This is the 482nd edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). The Green Spotlight appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the February 11 edition. More than 26,415 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in the series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Congress Would be Pruitt-dent to Fully Examine EPA Nominee: “To say that there are issues with Scott Pruitt’s nomination to lead the EPA would be an understatement (check out EWG’s top ten reasons why he’s unfit for the job). One of Pruitt’s main issues is something that Trump and his supporters seem to a whole lot about: emails. During his hearing, Pruitt was pressed on his exceptionally cozy relationship with the fossil fuel industry, and senators requested Pruitt produce the documentation that could better illustrate his intentions. Instead of proving himself innocent and free of conflicts of interest by turning over the evidence in question, Pruitt’s attitude was more along the lines of telling the senate to go FOIA themselves. Turns out, that’s exactly what the Center for Media and Democracy has been doing --suing to demand Pruitt turn over emails they FOIA’d two years ago. He finally complied, sort of. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office turned over only 411 emails, but CMD knows this isn’t the full scope of what they asked, because they already know there were over 3,000 emails relevant to their request.”
YellerDog writes—Patriot Coders Save NASA Earth Science Data: “From Wired comes this story of hackers, scientists, and students who are rescuing recently banned scientific data from the bowels of the Internet. One of the administration's first directives, an act of virtual book burning, was to delete scientific data bought and paid for by the taxpayers from government websites. This action is a blatant and outright attack on science itself and little could be more dangerous to the future of humanity and the planet. It is said that nothing ever completely leaves the Internet but that doesn't mean it’s easy to find and restore. They say they don’t even know if the hard won and expensive data was even saved before it was deleted from websites or if so to where. Enter hundreds of good guy hackers in 20 cities so far who are legally combing the net and retrieving scientific data and moving it to private servers from a mishmash of archive sites and formats.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - miscellany of marine mammals: “...on our most recent boat trip to share today for our late Daily Bucket — At this time of year suitable occasions for boating are not frequent since we need a day when it’s not too windy, the waves are not too rambunctious, and preferably there’s some sun, for better visibility. Our excursions are modest, a few miles out to the Strait skirting the edge of the island, but as often as we can manage it. When we can catch the old wind-up 8-day brass boat clock before it needs resetting, that’s a good sign we’re getting decent weather. [...] The mink scampered out from the boulders sheltering the boat ramp and watched as Mr O went back and forth, showing no alarm. They are fierce little predators who eat fish and crabs at the shore as well as rodents, snakes and domestic chickens inland. Our minks are native, although local science professionals say their light color suggests crossbreeding with feral minks raised for fur early in the last century. Okay, that’s not what you were expecting for marine mammals? Never fear, we saw some exclusively marine mammals too, like the Steller sealions who spend the winter in the Salish Sea fattening up before returning to their rookeries on the coast. Mostly the sealions are snoozing during the day but there are always some swimming or fishing or playing or roughhousing too.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: I is For...”Welcome to the ninth entry in our Backyard Science ‘Alphabet’ series. Today’s Bucket is brought to you by the letter ‘I.’ The geological side gets the title photo this week. [...] The jewelweeds are an invasive in some areas but is a native in western New York state. Orange jewelweed itself is an invasive plant in Europe. It is also locally called touch-me-not because ripe seed pods will “explode” to fling seeds a considerable distance when disturbed. (Entertaining for small children!) ”
enhydra lutris writes—The Daily Bucket - February Yard Report: “This is part of my ongoing project to document the changes in our yard from month to month. The January 2017 yard report is Here: www.dailykos.com/… Previous versions are listed near the top of the December 2016 report:
www.dailykos.com/...”
Angmar writes—St.Valentine. Photo diary.
