly-from-the-atmosphere/>

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Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “Z” for Zero
by Frack Check WV: admin 26 Jan '23

26 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “Z” for Zero](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/26/alphabet-of-climate-change-fr… a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cz%e2%80%9d-for-zero/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/F03A135B-21BB-496D-A77C-FD855AFE7E35.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/F03A135B-21BB-496D-A77C-FD855AFE7E35.jpeg) Lake Mead was formed by the Hoover Dam in the Colorado River in AZ & NV **“Z” = Zero …… Lake Mead as Ground Zero of Ground Zero!** >>> From a Compilation of [Articles by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 **Not long ago, I rented a car in Las Vegas and drove out to Hoover Dam. There I signed up for a tour that began with an educational video.** Construction of the dam, the narrator of the video intoned while grainy black- and-white footage jittered across the screen, entailed pouring more than three million cubic yards of concrete. Put to a different use, this much concrete could pave “a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the earth’s equator.” When the dam was completed, in the middle of the Depression, it “gave new life to the desert Southwest” as well as “to the nation’s spirit.” The Colorado River began backing up behind the massive structure to form Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, which can store enough water to “cover the entire state of Pennsylvania to the depth of one foot.” After the video, my tour group took an elevator down thirty stories, into the dam’s hydroelectric plant. Here we were regaled with more facts: **Hoover Dam is equipped with seventeen generators — eight on the Nevada side of the river and nine across the border, in Arizona. Each generator can produce enough electricity — a hundred and thirty (130 MW) megawatts — to power sixty-five thousand homes. Each contains five miles’ worth of copper wire and a hundred and sixty tons’ worth of electromagnets. The tour ended on an observation deck where an audiotape of yet more dam-related facts — the structure weighs 6.6 million tons and is twelve hundred and forty-four feet long** — was issuing from a loudspeaker. The narrator of the audiotape sounded an awful lot like the narrator of the video. “It has been said that in the shadow of Hoover Dam one feels that the future is limitless, that we have in our grasp the power to achieve anything, if we can but summon the will,” he concluded. Then the tape started over. **The Colorado River basin has been called “ground zero for climate change in the United States.”** If this is the case, then Hoover Dam might be described as **ground zero’s ground zero.** Since 1998, the basin has been stuck in a drought; this drought has lasted so long and grown so deep that it’s now routinely referred to as a megadrought. From the observation deck, the drought’s effects are scarily apparent. An abandoned dock lies, in pieces, high above the lake’s edge. Instead of being submerged, the power plant’s four intake towers stick up into the air, like lighthouses. The steep walls of the reservoir, which in pre-dam days formed Black Canyon, are lined with an enormous white stripe — a geological oddity known as the bathtub ring. The ring, composed of minerals deposited by the retreating water, runs as straight as a ruler, mile after mile. At the start of the drought, the stripe was as high as a giraffe. By 2015, it had grown as tall as the Statue of Liberty. This past summer, it had reached the height of the Tower of Pisa. I had wanted to talk about the dam, the megadrought, and the future of the Colorado basin with a representative of the Bureau of Reclamation, which built and still operates Hoover Dam. But when I got in touch with the bureau’s office in Boulder City, Nevada, a town created to house the workers who erected the dam, I was told that no one there was giving interviews. **I was, of course, welcome to take a public tour. I ended up taking two.** On the first, no mention was made of the drought; on the second, I tried to force the issue. I asked the guide whether she got any questions about Lake Mead, which is now only about a quarter full. She said she did, but she wasn’t supposed to answer them. “We’re not to comment too much on it,” she told me. “You know, I haven’t been on the lake at all this year,” she added. “It’s just sad when I go out there. It’s a little depressing. To save my sanity, I don’t go.” Lake Mead used to be lined with boat launches; most of these are now closed. The construction of Hoover Dam was authorized in 1928, just a year after Svante Arrhenius died. The project reflects the same faith in progress that he held to — a faith in humanity’s power to improve on nature. This is still the faith that the Bureau of Reclamation is pushing even as the logic of the dam comes undone. In April, the reservoir dropped so low that one of the intake pipes for Las Vegas, which gets practically all its water from Lake Mead, poked above the surface. In August, the Interior Department announced what’s officially called a Tier 2a shortage; the shortage means that Arizona’s water allotment for next year will be cut by almost two hundred billion gallons and Nevada’s by eight billion gallons. **Owing to the shortage, the dam’s seventeen turbines operate only sporadically.** Following my second tour, I climbed back up to the observation deck for a last look around. It was almost noon, and the desert sun was high overhead. A couple of tour groups came and went as the tape played in the background: “In the shadow of Hoover Dam, one feels that the future is limitless . . . limitless . . . limitless.” What I felt standing in the dam’s shadow was something different. **Climate change isn’t a problem that can be solved by summoning the “will.” It isn’t a problem that can be “fixed” or “conquered,” though these words are often used. It isn’t going to have a happy ending, or a win-win ending, or, on a human timescale, any ending at all. Whatever we might want to believe about our future, there are limits, and we are up against them.** ♦ ~ Published in the print edition of the November 28, 2022, issue of The N _ew Yorker magazine with the headline “A Vast Experiment.”_ #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Subject: Lake Mead& Hoover Dam | Scenic Drive Along Shrinking Lake Mead & Lakeshore Drive to the Hoover Dam 4K](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QWuK5AqVsKY) - YouTube** One hour & ten minutes. <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QWuK5AqVsKY> Scenic driving in Nevada and Arizona through Lake Mead National Recreation Area on Lakeshore Drive along the shrinking Lake Mead to the Hoover Dam in 4K/5K. Along the way we stop at the scenic overlooks and beaches, and see how far Lake Mead's water level has dropped in the last 22 years. We then head to the Hoover Dam, stopping and walking on the Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge and soaking in the magnificent views of the Hoover Dam and Colorado River, then driving and walking on the Hoover Dam. (Apologies for the wind noise, filming was done in very windy conditions) >>> **Click here for our complete scenic drive on Northshore Road through Lake Mead National Recreation Area:** <https://youtu.be/xvtmJtNROD0> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/26/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cz%e2%80%9d-for-zero/>

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Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “Y” for Yourself
by Frack Check WV: admin 25 Jan '23

25 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “Y” for Yourself](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/25/alphabet-of-climate-chang… from-a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cy%e2%80%9d-for-yourself/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/54762CCF- DFEB-4B20-949A-ADFD4BAF0A15.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/54762CCF-DFEB-4B20-949A-ADFD4BAF0A15.jpeg) You can have a role in the community solar program? Locally & Globaly! **You Are Significant as Climate Change Becomes a Climate Emergency** From the [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **So far, average global temperatures have risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius — two degrees Fahrenheit — and the budget for 1.5 Celsius is nearly gone. How hot will it get? Will temperatures climb two degrees Celsius? 2.5? Three?** **A study published a few years ago, by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution, and Yangyang Xu, of Texas A &M, defined a temperature increase of 1.5 C degrees as “dangerous,” an increase of three C degrees as “catastrophic,” and an increase of five C degrees as “unknown, implying beyond catastrophic.”** **A second study, by a group of American and European researchers, determined that, if we were to burn through all known fossil-fuel reserves, global temperatures could rise by as much as eleven degrees Celsius, or twenty degrees Fahrenheit. (How humanity could keep the oil flowing even as the world drowned and smoldered was a question the researchers did not address.)** **There are good reasons to opt for optimism. ([See “narratives.”](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert)) It could be argued that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act this past summer was possible only because so many people believed in a better future.** **At the same time, there are good reasons to wonder whether optimism lies at the heart of the problem. For the last thirty years — more if you go back to 1965 — we have lived as if someone, or some technology, were going to rescue us from ourselves. We are still living that way now.** **“You can’t just sit around waiting for hope to come,” Greta Thunberg observed in a speech scolding E.U. politicians. “Then you’re acting like spoiled, irresponsible children. You don’t seem to understand that hope is something you have to earn.”** #######+++++++#######+++++++######## **See Also:** [West Virginia Environmental Council](https://wvecouncil.org/) URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/25/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cy%e2%80%9d-for-yourself/>

