This is the 531st edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) usually appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the Nov. 8 Green Spotlight. More than 28,010 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 - autumn rains have arrived in the Pacific Northwest: “November is climatically our wettest month of the year. It always feels like a deluge of rain falling, coming on the heels of our summer drought. This year we had one big rainfall day in May and another in October, but otherwise essentially no precipitation for 6 months. This is dryer than usual — but it’s what global climate change is predicted to be the norm in the PNW going forward. Our total precip is expected to rise a few percent, however it will fall more heavily in fewer months, and as rain rather than snow. It’s hard to remember how parched it was here just a short time ago. We were worrying about wildfires and trees dying from drought. Now there’s mud, flooding and branches falling in the wind.”
Dan Bacher writes—New Reports Expose Racial and Economic Injustice, Ineffectiveness of Pollution Trading: “As protesters from indigenous and front line communities challenged Governor Jerry Brown on his climate tour of Europe to leave oil and gas “in the ground,” non-profit organizations released two new studies criticizing the racial and economic injustice behind and ineffectiveness of cap-and-trade programs. Governor Brown touted California’s cap-and-trade program and urged European leaders to adopt similar policies during the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) last week, but the first report released Monday reveals the environment injustice of what cap-and-trade opponents call ‘pollution trading.’The report, published by the advocacy organizations Food & Water Watch and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, details the disproportionate burdens of air and water contamination and serious human health effects placed on low-income communities of color by market-based pollution trading schemes like the one authorized by Brown’s cap-and-trade bill, AB 398.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - last leaves of fall in the Pacific Northwest: “We don’t generally see much in the way of fall foliage color in the Pacific Northwest, because the majority of our trees are conifers and the leaves of our few deciduous trees and shrubs tend to fade away into drab shades of brown before falling into the mud. However some combination of weather factors brightened up our foliage this fall, perhaps the early cool nights and episodes of heavy rainfall, after an unusually long hot summer, which followed a wetter winter than usual. Recent windstorms and wet weather have pretty much knocked all loose leaves down by now but I took some photos of the color around where I live in the maritime NW. These are all native or naturalized flora growing wild (except one) by roadsides or in fields or woods.”
Steven Andrew writes—Giant killer crabs, but not from outer space: “It sounds like an old black and white sic-fi classic. But giant killer crabs do exist and, in some places, they act as the top predator on land. One particularly nightmarish club-a-crab hotspot is the Chagos archipelago several hundred miles of the southern tip of India. Some of these small islands play host to the coconut crab, so named because it can literally break open adult coconuts and feed on the yummy sweet juice and pulp inside. It sounds like a wonderful place to not visit: In the decades to come, of course, coconut crabs would be photographed not only climbing trees but hanging from them like enormous hard-shell spiders. Researchers in our own century once left them a small pig carcass to see what would happen, Smithsonian Magazine wrote. The crabs quickly disappeared the pig. Now we know they are the largest invertebrate to walk the earth - more than three feet long, pincer to pincer, with claws so strong that a researcher once tried to measure the force, and described it as ‘eternal hell’ after a coconut crab caught his hand. But what, wondered Mark Laidre, do they eat?”
6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket--My Pet Yellow Jackets: “One evening a few years ago, a cloud of yellow jacket wasps swarmed and stung me when I walked in my backyard garden. I ran inside, to nurse my many wounds and sob into my gin and tonic. The YJ’s were defending their secretly constructed, massive underground nest just the other side of my garden fence.At dusk, the yellow jackets slowed down. I poured garbage cans of ash slurry into their underground hive. But their underground redoubt drank down 30 gallons of slurry without a burp. Instead yellow jackets burst from another secret entryway and stung the living daylights out of me. Again. Finally I waited until waaaay after dusk, put on my rhino hide protective gear, and poured ready mix concrete over their hive entrances. [...] We cohabit with the remaining YJs. Of course, stray YJs still drop by whenever we eat outside. Sometimes we’ll set some food a distance away, but near a YJ trap, to lure them away from our dinner plates. Every Fall, our pears fall. The YJs devour any damaged fruit.”
