This is the 516th 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 29 Green Spotlight. More than 27,475 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in this series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
FishOutofWater writes—USGS Scientist Finds Smoking Gun for Earth's Worst Mass Extinction, CO2 Turned Oceans into Acid: “Seth Burgess, U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist, found the smoking gun that caused earth’s greatest mass extinction 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period. Massive blowholes, called diatremes, blasted extraordinary amounts of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) , after earth’s largest preserved volcanic eruption began injecting massive layers of magma into carbon rich sediments. The sudden outburst of carbon dioxide caused rapid global warming and turned the oceans acidic, eliminating over 95% of earth’s marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. [...] Humans are now turning stored carbon into CO2 at a rate that is only rivaled by the end-Permian. Much of the warming potential of CO2 emissions has been hidden by the uptake of heat by cold water layers below the surface of the ocean. Coral reefs are the ocean’s canary. The recent massive bleaching and die off events are the indicators of the developing disaster in the ocean caused by increasing temperature, stagnation and acidity. Dr. Burgess clearly explained how he found the smoking gun in his original report.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - what's not on the island: “I live on an island and prefer it. It takes a lot to extract me from the Rock, there being so many many special things I love here, like the seashores, the eagles, oystercatchers, madronas, seals, our big sky and rainshadow climate and all. But there are some features of nature missing on the island. While any location has its own biodiversity, the contrast is especially noticeable when there’s a big difference such a short distance away. Islands often have distinctive sets of plants and animals. Island biogeography is a gigantic and intensely studied phenomenon, far too big for a Bucket, except to note that an island’s ecology is dynamic, influenced by its degree of isolation and changing conditions (a brief introduction can be found here: web2.uwindsor.ca/… ). The San Juan Islands archipelago is not Hawaii or the Galapagos. These islands are only 10-30 miles from the mainland, and were connected not so long ago. Shortly after the last ice sheet retreated, around 14,000 years ago, they were the tops of hills intermittently surrounded by water or attached by land bridges as sea level changed and the local continental area rose and fell in response to the shifting overlying mass of ice. Vegetation and fauna were variously similar to the mainland and different over the following several thousand years (some specifics here: qmackie.com/...). Human activity has influenced island diversity too. On my most recent trip to the mainland last weekend, just across the water, I noted some things I DON’T get to see at home.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: Butterflies! “So a few Zebra Longwings, a Sleepy Orange Sulfur and a Giant Swallowtail flew into my yard. They are working on the aster known as Smallanthus. I wrote about this perennial last year. That bucket has pretty flower pictures. There’s also another plant being visited — Hyptis - aka Clustered Bushmint - that towers over the 3-4’ Smallanthus. Well, it's taller than me when it ain't leaning over or down on the ground. There’s a constant barrage of seedlings and 2nd year plants ready to take over if an opening clears. [...] The Sleepy Orange Sulfur is a new one on me even tho they are common. It's small and lost in the foliage, plus I can't get very close to them. As it was, I got bit thru the socks by mosquitos while standing there on the path watching, waiting and focusing for 8 minutes. When I worked thru before, I was wearing big rubber boots.”
ban nock writes—Grizzly Bear To Be Protected Forever: “Today is the day when the grizzly bear in the Yellowstone ecoregion as it’s called, is officially no longer listed under the Endangered Species Act. Of course it and all large mammals always have the protections of the Endangered Species Act and this change of listing doesn’t even change who manages the species on the ground. The states of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, have been managing the species for years. Fund raising groups often say “protections to be lifted from bears!!!” and that’s simply not true, they are still fully protected, from endangerment and threats, all that’s different is their listing and the rules that accompany the listing. Scientists look at populations, not individuals, scientific scientists that is.”