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Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “X” for Xcel or Not
by Frack Check WV: admin 24 Jan '23

24 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “X” for Xcel or Not](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/24/alphabet-of-climate-change-fro… a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cx%e2%80%9d-for-xcel-or-not/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/C91CDD10-0B04-46EE- BA5D-68FA0D262E39-300x199.jpg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/C91CDD10-0B04-46EE-BA5D-68FA0D262E39.jpeg) Looking for the future takes some mighty fine binoculars **“Xcel” Names Outstanding Green or Blue or Brown Things or Not** From the Desk of Duane G. Nichols, FrackCheckWV.net, January 24, 2023 **[XCELPLUS INTERNATIONAL ~ About our company …](https://xcelplusint.com/)** In 1999, XcelPlus was started as a private label distributor for a line of specialty chemicals and lubricants. Along the way, we found reducing energy consumption just wasn’t enough, so we set out to find technologies to help satisfy an increasing demand for energy from waste streams. We discovered ways to make ethanol from garbage, and used biodiesel waste glycerin to make turbine fuels and coal plant fuels. When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. in 2005, we sought ways to turn the resulting waste into electricity or fuels, including synthetic diesel fuels, gasoline and ethanol. The issue we faced was that technology had not been developed to the commercial and industrial standards we needed. In 2007, we had to suspend our projects. A chance encounter in 2017 changed everything, and since then we have been working diligently to bring our solution to fruition in the form of plasma gasification. We became a public company in 2004 on the OTC Markets under the trading symbol XLPI. [The most recent quote lists the stock price at 6 cents per share.] **We 've been searching for years ~** We spent years searching out and vetting technologies that would improve our quality of life on planet Earth. We consider these to be legacy technologies that will figuratively change the world. We identified a line of energy-reducing lubricants, discovered ways to convert plastics and tires into synthetic diesel fuel, unearthed the technology to turn fuel-injected cars into Flex Fuel vehicles, and created gasifiers that use plasma technologies to dissociate molecules into atoms. Those dissociated atoms are recombined to make syngas. [Such processes generate carbon dioxide, not discussed here.] We’ve already done the hard part, now we can do the innovative part of bringing these new technological solutions to market today. [MISSION STATEMENT](https://xcelplusint.com/about-us/) ~ Using our access to sustainable and innovative technology, we seek to use waste as a resource to provide clean, affordable, pollution-free energy to communities around the world in order to improve the global environment. **We 've Seen the Future of Energy** ~ We have been looking into the future of energy and we are ready to unveil that future right now. Today, the power for electric cars is primarily derived from coal and some energy from natural gas. While cleaner than coal, natural gas is still a polluting energy source. Unless we find new ways to produce clean, sustainable energy – not only for electric cars but other applications – it will be no better than petroleum- powered vehicles. Our technologies can fuel and power the hydrogen highway, electric cars, aircraft, diesel trucks and cars, all while simultaneously using and reducing our world’s waste. Take a look at that future with us. We have developed a better form of energy production. **XCELPLUS PLASMA GASIFICATION OF WASTE ~ 50-Ton-Per-Day Gasifier** We were able to build upon an already solid foundation. We've hired engineers to take a proven, viable technology and propel it to a whole new level. Fifty tons of material from waste streams allows our gasifier to produce up to 5 megawatt of power, 1,900 gallons of diesel fuel, 2,100 gallons of gasoline or ethanol, or about 1,250 to 6,000 kg of green hydrogen. Whatever your energy needs are, we can accommodate you. We will be manufacturing gasifiers and selling them to global customers and Build-Own-Operate (BOO) customers with access to capped-off landfills. [NOTE ADDED ~ The claims above of subject to verification. The claim is that XcelPlus provides “green” technology. This conventionally means that no carbon dioxide or methane will be emitted. What to believe Xcel or Not? DGN] URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/24/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cx%e2%80%9d-for-xcel-or-not/>

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Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “W” for Weather
by Frack Check WV: admin 23 Jan '23

23 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now “W” for Weather](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/23/alphabet-of-climate-change- from-a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cw%e2%80%9d-for-weather/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/08EB5151-DC5D-4CD0-874E-602D8384C104-300x300.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/08EB5151-DC5D-4CD0-874E-602D8384C104.jpeg) Predictions from the IPCC Report ~ Click to expand this graph **WHAT? ~ Whether the Weather is Winding for Wicked Wretchedness?** >>> Adapted from the [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracks weather-related disasters in the U.S. that cause more than a billion dollars’ worth of damage. According to NOAA, in the nineteen-eighties the U.S. saw an average of three such disasters per year. In the nineteen-nineties, the average was five per year; in the two-thousands, it was six; and in the twenty-tens it jumped to twelve. (The figures have been adjusted for inflation.) In 2020, a record-shattering twenty-two disasters costing more than a billion dollars struck the country. This year is nearly on pace to match that record, with fifteen such disasters by October, including Hurricane Ian, which is likely to prove one of the most expensive storms in American history. Adam B. Smith, a NOAA researcher, has written that a disastrous number of disasters “is becoming the new normal.” The rise is partly a function of more people living in vulnerable areas, such as floodplains. But increasingly it’s a function of climate change. **In the future, the costs may climb steeply or they may climb precipitously. All our infrastructure has been built with the climate of the past in mind. Much of it will have to be rebuilt and then, as the world continues to warm, rebuilt again.** To protect the Houston area (and its many petrochemical plants) from rising seas and storm surges, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to erect a huge system of gates at the mouth of Galveston Bay. The price tag for the project, known as the Ike Dike, is estimated at thirty billion dollars. Norfolk, Virginia, is hoping to stave off the water with a $1.5-billion series of barriers, levees, and tidal gates, and Charleston, South Carolina, is looking to build a billion-dollar flood wall. Some places — large swaths of Miami, for instance — may prove impossible to defend, meaning that real estate now valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars will have to be written off. #######+++++++#######+++++++######## **~. ~. The Accelerating Frequency of Extreme Weather ~. ~.** From an [Article by Carmen Ang, Visual Capitalist](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-accelerating-frequency-of- extreme-weather/), January 13, 2022 _The world is already witnessing the effects of climate change._ A few months ago, the western U.S. experienced one of the worst droughts it’s seen in the last 20 years. At the same time, southern Europe roasted in an extreme heatwave, with temperatures reaching 45°C (113°F)in some parts. But things are only expected to get worse in the near future. Here’s a look at how much extreme climate events have changed over the last 200 years, and what’s to come if global temperatures keep rising. **A Century of Warming & More of Same Going Forward** The global surface temperature has increased by about 1°C (1.8°F) since the 1850s. And [according to the IPCC](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf), this warming has been indisputably caused by human influence. **As the global temperatures have risen, the frequency of extreme weather events have increased along with it. Heatwaves, droughts and extreme rainstorms used to happen once in a decade on average, but now:** Heatwaves are 2.8x more frequent Droughts are 1.7x more frequent Extreme rainstorms are 1.3x more frequent **By 2030, the global surface temperature is expected to rise 1.5°C (2.7°F) the Earth’s baseline temperature, which means that:** Heatwaves would be 4.1x more frequent Droughts would be 2x more frequent Extreme rainstorms would be 1.5x more frequent **The Ripple Effects of Extreme Weather** **Extreme weather events have far-reaching impacts on communities, especially when they cause critical system failures.** Mass infrastructure breakdowns during Hurricane Ida this year caused widespread power outages in the state of Louisiana that lasted for several days. In 2020, wildfires in Syria devastated hundreds of villages and injured dozens of civilians with skin burns and breathing complications. As extreme weather events continue to increase in frequency, and communities become increasingly more at risk, sound infrastructure is becoming more important than ever. [The importance of net-zero projects cannot be over emphasized. [WiN = When is Now!](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf)]. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/23/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9cw%e2%80%9d-for-weather/>

