Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the Feb. 8 Green Spotlight. More than 26,390 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
FishOutofWater writes—Climate Crisis: North Pole Temp is 50 F Above Normal & Arctic Sea Ice Volume is Collapsing: “Polar weather has been far warmer this winter than any winter on record, shocking scientists who are watching sea ice volume decline to record lows for the date. Winds have driven large amounts of the oldest ice out of the Arctic while the weather has been far too warm for months for the ice to thicken like it normally does by February. And now the north pole is fifty degrees F above normal. Again. The polar vortex has been wobbling like a lopsided football all winter sending warm air towards the pole from the Atlantic, then the Pacific, and back again, while the cold air has escaped to the west Pacific by way of Siberia and to western Atlantic by way of Canada. Surges of warm winds and storm waves have driven back the sea ice edges repeatedly on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic. The ice is extraordinarily thin across most of the Arctic ocean.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - snowy day, and the next day: “After several days of freezing temperatures and dustings of snow that persisted in the cold weather. the NWS forecast early snowfall changing to solid rain on Wednesday. But for those of us in the northern Salish Sea region it turned out to be snowy all day long, as a cold northeast wind continued to blow out of the Fraser River gap. Luckily I had nowhere to go, so I could just enjoy what’s quite rare for us in the maritime PNW. This is the first winter in years we’ve had any snow at all. Those of my neighbors who weren’t stuck in ditches were out sledding and making snow-creatures. I didn’t go any further than my backyard, for fear of slipping and falling. [...] Our climate is very mild compared to most at this latitude but birds find it challenging when the temperature gets cold and snow covers the ground. Birds were visiting my birdfeeders with great enthusiasm all day long.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Ammo to Fight Back Against Fake News and Alternative Facts: “Since the deniersphere is still salivating over the David Rose NOAA-thing burger, we thought this might be a good time for just a little reflection. The perfect piece for this comes thanks to Stefan Rahmstorf at Real Climate, who talks about how the issues that have roiled the mainstream media recently, from fake news to alternative facts to hacked emails, are “old hat” for climate scientists and their supporters. And of course, he’s right. We went through the email hack scandal with the original Climategate. We see fake news constantly (fun fact: Wikipedia just banned the Daily Mail as an unreliable source) and are all-too-familiar with elected officials quoting alternative facts (looking at you, Lamar “I’m going to pretend like Bates said the Karl study was fudged” Smith). Rahmstorf helpfully ends his piece with some things to watch out for, as well as some tips: don’t ignore or normalize fake news. Do remember to check your sources, provide citations, and of course explain the industry backing of those who propagate many alternative facts. We have a few more to add, if you’d indulge us.”
Angmar writes—The Daily Bucket:Passionfruit Flower at Hawk Canyon in Anza Borrego Desert State Park: ”Hawk Canyon is located in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in the western Salton trough of Southern California. The region is well known for its complexity and extensive geologic record. Late Cenozoic faulting is common throughout the zone, mainly in the form of normal faulting and right-lateral strike-slip faulting (Figure 4, Table 1). Much of the area is considered part of the San Andreas Fault system, which records the more recent fault displacements within a long-lived transtensional plate boundary. This system delineates the boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate and isespecially seismically active as a result. The Pacific plate’s northern movement over the past 25 to 30 million years has produced a complicated network of faults, mountain fronts and sedimentary basins.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: Oroville Lake is overflowing its banks for the first time ever: “For the first time since dam construction and lake filling in 1968, water is overflowing out the emergency spillway. Since the regular spillway eroded Tuesday, CA Department of Water Resources and dam management has cleared trees off the slope to help limit large debris moving downstream as water moved downslope. Here’s a video that shows the entire layout of the spillway, slope, and Feather River channel at the base. The spillway is 1,700 feet long. [...] All the experts say there is no threat to the dam, the city of Oroville and any others downstream. The overflow won’t be more than the Feather River channel can handle although the water will carry a high sediment load.”
Dan Bacher writes—Oroville Dam Update: emergency spillway expected to be used as soon as early Saturday: “The California Department of Water resources this morning issued an update on the giant hole caused by erosion in the Oroville Dam spillway: As it manages storm inflow to Lake Oroville with a main spillway damaged by erosion, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced late Thursday that the reservoir’s emergency spillway likely will be used, perhaps as soon as the early hours of Saturday. In that event, total discharges from the reservoir would be consistent with flood control releases at this time of year under these weather conditions. DWR does not expect the discharge from the reservoir to exceed the capacity of any channel downstream as the water flows through the Feather River, into the Sacramento River and on to the San Francisco Bay. Inflow to Lake Oroville was expected to peak late Thursday and begin to decline through the weekend. Oroville Dam itself is sound and there is no imminent threat to the public, said DWR Acting Director William Croyle.”
