Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the most recent previous Green Spotlight. More than 24,530 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in this series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
U.S. Tropical Disease Expert Warns Dire Poverty Makes Houston & Gulf Coast Ripe for Zika Virus written by FishOutofWater: “Yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of the potential for the explosive spread of the Zika virus through the Americas. Margaret Chan, the director of the WHO, warned that the Americas could be hit by 4 million cases of Zika this year. The outbreak of Zika virus now centered in Brazil has been linked to a sudden increase in severe birth defects including microcephaly, babies born with tiny heads and brains. NPR reported yesterday that other neurological problems such as babies born blind may also be linked to Zika. Researchers do not yet understand Zika and have not yet proven causality, but the circumstantial evidence connecting the Zika outbreak to the sudden, large increase in birth defects is very strong. Report yesterday quoted experts who said that Zika was a low risk to the United States because the U.S. doesn’t have the poverty and high population densities that have caused the explosive spread of Zika in Brazil, but Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease researcher who lives in Texas, has warned that poverty and high population density makes Houston highly vulnerable to a Zika outbreak.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Daily Bucket: water spirit feelin' springin' round my head written by Besame: “My world is juicy. Has the drought ended? The meadow around me is plump and green, earth soft beneath my feet. Rain striking grass, porch, roof, trees, camellias is background music to my life. As wind gusts approach, I hear them coming like the roar of a distant waterfall and then leafless lilacs rattle against the west windows and the wind growls louder as it fights through the tall dense incense cedar south of the house. Cedar buds not yet ready to open shred off the tree’s leaf tips. Red pistache fruits in open clusters drop from high in the tree and shatter, leaving the fruits accessible to ground-feeding birds. Wildflowers and weeds nestle close to the soil. Water binds us together: sky, earth, trees, animals, fallen fruits, wildflowers, weeds, wind, and me.”
Daily Bucket: The Marco Island Mangrove Restoration Project written by Lenny Flank: “In 1938, the state of Florida built a bridged road out to Marco Island, near Naples. Inadvertently, the bridge cut off the natural flow of seawater and killed over 250 acres of vital mangrove forest habitat. Today, 75 years later, efforts are being made to repair the damage. And the project just got some unexpected help from a Chinese billionaire. Collier County is one of the largest counties in Florida. It is also one of the most sparsely populated; the only large city is Naples. In the southern part of the county, about 20 miles)south of Naples near the Everglades, is Marco Island, one of the barrier islands that ring the coastline. Few people lived on Marco until 1927, when a spur from the Atlantic Coast Railroad was extended to the island. In 1937, it was decided to connect Marco Island to US Route 41, the main automobile highway that ran down the west coast of Florida. State Road 92, now known as San Marco Road, was built over a causeway bridge that crossed the intercoastal waterway to the barrier island. The project was finished in 1938. The island soon became a haven for high-end seaside houses. But unknown to the builders, the road and the residential construction were causing an ecological catastrophe. Marco Island was covered by an extensive area of mangrove trees, which were critical to the environmental health of the island. ”
THE DAILY BUCKET--Oh, Happy Day! written by 6412093: “Eleven years ago, I rented a backhoe to clear brush off my property one Saturday. My wife went shopping, and my teenaged son and I started messing around with the backhoe; they are like a bulldozer but also have a long-armed scoop, and are real cool. We forgot to clear the brush, and instead we dug a 15’ x20’ pond two feet deep. It would have been much bigger but my wife came home early and stopped us. I put a engineered plastic liner in the hole, added with a water filtering system and pump, and planted lilies and irises from the golf course ponds where I work part time. I filled the new pond with water, and stocked it with forty comet gold fish, each about an inch long.(Casassius auratus). The goldfish flourished and grew over the next year. Some displayed dazzling colors. But my favorite was an 8-inch long quartz-white fish named Moby Dick, of course. It recognized me, and if I walked along the pond’s edge, it would come swirling to the surface and would eat pellets from my fingers. Then one day, I didn’t see Moby any more.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
This is Why We'll Never Win on Climate Change written by Mike Coblenz: Twenty degrees warmer than normal during the winter is a nice change when it happens every once in a while, but when it happens nearly every day, it’s a sign that something is wrong. The current conditions may be ‘nice’ but this weather is actually worrying. It’s actually disconcerting. But it’s hard to convince people that it’s a problem when the meteorologist on TV gushes about how nice it is. We will only convince people that climate change is real when TV meteorologists describe 60° in January as ‘freaky.’”
