Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) usually appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the most recent previous Green Spotlight. This is the 451st edition of this feature at Daily Kos. More than 25,425 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
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - summer skies: “Yesterday’s Bucket had some spectacular photos of stormy summer skies, what folks in the Eastern US are seeing these days with thunderstorms and unstable air. Over here in the Pacific Northwest, we rarely get thunderstorms, but about a week ago we had a doozy. It struck in the afternoon and went on all night. Ignited wildfires on the Olympic Peninsula. We had to go out to do something with the boat out before morning, so I was in the middle of the stormy drama that day as dusk fell. Mr O paddled out to the boat in a kayak while I stood on the beach. Unstable air created layers of clouds, with the setting sun shooting underneath. Thunder boomed from all directions and occasionally I happened to be facing the direction of the lightning. Wow. Didn’t even try to catch that on film! (now if the thunder only came first….heh). Behind me a double rainbow appeared for a few minutes. That’s my truck at the end of the rainbow.”
Homer J writes—The Fire this time. Black Mountain is burning: “The phone rang last night, just before midnight. Family members apologizing for the lateness of the call, but letting me know that police had just come by and told them to be ready to evacuate at any time. Black Mountain, which is what we see out our kitchen window, is on fire. The fire had reached the ridge and was threatening to come over and in our direction. If you live in the California foothills, you know the drill. The valuables, legal papers, and most precious keepsakes get packed away so you can put them into the cars at a moment’s notice. Or, if things get really hairy, you put that stuff into the trunk of the car. 300 homes up the hill have already been evacuated. Our place is just a few miles from the geographical center of California, east of Fresno, in the foothills, near where the four-lane highway heads up into the high Sierra to Shaver Lake. It is also near the epicenter of the drought.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Pajaro writes—Elephants never forget -- and Hillary hasn't forgotten the elephants: “I would like to share an experience I had this last May with Hillary at a campaign stop in San Francisco -- an experience which was so profound and moving that it literally left me speechless. First, let me say that I've had a longtime desire to thank Hillary personally for her work to save the elephants. I've been involved in an international effort to save them since the beginning of 2013 and along the way, I learned that she, too, had worked hard to save them through the Clinton Global Initiative beginning in late 2012. For those of you who don't know, elephants are under siege for their ivory. Approximately 100 a day are mercilessly slaughtered -- that's one every 15 minutes! Hundreds of thousands of them have been slaughtered in just the past decade and sustainable populations in most African countries no longer exist. At this time the elephants are facing extinction in the wild within the next decade or so -- and many thousands of us around the world are working to save them -- including Hillary Clinton. And so when a last minute rally was to be held in San Francisco, I decided to go with the meager hope that I might be able to say thank you to her.”
matching mole writes—The Daily Bucket: Early Summer Insects: “Like my previous bucket this is a bit of an image dump, showing some of the insects I saw during my mid-June (6/19) evening of black-lighting for insects in my backyard. It was a busy time so I am just now getting around to posting them.”
matching mole writes—Dawn Chorus: David Lack and the Dawn of Eco/Evolutionary Ornithology: “Today I want to focus on an ornithologist whom I wager many of you haven’t heard of who was an important link between the descriptive natural history that formed the basis of field ornithology before world war II and studies based on a rigorous understanding of evolutionary theory starting in the 1960s. David Lack (1910-1973) was a British ornithologist who was a crucial figure in the founding of the field known as evolutionary ecology. He was also the second director of the renowned Edward Grey Institute of Ornithology at Oxford University, serving in that position for almost thirty years, ending with his death. Lack’s career trajectory was a bit unconventional. He had been an avid naturalist and birder from an early age. After getting his undergraduate degree he had gone to work as a schoolmaster in the early 1930s. In the late 1930s he took a year off from his job to pursue bird research and made an extensive visit to the Galápagos followed by visits to the California Academy of Science and the afore-mentioned Ernst Mayr. Following these trips, Lack enlisted during World War II, working in radar research throughout the war, experience he would later put to good use studying bird migration.”
woolibaar writes—Bald Eagle Rescue Update: “To those interested in the fate of the eagle from Wildhorse Island: Unfortunately the eagle was not eligible to be rehabilitated. Originally the volunteer at the facility thought that the wing may have just been dislocated, but the next morning the vet did an x-ray and showed that the “good” wing actually had several small fractures and the bad wing had had both of the joints completely separated and most of the muscles were torn. This is not a recoverable injury so the bird had to be euthanized. Nobody is sure how this might have happened out on the island, the best guess is probably a mature eagle attacked it.”