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: Are backyard feeders causing rapid evolution of great tits? “Evolution may be happening in UK backyards, and fast. A longterm study of UK great tits documented that their bills are longer now than they were in 1970. The 70 years of data also included information from electronic tags on birds that tracks how much time individual birds spend at backyard feeders so beak length can be correlated with bird feeder use. ‘Between the 1970s and the present day, beak length has got longer among the British birds. That's a really short time period in which to see this sort of difference emerging,’ says Professor Jon Slate, of the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield. [...] The findings are part of a long term study being carried out on populations of great tits in Wytham Woods, and in Oosterhout and Veluwe, in the Netherlands. The team screened DNA from more than 3000 birds to search for genetic differences between the British and the Dutch populations. These differences indicate where natural selection might be at work.”
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: polar bears don't eat penguins and other #fakegnus bio-tweets: A collection of tweets pushing back on #fakegnus.
Lenny Flank writes—Study: Birds Use Discarded Cigarette Butts to Fumigate Their Nests: “Seems they make good bug bombs: Based upon these findings, Dr Suárez-Rodríguez and Dr Macías Garcia argue that their finches are indeed collecting cigarette butts deliberately, to keep ticks at bay and improve the survival of their young. After all, ‘nicotine,’ like so many other natural chemicals, was developed specifically as an insect repellent.”
matching mole writes—Dawn Chorus: Favorite Birding Spots: “Last week Kestrel wrote a very popular Dawn Chorus about yard birds and asked “What kind of birds do you see in your yard?” I’m going to shamelessly pirate her idea and modify it a bit but asking you about birding a bit further afield. Do you have a favorite spot (now or in the past) to go birding? What is special about it? What birds do you go there to find? What birds have you seen there that surprised you? I’m going to talk about two places, one current and one from the relatively distant past. Short Hills Provincial Park, Ontario Canada. This was the place I became a birder. I had always loved animals since childhood but birds had been the group of animals in which I had the least interest. I’m not exactly sure why but I think not being able to catch them was a big part of it as a child. In the summer of 1983 I got a job as an undergraduate research assistant working on a meadowlark field project. It was the first time I was around serious birders and I saw how many birds were out there to be seen, especially if you were out there 8 hours a day, six days a week.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Mirror Alphabet - "F": “Today the Mirror Alphabet is at the letter “F”. The first step is a doozy!”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Meteor Blades writes—Doing what White House should be doing, state and local leaders favor climate accord at Bonn summit: “Pr*@%!^#t Donald Trump didn’t show up at the Bonn climate summit. For one thing, he was visiting Asia kowtowing to Chinese leaders and making nice with the murderous president of the Philippines. For another, nobody at the summit rolled out the red carpet for him. Without that, he hates going anywhere. The only official presentation from the U.S. in Bonn was to promote the burning of fossil fuels, a move which generated a lot of flak. But there were other prominent Americans at the summit who aren’t part of the lying, climate science-denying brigade. Included in this number were several Democratic governors and many other state and local officials. They were in Germany to let the rest of the world know that even though the Trump regime is scientifically illiterate and ideologically malignant on the subject of climate change, many American state and local authorities are in opposition. They sought to make clear that they are doing what they can to meet the non-binding pledges of the Paris Climate Accord, despite Trump’s declaration that the United States will withdraw from that agreement unless it can get one of the man’s ballyhooed ‘better deals’.”