The Simple Science of Climate Change written by Mike Coblenz: “The science of climate change is very simple. Anyone who has ever put salt on their driveway in the winter understands the basic science. Adding an impurity to a solution changes the physical properties of that solution. Add salt to water and you change the melting point. Put salt on a snowy sidewalk and the snow melts. A British scientist named John Tyndall discovered in the 1850’s that if you add carbon to air it changes its properties, allowing it to retain heat better.”
Destrian 01/29/2016 07:00 AM 3 3 Deniers Launch Cayman-Island Anti-Renewable Investment Scheme written by ClimateDenierRoundup: “James Delingpole has a new column in The Spectator that combines a few recent Denier Roundup topics: losing bets, global warming odds, and disguised promotion of self-interest. In Delingpole's piece, he drops any pretense of objective journalism and dives headfirst into the world of native advertising with his shameless plugging of a new hedge fund—Cool Futures—that bets against renewables. Interestingly, he fails to mention that his fellow denier-blogger, Jo Nova, and her husband, David Edwards, are involved. (Though he does mention them in his Breitbart write-up.)
In both pieces, Delingpole also fails to mention that Chris Dawson, CEO of the Lord Monckton Foundation, launched the fund. While Monckton’s Foundation has plugged the new effort, JoNova has not. It's possible she is hesitant to reveal that her blog, which regularly attacks renewables, is now functioning as a lobbying effort on behalf of her new work with Cool Futures.”
ENERGY
Nuclear, Coal, Oil and Gas
Coal Bankruptcy 101: Companies Are Leaving Workers and Communities In the Lurch written by Mary Anne Hitt: “Coal company bankruptcies have been making headlines in 2016, as the nation shifts to clean energy, and that has left many people worried and wondering about what it means for the workers, communities, mountains, and streams that are in danger of being left behind. Bankruptcy proceedings are a complicated legal labyrinth, and a place where decisions on all these issues are made. The Sierra Club is fortunate to have talented attorneys on our staff who know how to navigate and represent us in these proceedings, and today I'm sharing a ‘coal bankruptcy 101’ post by our attorney Peter Morgan, as a primer and resource at this pivotal time. There's just so much at stake, and it's essential for community, worker, and environmental advocates to have a voice as these decisions are made.”
Hydraulic Fracking
Banana Republic: U.S. Fracking Pioneer Aubrey McClendon Bringing Practice to Argentina written by Steve Horn: “Aubrey McClendon, the embattled former CEO and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy, has announced his entrance into Argentina to begin hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the country's Vaca Muerta Shale basin. Though he retired as Chesapeake Energy's CEO back in 2013 in the aftermath of a shareholder revolt, McClendon wasted little time in creating a new company called American Energy Partners (AEP). AEP, like Chesapeake, has found itself mired since its onset in legal snafus over its treatment of landowners. With AEP not getting a red carpet roll-out in the U.S., McClendon has looked southward for other lucrative business adventures. DeSmog reported in September that McClendon has also teamed up with a private equity company affiliated with former Mexican president Vicente Fox to begin tapping into Mexico's portion of the Eagle Ford Shale basin”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
Hillary, pipelines, and the Franklin Square Energy and Power Fund written by playjurist: “Hillary Clinton is fundraising with Franklin Square Capital Partners at an event that was scheduled for just prior to the Iowa Caucuses. theintercept.com/... Franklin Square is heavily invested in domestic oil and gas.www.franklinsquare.com/... Their CEO mentions the Bakken Shale, and their strategy of making their investments based on putting proven reserves up as collateral. So we're talking bets on extracting and shipping all those reserves. Questions for Hillary: Do you think that we should stop changing the climate now or at some unspecified later date?”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
One billionaire's 'Megayacht' destroyed 80% of West Bay's protected Caribbean coral reef written by Walter Einenkel: “Paul Allen is a co-founder of Microsoft. He owns sports teams and lots of big things because he is wicked rich. He loves big boats. Following an inspection by local divers to assess the damage, officials have found that Allen’s 300 ft yacht MV Tatoosh wrecked a high percentage of the coral, which is essential for marine’s life. It is thought that the accident was caused by a yacht’s chain when it was anchored by the Doc Poulson shipwreck and The Knife dive site. The boat in question, the Tatoosh, is number 49 on Boat’s top 200 largest yachts—or as I like to call it, the Top 200 signs you cannot fill the hole that’s eating you from the inside out. How much precious coral reef was destroyed?”