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: I Got Your Smallanthus Right Here: “August 2016. Once more into my woods I go but this time I'm at the edge of the woods below my house where it's sorta sunny, sorta shady. Smallanthus is in the Aster family, a Damn Yellow Composite if you like. It started blooming here a month ago and looks like it will flower into September. The bees, flies, and butterflies love it and work the rambling plants over and over from sun to set. It was a DYC when it first appeared a few years ago. I got lucky this year and discovered the name - Smallanthus uvedalia. Common names are Hairy Leafcup, Bear's Foot, Yellow Leafcup but I'll stick with the memorable Smallanthus. Kinda rolls off the tongue doesn't it, but what does it mean? Over at Eat the Weeds they have a great defintion. The article refers to Yacon in the same family and grown as an edible in South America.”
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: small vivid life on a big rock table: “When Table Mountain plants bloom, visitors can’t avoid stepping on flowers densely covering the ground. In some areas the flowers are knee high and we wade through colorful surf; other areas have small plants and we kneel or lie on our bellies to see their details. Flowery perfume scents the air. This photo gallery features small members of Table Mountain’s natural communities. The spectacular spring wildflower display in Cherokee California attracts people from hundreds of miles away. The name came from a group of Cherokee prospectors who arrived in 1849 for the gold rush, but the original humans were Maidu Indians. The place name, Table Mountain, refers to the topography: a basalt tabletop 1,565 feet in elevation on the edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Lawrence Lewis writes—The NOAA releases its stunning final report on the State of the Climate in 2015: “The American Meteorological Society announces: An international, peer-reviewed publication released each summer, theState of the Climate is the authoritative annual summary of the global climate published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report, compiled by NOAA’s Center for Weather and Climate at the National Centers for Environmental Information is based on contributions from scientists from around the world. It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice, and in space. And The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang summarizes with ten bullet points: 1. The global temperature was the highest on record. 2. The average ocean surface temperature was warmest on record. 3. Upper ocean heat content was highest on record. 4. Global sea level was highest on record. 5. The El Niño event was among the strongest on record. 6. Greenhouse gases were highest on record. 7. Record number of major tropical cyclones in Northern Hemisphere. 8. Arctic sea ice had its lowest maximum extent 9. Glaciers continued shrinking 10. Extreme temperatures were most extreme on record.”
SninkyPoo writes—The worst kind of climate change denier… ”I am dying to title this post "Know Your Congressional A$$hat, Paul Ryan Edition," but I know I mustn't be rude. And in this case, frankly, a$$hat doesn’t quite cover it. Let me quote not-yet Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who said back in 2009: Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow. One might think that this isn’t quite as egregious as Senator Jim Inhofe bringing a snowball to the senate floor to protest that, if it were snowing outside, climate change must be a hoax, but in fact I think it’s worse. Notice the tacit acknowledgement that, in fact, the planet is warming. And notice the lede – ‘unilateral economic restraint.’”
jonischmidt writes—The Danger of Donald Trump on Climate Change: “Donald Trump’s stance on climate change has not gotten all that much coverage, but it could ultimately be the starkest wedge between the two sides and might be the common cause Democrats need to truly come back together. Outside of the extreme right wing, the country has come to a consensus that climate change will have a direct effect on our lives and livelihoods, even for my unconvinced Floridian friend. In fact, low-lying coastal locations like Florida will be among the first to feel the effects of rising sea levels, increased precipitation, and rising ocean temperatures. While those rising sea levels threaten to sink densely populated coastal areas such as Florida or New York, people living away from the coasts will also feel the effects. Florida and the Southeast will be affected by more frequent and intense hurricanes. Agriculture, energy production, transportation, and water resources would be affected for the entire country.”