Craig Hunter writes—Scientists put humanity on notice, again. If we don't act, this planet is on a 'failing trajectory': “Twenty-five years ago, a group of scientists 1,700 strong came to an unsettling conclusion: if mankind did little to curb global warming, the decimation of fisheries, ozone layer depletion, and the unchecked exploitation of water resources, changes in our environment would ‘so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.’ On the report’s silver anniversary, more than 15,000 scientists are back with a follow-up, and its findings aren’t good. ‘Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse,’ they write. Scientists from 184 countries contributed to the letter. It is meant to serve as a ‘second notice’ to humanity about the harm being done to the planet. Without drastic measures to address rising carbon dioxide levels, deforestation, ocean acidification, and other troubling challenges, the impact could be catastrophic.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Researchers find that green roofs can help moderate the effects of climate change: “Putting up solar panels on rooftops has been one of the movements across the globe to help combat climate change. Moving to more renewable sources of energy—cleaner energy—is a clear way people with access to a roof can reduce their carbon imprint. Researchers from the University of Seville published a study this past week that says building ‘green roofs’ could both beautify and reduce some of the effects that climate scientists say we will be experiencing by the end of this century.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Guess what kills 300 percent more people on earth than AIDS, TB, malaria, war, and murder combined? “The fact that Earth’s climate is rapidly changing as a result of human activity on our planet is an enormous problem. Forget about the pretend “debate” going on, where one side explains that we need to cut back on our dirty energy needs and production in order to try to slow down the general warming of our planet, while the other side pretends that God will let them keep their money in heaven. The fact remains that fossil fuels and unregulated and unsafe industrial production causes systematic pollution—pollution of our air and our water and the soil from which we get all of our food. NPR is reporting on a new study showing that pollution was the cause of 9 million premature deaths in 2015, and the number of humans affected by pollution across the globe beats out those smoking tobacco and completely dwarfs people affected by AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and war.”
idontknowwhy writes—15000 and counting scientists sign letter of warning to humanity.“ ‘We are in the throes of a mass extinction event that is anthropogenic," Crist said. "This is not something we can fix. If we lose 50 to 75 per cent of the species on the planet in this century — which is what scientists are telling us what will occur if we continue to operate as business-as-usual — if this happens, this can not be fixed.’ From the letter — The authors of the 1992 declaration feared that humanity was pushing Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life. They described how we are fast approaching many of the limits of what the biosphere can tolerate without substantial and irreversible harm. The scientists pleaded that we stabilize the human population, describing how our large numbers—swelled by another 2 billion people since 1992, a 35 percent increase—exert stresses on Earth that can overwhelm other efforts to realize a sustainable future (Crist et al. 2017). They implored that we cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and phase out fossil fuels, reduce deforestation, and reverse the trend of collapsing biodiversity.On the twenty-fifth anniversary of their call, we look back at their warning and evaluate the human response by exploring available time-series data.”
GreenpowerCA writes—Going, Going, Bonn: UN Climate Negotiations Kick Off: “As the U.S. slowly finds its way forward, how does the world at large stand as we enter this latest round of climate negotiations on the eve of World Science Day for Peace and Development? Well… it’s not great. As of now, not a single major industrialized nation is on target to meet their Paris Agreement goals — pledges that are not even sufficient to keep global warming under the politically motivated 2°C limit that scientists agree will still cause dangerous climate impacts. While this may sound bad, countries set their climate targets with the intent of strengthening them over time to constrain warming to ‘safer’ levels. This process of bolstering climate goals is set to be a major theme of COP23 over its two week duration.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Deconstructing Denial’s Lies: Fictional Quotes and Fake Moralizing: “Yesterday was a big day for fossil fuel counter-programming to COP23. Heartland held its America First Energy Conference, while Europe’s version of Heartland, EIKE, held a denial conference with CFACT in Dusseldorf (a short distance from Bonn.) At the America First conference, participants dutifully toed the pro-fossil fuel party line. Kevin Dayaratna of US-based, fossil-fuel-funded Heritage Foundation was applauded by the crowd for calling for a subsidy for CO2 emissions (apparently, the social cost of carbon is negative). This reality-challenged perspective was repeated by CFACT’s Paul Driessen, whose presentation at the conference (and not his own organization's European event) touted the dangers of high electricity prices and the benefits of carbon dioxide. Since we can expect to see this pro-pollution argument echoed at the Trump administration’s Monday event in Bonn, we’d like to highlight Emily Atkin’s latest piece at the New Republic for a concise debunking of this (im)moral case for fossil fuels. From Bjorn Lomborg to Alex Epstein to Rick Perry, Atkin traces the short history of this long con, and points out the two key reasons why it’s wrong.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Thinking About How People Think About Climate: Rationalizing Irrationality: “A new study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences published this week looks at what makes people more likely to be skeptical of unfounded beliefs in the paranormal or conspiratorial. The study proposes that ‘skepticism requires both sufficient analytic skills, and the motivation to form beliefs on rational grounds.’ Or, in plain language: people who are smart and try to be rational and evidence-based in their thinking are less likely to believe in either conspiracy theories (the moon landing was faked, climate change is a hoax) and the paranormal (ghosts are real). Given that the implication of the study is that climate deniers are dumb and irrational, it’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Nor is it the sort of thing one would expect to see on a denier site like WUWT. But here it is.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Ball and Harris Claim We Know Nothing About 20th Century Climate: “Canadians Tim Ball and Tom Harris have a new post on PJ Media (the far right blog that was Breitbart before Breitbart was Breitbart) claiming that because ‘we have no way of knowing’ past temperatures, future forecasts are ‘impossible.’ With a headline that claims ‘In Bonn, a Global Warming Propaganda Tsunami Is Triggered,’ we were curious to see what COP news they were talking about. We were disappointed. Ball and Harris open the rambling 1400 word diatribe with a quote from Sherlock Holmes: ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.; In a move that would surely make Conan Doyle himself embarrassed, they use this as a framing for the first half of the piece focusing on alleged gaps in the temperature record. According to Ball and Harris’s dubious logic, there have never been enough thermometers--and what ones there were weren’t accurate enough--to provide a working understanding of the 20th century climate. There’s not enough data, they claim, to provide any answers.”