Dan Bacher writes—State officials increase releases down eroded Oroville Dam spillway to 35,000 cfs! “As the cavity in the Oroville Dam spillway continued to erode, California Department of Water Resources (DWR) staff today ramped up flows down the concrete spillway to 35,000 cubic feet per second after conferring with state and federal dam safety officials. ‘There is no imminent or expected threat to public safety or the integrity of Oroville Dam,’ DWR Director Bill Croyle and other officials have repeatedly said. However, with inflows into the lake more than anticipated, it’s likely that DWR will increase flows to 55,000 cfs to avoid the use of the dam’s never-used emergency spillway. Overnight flows of 20,000 cfs caused additional lower spillway erosion, as expected, officials said. The staff halted spillway flows again for a few hours this morning to evaluate the integrity of the structure.”
Dan Bacher writes—CDFW rescues 8 million young salmon, 1 million steelhead on Feather River: “Over 50 California Department of Fish and Wildlife staff conducted a successful relocation over the past two days of 6.5 million young Chinook salmon imperiled by raging, muddy flows of 65,000 cfs below Oroville Dam as a giant hole caused by erosion continues to expand.The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) this afternoon boosted the water release from 40,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 65,000 cfs with hopes that they could avoid the use of the emergency spillway at the Lake Oroville and Oroville Dam site in Butte County, according to DWR.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
A Siegel writes—Tom Perriello: Breaking Through Political Consultant Shibboleths About the Environment? “ ‘Climate change doesn’t poll well.’ ‘People don’t care about the environment.’ ‘Shouldn’t talk about science, it’s not an issue.’ If you are someone who understands our environmental (especially climate) challenges and have had the “pleasure” of being around the political consultant VSP (very serious people) cabals who pad their bank accounts off political campaign after political campaign, you’ve heard comments like those. [...]It seems that Tom Perriello, in his campaign to become the Democratic nominee for and next Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, doesn’t have such VSPs on his payroll. This Wednesday, Tom came out with a video calling for Virginia to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy rather than allowing Dominion Power to steamroll its way through the Commonwealth with two fracked natural gas pipelines.”
REGULATION
Walter Einenkel writes— The EPA is already being forced to cut staff attending environmental conference in half: “The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to help set standards of conduct in regards to our natural resources. For the part of the population that seems to have drunk the dirty-water Kool-aid being pushed by Republicans, the EPA is supposed to do something very simple: make sure our water and air and plants and animals aren’t poisoned and polluted because we eat and drink and use those things as humans. Donald Trump’s transition team isn’t waiting around for Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to be confirmed to lead the EPA in order to begin dismantling the protection agency. The Environmental Protection Agency's presence at an environmental conference in Alaska this week was cut in half, after the Trump administration's transition officials ordered the change. The agency had helped to plan the Alaska Forum on the Environment — but days before it was to start, word came that half of the EPA's 34 planned attendees wouldn't be making the trip.”
ENERGY
Nuclear
Joieau writes—Fukushima Unit-2 Containment Cripples Another Robot: “Previous instrument penetration of the unit-2 containment vessel in 2013 from a higher level measured radiation levels of between 17 and 36 Sv/hr along the CRD catwalk but outside the pedestal, leading to an estimate of what the highest level "should" be in the pedestal of 73 Sv/hr. So the robot development consortium created for this kind of work at Fukushima — the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning [IRID] — created an instrumentation and tool-wielding robot for the planned pedestal entry that could withstand a 75 Sv/hr radiation level for at least 10 hours. Unfortunately, it cannot withstand a 530 Sv/hr radiation level for more than a couple of hours (and I think they’re wildly overconfident on that). TEPCO and IRID announced they might have to wait for a tougher robot, but then decided that investigation of the hole and what might be underneath it was too important in the quest to find out where the melted fuel went when it came out of the bottom of the reactor vessel during the meltdown. So they decided that they'd send the new 75 Sv/hr-hardened robot in anyway late this week or early next week to do what it can before the radiation kills it. In order to give that robot — ‘Scorpion’ — as extended a working life as possible in that extreme environment, they sent a 'cleaning robot' into the pedestal overnight (today in Japan, which is now into tomorrow) to water-blast, hammer and remove as much corium debris from the floor grating as possible.”