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Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now ”V” for Vehicles
by Frack Check WV: admin 22 Jan '23

22 Jan '23

# [Alphabet of Climate Change from A to Z, Now ”V” for Vehicles](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/22/alphabet-of-climate-chang… from-a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9dv%e2%80%9d-for-vehicles/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/527E2E84-CFAD-4400-B553-C055AFA7D6C4-300x192.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/527E2E84-CFAD-4400-B553-C055AFA7D6C4.jpeg) The term “tipping point” is applied here to Archimedes lever in contrast to tipping points in which ice melting accelerates beyond expectations **Current Climate: Tipping Points To Net Zero, Smarter Train Tracks And Greenland’s Accelerating Melt** >>> From the [Forbes Article by Alex Knapp & Alan Ohnsman](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/01/21/current-climat… tipping-points-to-net-zero--smarter-train-tracks-and-greenlands-accelerating- melt/?sh=6d37f4a036f1), January 21, 2023 [This information is from the **“Current Climate” from Forbes** , which every Saturday brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability. [Sign up to get it in your inbox every week.](https://www.forbes.com/newsletter/currentclimate/)] Ancient Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes is said to have one said, “Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world” – highlighting the power of simple machines to magnify effort. This principle is limited to ancient Greece. **This week, a[report presented to the World Economic Forum](https://www.systemiq.earth/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/The-Breakthrough- Effect.pdf) meeting at Davos argues that there are points like this that can accelerate the world’s transition to an economy that’s built around more sustainable principles in order to slow climate change. The researchers behind the report identified three potential “tipping points” that can be pushed in order to accelerate some of these changes.** 1\. The first is the **transition to electric vehicles** , as “government policies and better infrastructure increasingly [are] making electric vehicles more attractive than petrol and diesel cars,” according to a press release around the report. 2\. A second tipping point is swapping out **methods of producing ammonia for fertilizers** in a manner that’s more sustainable, which the researchers say could have a side benefit of bringing down the costs of green hydrogen. 3\. The third tipping point is moving towards more **alternatives to animal- based proteins** , which could help reduce emissions from livestock farming and slow down rates of deforestation. All of these areas, the report argues, can produce ripple effects that reach further into the economy in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “This non-linear way of thinking about the climate problem gives plausible grounds for hope,” the report’s lead author aid in a statement. “The more that gets invested in socioeconomic transformation, the faster it will unfold – getting the world to ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions sooner.” **The Big Read ~ Greenland Ice Sheet Warmest In At Least 1,000 Years As Scientists Warn Melting Ice Will Accelerate Sea-Level Rise** Recent temperatures in Greenland’s ice sheet—one of the primary culprits behind rising seas—were the warmest they’ve been in at least 1,000 years, according to a new report, as scientists warn the melting of Greenland’s ice could threaten coastal communities around the world. [Read more here.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/01/18/greenland-ice- sheet-warmest-in-at-least-1000-years-as-scientists-warn-melting-ice-will- accelerate-sea-level-rise/) **More Concerns for Our Earth** Human-caused light pollution has made the night sky nearly 10% brighter each year, according to new research, obscuring astronomical observations and posing a threat to migrating birds that rely on the position of stars and the moon to travel. Nearly two-thirds of coral reef shark and ray species worldwide are threatened with extinction, [reports a new study](https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2023/01/17/most- coral-reef-sharks-and-rays-may-be-at-risk-of-extinction/?sh=1770e5713c74). **Sustainability Deals Of The Week ~ ~ ~** **Durable Batteries:** California-based Noon Energy has raised a $28 million series A round, which is geared towards growing its team and accelerating the commercialization of its carbon-oxygen battery for long-term energy storage. **Carbon Removal:** Financial services firm Rothschild & Co has entered into a multi-year agreement with French startup NetZero to purchase carbon credits for NetZero’s biochar, which sequesters carbon by being mixed with topsoil, which also reduces the need for fertilizers in agriculture. **Electrification:** The city of San Jose has entered into a $489,000 contract with BlocPower to electrify 250 residential buildings. **On The Horizon, Ugggh!** Last week, areas of Northern California featured days worth of rainfall and high winds, causing large amounts of damage to the area. And if sea levels continue to rise, it’s likely that more storms are in the works for the region, according to new research published this week. **Green Transportation Update** When it comes to moving people and goods, even all-electric vehicles can’t match the environmental benefits of trains. And when you think “advanced rail technology,” bullet trains or magnetic-levitation systems might come to mind. But what about the steel rails freight and passenger trains run on? It turns out that machine learning, big data collection and voice-recognition tools that have transformed manufacturing, cars, retail and social media are also being leveraged to make vital rail operations safer and much more efficient. **The Big Transportation Story ~ Cheap, Utilitarian Electric Cars Would Trigger Big Sales Without Subsidies** Dozens of new electric vehicles models are rolling out but most of them are still too pricey for most carbuyers. What if automakers slashed EV prices, weight and battery size and concentrated on the short-range applications electric cars do best? [Read more here.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2023/01/17/cheap- utilitarian-electric-cars-would-trigger-big-sales-without-subsidies/) URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/22/alphabet-of-climate-change-from- a-to-z-now-%e2%80%9dv%e2%80%9d-for-vehicles/>

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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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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!
by Frack Check WV: admin 11 Jan '23

11 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F-300x249.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F.png) KEELING CURVE ~ Carbon dioxide has increased worldwide from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 420 ppm in just 64 years **[The Keeling Curve on the National Geographic Society Website](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/keeling-curve)** The Keeling Curve is a graph that represents the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere since 1958. The Keeling Curve is named after its creator, Dr. Charles David Keeling (1928 to 2005). Keeling began studying atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1956 by taking air samples and measuring the amount of CO2 they contained. Over time he noticed a pattern. The air samples taken at night contained a higher concentration of CO2 compared to samples taken during the day. He drew on his understanding of photosynthesis and plant respiration to explain this observation: Plants take in CO2 during the day to photosynthesize—or make food for themselves—but at night, they release CO2. By studying his measurements over the course of a few years, Keeling also noticed a larger seasonal pattern. He discovered CO2 levels are highest in the spring, when decomposing plant matter releases CO2 into the air, and are lowest in autumn when plants stop taking in CO2 for photosynthesis. Keeling was able to establish a permanent residence at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai'i, United States, to continue his research. At Mauna Loa, he discovered global atmospheric CO2 levels were rising nearly every year. By analyzing the CO2 in his samples, Keeling was able to attribute this rise to the use of fossil fuels. Since its creation, the Keeling Curve has served as a visual representation of Keeling’s data, which scientists have continued to collect since his death in 2005. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The Keeling Curve Hits 420 PPM, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,**](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114/) May 31, 2022 Levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide eclipsed 420 parts per million for the first time in human history in 2021. Scripps Institution of Oceanography updated this animation, which explains the rise of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere over the past 300 years and the measurement our researchers collect at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, known as the Keeling Curve. When Scripps Oceanography scientist Charles David Keeling first began taking measurements in 1958, CO2 levels were at 315 parts per million. [Check out more details at Scripps Oceanography:](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114) <https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!
by Frack Check WV: admin 10 Jan '23