Mattias writes—Three reasons why the current status for climate finance can be questioned: “Developed countries have committed to mobilise $100 bn USD per year, from 2020 onward, to enable developing countries to reduce their emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. A year ago developed countries presented a status report which depicted progress towards the $100bn target, implying that it is within reach. This of course sounds great, if it is true. To know if we can trust the figures in the report we need to take a closer look into the accounting practices and methods of developed countries. If the accounting is not accurate, then can we trust the figures which are presented in the status report? I would like to share three critical points of doubt on this issue. Firstly, part of the climate finance reported by developed countries will eventually be paid by developing countries themselves. This is because a considerable amount of climate finance is delivered as loans, which must be repaid. Currently, only the flow of capital to developing countries is counted as climate finance. The backflow of finance which is in the form of rents and repayments, is not accounted for.”
Meteor Blades writes—Gov. Brown tells anti-fracking protesters at climate speech in Bonn 'Let's put you in the ground': “In Bonn Saturday at the COP23 climate talks that started this week, Brown had barely begun a speech when some dozen protesters chanted ‘poisoned wastewater’ and ‘keep it in the ground’—an attack on his support for fracking. Christopher Cadelago reports: Brown, who was less than a minute into a speech that was to mark the historic collaboration of states, cities, business and philanthropic leaders in countering Trump’s planned Paris pullout, responded to the demonstrators in real time. “I wish we could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles,” said Brown, who is on a two-week tour of Europe, preaching about the perils of climate change to largely receptive audiences. ‘I agree with you, ‘in the ground,’ Brown shot back as the heckling dragged on. ‘Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here’.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—Committee rejects Westlands drainage settlement rider to NDAA, but Big Ag vows to keep trying: “In a victory for salmon and the Delta, a Conference Committee rejected Congressman Kevin McCarthy's attempt to add H.R. 1769, Representative David Valadao’s rider approving the Westlands Water District settlement on toxic irrigation drainage, to the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). [...] The San Luis Drainage Resolution Act rider was not included in the final bill, thanks to political pressure on Senate and House Democrats by the Hoopa Valley Tribe, fishing groups and environmental organizations. However, Westlands and San Joaquin Valley Representatives said they intend to keep adding the rider to legislation in the weeks ahead until they have passed the bill, according to Restore the Delta. Westlands officials intend to pass the controversial legislation before the court-mandated deadline of Jan. 15, 2018.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Dan Bacher writes—The environmental injustice and dirty oil behind California's 'green' facade: “During a joint conference of the European Parliament on Tuesday, Governor Jerry Brown urged European leaders to link California’s controversial cap-and-trade program with the European Union emissions trading system and other carbon markets, drawing outrage from consumer and environmental justice advocates. ‘The Democratic governor and leader of the world’s sixth-largest economy pitched the prospect of a formalized California-Europe pact as a ‘concrete investment’ that could compel more states and international provinces to tackle the climate challenge at a global level,’ the Sacramento Bee reported: www.sacbee.com/... However, not mentioned in most of the largely fawning media reports of Brown’s whirlwind European climate tour is that the legislation extending California’s cap-and-trade program for another 10 years, AB 398, is based on a Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and Chevron ‘wish list.’ Over 65 environmental justice, conservation and consumer organizations opposed the bill for the unjust impact it would have on frontline communities and communities of color, including farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Senator's basic science questions expose Trump's environmental advisor nominee to be a fraud: “Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is on the Environment and Public Works Committee. The committee had hearings with Donald Trump’s new pick to become the top adviser on environmental quality in the White House. This is a person who has made her career in the oily pockets of fossil-fueled Texas politics by protecting corporate polluters, denying climate science, claiming fossil fuels ended slavery, and explaining a spoon full of carbon dioxide makes the medicine go down. Sen. Whitehouse started his questioning of Kathleen Hartnett White by asking her about how much of the excess heat captured by greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the ocean. He was asking her this question because, as a very public climate denier, her position has been that scientists have not recorded the levels of heat in the atmosphere predicted by climate change proponents. This ‘denial’ tactic has been roundly debunked as the predicted rising in ocean temperatures attests. Stumbling through her responses in a way that can only be described as ‘incompetently,’ Kathleen Hartnett White showed the world—though probably not Republicans—how pointless she is.”