Emissions Controls & Carbon Pricing
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Reality-Conscious GOP Bring Carbon Tax to Trump’s GOP: “When news broke Tuesday night that a group of elder GOP statesmen have a plan for a conservative-friendly carbon tax, suffice it to say it raised some eyebrows. The deal would apply a border adjustment to level the playing field and let Exxon et al off the hook for tobacco settlement-like lawsuits and swap the Clean Power Plan and the EPA’s remand to regulate CO2 for a rising $40/ton price on carbon. It may or may not be well received by greens, but it at least provides some political cover for those on the right who might be brave enough to acknowledge the fact that climate change is man-made and who actually do believe in free-market, conservative solutions. Deniers, though, were obviously none too thrilled. James Delingpole had a quick rant about it at Breitbart, where he assumed to know Ronald Reagan better than George Shultz, who is part of team carbon tax. Given that Shultz was Reagan’s secretary of State, this is just as believable as anything else Delingpole writes. Over at the Koch’s Daily Caller, Koch operative Michael Bastasch talked to former Koch lobbyist and current president of Koch’s American Energy Alliance Tom Pyle. Pyle was against the plan, saying that swapping regulations for a carbon tax would be a ‘bad deal.’”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Walter Einenkel writes—President Jimmy Carter is leasing his peanut farm for solar energy because he's Jimmy Carter: “Former President (and arguably the GOAT of post-presidency careers) Jimmy Carter is leasing 10 acres of his Georgia peanut farm to SolAmerica to create a 1.3MW solar array. Carter, an early advocate and leader of the renewable energy movement during his tenure in the White House, commented, ‘Rosalynn and I are very pleased to be part of SolAmerica's exciting solar project in Plains. Distributed, clean energy generation is critical to meeting growing energy needs around the world while fighting the effects of climate change. I am encouraged by the tremendous progress that solar and other clean energy solutions have made in recent years and expect those trends to continue."’President Carter created the Department of Energy and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and signed the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURPA), all catalysts for the advancement of renewable energy in the U.S. Carter was also the first president to put solar panels on the White House. While 1.3 megawatts isn’t going to power Georgia—the exact number of homes it could power is just north of 200—but Carter is using his celebrity and longstanding support of solar to help promote the benefits of his 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA).”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
ClimateBrad writes—#NoDAPL: California Must Divest from Trump's Dakota Access Disaster: “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has filed documents in court and with Congress notifying them that they are terminating the environmental review of the Dakota Access Pipeline and expediting its approval. Tribal leaders have vowed to fight Trump, and we need to stand with them. How do we make a difference when racist oiligarchs have taken over the White House? It turns out that if we look we can find connections to DAPL and climate destruction on our own turf. In particular, California’s giant public pension fund – California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) – owns a major chunk of Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline. CalPERS is run by Democratic officials and union leaders on behalf of pensioners who are some of the greatest climate activists in the nation. Instead of financing our own destruction, we can use our financial power to resist the Trumpocalypse. A growing coalition of local activists and Indigenous and environmental organizations is holding an emergency #NoDAPL rally in Sacramento on Monday to demand CalPERS divest from this Trump-approved, climate-killing disaster.”
Walter Einenkel writes—The FBI's 'terrorism taskforce' is targeting Standing Rock activists: “Whether Donald Trump or some other Republican became president of the United States, one thing was for certain—civil and social justice would take a back seat to building up the powers of the state’s law enforcement apparatus. The appointment of Jeff Sessions to Attorney General means that people of color and people fighting for social justice are now targets. Now The Guardian is reporting that the FBI has begun investigating political activists involved in the NoDAPL movement. The purpose of the officers’ inquiries into Standing Rock, and scope of the task force’s work, remains unknown. Agency officials declined to comment. But the fact that the officers have even tried to communicate with activists is alarming to free-speech experts who argue that anti-terrorism agents have no business scrutinizing protesters. ‘The idea that the government would attempt to construe this indigenous-led non-violent movement into some kind of domestic terrorism investigation is unfathomable to me,’ said Lauren Regan, a civil rights attorney who has provided legal support to demonstrators who were contacted by representatives of the FBI. ‘It’s outrageous, it’s unwarranted … and it’s unconstitutional.’”
e2247 writes—Standing Rock in the Practical fight ~~ Standing Rock in the Prayer fight: “ Many blessings to you. Push all that divide & conquer crap out to the side. In peace with dignity unite inside the tip of the spear at the global intersection of resistance to fossil fuels and fascism… 77 people were arrested in just one hour last week when sparsely populated North Dakota total arrests of peaceful, prayerful civilian citizen-led nonviolent resistance and journalists rose above 700. This is a really simple effort to save Uŋčí Makȟá (Grandmother Earth) and Her eldest daughter, first medicine Mnisní (fresh water)”
rebel ga writes—The Resistance Continues-AcoE Grants Easement To Dakota Access. US Veterans Return, With Pictures: “This week, our voices were ignored. The Army Corps of Engineers is moving forward with the construction of the pipeline without completing an environmental impact statement, putting the drinking water of millions of people at risk of contamination. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Earthjustice remain undaunted in our commitment to challenge the easement in court. Donald Trump is saying that no one is calling to complain about his approval of pipelines. He is forgetting to mention that the phones are not on and that people can't call. Despite the outpouring of public support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the strong opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, the president announced yesterday that he had not received ‘one call from anybody’ speaking out against the pipeline.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
Xaxnar writes—Science - It's Political, Like It Or Not: “There’s an editorial in Forbes that spells it out: supporting science is a political act these days. Emily Willingham has five reasons why it matters. She’s taking issue with those who think Science should be above the fray, should be above politics. In an ideal world based on rational thought, that might be a tenable hope — but that’s not true where we live today, in Trump World.Here’s the list — Read The Whole Thing for the details and links.”