Kestrel writes—Dawn Chorus: Hooray for the Red, White and Blue! “Since Trump plans to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency, among many other targets, through his malevolent Governance by Hissy Fit approach, I thought this edition of Dawn Chorus should feature a patriotic red, white and blue theme in protest of the Dark Lord Trump. Thanks to this fucking idiot, many species will be added to the endangered list as protections are eliminated, nesting and breeding grounds will be encroached upon and destroyed, and other species will go extinct. All because an idiot huckster reality TV star managed to scam a minority of people into voting for him, despite his unfitness for office, his incompetence, his misogengy, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, delusions of grandeur, and more.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Covert Consultant Compares Energy Star to Tuskegee: “Climate Depot has a post all in favor of repealing the Energy Star program. The post, confusingly, has three bylines: the first credits Marc Morano (who runs Depot), then Jeff Dunetz, then finally sources the material to a guest post by Connor Coughlin. So the claims made by Coughlin, which includes what will hopefully be 2017’s most insane false equivalence, was reposted from his site, to Dunetz’s Lidblog, and then to Climate Depot. At each step, skepticism should rise. For those that don’t know, the EPA’s Energy Star program is a voluntary program companies can participate in to provide consumers with information and validation that their appliances don’t waste energy. It’s not exactly controversial. Even for our jaded and cynical eyes, it’s appalling to see Coughlin compare the program to one of the most reprehensible and racist activities ever undertaken by the US government: ‘ENERGY STAR is arguably the most corrupt scientific research program since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment conducted on unsuspecting citizens from 1932 to 1972.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Is Murdoch’s WSJ Considering a New START to Trump Coverage? “In today’s installment of ‘Well, that was quick,’ conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt confirmed everyone’s worst fears about the Washington Post’s recent decision to bring him on as a columnist. In his first piece as a contributing columnist, Hewitt suggests a commission to study climate change. But instead of scientists or experts on the panel, he suggests Oprah and Rush Limbaugh. (Instead of linking to the column itself, here’s a Media Matters piece on it, with some amusing links to Limbaugh’s past climate nonsense.) And in today’s installment of ‘About damn time,’ Politico’s media critic Jack Shafer puts Rupert Murdoch “on notice’ for whatever role the Wall Street Journal owner might have played, even indirectly, in slanting the paper in favor of Trump. For some of us, the WSJ’s typically inaccurate opinion page coverage of climate science has been reason enough to know not all is on the level there. Because while the reporting and opinion parts of the team are different, Murdoch’s well-know political preferences loom over both. So it’s nice to see others acknowledge it.”
Pakalolo writes—Something is missing in Antarctica's Amundsen Sea: “A February 13, 2017 post by Andrea Thompson, of Climate Central reports on the deeply disturbing fact that Sea Ice has hit record lows at both poles and in the case of the Amundsen Sea ice free. The post notes that the Antarctica continent is surrounded by an ocean that has a lot of variability sea ice levels from year to year while the Arctic has a ice filled ocean surrounded by land. For several of the past few years, the sea ice that fringed Antarctic reached record highs. That growth of sea ice could have potentially been caused by the influx of freshwater as glaciers on land melted, or from changes in the winds that whip around the continent (changes that could be linked to warming or the loss of ozone high in the atmosphere). But this year, a big spring meltdown in October and November suddenly reversed that trend and has led to continued record low sea ice levels as the summer melt season progressed. On Monday, Antarctic sea ice dropped to an all-time record low, beating out 1997.”
Pakalolo writes—Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier experiences "glacial aftershock" and calves new iceberg: “Pine Island Glacier is one of the main glaciers responsible for moving ice from the interior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to the ocean and it has just experienced yet another calving event. Ian Howat a glaciologist at Ohio State University noted that this particular calving event is much smaller than recent calving events on Pine Island Glacier. ‘I think this event is the calving equivalent of an ‘aftershock’ following the much bigger event,’ Howat said. ‘Apparently, there are weaknesses in the ice shelf—just inland of the rift that caused the 2015 calving—that are resulting in these smaller breaks.’”