10 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg) Community solar projects provide solar energy directly to individual users. **“J” is for Jobs. Get a Job and Work for Yourself, Your Family & Your Community** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 **Jobs, jobs, jobs ~ Six years ago, Beta and Form didn’t exist, and CarbiCrete consisted of four men holding meetings at a Starbucks. Today, more than four hundred people work for Beta, three hundred work for Form, and forty work for CarbiCrete. Ørsted’s operations in North America employ more than six hundred people directly and thousands indirectly, through contracts for components, shipping, and logistical support.** Study after study has concluded that cutting emissions creates jobs. Recently, a Princeton-based team issued a report detailing how the U.S. could reduce its net emissions to zero by 2050. The researchers considered several possible decarbonization “pathways.” Consider the extreme case. The pathway labelled “high electrification” would, they projected over time, eliminate sixty-two thousand (62,000) jobs in the coal industry and four hundred thousand (400,000) in the natural-gas sector. But it was expected to produce nearly eight hundred thousand (800,000) jobs in construction, more than seven hundred thousand (700,000) in the solar industry, and more than a million (1,000,000) in upgrading the grid. **“For too long, we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis,” President Biden declared last year. “Jobs, jobs, jobs. For me, when I think climate change, I think jobs.”** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [West Virginia Looks at Community Solar as Legislative Priority,](https://www.governing.com/next/west-virginia-looks-at-community- solar-as-legislative-priority) Mike Tony, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, November 7, 2022 **(TNS) —West Virginia 's leaders, from Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to Gov. Jim Justice and members of the state Public Energy Authority, have a pet phrase for their preferred approach to energy policy: “All of the above.”** **Community solar allows customers to receive solar energy without having to install their own systems, allowing them to benefit from energy generated offsite, and could save residential customers about 10 percent in electricity costs.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!
by Frack Check WV: admin 09 Jan '23

09 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737-300x168.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737.jpeg) WTAP News reports new battery plant for Weirton, WV on 12/26/22 **“I” is for Iron, I is for Imagination and Intention and Innovation!** [Rusty Batteries Could Greatly Improve Grid Energy Storage](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rusty-batteries-could- greatly-improve-grid-energy-storage/) >> _From an Article by John Fialka, E &E News, December 21, 2022_ A U.S. company is designing a large battery that it says could help decarbonize the nation’s power sector more cheaply than lithium-ion storage systems — and with domestic materials. Iron-air batteries have a “reversible rust” cycle that could store and discharge energy for far longer and at less cost than lithium-ion technology. The concept, known as the “iron-air battery,” has impressed U.S. experts. Unlike current lithium-ion batteries that require expensive materials mostly from other countries such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, the proposed battery stores electricity using widely available iron metal. It operates on what scientists call the principle of “reversible rusting.” The low cost and high availability of iron could allow iron-air batteries to store electricity for several days during periods of low solar and wind power generation. One such iron-air battery is being designed by Form Energy, a company based in Massachusetts that’s co-run by a former Tesla Inc. official. Although iron-air batteries were first studied in the early 1970s for applications such as electric vehicles, more recent research suggests that it may be a “leading contender” to expand the nation’s future supplies of green electric power for utilities, according to George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory. Lithium-ion batteries, which are used in cars and for utility-scale storage, discharge electric power for about four hours. The much larger iron-air battery can store and then discharge power for as long as 100 hours, giving utilities four days of electricity to bridge renewable power gaps that can occur in U.S. grids. Crabtree, a physicist, predicted that the iron-air battery would also help the U.S. decarbonize industrial operations and buttress the Defense Department’s plans to rely more on renewable energy. Crabtree pointed out that while U.S. researchers helped invent the lithium-ion battery in 1970, it took until 1991 to reach the market. Sony Group Corp., a Japanese company, was the first to sell it. After that, companies based in China took the lead, and they continue to dominate the world’s lithium-ion battery market. Form Energy was born in 2017. It emerged from a consolidation of two smaller U.S. energy storage companies, one of which was led by Mateo Jaramillo, a former executive at Tesla. The co-founders shared a vision to reshape the global electric system by creating a new class of low-cost multiday storage batteries. They began testing several different chemistries to make a competitive and domestically produced battery. They landed on the iron-air battery, which includes a slab of iron, a water- based electrolyte and a membrane that feeds a controlled stream of air into the battery. When discharging, the battery breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust. While charging, an electrical current converts the rust back to iron and the battery breathes out oxygen. Since its founding, the company has raised $832 million from investors, including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and ArcelorMittal SA, a Luxembourg-based multinational steel company. Since 2021, Form Energy has signed contracts to build battery storage facilities for two utilities. One is Georgia Power Co., the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. The other is Great River Energy, Minnesota’s second-largest electric utility, which supplies power to electric cooperatives. Form Energy is working with ArcelorMittal to develop iron materials that the steel company would supply to Form Energy. The battery company declined to say when it would announce the construction of its first factory, or where it would be. “We’re not talking about that yet,” Jaramillo said in an interview. His company’s executive team includes Yet-Ming Chiang, its chief science officer and a materials expert who teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds over 100 U.S. patents. The initial storage battery, about the size of a home washer-and-drier combination, will be too big and heavy for cars, but it could replace lithium- ion batteries for utility-scale storage because it would be one-tenth the cost and its capacity will be much larger, according to Form Energy. Jaramillo graduated from Harvard University with an economics degree and later studied theology at Yale Divinity School. “It probably helped me in more ways than I could articulate,” he said of his religious studies. “It helped me stay grounded about what solutions look like in this world. There is nothing perfect.” Crabtree, of Argonne National Laboratory, says he’s impressed by Form Energy’s accomplishments so far. Compared with the 21-year effort by the U.S. to develop the lithium-ion battery, Form Energy may develop the iron-air battery in less than nine years. “It shows that it is possible to move quickly when it comes to climate change. That’s the critical answer,” Crabtree said. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Climate Change from A to Z, Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/climate-change-from… to-z), November 28, 2022 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!
by Frack Check WV: admin 08 Jan '23