Across USA, water clocks running faster as private firms swoop in on a precious public resource written by rlegro: “The Children's Museum in Indianapolis boasts North America's biggest water clock, a tower that uses colored water to mark the passage of time. While a remarkable and elegant device, It's also an ironic, inadvertent metaphor for that city’s decision more than a decade ago to transfer its public water utility to private ownership, a move the city later rescinded after poor service and high rates. The Indy experience was an early skirmish in an accelerating push by companies like Veolia, the French transnational, to either service or own more and more public water resources in the USA. According to today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, another company with similar intentions is Aqua America Inc. That's a Pennsylvania firm with operations in Illinois and seven other states, ‘whose aggressive growth strategy has resulted in nearly 200 acquisitions in the last decade.’”
Folsom Lake rises to 44% of capacity after reaching record low of 14% in 2015 written by Dan Bacher: “Folsom Lake, the Sacramento metropolitan area’s backyard landlocked king salmon, rainbow trout and black bass fishery, reached its lowest-ever water level in November 2015 when it plunged to only 140,523 acre feet of water, 14 percent of capacity. That surpasses the previous low water level of 140,600 acre feet reached in November 1977. However, over the past month the runoff from the long-anticipated El Niño storms in the American River watershed has improved water conditions at the reservoir dramatically. The lake is now holding 428,716 acre-feet of water, 44 percent of capacity and 84 percent of average. The water level has risen to 407.12 vertical feet in elevation, 58.88 feet from maximum pool. The reservoir has risen over 58 feet since November.”
Pro-Tunnels Group Bars Journalist from Media Teleconference written by Dan Bacher: “It appears that Californians for Water Security, the “coalition” created by corporate agribusiness interests to promote the California Water Fix plan to build Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels, does not want independent journalists to ask them any tough questions about the controversial water project. On January 27, I received a “media advisory” from Inez Kaminski ofCalifornians for Water Security advising me of a Teleconference the following day at 10:30 am to ‘discuss the urgency of implementing California’s Water Fix.’ The advisory originated out of the Sacramento-based Swanson Communications, the public relations firm promoting Californians for Water Security.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Of course the Malheur siege was all Obama's fault - another example of Federal fecklessness written by annieli: “Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, said that the Obama administration’s ‘abject failure’ to enforce the law has led to the current standoff at a wildlife refuge in his state. DeFazio blamed the administration for the standoff at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in recent comments to a local Portland radio station, BuzzFeed first reported.’Look, I’m not gonna get into tactics. Enforcing the law doesn’t mean that we run in there with Humvees and engage in a gun battle, but it does mean when this ends–hopefully peacefully—that these people will be prosecuted because they have broken the law and they shouldn’t just walk away,’ DeFazio stated. ‘As far as I know, Cliven Bundy is still engaged in grazing his cattle illegally and has not paid any fines and there’s been zero enforcement against him.’”
Will Bundy leadership decapitation end the siege at Malheur Wildlife Refuge written by annieli: “It is unfortunate that LEOs now have far too much experience in paramilitary pacification from our endless wars for oil, since some remaining members of the Bundystani insurgency have chosen to ‘stay and fight’ rather than take advantage of a path to unprosecuted exit. Considering the content and structure of the current documents used to arrest the Bundystani leadership, anyone more peripherally involved should simply try to live to fight another day. The information used to develop the warrants revealed nothing of LEO intelligence gathering from non-public sources and chances are that informants still remain in the siege site as well as other electronic intelligence gathering probably planted from the beginning.”
BREAKING: OregonLive reports Jason Patrick, two others at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, arrested written by Gemina13: “OregonLive is reporting the arrest of Jason Patrick, at a roadblock outside the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. According to the article, Patrick, 43, a native of Bonaire, Georgia, was arrested at a checkpoint near Burns, OR, at about 8:40 p.m. Two of his fellow extremists, Duane Leo Ehmer (45, of Irrigon, OR) and Dylan Wade Anderson (34, of Provo, UT) were also arrested by the FBI, same as Patrick, at 3:30 p.m. Each man faces a charge of one federal felony count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats. Patrick is a known sympathizer with the Three Percenter Movement (the name references the movement’s questionable stat that just 3% of Americans were active in the Revolutionary War; the members want to be this century’s revolutionaries).”