Hoomai29 writes—Russia and Trump: It's the Global Warming, Stupid! ”The December, 2016 issue of MIT Technology Review has a stunning article, “Hotter Days Will Drive Global Inequality,” which features a global map of the economic winners and losers of climate change—and there are some terrible losers: India’s economy loses 37%. Brazil loses 28% of its economic vitality. Nigeria’s economy drops 39%. Essentially all the tropical countries suffer terribly as climate warms, storms intensify, deserts expand and crops wither. Mid-latitude countries pretty much break even: the US loses 5% of its economic vitality, Britain gains 9%, and China drops 7%. On the other hand, the world’s Northernmost countries do extremely well, as the temperate zones move north, as growing seasons lengthen and winters get shorter: The Nordic countries show significant improvement. Kazhakstan’s economy expands significantly.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Mark Sumner writes—Evacuations below Oroville Dam now exceed 180,000 as water flow through spillway is doubled: “A dangerous condition continues at the nation’s tallest dam. A light flow of water began washing into the emergency spillway Saturday and the volume of water began to increase. Around 3 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) Sunday, authorities learned that the dam's emergency spillway was also eroding, Honea said. This is the first time in the dam’s history that water levels have reached the point of flowing into not just the main spillway, but the emergency spillway. The volume of water flowing into the emergency spillway ripped a hole in the concrete which rapidly expanded to 250’ width. Releasing additional water down the spillway risks erosion that could rapidly undercut the structure. If the spillway failed it could still release a 30’ wall of water down the valley, damaging a significant region and endangering tens of thousands.”
Besame writes—A true OMG emergency at the spillway - Evacuation Order for Oroville CA & south: “UPDATED — original evacuation notice extended to the south and now includes 130,000 people. This is I can’t keep updating the text due to evacuees here at my home and associated drama. I’m safe — my home area is several thousand feet higher and miles north of this event. The comments have much good info and people keep adding more. NOTE THE DAM ISN’T BREACHED. THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPILLWAY NORTH OF THE DAM.an evacuation order by Department of Water Resources this afternoon around 4:15pm. Evacuation now includes the southern end of the Sacramento Valley from Oroville to Wheatland (near Beale Air Force Base) and west to the Sacramento River.”
Dan Bacher writes—Delta Advocates Respond To Oroville Dam Spillway Emergency: “Two organizations opposed to Governor Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnels plan today responded to the breach in the Oroville auxiliary spillway and evacuation of 188,000 people in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties yesterday evening. On the current situation, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta (RTD), said, ‘We are hopeful that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) can continue to keep the situation at Oroville under control.’ ‘We are grateful for all the courageous and hardworking people working day and night to keep the region safe – from DWR employees to public safety officials. The evacuations seem to have been successfully executed,’ explained Barrigan-Parrilla. On Oroville Dam: ‘This dam is the primary reservoir for the State Water Project. One-third of Southern California’s water is State Water Project water. Oroville Dam also is the source for a portion of Bay Area water deliveries. Making Oroville safe is essential and must take priority over any other water project in the state,’ she said.”
Dan Bacher writes—Delta Legislators and Advocates Respond to 'Alarming' Oroville Dam Fiasco: “A day after state officials ordered the evacuation of over 188,000 people from Butte, Yuba and Sutter Counties, members of the newly-formed Delta Caucus of the California Legislature on February 13 issued a statement regarding the ‘hazardous situation’ at Oroville Dam after The Mercury News reported that previous concerns about the safety of the Dam’s current infrastructure were ignored. They said they have a ‘duty to ensure California’s existing infrastructure is maintained and upgraded, and not sacrificed in favor of conveyance projects,’ referring to Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.”
Dan Bacher writes—Governor Brown Proclaims Emergency to Help Response to Oroville Dam Auxiliary Spillway Situation: “Governor Jerry Brown last night issued an emergency order regarding the situation at Oroville Dam’s auxiliary spillway and the ensuing evacuations. The order describes ‘conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist in Butte, Sutter, and Yuba Counties due to this potential flooding.’ ”
Dan Bacher writes—FEMA approves Oroville Dam spillway & January storm disaster declaration requests: “Just hours after the Butte County Sheriff reduced the immediate evacuation order of Oroville region residents to an evacuation warning, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) today approved both recent gubernatorial requests for federal assistance – one to support the response to the situation at Oroville Dam and the other to help with the impacts of January storms. ‘I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests,” said California Governor Jerry Brown in a statement. “This federal aid will get money and resources where it’s needed most.’ A press release from the White House said Robert J. Fenton, the Acting Administrator of FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, has named Timothy J. Scranton as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the impacted areas.”