08 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E-300x165.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E.png) Cambridge Energy Storage Project, a demonstration plant in Minnesota operated by Great River Energy that will use Form Energy’s “iron-air” battery technology. **H is for Hope! Hope for Better Batteries! Hope for the Best!** [From an Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “Hope is the pillar that holds up the world,” Pliny the Elder is supposed to have observed. “Hope is the dream of a waking man.” Go looking for hopeful climate stories and they turn up everywhere. Not long ago, I came across one in a defunct wine distributorship, in Somerville, Massachusetts. The cavernous warehouse had been taken over by a company called Form Energy, whose waking dream concerns rust. Rusting usually proceeds in one direction, and the end result is a corroded nail or screw that winds up in the trash. But, as iron oxidizes, it gives up electrons. Therefore, if a current is applied to rust in solution, the process will run in reverse. At Form, the goal is to use this reverse-rusting trick to make a new kind of battery, one so cheap and durable it could power an entire city. Billy Woodford, Form’s chief technology officer, studied material science at M.I.T. “Batteries have cool technical problems,” he told me as we descended into the warehouse turned research lab. The huge room was lined with experimental chambers that resembled glass-fronted refrigerators. Each was labelled, according to an inside joke that I never quite got, with the name of a different Oreo variety, like lemon or s’mores or gluten free. Inside the chambers were collections of some kind of high-tech Tupperware, with wires poking through the lids. The containers, in turn, held plates of iron bathing in liquid. Woodford explained that these were test batteries: “We’ll put in different iron — there’s different versions, depending on whether it’s produced, say, in Texas or Germany — and then different electrolytes.” **_Iron-air batteries’ active components are iron, salt water, and air. They can soak up energy from wind farms, feeding it into the grid when needed. Form Energy 's full-scale batteries will be packaged into modules of fifty, each about the size of a washer and dryer placed side by side. Ten of the modules will be big enough to fill a shipping container. On blustery days, they charge, using an electric current to convert rust into iron. On calm days, the iron rusts and releases electricity into the grid._** The first thirty shipping containers’ worth have been promised to Great River Energy, a Minnesota-based utility that buys a lot of wind power. (See the conceptual plant layout photo above.) Form’s C.E.O., Mateo Jaramillo, studied theology and later became a Tesla executive. While at Tesla, he worked on lithium-ion batteries, which are the sort used in most electric vehicles (and in the Alia), and also, in a slightly different form, in laptops and cell phones. “Lithium-ion is fantastic,” Jaramillo told me. “And yet, if that’s the only tool you have, you still have a really hard time replacing high- capacity coal and natural-gas plants. To replace those, you need something that’s at least an order of magnitude cheaper than lithium-ion.” The materials needed for reversible rusting — air, salt water, and iron — are available in practically limitless quantities. “Besides coal, iron is the most-mined mineral on earth,” Jaramillo said. “So it scales.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Billionaire-backed ‘Iron-Air’ Battery Maker Picks WV Site for First Factory](https://www.powermag.com/billionaire-backed-iron-air-battery-maker- picks-wv-site-for-first-factory/)** , Darrell Proctor, POWER Magazine, December 23, 2022 A battery manufacturing company with plenty of high-profile financial backing said it has picked a site for its first factory that will build “iron-air” batteries. Form Energy touts its technology as a breakthrough for long- duration storage of solar and wind power. Form, which counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and British tycoon Richard Branson among its supporters, was founded in 2017 by veterans of the energy storage sector. The group said its mission was to create low-cost, multi-day energy storage systems. Company officials have said their iron-air battery can store electricity for as much as 100 hours. They’ve also said the technology will be competitive with electricity produced by traditional power plants. **Form, which is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Dec. 22 said it will begin construction of its first factory in Weirton, West Virginia, in 2023. The company expects to begin manufacturing commercial iron-air battery systems the following year. The plant’s cost is estimated at about $760 million, and officials said the project would create 750 jobs. Form completed a $450 million Series E funding round in October.** Incentive Package ~ West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said his state is providing Form with an incentive package worth as much as $290 million in what he called asset-based, performance financing for the factory’s construction. The package includes $75 million for land purchase and building construction in Weirton. Justice said he will work with state lawmakers and the federal government to obtain an additional $215 million. Mateo Jaramillo, Form’s CEO and co-founder, said Weirton was chosen from among more than 500 possible locations for the company’s manufacturing plant. He called Weirton “a historic steel community that sits on a river and has the rich heritage and know-how to make great things out of iron.” Jaramillo, who headed Tesla’s energy-storage business before leaving in 2016, said his company expects “to be generating meaningful revenue in 2025.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!
by Frack Check WV: admin 07 Jan '23

07 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070-300x155.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070.png) CarbiCrete building blocks made from slag (cement substitute) **Green Concrete ~ Gee! Cement Substitute Without Releasing Carbon Dioxide!** Article by [Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “We are doing freeze-and-thaw tests here in this lab,” Mehrdad Mahoutian said. He pried the lid off a plastic container of the sort usually used to store leftovers. Inside was a gray block about the size of a juice box. It was sitting in a half inch or so of ice-fringed water. “This is cement-free concrete,” Mahoutian said, indicating the block. “And this is salt water. For eighteen hours, they go into the freezer. And, for six hours, they get melted, basically.” I managed to find the headquarters of the company named **CarbiCrete** , in an industrial area of Montreal. Mahoutian, one of the company’s founders, was showing me around the R. & D. facility. Every few minutes, he was interrupted by a very loud rumble. “That’s the blocks being made,” he shouted over the din. We passed into a second room, where two test walls of cinder block stood perpendicular to each other. Both were equipped with a shower apparatus made from PVC pipe, which was dripping water. A fan blew the water toward the blocks. Mahoutian explained that one test wall had been constructed with ordinary cinder blocks, the other with a new kind of block fabricated by **CarbiCrete**. The shower arrangement was gauging how the two walls compared in terms of water penetration. “In a few hours, we’ll measure the dampness and do some calculations,” he told me. Concrete represents one of the world’s most obdurate carbon problems. Its key ingredient, Portland cement, is made by grinding up limestone, adding clay, and heating the mixture to more than two thousand degrees. The process demands a lot of energy, which is usually supplied by burning coal. But, more fundamentally, the issue with cement is its chemistry; heating limestone to the point that it transforms into quicklime unavoidably releases CO2. In 2021, some thirty billion tons of concrete were produced worldwide, almost four tons for every single person on the planet. The associated carbon dioxide emissions accounted for roughly eight per cent of the global total— more than aviation and shipping combined. Producing cement-free concrete, or what is sometimes referred to as green concrete, isn’t sexy, but it’s essential. [In place of cement, CarbiCrete makes use of a waste product](https://www.waste360.com/medical-waste/waste-based-cement- alternative-provides-functional-benefits-while-capturing-and) — the slag left over from steel production. It pounds the slag into powder and mixes in crushed rock and water. The resulting slurry, which looks a lot like conventional concrete, can then be molded into blocks or tiles. Gee! C **arbiCrete bills its product, which for the time being is also known as CarbiCrete, not just as carbon-neutral but as carbon-negative.** Mahoutian led me to a row of machines that resembled rice cookers. Each one was attached to a cannister of CO2. Inside the machines, little blocks of damp CarbiCrete were reacting with carbon dioxide; instead of releasing the gas, the blocks were soaking it up. “Please touch,” Mahoutian instructed. The machines were hot. This, he explained, was because the reaction, rather than requiring heat, generated it. For now, CarbiCrete buys its CO2 from a supplier. The plan, though, is eventually to use carbon dioxide that’s been captured at, say, a power plant or a steel mill. “What we are doing basically is killing three birds with one stone,” Mahoutian told me. “We are not using cement. We are permanently capturing CO2. And we’re reducing the need for land!lls.” As I was getting ready to leave, Mahoutian asked if I wanted a CarbiCrete tile or cinder block to bring home with me. I thought for a while and then decided to take both. Gee! URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!
by Frack Check WV: admin 06 Jan '23

