This is the 513th 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 July 19 Green Spotlight. More than 27,435 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.
(The usual categories have been left out of this Spotlight because of the relatively small number of diaries that are included, not permanently from the series.)
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: Rescue mission provides sanctuary for threatened herbarium specimens: “The threatened with destruction 470,000 herbarium specimens at the University of Louisiana at Monroe were rescued by the Botanical Research Institute of Texas this Tuesday. Half of the herbarium cabinets were loaded into freezer trucks (for pest prevention) and hit the road. They are moving from Monroe, Louisiana to Fort Worth Texas. The other half will be fetched in two weeks. BRIT recognizes the hard work of the many curators, as well as those people who worked closely with and supported the collections. BRIT vows to honor their contributions by making sure this priceless scientific collection continues to be accessible to the world. This herbarium will live on (and retain its name as the R. Dale Thomas Collection)!”
Mother Mags writes—The GOP wants to make sure the Mexican gray wolf is a real species. Wonder why? “If you’re not a real, genuine species, but merely some mutt of a dog, then you shouldn’t qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Or so Republican thinking goes, according to a story in today’s Phoenix New Times: Buried in the dry language of a newly released budget proposal for the U.S. Department of the Interior is a line that you could easily miss: a directive to study the genetics behind the Mexican gray wolf and another species, the red wolf.Driving around the rural Southwest, it’s not uncommon to see billboards denouncing wolves and the wolf recovery project, which began reintroducing Mexican grays in the late ‘90s. Wolves of course are predators, they kill cattle and sheep, which the livestock industry and their political flunkies don’t like. But here’s the deal: Mexican gray wolves are native to this region, cattle and sheep are not. One contributes to a healthy environment, the other destroys it. For a long time we’ve known that removing predators from nature screws things up immeasurably, which is the point of the Endangered Species Act, signed in 1973 by Republican President Richard Nixon. We don’t protect species just because they’re really cute or extremely big and awesome, but because they’re ecologically linked to everything else.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Climate scientist blows the whistle after Trump administration tries to silence him: “Joel Clement used to be the director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department. Last week, Mr. Clement lost his job and Wednesday he became a whistleblower on the Trump administration and their practice of trying to silence facts and reality: I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science. Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies. Clement goes on to explain that he believes he was demoted because he spoke out publicly about climate change and more specifically he voiced concerns about its affects on Native American communities in Alaska. Moving someone from their position of expertise into a field they have nothing to do with is a classic scumbag employer thing to do when you want to edge someone into an early retirement.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Corolla @ Bodie Island, Part 2: “In Part 1 I arrived on Corolla and took a hike along a trail through the woods and then visited a lighthouse. Now it’s time to go to the beach. But first I got to move all my stuff into the rental house. Sharing it with ten people and a dog for the next week. (I would not want to live here full time — the kitchen is on the 3rd floor! Nice view, but a lot of hauling distance for food and garbage.) [...] The houses were separated from each other and the boardwalks connecting to the beach by trees and hedges. These in turn were heavily occupied by sparrows, catbirds, mockingbirds, and flycatchers. Two mockingbirds had nearby house roofs as their main displaying spot for establishing territory. Lots of birdsong to listen to while sitting by the pool reading.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistleblower Cafe: “Scientist Joel Clement’s incredible whistleblowing in the Washington Post provides a peek into how the fact-averse Trump administration is chilling science at the federal level. By turning a scientist into an accountant with (allegedly) the ultimate goal of driving him out of an agency altogether, they’re sending a clear message about how the administration views data, facts, and well… reality. Clement’s reassignment is just one of many assaults on science, as evidenced by a new report out from the Union of Concerned Scientists this week that documents how Trump has ‘Sidelined Science from Day One.’ From gutting advisory boards to ignoring their advice to removing data from websites to clamping down on scientists’ ability to speak with the press, UCS’s timeline of Trump’s first six months is packed with examples that, in a normal world, would each be a major scandal. So far, Clement’s allegation that his demotion was retaliation for speaking out on climate change seems to be the biggest staffing story yet. Hopefully others will come forward with their stories, until it becomes clear to the administration that any attempts to tamp down inconvenient facts will blow up in their faces. That may be their game plan.