Dan Bacher writes—Breaking: Evacuations ordered for low-lying areas around Lake Oroville, Freeway jammed with evacuees: “The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) just issued this updated statement regarding the expected failure of the auxiliary spillway at Oroville Dam in Butte County. The agency noted that ‘Oroville Dam itself is sound and is a separate structure from the auxiliary spillway.’ The agency also said DWR has doubled the flow down its main spillway 55,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 100,000 cfs to avert more erosion on the auxiliary spillway. In a press conference in Oroville at noon, Eric See, DWR public information officer, said, ‘the flows from the auxiliary are on the decline and the overall conditions are stable,’ but the situation has changed dramatically since them.”
The Janitor writes—Oroville shelters: go Sikhs! ”Most of the Oroville evacuee shelters are fairgrounds. There are a couple of Christian churches involved. Nice to see that. Then there’s the list of Sikh temples that have opened up for evacuees. Seven of them.”
voracious writes—#OrovilleDam Tales from the evacuation: “As of right now there is no plan to end the evacuation order for 180,000 people living in the risk area for the Oroville Dam spillway. [...] I spent some time last night at the main evacuation center at the fairgrounds and again today there and at a local church that is housing more evacuees. This is a heartbreaking thing to witness firsthand. Many of these people were given minutes notice. The news reports for days prior had not mentioned evacuation as a possibility so people were not prepared. Many of us have the resources to make an evacuation like this more comfortable, but who among us can gather camping gear and enough clothes for a week with 20 minutes notice? ”
p mac writes—Looming catastrophe in California: “The Oroville Dam spillway looms as a catastrophic at biblical scale. In the short term bigger than Flynn. Bigger than Trump. Bigger than any other issue faced by the country today. The potential downside is huge. A wall of water 30 feet high, inundating Oroville to 100’. Flooding of the Central valley as far as Sacramento, with the river itself flooded all the way to the ocean. Displacements of a up to a million people—or more. Billions in damage. Disease—that’s a lot of area suitable for mosquitos, and a lot of people close to each other with no reliable source of water. Already, the California Water Board owes a mass resignation: meetings for the last 9 years had agendas of every possible issue except infrastructure safety. If the worst happens, the Governor must resign as well. No politician can—or should—survive mismanagement of this magnitude. Of course, it might not happen. But right now, we don’t know—and the water board doesn’t either.”
Mary Anne Hitt writes—From Appalachia to Standing Rock, Water Is Life: “I live in West Virginia, one of the states where residents can now expect more toxic coal pollution in our streams and rivers thanks to a repeal of mining safeguards by the Republican-controlled Congress. A few short days after that disastrous decision, the White House cancelled an environmental review and then approved the permit for the Dakota Access pipeline, which threatens the drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions more people downstream. The Standing Rock Sioux have long opposed the Dakota Access pipeline because of the risk to drinking water, and this week’s decision was one more painful demonstration of how quickly some political leaders will put profits over public health and tribal sovereignty. [...] Here in Appalachia, where our streams have been ravaged for decades by coal mining, we were eager for the same basic, common-sense water pollution protections that the rest of the country takes for granted. The Stream Protection Rule had been in the works for eight years, but in wiping it off the books last week using an arcane maneuver that The New York Times described as a ‘legislative cudgel that has rarely been used,’ Trump and the GOP again chose to side with polluters over people.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
A Siegel writes—Oklahoma desperately needs @JimInhofe snowballs: “It is now February 2017, just less than two years after the above video and this prominent example of Jim Inhofe's anti-science mania. (As Alec Baldwin put it about Inhofe, ‘Is there a bigger oil whore than Jim Inhofe?’) In those two years, we had 2015 hotter than 2014 and then 2016 hotter than 2015. The world is warming -- despite Inhofe's big snowball. There is a 4A weather / climate emergency The Arctic is experiencing massive temperature fluctuations, with record high temperatures. Australia and much of the Americas are experiencing record heat. The Antarctic has ice missing in action and what might be the largest ice shaving in world history. When it comes to America, for example, Oklahoma is experience record heat for Valentines Day and this has nothing to do with Oklahomans romantic passion. It is the middle of February and the thermometer is hitting 100F.”