06 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6-300x120.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6.jpeg) (new) Dolls Run Well Pad for Drilling & Fracking in Monongalia County, WV (click on photo to expand) **OMG! Opening Public Lands to Drilling & Fracking Without Restraint!** >>> _Technical Article on[Fracking by Randi Pokladnik](https://ohvec.org/author/randi/), Submitted January 1, 2023_ **The Republican dominated Ohio Senate and House recently passed the Amended HB 507 bill. It now awaits a signature from Gov. DeWine who can veto the bill or allow it to go into law after a ten-day period. The bill was originally intended to address poultry sales and food safety, however, at the last minute an amendment, (134-3853) was added to HB 507 in the Senate. Basically, the amendment will force state agencies to open their land to oil and gas drilling with no exceptions. The amendment creates an atmosphere where citizens are basically locked out of any public review process and refused the ability to make comments on the leasing process. It by-passes any considerations of impacts to the environment and recreation.** Pre-19th century, Ohio was 95 percent forested. Today only 30 percent of forested land remains (8.0 million acres) and only 11 percent is owned by state and local governments. The Ohio State Park system encompasses about 170,000 acres of land and over 31 million visitors come to Ohio parks each year. For many people, both in and out of the state, state parks and forests remain a sanctuary; a place for them to escape their hectic lives and find the peace that nature offers. It also provides a space for recreating, bird watching, fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing and biking. Additionally, a study by The Ohio State University determined that outdoor recreationalists’ trips bring in $8.1 billion to Ohio’s economy and the sector employs 133,000 workers. **Fracking and all the build-out that this industry requires will dramatically change the landscape of Ohio’s parks and forests.** Who wants to hike through a park with frack pads and fracking infrastructure? Who wants to ingest wild game and fish taken from areas where fracking is occurring? **Since 2005, and the passage of the Energy Policy Act, also known as the Haliburton Loophole, fracking remains virtually unregulated. Who will guarantee that every stage of the process will be conducted in a way so as not to disrupt the state lands that supposedly belong to Ohio’s citizens?** **A[study in West Virginia](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06022011/natural-gas-drilling- fells-1000-trees-w-va-forest-scientists-say/) showed forest ecosystems are negatively affected by forest clearing, erosion, and road building during fracking.** Vegetation death was also noted after frack fluids were sprayed on the surrounding trees. [Peer reviewed studies show that watersheds surrounding frack well pads test positive for the radioactive substances found in frack waste water, which consists of fracturing fluid and salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive material accumulated from natural underground sources.](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/13032… **[Fracking well pads and infrastructure will require clearing areas (cutting trees and vegetation).](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/1…) This will require areas of anywhere from four to twenty-five acres.** Not only will this fragment the forest it will cause other effects that to date are still not clearly understood or studied. [This includes additional fragmentation that could affect plant reproduction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16913941/). Fracking can also introduce and encourage the [spread of invasive species](https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/shale-gas-development-promote… spread-of-invasive-plant-species/article/498352) via the gravel delivered to build pads and roads, and in mud on the tires and undercarriages of trucks traveling those roads. Traffic in the region will increase tremendously, becoming a maintenance burden on roads, and also a hazard to local citizens and visitors. [Each well drilled requires approximately 592 one-way trips](https://studylib.net/doc/7349071/known-and-potential-impacts), with a truck that carries between 80-100,000 lbs. The traffic from the development of one well is equivalent to 3.4 million car trips. **The process of high-pressure hydraulic fracking necessitates the use of 4-6 million gallons of water per well. This surface water will no doubt be withdrawn from the local streams, resulting in harm to aquatic organisms.[Fracking fluids contain chemical additives, e.g. friction reducers, biocides and surfactants, many of which are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1409535) Very little is known about the potential effects of the chemicals, metals, organics or other contaminants once they enter terrestrial or aquatic food webs.** **Climate change, the elephant in the room, is being exacerbated by our reliance on fossil fuels.** [Fracking operations release fugitive methane emissions and are much higher than the industry reports. Methane gas is about 86 times as potent as carbon dioxide in magnifying heat related to climate change.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-bo… tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere) The aesthetic beauty as well as biodiversity of the forest will be impacted by allowing fossil fuel companies to frack the landscape. Once again, Ohio’s politicians place the interests of the oil and gas industry ahead of Ohio’s citizens. In a word, “fracking”! >>> Randi Pokladnik is a Scientist residing at Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. She was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now E!
by Frack Check WV: admin 05 Jan '23

05 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now E!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/05/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-e/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/BF8873F0-D479-44FD- BEC8-655D8FF442E3.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/BF8873F0-D479-44FD-BEC8-655D8FF442E3.jpeg) Since 2016, the U. S. has added over 35,000 MW of off-shore wind turbine capacity **Electrify Everything ~ Let’s try again, this time with feeling** . [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **BIWF2 is a wind turbine that sticks up out of the Atlantic Ocean** , about fifteen miles off the coast of Rhode Island. **It’s six hundred feet tall, which is higher than the Washington Monument, and its blades are more than two hundred feet long.** I’m on a boat designed to transport crews to offshore wind farms. The captain maneuvers right up to the metal stanchions that hold the turbine in place, so the blades are rotating directly overhead. They make a fantastic whooshing sound that builds and fades, builds and fades. The effect is at once thrilling and terrifying, as if some gigantic bird were trying to land on the deck. “Ah,” everyone on board exclaims as another blade descends. **BIWF2 has one neighbor half a nautical mile to the north and three more neighbors to the south. Together the turbines make up Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind operation. A dozen more wind projects are currently planned off the East Coast, from Massachusetts to North Carolina.** The turbines that will be erected in these projects will make BIWF2 look puny. Staring up at the blades, I am looking into the future — or at least a future —and it’s inspiring. BIWF2 is a symbol of what can be accomplished when people put their minds to it. In 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, the world had exactly one offshore wind farm, called Vindeby. Situated off the Danish island of Lolland, it consisted of eleven turbines, which, collectively, produced less power than BIWF2 does today. Now there are scores of offshore farms, most of them in European and Chinese waters. The largest, known as Hornsea 2, is in the North Sea, off the English coast; it comprises a hundred and sixty-five turbines, each so massive that a single sweep of its blades can power a household for a day. Block Island Wind Farm and Hornsea 2 are owned by the same company, which used to be known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas, or dong, but recently— and for obvious reasons — changed its name, to Ørsted. (It also owned Vindeby, which was decommissioned in 2017.) **As more turbines have gone up, costs have plunged; just in the past decade, the price of offshore wind energy has declined by half.** **Onshore wind has grown even faster, and its cost, too, has plummeted. In many parts of the world, it’s now cheaper to put up turbines than it is to operate an existing power plant that burns natural gas. In places with a lot of wind, such as Denmark, Ireland, and western Oklahoma, there’s sometimes so much power pouring into the grid that producers have to pay to get rid of it.** **The price of solar power, meanwhile, has declined even more spectacularly. Since 2010, it’s dropped by more than eighty per cent. According to the International Energy Agency, solar power now offers “some of the lowest-cost electricity ever seen.”** The rapidly falling price of renewables makes it possible to imagine a not too distant future in which the U.S., indeed the world, generates all its electricity emissions-free. Already there are brief periods — on the order of minutes —when California can produce enough electricity from renewables to meet its demand. In Denmark, this happens for entire windy days. (It occurred two days in a row this past May.) **And, once it’s possible to imagine a carbon-free grid, all sorts of other opportunities open up. Substitute electric motors for internal-combustion engines and cars, too, can run emissions-free. The same goes for trucks and buses, ferries and forklifts. Plug them in! Tear out boilers and replace them with heat pumps! Swap gas ranges for induction stoves! Electrify as much as possible. _Ideally, electrify everything._** e! URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/05/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-e/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now D!
by Frack Check WV: admin 04 Jan '23