The Powder Keg: How Malheur Could Escalate written by Rose City Rose: “In the recent past, conventional wisdom has held that a right-wing revolt in this country was unlikely. The feedback I have heard most often is that either the government response would be swift and decisive, or that the right-wingers were cowardly weekend warriors who would never attempt a serious revolution and certainly wouldn’t go very far if they did try anything. The former has been proven tragically wrong; the response was neither swift nor decisive and the financial and social cost of their reluctance to act has been devastating to the community and to the integrity of the sensitive ecosystem of Malheur. It remains to be seen if the latter proves false or not. This is, after all, a developing story.”
Breaking: Ammon statement: Go Home to your families written by G2Geek: “Heard just now on CBS radio network news (5PM Pacific time): Ammon Bundy released a statement from jail encouraging the remaining people at the bird sanctuary to ‘go home peacefully and be with their families.’ I’m inclined to think this will help bring this to a peaceful end.”
Ammon Bundy issues plea to remaining militants via his attorney: 'Please stand down' written by Jen Hayden: “Ammon Bundy has a message for the remaining armed militants at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge: ‘I'm asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted,’ Bundy said through his attorney Mike Arnold, who stood outside court to read Bundy's statement. ‘To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home.’ The remaining men and women appeared in a live stream on YouTube earlier today and seemed resolute for this to end in a gun battle. Let’s hope they get the message conveyed through Bundy’s attorney and lay down their guns.”
Breaking ... the Bundy complaint written by wee mama: “The thirty-one page complaint against Bundy et al is now online.”
Fleeing terrorists leave everything behind at refuge written by cany: “When word got back to the refuge that Ammon Bundy et. al. had been captured, and a person shot and killed, on their way to a propaganda meeting in Grant County, the brave at the refuge jumped ship. Quickly. Many left their weapons behind, not to mention a bevy of personal belongings fearing immediate reprisal from LE. I would guess there’s plenty of evidence left behind for LE to rifle through when they finally end this and get inside to do so. As Fry, one of the four remaining loons on the refuge, noted in a comment attached to the video of the so-called barracks (!): People so scared didn't even pack their stuff. Thought feds were coming to kill everyone. Waco style.”
Another opinion on press coverage of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge Occupation written by ilywrch: “The first paragraph gives you an idea about how the largest newspaper in the state of Oregon covered this rebellion without a clue, & how [science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula] LeGuin felt about it: The Oregonian's A1 headline on Sunday, Jan. 17, ‘Effort to free federal lands,’ is inaccurate and irresponsible. The article that follows it is a mere mouthpiece for the scofflaws illegally occupying public buildings and land, repeating their lies and distortions of history and law. Nice to see Oregon’s best-known writer taking the editorial board to task over becoming a print version of Fox News.”
BYPRODUCTS, TRASH, TOXIC & RADIOACTIVE WASTE
Flint Residents Fear Children Could Be Taken Away If They Don’t Pay For City’s Poison Water written by Portia Elm: “If Flint residents have their water shut off for non-payment, their home could be foreclosed and/or their children taken away. The Free Thought Project. Michigan law states that parents are neglectful if they do not have running water in their home, and if they chose not to pay for water they can’t drink anyway, then they could be guilty of child endangerment. Flint resident Melissa Mays says that some residents have already received similar threats from the government if they refuse to pay their bills. The Flint residents have recently filed two class action suits to have water bills declared null and void from April 2014 to present.”
SMOKING WATER PISTOL IN FLINT: Snyder Admin. Trucked in Clean Water for State Employees A YEAR AGO written by Brainwrap: “Presented without comment, because what the f*ck else am I supposed to add here? In January of 2015, when state officials were telling worried Flint residents their water was safe to drink, they also were arranging for coolers of purified water in Flint's State Office Building so employees wouldn't have to drink from the taps, according to state government e-mails released Thursday by the liberal group Progress Michigan. A Jan. 7, 2015, notice from the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget, which oversees state office buildings, references a notice about a violation of drinking water standards that had recently been sent out by the City of Flint.”