TomBrock writes—Why I am Running For the Virginia House of Delegates Pt. 1 Climate Change is Real! ”I don’t mean to be dramatic, but my hometown of Virginia Beach is literally sinking into the ocean. Our planet’s temperature is rising, and with it so are sea levels. Those are measureable and undeniable facts. A broad consensus of experts (about 97%) attribute both to human activities like carbon emissions. It is past time to face reality by dramatically reducing the use of fossil fuels and mitigating the impacts that our pollution has already caused. Rapidly shifting away from carbon fuels means we need to talk about two key points: how do we generate enough energy to keep our economy moving, and what happens to the people who relied on those industries for family-sustaining income? I believe we can solve both by making smart investments in developing and manufacturing clean energy here in Virginia.”
DarkSyde writes—Republican icons quietly advise sitting lawmakers to take climate change seriously: “There is some mild disagreement in the senior ranks of the Grand Old Party when it comes to the environment, especially climate change. Some of them even tacitly admit that there could be something to the decades of carefully collected data on global temperatures and the effect of greenhouse gases emitted by burning gigatons of fossil fuels on those trends. They even outed themselves in a new report released this month called ‘The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends,’ with an impressive subtitle about how a new climate strategy can help the economy and reduce regulation: The report, which was published by the Climate Leadership Council, calls for a tax on carbon starting at $40 per ton and rising over time … For these conservatives, a carbon tax would be like insuring against the worst risks of climate change—and they see it as a more efficient solution than EPA regulations. They describe their plan as ‘win-win’—even if some of them still claim to quibble with the science. The list of signees is impressive and include former Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker. Unfortunately, the current crop of Republicans who are actually in power are so are actively hostile to even considering the data and science that they’re even now conjuring up absurd global conspiracies and marshaling alternative facts to please their wealthy benefactors and mislead their constituents.”
BYPRODUCTS, TRASH, TOXIC & RADIOACTIVE WASTE
Walter Einenkel writes—Scientists have found banned chemicals from the 1970s in the deepest parts of our ocean's ecosystem: “Scientists were “surprised” at the high levels in concentration of old-timey pollutants like PCBs and PBDEs in deep ocean ecosystems. “Surprised” because these are chemicals outlawed over 40 years ago now. The team led by Dr Alan Jamieson at the University of Newcastle sampled levels of pollutants in the fatty tissue of amphipods (a type of crustacean) from deep below the Pacific Ocean surface. The animals were retrieved using specially designed "lander" vehicles deployed from a boat over the Mariana and Kermadec trenches, which are over 10km deep and separated from each other by 7,000km. The issue here is that these chemicals haven’t broken down as much as people had hoped. In fact, they seem to have sunk to the bottoms of our oceans. But they add that in the Mariana trench, the highest levels of PCBs were 50 times greater than in crabs from paddy fields fed by the Liaohe River, one of the most polluted rivers in China.”
ENERGY
Fossil Fuels
ban nock writes—Navajo Coal Electric Generation to End: “Today the utility companies that own the Navajo generating station voted to close the plant which is one of the biggest in the US. While many will applaud the reduction of greenhouse gasses, it is expected to have a fairly serious effect on the Hopi and Navajo people. Besides the employment both tribes also receive considerable royalties from the mine. I’m not sure what the total numbers are, maybe $150 million in wages and royalties. A lot. A quarter of Navajo nation revenue, 65% of Hopi. I’ve never been to the area the mine or the generating station, but if you’ve seen what happens to a western town dependent on mining jobs after the mine shuts down it’s not pretty. People who used to proudly earn a good wage and support their families, are suddenly on unemployment, and then on public assistance, a humiliating thing. People drink, divorce happens, kids grow up a lot differently.”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
Steve Masover writes—Without Consent: Tar Sands "Valve Turners" visit UC Berkeley: “I spent Friday evening on the UC Berkeley campus, in a lecture hall full of activists and community members gathered for dialog with the Tar Sands Pipeline Valve Turners: five brave activists who collectively stopped the U.S.-bound flow of tar sands crude oil from the so-called ‘sacrifice zone’ in Alberta, Canada (images), where it is extracted in a mode that decimates forests, wildlife, and human communities. They did so by turning off emergency shutoff valves along the pipeline route, in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington. The Valve Turners shut down the flow of tar sands crude on 11 October 2016, in solidarity with a call by indigenous Water Protectors at Standing Rock for International Days of Prayer and Action from 8-11 October. Their action was not announced in advance, but it was performed publicly. In fact the Valve Turners arranged for videographers to record exactly what they did ... and livestreamed the shutdowns in the North Dakota and Montana. Then they waited for sheriffs to show up and arrest them.”