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Oil and Gas Investments in Politicians are Paying Off, But Will it Backfire? ”With all the Russia drama putin the spotlight on foreign entities corrupting the American political process, some very important stories have been flying under the radar. In any normal year, the Denver Post’s reporting on how fossil fuel interests have spent $80 million on influencing the state’s politics would be a bombshell. Obviously, other states have also been subject to fossil fuel money influencing who gets elected and what their legislative priorities are. Despite the industry’s poor public perception, state lawmakers bend over backwards to give industry handouts--often at the public’s expense. Drilling on public land, for example, provides massive profits to the fossil fuel industry. But the public, who owns that land, gets paid a pittance for letting the industry pollute. While oil companies and their executives get rich, states are left to slash education funding. But, of course, that’s not enough. The federal budget proposed by the House is described by NRDC’s Franz Matzner in a new blog post as an ‘Oil-Filled Trojan Horse.’ Matzner explains that through some legislative trickery, the budget opens the door for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”
Dem writes—Stefan Rahmstorf: "West Antarctic has probably crossed its tipping point and is unstable: “I contemplate what the world will look like in the year 2100 after we reap the results of the climate change that we sowed. There are many important and scary consequences of climate change. Sea level rise is among the worst. I think about the world we will be leaving those who are yet to be born. I find life is more rewarding when I think about others. When I was a kid, I always was excited about what I would get when I opened my presents for Christmas. Things ! Things for me ! As I got older, I found that finding my fulfillment and happiness in the things I got did not work. There was always going to be something better and nicer that I did not have. Whatever I got would always lose its luster. I found that my own life was so much happier and more rewarding when I could make a difference in the lives of others, especially children, especially people of color, and the vulnerable. It made me feel good if I could make somebody else feel better or be happier. When people were hurting or crying, upset, then being there for them and building them up and helping put them back together made me happier. It was true whether I was noticed or not. Life is about others. Life is not about self or things. I think about the people who are yet to be born and the world we will leave them.”
Mark Sumner writes—Fighting climate change by paying people to not damage the environment: “When people hear that there is a program that sometimes pays farmers not to grow crops, it’s often taken as the height of government folly. In truth, there’s some very sound thinking behind the program. The alternative for keeping farmers alive in an industry where a year of high crop yields can drop prices far below production costs is a system of government price supports. Under that system, farmers would plow fields, plant crops, and use all the normal amounts of water, pesticides, and fertilizer, all to produce crops the market didn’t need. Paying farmers not to grow the crops is better for the farmer, better for the environment, better for the markets, and far cheaper for the government. As side benefits, it helps recharge farm lands by encouraging fields to be fallow, improves biodiversity by providing more space for native plants, and reduces pest species by not holding vast amounts of unneeded crops in storage. In some circumstances, paying people to not do something can turn out to be far more effective than paying them for some action—and that’s true not just in farming. A team of researchers has shown that there is a surprisingly cheap and easy way to slow the pace of deforestation in Uganda: Just pay landowners small sums not to cut down their trees. Their study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, demonstrated this by conducting something all too rare in environmental policy — a controlled experiment.”
Dan Bacher writes—The Fix Is In: Brown administration approves environmental documents for Delta Tunnels: “While Governor Jerry Brown poses as the ‘resistance to Trump’ and vows that he will ‘defend science’ against the Trump administration, the Brown administration today revealed the hollowness of that vow as it approved flawed environmental documents that clear the path for the construction of the Delta Tunnels. Today’s announcement follows recent biological opinions issued by the Trump administration claiming that the project, considered by opponents to be potentially the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history, ‘meets’ environmental and wildlife protection standards under federal law. During a press conference call today, the California Department of Water Resources announced the certification of the environmental documents for the California Water Fix under the California Environmental Water Quality Act (CEQA).”