04 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now D!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/04/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-d/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/716EB733-FCE2-4469-B45F-1DB2672F48BB.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/716EB733-FCE2-4469-B45F-1DB2672F48BB.jpeg) Polar vortex brings despair to most of the continental United States **“D” for Despair ~ The Climate Change “Despair” in Winter Storm Elliott** Technical Article by Randi Pokladnik, Submitted January 1, 2023 **Some will use the recent cold weather event to claim climate change is not real and the planet isn’t warming. But, when one looks at the actual science behind these “Arctic bomb cyclones” and the record-breaking Winter Storm Elliott, it is obvious that climate change has played a significant role.** This Christmas 2022, many of us might have felt like we were enacting the 2004 movie “ **The Day After Tomorrow** ”. The movie is loosely based on a theory called “ **abrupt climate change** ”. [The ocean’s thermohaline conveyor normally circulates ocean water around the planet.](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA469325.pdf) Cold, salty ocean water sinks and pulls warmer fresh surface water in to replace the sinking water. This sets up a deep-sea current that circulates water round the planet. If the belt shuts down, the northern hemisphere abruptly cools while the southern hemisphere warms. [Paleoclimate records from Greenland ice cores show that the conveyor belt shut down near the end of the last ice age.](https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207427) The ocean circulation stops when higher water temperatures and the addition of more freshwater cause the salinity and density of seawater to drop. A warming planet and melting freshwater could trigger another shut-down of the belt, throwing North America and Europe into frigid cold temperatures for hundreds of years. While most scientists agree that what happened in the movie (overnight change) will never occur, USA citizens witnessed some dramatic weather changes in matter of hours. Denver, Colorado experienced a temperature drop of 70 degrees in an 18-hour period. Winter Storm Elliott affected over two-thirds of our population and almost every state except the South Western area. There were record setting winds and cold temperatures in our region, blizzard conditions in the plain states and feet of snow in the New England area; even Florida broke some records for cold temperatures. Meteorologists say this storm will be a once in a generation storm. **So what caused Winter Storm Elliott?** The [northern polar vortex](https://www.ecowatch.com/polar-vortex-explained-2650399482.html) played a major role in the crushing cold that blanketed the North American continent. There are two polar vortices on our planet, one which spins around the North Pole and the other spins around the South Pole. [We are dealing with the northern vortex which was first described in an article published in 1853.](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Living_Age.html?hl=de&id=Df… Normally, low-pressure cold air circulates counterclockwise and inward towards the North Pole. The polar jet stream (high-altitude high-speed wind currents) helps hold the vortex in place, much like an old-fashioned girdle held our bulges in place. However, a weakened polar jet stream causes tiny breaks in the “girdle” and allows the cold vortex to seep out of its circular orbit dipping southward. It is like someone opening the refrigerator door and the cold air seeps through your house. [It is thought that climate change is causing a destabilization of the polar jet stream](https://www.ecowatch.com/winter-storm-elliott-climate- crisis.html). Scientists say that the Arctic region is warming faster than any other area on the globe, on average four times faster in the past forty years. As the polar air warms, the temperature differences between that air and mid- latitude air lessens. This causes a “wobble” in the jet stream, or weakening of the “girdle”, allowing the cold air to advance south. **This year’s[2022 Arctic Report Card](https://www.noaa.gov/news- release/human-caused-climate-change-fuels-warmer-wetter-stormier-arctic), authored by 147 experts from 11 nations, tells the disturbing story of the effects of climate change on the Arctic. Some of the changes include: shrinking sea ice, warming atmospheric temperatures, and shorter periods of snow cover. These could all play a role in more frequent polar air intrusions into our region.** So far at least fifty deaths have been attributed to the storm, with at least twenty-seven in New York State. More than 8,305 flights were cancelled and millions of people spent Christmas day without power. The economic impact “will likely be in the billions.” Scientists have been warning us that the time frame for mitigating climate change is quickly closing. [The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in their 2022 report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/), “The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt, creating a harrowing future in which floods, fires and famine displace millions, species disappear and the planet is irreversibly damaged.” **Winter Storm Elliott proved to be an example of how we humans cannot successfully adapt to abrupt changes in our weather, even though we have access to advance technology. As climate changes occur more often and at a faster rate, we find that adapting to these changes will become that much harder and more expensive. Even more alarming is the fact that many of the species we share the planet with will not be able to adapt but will instead succumb to extinction.** >>> Randi Pokladnik is a Scientist residing at Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. She was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/04/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-d/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now C!
by Frack Check WV: admin 03 Jan '23

03 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now C!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/03/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-c/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/A7D64FD5-0896-406D-9BF5-02AA417F9248.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/A7D64FD5-0896-406D-9BF5-02AA417F9248.jpeg) Rational analysis favors a “carbon tax” called a “dividend” **“C” for Capitalism & Climate Change** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **What’s the matter here? Why has so little progress been made on climate change, even as the dangers have become ever more apparent?** According to one school of thought, the problem has to do with incentives. There’s a great deal of money to be made selling fossil fuels — just in the first quarter of 2022, twenty-five of the world’s largest oil-and-gas producers announced profits of close to a hundred billion dollars — and still more money to be made by burning fossil fuels to make stuff to sell, from sunglasses to steel girders. **Meanwhile, the costs of climate change can be fobbed off on someone else. To use the technical term, they are a “negative externality.” In the words of the Stern Review, a report commissioned by the British government in 2005, climate change “is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.”** **By this account, the obvious solution is to realign the incentives — to internalize the externalities. If the cost of the damage caused by a ton of CO2 was borne by the business (or individual) responsible for emitting that ton, then the business (or individual) would be motivated to cut back.** **“A carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary,” a 2019 statement signed by thirty-five hundred economists, including twenty-eight Nobel Prize winners, declared. Such a tax would move “the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future.”** **According to a second school of thought, the trouble runs a whole lot deeper. Our political system is dominated by corporate money in general and fossil-fuel money in particular.** (Last year, the oil-and-gas industry reportedly spent a hundred and twenty million dollars lobbying Washington, and it probably spent a great deal more via front groups.) **It’s therefore naïve to imagine that policies that cut into fossil-fuel profits will be enacted. And even if they were, they wouldn’t solve the essential problem, which is that the “invisible hand” always grasps for more.** If it’s not more oil, it will be more lithium to build batteries, and if it’s not more lithium it will be more cobalt, mined from the bottom of the sea. **“When it comes to global warming, we know that the real problem is not just fossil fuels — it is the logic of endless growth that is built into our economic system,” Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has written.** **[Climate change can’t be dealt with using the tools of capitalism](https://youtu.be/Jdaxehd0cF0), because it is a product of capitalism. It can be dealt with only by throwing off capitalism in favor of something else — a system aimed not at growth but at “degrowth.”** “The difficult truth is that, to prevent climate and ecological catastrophe, we need to level down” is how the British environmental writer George Monbiot recently put it. **A third line of thought — perhaps too bleak and unpopular to be called a school — is that, if big change is hard, bigger change is even harder. How are we going to build a whole new economic system if we can’t even enact a carbon tax?** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Naomi Klein - This Changes Everything](https://youtu.be/Jdaxehd0cF0), Bioneers, November 5, 2014 Climate change as more than an “issue.” It’s a civilizational wake-up call delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts. It demands that we challenge the dominant economic policies of deregulated capitalism and endless resource extraction. Climate change is also the most powerful weapon in the fight for equality and social justice, and real solutions are emerging from the rubble of our failing systems. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/03/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-c/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now B!
by Frack Check WV: admin 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now B!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/02/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-b/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/C89CC715-C6AF-4B3B-A498-37780F390D56.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/C89CC715-C6AF-4B3B-A498-37780F390D56.jpeg) Greta Thunberg brings much needed logic and truth to bear overall! **Greta Thunberg Says Most Climate Talk is “Blah, Blah, Blah”** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **On September 28, 2021, at the Youth4Climate conference, held in Milan, Greta Thunberg took the stage. Sitting near her was the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, wearing a mask. Thunberg, who is five feet tall, could barely be seen over the lectern. She had removed her mask and was smiling.** **“Climate change is not only a threat, it is above all an opportunity to create a healthier, greener, and cleaner planet which will bene!t all of us,” she began. “We must seize this opportunity—we can achieve a win-win in both ecological conservation and high-quality development. . . . We need to walk the talk; if we do this together, we can do this. “When I say ‘climate change,’ what do you think of ?” she went on. “I think of jobs — green jobs.” This received a round of applause. “We must find a smooth transition towards a low-carbon economy,” Thunberg said. “There is no Planet B. There is no Planet Blah—blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah.” Her listeners, including Sala, started to realize that they’d been had. The applause died down. “Build Back Better—blah, blah, blah,” Thunberg continued. “Green economy—blah, blah, blah. “Net zero by 2050—blah, blah, blah. “Net zero—blah, blah, blah. “Climate neutral—blah, blah, blah.** **“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words — words that sound great, but so far have led to no action,” Thunberg said. “Of course we need constructive dialogue, but they’ve now had thirty years of blah, blah, blah, and where has that led us?”** **Five countries are responsible for over half of all historical CO2 emissions, namely United States, China, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom. About a hundred and ninety countries are responsible for the other half.** **It was thirty years ago that the world’s “so-called leaders” gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the so-called Earth Summit.** Everyone agreed that radical change was needed. To avert disaster, global CO2 emissions, which were then running at around twenty-two billion metric tons a year, would have to be reduced, eventually almost to zero. How this would happen, no one really knew. **Still, the goal of preventing “dangerous” warming was enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which President George H. W. Bush cheerfully signed.** “Some find the challenges ahead overwhelming,” Bush said. “I believe that their pessimism is unfounded.” **A follow-up “conference of the parties,” or COP, took place in Kyoto in 1997.** By then, annual global emissions had risen to twenty-four billion tons. After much back-and-forth, it was agreed that something had to be done. **This Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the Framework Convention, laid out specific emissions-reduction targets for countries to meet.** **“I am both determined and optimistic that we can succeed,” Vice President Al Gore told the diplomats gathered in Japan.** **After Kyoto, global emissions kept on rising, only faster. By 2009, they’d climbed to thirty-two billion tons a year. That fall, President Barack Obama "flew to Copenhagen for yet another conference of the parties — COP-15. “I believe that we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat,” he declared.** **By 2015, emissions had increased to thirty-five billion tons a year. At that year’s COP No. 21 — held in Paris, it was decided that, at last, really and truly, it was time to get serious.** “The decisions you make here will reverberate down through the ages,” the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, told the delegates. Nevertheless, emissions continued to rise. **In the past thirty years, humans have added as much CO2 to the atmosphere as they did in the previous thirty thousand.** **At some point during all the “blah, blah, blah”-ing — it’s hard to say when, exactly — climate change ceased to be a prospective problem and became a clear and present one. Since Rio, the Arctic ice cap has shrunk by two-fifths. Greenland has shed some four trillion metric tons of ice, and mountain glaciers have lost six trillion tons. Heat waves are now hotter, droughts deeper, and storms more intense. In some parts of the world, the wildfire season never ends.** **One conclusion to draw from this pattern is that the world isn’t going to avoid “dangerous” warming. Global leaders will continue to gather at COPs — this year’s, in Sharm el-Sheikh, just concluded — and to speak loftily about “net zero” and “a low-carbon economy.” But nothing will change, and, as a result, everything will change. There will be large-scale crop failures. The Greenland ice sheet will start to collapse — it may already be collapsing — and, owing to sea-level rise in some places and desertifcation in others, large swaths of the globe will become uninhabitable.** **This conclusion is not, however, the one that Thunberg chose to draw when she spoke at the Youth4Climate conference. “Right now we are still very much speeding in the wrong direction,” she told the crowd in Milan. “But, of course, we can still turn this around — it is entirely possible.** **“The leaders like to say, ‘We can do this,’ ” Greta went on. “They obviously don’t mean it, but we do — we can do this. I’m absolutely convinced that we can.” Or, as Thunberg herself might put it, Blah, blah, blah.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/02/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-b/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails … A to Z!
by Frack Check WV: admin 01 Jan '23