thebarrel7 writes—Why are we tempting to create HELL ON EARTH because of boldface greed? “A long time ago, when there was little, ‘Out West’, there was a massive earthquake, right in the middle of the Midwest of the United States. There have been echos of this crash for many years, but there have been more recent signs there is renewed activity in the earth below this active area. What’s really scary is that we have built so many things on top of the area, including hundreds of major pipelines, ‘DAPL,’ is the latest example of a proposed mainline almost connected on the north end in North Dakota. It has already passed under the mighty Mississippi river and it’s southern most end is directly in the predicted most violent area of a repeated earthquake. If and when this one goes hot it will kill tens of thousands of people just because they live and work in this area … my question is why do we continue to tempt fate by punching in wells and fracking in this area, only explanation I can see is uncontrolled greed …”
rebel ga writes—Judge rejects Standing Rock request to block Dakota Access pipeline drilling.
REGULATION
Mark Sumner writes—The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018: “That’s H. R. 861. Not the title of H. R. 861, it’s the whole bill. The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018. The bill, introduced by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz and co-sponsored by Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Mississippi’s Steven Palazzo, and Georgia’s Barry Loudermilk doesn’t bother with anything like wondering what happens to the data the agency collects, or the enforcement the agency carries out. It doesn’t sweat the details of employees or contracts. There’s nothing about what happens to the Clean Air Act, or the Clean Water Act, or the Endangered Species Act, or … anything at all. Just ‘terminated.’ “
elenacarlena writes—Breaking Pawlitics: Tell Your Senators to Reject Scott Pruitt for the EPA: “Take Action: According to Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, tackle one issue at a time. The more trouble it takes you to contact your politicians, the more they pay attention. So when you can manage the time and effort, put your body out there. Face-to-face or protest march > calling > faxing if you can’t get through on regular phone > writing letters (because they may arrive too late) > personal email > petition or group email. But we are in this for the long haul, so pace yourselves. Do whatever level you can do. We will be here once a week with the latest. To see if your legislator is having a Town Hall meeting: Check out the Town Hall Project’s list of Town Hall Meetings so that you can meet them face to face if you wish.”
Woodguru writes—Using The GAO, OGE, and CBO To Fight The Insanity Of Doing Away With Agencies Like The EPA: “Here’s where the CBO and GAO come in. Nothing should be able to happen that guts or hampers the effectiveness of regulatory entities. These investigative entities have the ability to assess with full documentation different cost analysis of cost of damage, money saved making industries pay for their damages and cleanup, cost if left for the government to pay for, amount saved when the industry pays for it. This analysis needs to be part of everything congress wants to do, not just what the GOP wants to decide what’s revealed or kept hidden. The EPA and other regulatory entities and laws have been long hard fights, and undoing them would be a fight that the GOP would lose if it takes place with full transparency. That has got to become the standard. The very idea that the GOP could pass a bill or have the president make an executive order that takes away the restriction that keeps coal companies from dumping toxic waste in streams is beyond ludicrous, it’s criminal.”
agoldnyc writes—GOP Deregulation Means Making Oil Company Graft Easier: “Let's see if the Democrats can pin this on the GOP and make it stick. This is a quote from the WALL STREET JOURNAL, the quote that ends the story blogs.wsj.com/...: Simon Taylor, co-founding director of the group Global Witness, said in a statement that the move on the extractive rule and the nomination of Mr. Tillerson show ‘not only do [the administration and Congress] think corruption is perfectly acceptable, but that they intend to become proactive enablers of corruption.’ Here's how WSJ describes the rule: The rule, which was established by the Dodd-Frank Act, requires oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments for things such as licenses and permits needed for development. Activists and industry observers have said for years such payments can be used to hide bribes ...”