Hunter writes—Republican 'tax bill' seeks to protect oil companies, punish their competitors. Yet again: “Ever since the days of Ronald Reagan, conservative ‘energy’ policy has consisted of granting subsidies to fossil fuel companies on the one hand, and efforts to legislatively cripple their market competitors on the other. You can speculate as to why this would be, but you don't need to: It's because fossil fuel companies are big donors to conservative causes. It's a simple case of policy whoring. The oil companies pay the most to candidates, so laws are written to protect oil companies. The coal companies cut checks to conservative leaders, so conservative administrations tweak the regulations to allow the companies to more easily dodge safety concerns. If ‘big solar,’ as an industry, started funding conservative campaigns or think tanks, then those politicians would be singing the praises of renewable energy. But new energy startups have only a trickle of money to spend on such prostitutes, while the nation's top oil companies have billions at their disposal, and so here we are. So yes, the Republican-controlled House is as we speak reinventing the tax code to provide subsidies to the industry that has left the most money on the nightstand, while actively punishing those that would compete with those companies. Again. This time, it’s under the ever-dodgy rubric of a ‘tax bill’.”
poopdogcomedy writes—FL-Gov: Gwen Graham (D) Calls For Ending Massive Unfair Utility Taxes In Florida: “Received this e-mail today from former Rep. Gwen Graham’s (D. FL) gubernatorial campaign: For 20 years, the Republican politicians in Tallahassee have turned a blind eye to special interests as they've run roughshod over seniors, small business owners and families.
Florida’s families have been forced to pay ‘advanced nuclear recovery taxes’ for nuclear power plants that were broken or never built -- more than $3 billion since 2006. And if some Tallahassee politicians have their way, Floridians could be forced to pay a new fracking tax to the tune of $500 million a year for unregulated fracking projects!”
ENERGY
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
godfreyforCongress writes—My (intended) Comments Regarding the IceBreaker Offshore Wind Farm: “On Nov. 8, the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) allowed public testimony in support of or opposition against the Icebreaker Wind Facility. For the uninitiated, this is the proposed offshore wind farm being planned in Lake Erie. It will be the first freshwater installation in the U.S., and presents a great opportunity for Ohio to get ahead of the game in the renewable energy industry. I joined the public testimony to voice my strong support for this bill. Fortunately yet unfortunately, so many people turned out to voice their support of this project, that by the time I had my chance to testify, I had to cut my comments considerably shorter due to time considerations. However, I wanted what I originally intended to say to be published for the record, anyways. I present that below ...”