Dan Bacher writes—Goldman Sachs Underestimates Delta Tunnels Cost for Westlands Water District: “On Monday, Goldman Sachs delivered a Delta Tunnels financing presentation to the Board of Directors for Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest water district and a fierce opponent of Sacramento-San Joaquin River and Klamath-Trinity River salmon and steelhead restoration, at a meeting at Harris Ranch in Coalinga, CA. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a controversial American multinational finance company that engages in global investment banking, investment management, securities, and other financial services including asset management, mergers and acquisitions advice, prime brokerage, and securities underwriting services. It also sponsors private equity funds, is a market maker, and is a primary dealer in the United States Treasury security market. Goldman Sachs also owns GS Bank USA, a direct bank. After the meeting, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Senior Attorney Doug Obegi crunched the numbers and discovered that San Joaquin Valley growers would likely pay more than Goldman Sachs’s cost estimates, according to a Restore the Delta news release.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Rex Tillerson's ExxonMobil fined by US for violating Russian sanctions: “The US treasury department fined Exxon Mobil $2,000,000 for violating government sanctions against Russia in 2014. Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon Mobil at the time. The heads of the company's U.S. subsidiaries signed eight documents between May 14 and May 23, 2014 with Igor Sechin, the head of Russia's largest oil producer, Rosneft, Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a statement on its website. Sechin had been blacklisted by the United States just weeks earlier. The Treasury unit, which enforces sanctions, found ExxonMobil had not voluntarily self-disclosed the violations, ‘and that the violations constitute an egregious case.’Reuters got a quote from an Exxon Mobil spokesperson which I will paraphrase for you: Exxon Mobil had considered their dealings a loophole and they are totally annoyed that they're getting called out for it now.”
RLMiller writes—Something, Anything: How California’s Cap And Trade Got Extended, in Three Political Acts: “Scene 2: Back to the Capitol. Paid lobbyists for green groups, all white people, make the rounds. Each conversation starts: ‘Yes, this deal sucks, but we need to pass something. Anything.’ Just outside the Capitol, unpaid activists, brown and black and white people, look on in horror. The proposals keep a key tenet: a cap-and-trader can pay for offsets somewhere in the world. A rain forest in Brazil, an Arkansas rice farm - it’s all the same in global climate pollution; but it doesn’t clean up pollution at home. What has happened to California Democrats who say they care about environmental justice??? Scene 3: Orange County. Jon Fleischman, a California Republican Party official and the editor of Breitbart California, rails against cap and trade extension.Scene 4: Stanford University. Earnest economists crunch numbers and realize that the oil companies have so many free allowances accumulated during the 2015-17 era that they will never reach the cap. And it’s highly likely with all that hot air, that the state will never reach its 2030 climate goal. But the Governor wants to pass something, anything. Scene 5: My phone, late at night, almost every night. Texts: The governor is negotiating with industry but cutting out environmentalists! California chapter of national green group wants to oppose bill, but Brown calls national HQ and national HQ orders support! The bill is getting worse! HELP!”
Dan Bacher writes—Watchdog group asks DOJ to investigate Trump Interior nominee for lobbying disclosure violations: “President Donald Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp’ in Washington, D.C., but it appears that he has instead exchanged the swamp alligators with one horrendous ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ after another in his administration. In the latest Trump regime scandal, a prominent watchdog group today called on the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colombia to investigate whether David Bernhardt, President Trump’s controversial nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior, violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act by continuing to lobby despite formally withdrawing his registration in November 2016. A complaint by the Campaign for Accountability reveals that emails obtained through a California public records request show that Bernhardt continued to promote the interests of the politically powerful Westlands Water District after terminating his lobbying registration to run Trump’s Interior transition team. Westlands, the largest water district in the nation, is one of the fiercest opponents of Sacramento-San Joaquin River and Klamath-Trinity River salmon and steelhead restoration efforts. Westlands diverts water from these river systems through the federal water export pumping facilities to irrigate toxic, drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.”
Ojibwa writes—Public Lands: The Lava Island Island Day Use Area: “While many people view the national forests as a source of timber to be harvested by private companies, the national forests also provide recreational activities for many people. Shown below are photographs of the Lava Island Day Use Area on the Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon. This is an area managed by the Deschutes National Forest.”