tubacat writes—Deadly anthrax outbreak in Siberia due to climate change: “As if mystery sinkholes and rubbery ground were not warnings enough, climate change and unusual warming have brought new threats to the north of the planet. Anthrax, also known as the ‘Siberian plague,’ has re-emerged after more than 70 years in an inhabited region above the Arctic circle in Russia. A 12-year-old boy and his grandmother have died, nearly 90 people have been hospitalized for observation, and over 2000 reindeer have been killed by the disease. Temperatures have risen to over 95°, thawing the permafrost where dead animals and people are buried, and ‘waking’ the anthrax spores.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Not a G’Day, Mate for Aussie Deniers: “Michael Slezak has a great, deep dive in The Guardian on ‘How the campaign against South Australian windfarms backfired,’ but we’ll hit just the highlights. The Murdoch-owned Australian reported that not only were the wind farms failing to produce enough energy to meet the nation’s demand, the wind farms were actually using high amounts of energy themselves thus amplifying the problem. They also ran a piece calling South Australia the ‘canary in the coalmine’ for high electricity prices due to reliance on renewables. Multiple experts have debunked this theory, pointing out that the spike in electricity prices was actually caused by a doubling in gas prices, since gas supplies 90 percent of non-renewable electricity generated in South Australia. A sudden surge in cold weather and a disruption in the connection between the South Australia and Victoria power grids were also contributing factors. Even former resources minister Josh Frydenberg, who once said there was a ‘strong moral case for coal,’ couldn’t get behind this attack on renewables.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Three Columnists, Two Attorneys General, One Granddaughter: Last Week's Pushbacks: “To help you begin your Monday with some happy thoughts, here is a roundup of all the good folks in the climate community who pushed back on some points that needed challenging last week. We start with The Guardian’s Dana Nuccitelli who took down Roy Spencer, one of Peabody’s expert witnesses in a legal case on Minnesota's Social Cost of Carbon. Spencer recently wrote a white paper for fossil-fueled Texas Public Policy Institute to provide climate contrarian views. “The white paper is a classic example of a Gish Gallop– producing such a large volume of nonsense arguments that refuting all of them is too time-consuming,” wrote Nuccitelli, who then handled Spencer’s paper by simply referring to point-by-point myth rebuttals. We also saw pushback against the normally great Eduardo Porter’s column about nuclear and renewables in the New York Times. Joe Romm of Climate Progress published two lengthy rebuttals on the issues. One talked about the larger trend of New York Times analyses overestimating nuclear energy and underestimating renewables (and mentioned the fact that NY Times regularly runs pro-nuclear paid posts…). The second post specifically tackled some of the arguments and facts presented by Porter.”
tapu dali writes—Another diatribe on climate change, CO2 and the Keeling curve: Hillary, what are you going to do? “I call your attention to the [chart below]. You will of course notice that the 2015 max was around 404 ppm, and the 2016 max is 408.5 ppm. It looks like the minimum might not go under 400 ever again (as I have said more than once.)”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
MTmofo writes—Time lapse of a forest fire starting: “This comes from a nestcam near Hamilton MT, south of Missoula. This fire started at about 2pm yesterday and is currently at over 3500 acres.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—California Water Impact Network Sues to Block Excessive Groundwater Pumping: “The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) has filed a lawsuit against San Luis Obispo County for issuing three well-drilling permits without requiring the reviews stipulated by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The suit addresses drilling permits granted in April and June to Justin Vineyards and Winery, Lapis Land Company LLC and Paso Robles Vineyards. The permits, issued under a claimed “ministerial” exemption to CEQA, allow the three companies to pump groundwater from the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin in quantities that are “sufficient” to irrigate commercial vineyards.vThe lawsuit asserts the permits were in fact discretionary approvals that required analysis and mitigation of their environmental impacts under CEQA, including impacts on the Basin.”
Dan Bacher writes—Federal Appeals Court overturns Delta water contracts: “Two fishing groups won a major legal victory last week against the federal government and agribusiness interests when the NInth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Delta water contracts with the Westlands Water District and other irrigators. The ruling by the three-judge panel could throw a major obstacle in the path of Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels Plan, the California WaterFix project, since it “assumes incorrectly” that the federal government must strive to deliver the “full contract amounts” to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness under its interim contracts, according to the groups. On July 25, the Court ruled in favor of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association in their long legal battle with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness operations that divert millions of acre feet of water annually from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americans.”