Joy of Fishes writes—Morning Open Thread - The First Floating Wind Farm: “Statoil put giant wind turbines on top of floating spar structures and towed them out to sea. Sound crazy? Watch …”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
Hunter writes—Team Trump celebrates environmental rollbacks with industry-paid climate denying pals: “The Heartland Institute is a climate-denying "think tank" in which industry-paid wordwhores scribble out industry-dictated assertions that fossil fuels are great, climate change isn't real, pollution is good for you, cancer is a vitamin, or whatever else their patrons have written down on the memo lines of their latest checks. [...] Heartland has been having a tougher go of things these days; the nation's biggest funder of anti-environmental propaganda, Rex Tillerson's ExxonMobil, has had to curtail that propaganda on the heels of the discovery that Exxon scientists themselves were certain of fossil-fuel based climate change even as the company was funding fraudulent "studies" to the contrary. But things have not been all bad: The stupidest fucking people in America have now all been given jobs in the federal government, thanks to President Doesn'tGiveACrap.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Legality of Pruitt’s Pro-Pollution Advisory Board Reform Questioned: “Last week we learned that Pruitt’s purge of the EPA’s advisory boards is applying to all the agency’s boards, not just the three he had initially singled out. One scientist, Ohio State University professor Robyn Wilson, responded by challenged Pruitt “to officially fire me from the Board” instead of being potentially forced to choose between EPA grants or serving on the boards.Thankfully, Senate Democrats recognized Pruitt’s decision to replace independent scientists with industry hacks as a massive red flag, and sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office last week requesting it look into this decision. As it turns out, industry has tried this gambit before. Back in 2004, the letter notes, the Cargill v. United States decision ruled that being funded by a government agency ‘does not impair a scientist’s ability to provide technical, scientific peer review of a study sponsored’ by that government agency. What’s more, by barring scientists who have won government grants--which are generally considered the most competitive grants that only go to top researchers--the court ruled the policy ‘would have to eliminate many of those most qualified to give advice’.”
AIR POLLUTION
Lenny Flank writes—Study: Impact of Air Pollution Falls Unequally: “Mounting evidence over the past several decades has demonstrated inequitable distribution of pollutants of ambient origin between sociodemographic groups in the United States. Most environmental inequality studies to date are cross-sectional and used proximity-based methods rather than modeled air pollution concentrations, limiting the ability to examine trends over time or the factors that drive exposure inequalities. In this paper, we use 1 km2 modeled PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations in Massachusetts over an 8-year period and Census demographic data to quantify inequality between sociodemographic groups and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the drivers and trends in longitudinal air pollution inequality. ”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS, OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Meteor Blades writes—Trump to visit Utah next month to chop the size of national monuments designated by Clinton, Obama: “Pr*@%!^#t Donald Trump is expected to go to Utah next month to announce huge reductions in the size of two national monuments on the recommendation of Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke. The 1.88 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated by President Bill Clinton in 1996, could be reduced to as little as 700,000 acres. The 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, designated in 2015 by President Barack Obama, could be chopped to somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 acres. Trump’s trimming back the monuments would be the first such move by a president in more than half a century—since 1964. Whatever amount of reduction Trump chooses, litigation against the change by environmental advocates and American Indian tribes—some of whom spent decades trying to get Bear Ears designated as a monument—will likely be announced the same day.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
Kelly Macías writes—New study proves the damaging health impact of environmental racism on black people in the US: “According to Fumes Across the Fence-Line, a report from the NAACP and the Clean Air Task Force—an advocacy group dedicated to reducing air pollution—black people are 75 percent more likely to live in so-called “fence-line” communities that are next to industrial facilities. These facilities release a toxic stew of pollutants—including formaldehyde, which has been linked to cancer, and benzene, which has been linked to brain damage, birth defects, and cancer. [...] Most fence-line community residents are low-income and predominantly of color. The study reports that more than 1 million black people live within just half a mile of an oil or gas facility and face serious health risks such as cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases as well. It isn’t science to figure out how this happened. Companies that produce oil and gas are in it to make money and they aren’t concerned about nor accountable to poor communities and communities of color. In our capitalist society, profit is preferable to people.”
AKAlib writes—Activists Disrupt Trump Team Presentation on Coal in Bonn - with a Song: “Protesters disrupted the U.S climate presentation for over seven minutes singing ‘So you claim to be an American, But we see right through your greed.’ They then staged a mass walkout as the delegation continued with the briefing promoting coal and nuclear power at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany. The outburst came after President Donald Trump's energy policy adviser George David Banks said in his opening remarks that the White House would support development of more efficient coal plants, as well as renewable and nuclear power. The briefing was titled ‘The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation.’ Really. The lyrics of the song were transcribed by www.commondreams.org/... as:
So you claim to be an American
But we see right through your greed;
It's killing across the world
for that coal money.