It's Difficult to Keep Up With The STUPIDITY THAT'S PURE MICHIGAN written by TRAmnesia: “Rick Snyder, the embattled governor of Michigan, claims he wants to ‘fix’ the poisoned city of Flint, but just keeps stumbling and stuttering and falling on his face so many times it’s becoming difficult to keep pace. Although it’s disputed by his own emails and statements made by his staff, he claims he wasn’t aware of the water problem until October 1, 2015 and that he ‘took action’ two days later. As of this evening, January 27, 2016, Lead-Head Rick’s republican legislature has yet to approve one dollar of funds to address this problem. Maybe tomorrow they’ll vote on it, or by the end of the week. Maybe when they’re done enumerating the ways they will mandate the oversight of the money to make sure the shifty poor people in Flint don’t squander it, or just plain keep it.”
ACLU Files Suit in Federal Court and Asks them to Oversee Flint MI Water Crisis written by AltenMcw: “The ACLU files suit in Federal court and asks them to step in and oversee the Flint Water Crisis. A coalition of local citizens and national groups filed suit today to ask a federal court to step in and secure access to safe drinking water for the people of Flint, Michigan. Alleging violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, the complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the ACLU of Michigan, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Concerned Pastors for Social Action and Flint resident Melissa Mays. The Federal courts needs to step in quickly and order Federal oversight and management of this unprecedented disaster brought to the residents of Flint MI by Governor Snyder and his self-appointed and unelected City Manager!”
ACLU and others file federal lawsuit to secure safe drinking water in Flint written by BMScott: “I just got an email from the ACLU with this link: A coalition of local citizens and national groups filed suit today to ask a federal court to step in and secure access to safe drinking water for the people of Flint, Michigan. Alleging violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, the complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the ACLU of Michigan, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Concerned Pastors for Social Action and Flint resident Melissa Mays.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging: Orchids in Bloom written by skohayes: “I have always loved orchids, but never had the space or the sunlight to get them to bloom in the winter. Until I moved to Kansas, and bought a house with a sunroom. Three floor to ceiling south facing windows and three facing west give me more than enough winter sun to make lots of plants happy! Unfortunately, I can’t access Photobucket right now (down for maintenance, how dare they??) for pictures of my first orchid plant, which was a spider orchid similar to the photo below. I think it lived for two years before I drowned it completely and it died. You see, I thought orchids needed a lot of water, and since it’s so dry out here, they must need water all the time! I couldn’t have been more wrong—orchids don’t need much water at all in the winter when they’re blooming.”
Japan has created world's first robot farm that hopes to produce 30,000 heads of lettuce every day written by Walter Einenkel: “Spread is a Japanese agricultural company that is developing a large-scale, fully automated farm that they boast can produce30,000 heads of lettuce a day. The Vegetable Factory follows the growing agricultural trend of vertical farming, where farmers grow crops indoors without natural sunlight. Instead, they rely on LED light and grow crops on racks that stack on top of each other. In addition to increasing production and reducing waste, indoor vertical farming also eliminates runoff from pesticides and herbicides — chemicals used in traditional outdoor farming that can be harmful to the environment. The good news is that costs will go down on the lettuce produced and, more importantly, energy use will be cut down while recycling of the water needed will reach 98%.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Hillary raised big funds last night from Franklin Sq. Capital which has huge investment in Fracking written by VL Baker: “So, right before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary traveled to PA to do a major fundraiser at an investment firm heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, including offshore oil drilling and fracking. The organizers of the fundraiser are hoping for less government regulations in future. One of Franklin Square Capital’s investment funds, the FS Energy & Power Fund, is heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, including offshore oil drilling and fracking. A disclosure posted by the company cautions that “changes to laws and increased regulation or restrictions on the use of hydraulic fracturing may adversely impact” the fund’s performance. As secretary of state, Clinton worked to spread fracking around the world.”
MISCELLANY
Combating an Obesogenic Environment written by Robocop: “The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report last week that found that 41 million children around the world ‘under the age of five were either overweight or obese.’ The report also found that obesity is no longer restricted to the wealthiest countries. Half of those overweight or obese children live in Africa and one quarter in Asia. Peter Gluckman, one author of the WHO report, called childhood obesity ‘an exploding nightmare in the developing world.’ An obesogenic environment, put simply, is one in which people are encouraged to eat an unhealthy diet and not do enough exercise. Clearly, children under the age of five are not in control of what foods they consume, and other than toddling around the park, they don’t require an exercise regimen. The problem is centered, then, on the global food and drink companies that purposefully maintain an obesogenic environment, one where processed and nutrient poor foods are peddled for profit regardless of the consequences.”