Pakalolo writes—Ocean acidification, a function of climate change, can dissolve tuna as they swim: “Increasing acidity in the world’s oceans will cause massive organ failure in yellowfin tuna larvae, according to a disturbing new study published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. Carbon dioxide in the ocean is changing the chemical conditions under which life has evolved. This particular tuna is shaped like a torpedo and has dark metallic blue backs, yellow sides, and a silver belly. They have very long anal and dorsal fins and finlets that are bright yellow. The lifespan of a yellowfin can be six or seven years. Highly migratory, they are found throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This fish is prized in the raw sashimi market and overfishing has impacted the Yellowfin Tuna , but populations are considered somewhat abundant. So far the world’s fisheries have managed the population so that it does not result in the same fate as the threatened bluefin tuna. ‘The bluefin tuna, which has been endangered for several years and has the misfortune to be prized by Japanese sushi lovers, has suffered a catastrophic decline in stocks in the Northern Pacific Ocean, of more than 96%, according to research published.’ It is estimated that 90 percent of all large predatory fish—including tuna, sharks, swordfish, cod and halibut—are gone.”
ENERGY
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Mark Sumner writes—Trump: Solar 'not working so good,' wind power means 'all your birds, dead': “If you flip a coin, it comes up heads half the time. But if you give Donald Trump a chance, he can be wrong about energy every single time. ‘It’s so expensive,’ Trump said. ‘And honestly, it’s not working so good. I know a lot about solar. I love solar. But the payback is what, 18 years? Oh great, let me do it. Eighteen years.’ Donald Trump knows a lot about solar. Apparently like he knows about Russia not invading the Ukraine. In fact, the cost of solar has declined 70 percent since 2008, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the return on investment for a homeowner in California, say, is nine years. In New Jersey, it is seven years. Solar can be installed in small, incremental units that pay back in a handful of years. A coal power plant requires more than a billion dollar investment, needs extensive supporting architecture, and has a payback period of at least 20 years.”
BoxJohnson writes—Trump: Wind power ‘kills all your birds’: “Trump saying another stupid thing? Who is surprised? Trump bashed renewable energy sources Monday night, saying solar power doesn’t work well and wind turbines kill birds. The GOP presidential nominee has stated his preference for fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, and has previously said that solar power is unreliable and wind turbines are harmful to wildlife and unsightly. [...] ‘The wind kills all your birds. All your birds, killed. You know, the environmentalists never talk about that.’ According to this estimate. Between 140,000 and 328,000 birds are killed annually at monopole turbines. It does suck that many birds die from wind farms, and we are trying to seek ways to prevent it. However, environmentalists are scary because they don’t care about bird deaths? What kind of logic is that? How many birds die from running into building windows? Between 365 and 988 million birds die from crashing into windows in the United States each year, according to a new report. That may be as much as 10 percent of the estimated total bird population of the country.”
gmoke writes—Zero Net Energy - August 1, 2016: “I’m noticing a cross-over now between zero net energy building and city agriculture, two subjects I follow and publish links lists on. The archive of the city agriculture links list is at cityag.blogspot.com Net Zero Plus. The NetZero Plus Electric Training Institute (NZP-ETI), opened recently in Los Angeles, and is the largest net-zero plus commercial building retrofit in USA which ‘will function as a living laboratory, educational facility and demonstration center for advanced and emerging clean energy technologies.’"
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
88Kathy writes—Why Johnny's Seeds Don't Grow Like They Used To: “Hardiness zones ain’t what they used to be. Hardiness zones are outside your back door, in your yard. I don’t think you will be able to stop playing with this animation for a long time. It is the Hardiness Zone Changes from 1990 to 2006. It doesn’t look like there has been as much change between 2006 and 2016 as there is between 1990 and 2006. I wonder why that is? Almost every year between 2006 and 2016 has been increasingly hotter and the hottest on record. But that is global not just the United States. In the United States it looks like the hardiness zones haven’t moved that much in the last 10 years.”