MINING
EARTHWORKS writes—Alaska’s Pebble Mine: Investment Firm Says Northern Dynasty is “Worthless”: “It’s hard to believe that the battle to protect America’s most valuable wild salmon fishery from the proposed Pebble Mine continues. Across America, the public has repeatedly voiced its opposition to Pebble, and its support for protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon fishery and the 14,000 hard-working fishermen it supports. Commercial fishermen. Seafood processors. Hunters and anglers. Alaska Native communities. Jewelry retail companies. Grocery stores. Chefs. Restaurants. Churches. Scientists. They’ve all said Pebble is a bad idea. And, some of the world’s largest mining companies (Anglo American & Rio Tinto) have walked away from it. Yet, Northern Dynasty, the Canadian junior mining company behind the project, continues to promote the mine to investors amid speculation that the Trump Administration may view it more favorably.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Assaf writes—Resist this Oil Regime! Switch to an Electric Vehicle Now. (2) Great New Mid-market Options. W/POLL: “My main message is in the title: switching to an EV has become a highly effective act of resistance. The new virulent, climate-denying, environment-devouring, oil-dominated, reactionary Federal regime arrives precisely when the EV market starts offering an unprecedentedly broad and attractive range of entry options. Decision-makers in the US and around the world are looking at EV sales numbers very closely: Most major automakers can quickly switch more production capacity to their EV product lines, in response to demand signals from the market — or at the very least, they have contingency plans for accelerating the launch of new EV models, given a sustained demand spike. Some auto execs, recently led by Ford CEO, prefer to lie with a straight face, claiming ‘there’s no demand for EVs.’ (r-i-g-h-t; that’s why 400,000 people each paid $1k last year, just for a spot in the queue for an EV that hasn’t even entered production yet). As you can see in the headline chart, they are a diminishing minority. But you can also help prove them wrong in a direct way.”
Meteor Blades writes—Open thread for night owls: Europeans move toward powering their trains with renewables: “In the Netherlands, every electric train running on the Dutch railway network has relied entirely on wind energy since 1 January. The network, NS Dutch Railways, is using an energy company’s turbines to generate the energy needed to power its entire electric fleet. NS uses 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours of wind-generated electricity a year, roughly equivalent to the total annual domestic consumption of every household in the Dutch city of Amsterdam. The wind-powered trains carry 600,000 passengers a day. NS says three strokes of one of the turbines that supply it generate enough power to drive a train for 1 kilometer. Put another way, a single turbine running for an hour can power a train for 120 miles. Since 2005, NS says, its consumption of electricity per passenger kilometer has been cut by about 30%, and it hopes to reduce it by a further 35% by 2020.”
MISCELLANY
whipple1078 writes—curtain...Dakota: “Now, how do we stop oil? Tonight before I wrote this I researched Department of Energy and typed in ‘scooter.' For those interested in sane transit and cannot afford electric car, a scooter is an alternative. I wrote George Stevens, in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance, at (202) 366-5291 electronic message to encourage the usage of electric bicycles and scooters. I propose we work on change our road system to allow people more access besides the automobile. One way is to check our community laws to allow electric bikes and other transit on the road. And there is another benefit, using less oil means we are not buying foreign, so we are not contributing to war and terrorism.”
pfunkenstein writes—Protest Song About Climate Change: “So, I made a rap song about climate change. I’m sharing it per suggestion of my roommate who got a kick out of it. In the song and video, I encourage listeners to call their climate-denying representatives (several phone numbers included) as I simultaneously throw childish insults at said representatives. Climatologists and ecologists I suspect would approve of the science alluded to in the first few verses. I hope you all like 2 Live Crew!”