01 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails … A to Z!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/01/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-%e2%80%a6-a-to-z/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2022/12/2E3D52ED-741D-4A83-BAF5-6BB5D2B0F075.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2022/12/2E3D52ED-741D-4A83-BAF5-6BB5D2B0F075.jpeg) Svante August Arrhenius, Swedish (1859 – 1927), foresaw climate change. **“A is for Arrhenius”** . [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 Svante Arrhenius was, by nature, an optimist. He believed that science should — and could — be accessible to all. In 1891, he got his !rst teaching job, at an experimental university in Stockholm called the Högskola. That same year, he founded the Stockholm Physics Society, which met every other Saturday evening. For a fee of one Swedish crown, anyone could join. Among the society’s earliest members was a Högskola student named Sofia Rudbeck, who was described by a contemporary as both “an excellent chemist” and “a ravishing beauty.” Arrhenius began writing her poetry, and soon the two wed. Physics Society meetings consisted of lectures on the latest scientific developments, many delivered by Arrhenius himself, followed by discussions that often lasted well into the night. The topics ranged widely, from aeronautics to volcanology. The society devoted several sessions to considering the instruments that would be needed by Salomon August Andrée, another early member of the group, who had decided to try to reach the North Pole via balloon. (Whatever the quality of his instruments, Andrée’s voyage would result in his death and the death of his two companions.) A question that particularly interested the Physics Society was the origin of the ice ages. All over Sweden lay signs of the glaciers that had, for vast stretches of time, buried the country: rocks with parallel scrapings; strange, sinuous piles of gravel; huge boulders that had been transported far from their source. But what had caused the great ice sheets to descend, carrying all before them? And then what had caused them to retreat, allowing the rivers to "ow once again and the forests to return? In 1893, the society debated various theories that had been proposed, including one linking the ice ages to slight variations in the Earth’s orbit. The following year, Arrhenius came up with a different—and, he thought, better—idea: carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, he knew, had curious heat-trapping properties. In the atmosphere, it allowed visible light to pass through, but it absorbed the longer-wave radiation that the Earth was constantly emitting to space. What if, Arrhenius speculated, the amount of CO2 in the air had varied? Could that explain the glaciers’ ebb and flow? The math involved in testing this theory went far beyond what was possible at the time. Arrhenius didn’t have a calculator, let alone a computer. He lacked crucial information about which wavelengths, exactly, CO2 absorbs. The climate system, meanwhile, is immensely complicated, with feedback loops nestled within feedback loops. Arrhenius, who would later win a Nobel Prize for an unrelated discovery, plunged ahead anyway. On Christmas Eve, 1894, he began constructing a climate model — the world’s first. He assembled temperature data from around the globe and made ingenious use of a set of measurements that had been taken a decade earlier by an American astronomer, Samuel Pierpont Langley. (Langley had invented a device — a bolometer — for gauging infrared radiation, and had used it to determine the temperature of the moon.) Arrhenius performed thousands of computations —perhaps tens of thousands — and often labored over this task for fourteen hours a day. He was still calculating away as his marriage fell apart. In September of 1895, Rudbeck moved out. In November, without having seen Arrhenius again, she gave birth to their son. The following month, Arrhenius finished his work. “I should certainly not have undertaken these tedious calculations if an extraordinary interest had not been connected with them,” he wrote. Arrhenius believed that he had unravelled the mystery of the ice ages, a riddle that had “hitherto proved most difficult to interpret.” He was at least partly right: ice ages are the product of a complex interplay of forces, including wobbles in the Earth’s orbit and changes in atmospheric CO2. His model turned out to have another use as well. All across Europe and North America, coal was being shovelled into furnaces that were bellowing out carbon dioxide. By thickening the atmospheric blanket that warmed the Earth, humans must, Arrhenius reasoned, be altering the climate. He calculated that, if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air were to double, then global temperatures would rise between three and four degrees Celsius. A few quadrillion computations later, vastly more advanced climate models predict that doubling CO2 will push temperatures up between 2.5 and four degrees Celsius, meaning that Arrhenius’s pen-and-paper estimate was, to an uncanny degree, on target. Arrhenius thought that the future he had conjured would be delightful. “Our descendants,” he predicted, would live happier lives “under a warmer sky.” The prospect was, in any event, distant; doubling atmospheric CO2 would, he reckoned, take humanity three thousand years. It’s easy now to poke fun at Arrhenius for his sunniness. The doubling threshold could be reached within decades, and the results are apt to be disastrous. But who among us is any different? Here we all are, watching things fall apart. And yet, deep down, we don’t believe it. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/01/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-%e2%80%a6-a-to-z/>

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News January 2023