Sterling Ericsson writes—The Antioxidant Purple Tomato: “At the turn of the decade, a new ‘scientific’ fad diet began to spread across the internet and the nutrition community with claims of tiny particles destroying your body from the inside out. Remarks about how only a diet rich in specific fruits and vegetables and their protective antioxidants would keep you healthy and make you live longer. All in all, as with most fad diets, the larger declarations of fact turned out to be woefully false and, while it is still a smart idea to have a dietary intake high in fruits and vegetables, the science continues to be out on whether such consumption has any meaningful effect on free radicals and cell oxidation. The statements made about what free radicals and antioxidants do remain correct, but multiple studies have found that people’s diets only have a minimal impact on actual uptake of the latter. Though it should be noted that the micronutrients that act as antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E and beta-carotene, continue to be nutritionally meaningful for other parts of your bodily function. Some have attempted to boost uptake via supplements, but this has resulted in some cases with too much of an antioxidant increase, which is harmful in a myriad of other ways. So, how to increase the amount of antioxidants available in foods to levels that can actually have a beneficial effect, but without having to go to the extremes that supplements do from direct dosage? Biotechnology, as in most cases, has a solution.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Monsanto has been selling farmers seeds they can't legally use: “Soybean farmers in Missouri and Tennessee have been planting a newly engineered soybean. This soybean seed is resistant to a weed-killing chemical called dicamba. This may be a big breakthrough for farmers. However, as NPR reporter Dan Charles explains, this is not legal yet: Well, the chemical's called dicamba. This is a new twist in the long-running war on weeds. Farmers have had a really successful strategy, crops that have been genetically modified to tolerate the weed killer Roundup. That way, farmers could spray their fields with Roundup. The crops would live. The weeds would die. Problem is Roundup is not working so well anymore. Some weeds have now evolved resistance to it, especially one really awful weed called pigweed. So this new soybean was supposed to solve the problem. It's resistant to Roundup but also resistant to this other weed killer called dicamba. And the idea was farmers could spray Roundup and dicamba. And if a weed didn't die from one chemical, it would die from the other one. Monsanto is working on a new version of dicamba to go with these seeds, but the Environmental Protection Agency has not yet approved it for use on soybeans. Dicamba is a problematic chemical and while Monsanto didn’t exactly break the law, they clearly seemed to expect people to break the law since the product they supplied was only worthwhile if you could break the law.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
BruceMcF writes—Sunday Train: Washington State Labor Council support Steel Interstate Feasibility Study: “Sunday Train has long supported the Steel Interstateconcept … but Sunday Train is “merely” an online activity composed of my online blogging in various forums and your discussion in various forums. However, since 2013, I have also been involved in the advocacy of the Steel Interstate concept in a more direct collaboration organized by the Backbone Campaign, under the heading of ‘Solutionary Rail.’ And the Backbone Campaign and Solutionary Rail team were successful in gaining the support of the Washington Labor Council for a feasibility study. After a series of “whereas’s” which focus on concerns about safety of oil trains, both to the communities that they pass through and to the rail crews that operate the trains, and a variety of other issues, the resolution gets down to the specific Solutionary Rail proposal.”
J Graham writes—Piccard Boldly Goes Where No One Has Gone Before: The Solar Impulse 2: “That’s Bertrand Piccard, one of two pilots of the the Solar Impulse 2, the first fuel-free aircraft to take a trip around the world. Piccard and Andre Borschberg completed the first round-the-world flight of a solar-powered aircraft on Tuesday. They landed back in Abu Dhabi, where, on March 9, 2015, they took off on the first leg of their journey. Their successes and unexpected challenges along the way were ‘the definition of adventure,’ said Piccard in an interview. From the Solar Impulse website: Our ambition for Solar Impulse is for the worlds of exploration and innovation to make a contribution to the cause of renewable energies. We want to demonstrate the importance of clean technologies for sustainable development; and to place dreams and emotions back at the heart of scientific adventure. During the longest leg of the flight, Borschberg flew five days and nights across the Pacific, breaking the previous record of 76 hours and 45 minutes for the longest solo endurance flight. Batteries, which had to be replaced after overheating, kept the aircraft aloft at night.”
MISCELLANY
Walter Einenkel writes—Terminix agrees to pay out $87 million to family almost killed by pesticides: “Terminix pesticide’s parent company has reached an agreement with a family that was poisoned while staying at a vacation condo in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The agreement calls for an $87 million payout on top of the $3 million the company has already put out for its insurance deductible. Stephen Esmond became paralyzed in March 2015 soon after checking into a condo on St. John that was located above another unit in which Terminix exterminators had sprayed an odorless neurotoxin called methyl bromide. His teenage sons were hit hard as well, and remained in critical condition for weeks after the exposure. Their mother, dentist Theresa Devine, fared better and was discharged soon after the exposure. The family was airlifted to Philadelphia hospitals for treatment. Something important to note—the neurotoxin methyl bromide that did all of this damage was illegally applied. The company was not legally supposed to do that—for this very reason. Methyl bromide has been banned from indoor use since 1984! While Esmond regained the ability to move, he has suffered profound lasting affects.”