Kelly Macias write—In Colfax, Louisiana, the military is burning waste with no regard for the people who live there: “Though the face of the mainstream environmental movement is largely white, environmental justice is an issue of pressing concern for people of color. There is a direct link between race, class and environmental issues and black people are on the forefront of our nation’s environmental crisis—with exposure to lead paint, and the chance of living in proximity to landfills and toxic waste sites disproportionately affecting our community. Flint, Michigan’s water crisis is one of the more notable and recent cases in which government systems not only failed to protect the well-being and health of poor black people, but one in which they further punished them— when they also tried to make them pay for very services that poisoned them in the first place. Unfortunately, this story is not an isolated occurrence. In Colfax, Louisiana, the U.S. military burns explosives and munitions waste, with little regard for the people who actually live there. The burns take place several times each day, and when they do, they turn parts of Colfax into a virtual war zone. ‘It’s like a bomb, shaking this trailer,’ said Elouise Manatad, who lives in one of the dozen or so mobile homes speckling the hillside just a few hundred yards from the facility’s perimeter. The rat-tat-tat of bullets and fireworks crackles through the woods and blasts rattle windows 12 miles away. Thick, black smoke towers hundreds of feet into the air, dulling the bright slices of sky that show through the forest cover. Manatad’s nephew Frankie McCray — who served two tours at Camp Victory in Iraq — runs inside and locks the door, huddling in the dark behind windows covered in tinfoil.”
Meteor Blades writes—Of course he did: Trump picked climate science denier for Ag Department's top science post: “Sonny Perdue, the political hack appointed to be secretary of agriculture, once labeled mainstream climate science ‘so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.’ As if having a science denier running the Department of Agriculture weren’t disastrous enough, Pr*sident Trump has now, as expected, picked another political hack—a former right-wing talk-radio host named Sam Clovis—to be the undersecretary of research, education, and economics, the USDA’s top science position. Like the man who will be his boss if he is confirmed, the native Iowan also doesn’t accept climate science, saying three years ago that he is ‘extremely skeptical.’ [...] Clovis apparently made up for this credentials deficit when he did campaign duty for the Trump-Pence campaign after leaving similar work for Rick Perry. He also hosted the Iowa-based talk-radio program “Impact with Sam Clovis.” During his losing Senate race in the 2014 Iowa Republican primary, he once said that the only reason President Barack Obama hadn’t been impeached was because he is black. ”
Galtisalie writes—Peak Big Oil-Ag Nexus: Trump's Ag Science pick based on climate denialism, not, you know, science: “Give Trump credit, he can use his appointment powers to build mental walls to forward-thinking with the best of them. As I have noted many times recently (including this past Sunday, www.dailykos.com/...), the next Farm Bill should be a time for reflecting on how to move both food and farms into a sustainable future, which is not one of excessive fossil fuel dependence. On the other hand, the main priority for Trumpian Energy-Ag policy, effectively written by ExxonMobil’s former chief executive, who now runs U.S. foreign policy, is ensuring that Americans continue to eat oil. If you want to build a mental wall to keep farmers quiet about the climate change that is burning up their fields, and prevent the next generation of holistic progressive science from making it down on the farm, put a non-scientist climate science denier in charge of Ag research.”
Assaf writes—#RESIST by Plugging-in, Mid-17 Update: Exciting Premiere and amazing Closeout: “In a pair of diaries right after 45*’s inauguration, I made the case that getting an electric car has now become not only a viable environmental option, but a necessary act of resistance. It’s the perfect storm for EV expansion: the oil industry becoming the government is happening exactly as the range of affordable and attractive options to buy/lease an EV is reaching critical mass. If pickup trucks and big SUVs are the only vehicles you care about, then you’ll have to wait a few years. But everyone else should probably pay *very* close attention, and even consider swapping that ICE (internal combustion engine) car of yours a few years ahead of plan, and replace it with an electric car this year. What I’m asking, is that you go beyond pure consumer-side considerations, and add to the equation the fact that by going electric now, you will be actively undercutting the Trump regime by removing your household (or part of it) from the oil economy. In January I presented available low-budget EV options. In February I followed up with exciting new mid-market offerings.”
GreenpowerCA writes—This Week in the Environment 7.20.17: Courts, Kids and Nuns Denying the Deniers: “4. Trump taps industry lawyer to lead energy commission The Hill. While not directly related to any current legal cases, Trump’s decision to appoint an energy industry lawyer to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will put an industry insider with a deep legal background in charge of the agency responsible for approving all oil and gas pipelines. FERC has already established itself as a powerful friend to the fossil fuel industry, having only denied two out of hundreds of pipeline requests over the last 30 years. Releasing this new alligator into Trump’s swamp can only spell trouble for everyone but his industry cronies.”