And we proudly stand up and tell you to
Keep it in the ground;
The people of the world unite
and we are here to say.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Protests Puncture Trump Admin’s Pro-Coal, Pro-Quo Panel: “The Trump administration’s only official event at COP23 took place yesterday, and boy was it a show. Just not the type they had wanted. We could predict the pro-pollution argument the speakers from the coal, gas and nuclear industries took before they were seated on the podium: yay status quo, boo renewables. (It’s worth noting the pro-pollution ‘CO2 is good’ stance is yet another thing for which shadow EPA administrator Steve Milloy claims credit.) Fortunately, the response from the COP23 audience drowned out the administration’s nonsense. That’s not just a figure of speech: at one point most of the audience stood up to sing a parody of ‘God Bless the USA’ that skewered the panel’s positions. Once the protesters left, joining the indigenous, frontline and communities of color protesting outside the room, the audience looked pretty empty. We’re told the room had a capacity of 180, there were ‘about 100 people’ protesting, and that 50 members of the press were there. Some basic math suggests only a handful of audience members were there to actually take the presentations at face value (though we heard there was quite a bit of interest in rubbernecking at the wreckage of a pro-fossil fuels event at the climate conference).”
Meteor Blades writes—Open thread for night owls: As promised, U.S. gov't touts burning of fossil fuels at climate talks: “ The appearance of an executive from Peabody Energy, the US’s biggest coal miner, was particularly provocative. In 2016, the Guardian revealed the company had funded at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on manmade climate change and oppose environment regulations. Fortunately, the U.S. is not without sane representation in Bonn. Besides Bloomberg, there are other American mayors and state officials there who recognize the necessity that climate activists have been pushing for quite some time, that being: We—meaning us humans—have a very limited time in which to stop emitting greenhouse gases. Not because doing so will reverse the change that is already underway. Some amount is already ‘baked in.’ That is, it’s going to happen now even if we were to stop our 250-year atmospheric chemistry experiment tomorrow. We just don’t know how much is baked in. But we do know one thing for certain: The faster we do stop, the chances of an insurmountable outright catastrophe are more diminished.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
SkepticalRaptor writes—Glyphosate causes cancer? – large scientific study says no: ”Monsanto has developed genetically modified (GMO) grains that are resistant to glyphosate, so that farms can apply the herbicide to kill the competitive weeds while not harming the crop. This allows farmers to suppress the weeds while allowing better production out of the grain crop. There is robust evidence that glyphosate has no effect on crop yield, while reducing pests at a lower cost than other modalities. Whatever the benefits of Monsanto glyphosate, GMOs and the herbicide are tied together in many minds. And there is a ‘chemophobia’ amongst many people that all chemicals are bad. But as I discussed before, dose makes the poison – that is, in the real study of toxicology, there are doses of any ‘chemical’ that are safe or unsafe. Water, for example, can be toxic if consumed at certain doses – sure, the dose is high for water toxicity, but it exists. Our culture's chemophobia makes no sense to people, like me, who understand chemicals – every single thing we consume is made of evil chemicals, some with complex and indecipherable names. Of course, as a result of this chemophobia, and misinterpreted scientific research, there has been an ongoing effort by many people to claim that glyphosate causes cancer. This, of course, has led to a Monsanto bashing across the internet along with several lawsuits. My article is agnostic about Monsanto – I just don't care one way or another. All I care about is the quality of evidence that either supports, or refutes, the hypothesis that glyphosate causes cancer.”
Lenny Flank writes—Study Finds No Apparent Link Between Glyphosate and Cancer: “Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide worldwide, with both residential and agricultural uses. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans,’ noting strong mechanistic evidence and positive associations for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in some epidemiologic studies. A previous evaluation in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) with follow-up through 2001 found no statistically significant associations with glyphosate use and cancer at any site.’ [...] In this large, prospective cohort study, no association was apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL and its subtypes. There was some evidence of increased risk of AML among the highest exposed group that requires confirmation. [...]