ban nock writes—Obama Administration Midwest Wolf Delisting Vacated: “In no surprise to anyone a US court of appeals in Washington DC ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) hadn’t properly accounted for the impacts of partial delisting and of historic range loss to the gray wolf. www.upi.com/... This is the same reasoning as was given for Wyoming which actually won delisting on appeal (different court). From memory the original legality of the ruling was pretty good. The idea is that as the Endangered Species Act now reads a species has to be restored to it’s entire historic range for delisting to occur. The historic range includes every state and every city in the country. Suburbs, megalopolises, everywhere. Of course the reality is that one can’t have wolves roaming the streets of major metro areas and that was never the intent of restoring isolated populations. When the lower court first made this ruling most wolf researchers reacted with consternation as the ruling ignored the obvious scientific fact that wolves were long since recovered in the places where the intent was to have a wolf population. Wolf numbers in the midwest are in the thousands and there are so many that population estimates are in decline in some places as the canines have over eaten their prey base.”
matching mole writes—Dawn Chorus: Hawk Raised by Eagles: “Greetings Chorusers! This is a short diary about a rather remarkable event that occurred in the past couple of months. A red-tailed hawk chick was reared and successfully fledged from a bald eagle nest. The nest is in Sidney, BC which is just outside of Victoria on southern Vancouver Island. There are a lot of Bald Eagles in that part of the world. This event has been thoroughly documented and I have embedded a bunch of youtube videos posted by Sasse photography. I focused on the shorter videos, there are several very long ones if you want to spend more time watching this unfold. The obvious question is: how did this happen? There are two hypotheses. The most likely is that the chick was brought back to the nest by one of the parent eagles as food for the eagle chicks but then it somehow switched status from dinner to family member.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Mirror Alphabet - "T": Photo Diary.
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Tidbits from Western New York: “Some pictures from visiting western New York during the week of July 4th. A short trip to Letchworth State Park has gotten its own diary so this documents hanging around my brother’s place and also a short hike to collect mushrooms plus a visit to a few wineries to the southeast.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Pakalolo writes—Despite heavy snowfall in Greenland,melt accelerates. Brown carbon tips planet's radiation balance: “The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and in Greenland, which is the 2nd largest chunk of ice on the planet, warming alone can’t explain the severe erosion of it’s ice cap. There is now a undeniable trend of unseasonably warm summers and winters. Microbes and algae, which grow on the wet surface from early snow melting, 24 hour sun and lot’s of liquid water on the ice sheet, produce colors that boost absorption of solar energy. Soot and dust from our fossil fuel emissions and climate change enhanced grass and forest fires that blow from lower latitudes and darken the ice play a role, as do changes in weather patterns that increasingly steer warm, moist air over the vulnerable ice. Andrea Thompson of Climate Central reports on 2017 summer snowfall. While there were some bouts of melting earlier in the summer, the weather has since shifted. In recent weeks, summer snows have topped up that already unusually high snow load. Right now, the ice sheet’s surface has about 1.2 times the amount of mass than normal; at the same point in 2012, it had 1.2 times less than normal, Box said.”
jamess writes—Al Gore Spotlights the Road-Blocks ahead ...”The love of money, is the root of all chaos. Good thing those days are over, eh? Where lobbyists, and deliberate dis-information, and the structural catering to the super-rich — are all things of the past … Finally, Humanity can make that Quantum Leap, that we’ve been leading up to for centuries … If only first, we take care of a ‘few problems’ … ‘In Tennessee we have an expression: ‘If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be pretty sure it didn’t get there by itself.’ And if you see these levels of climate denial, you can be pretty sure it didn’t just spread itself. The large carbon polluters have spent between $1bn and $2bn spreading false doubt. Do you know the book, Merchants of Doubt? It documents how the tobacco industry discredited the consensus on cigarette smoking and cancer by creating doubt, and shows how it’s linked to the climate denial movement. They hired many of the same PR firms and some of the same think tanks. And, in fact, some of those who work on climate change denial actually still dispute the links between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.’”
Mokurai writes—What do I say to people who deny global warming? “I was asked that on Quora, and began my response this way: You can tell them that it no longer matters what they believe. Here is the rest of the question. My friend is a far right Republican who adamantly denies global warming. He cites some fact that the net global temperature hasn't changed in the last 20 years. Well, alt-fact. Without the source, I can't debunk this claim properly, but really we can just ignore it, as I will explain. I have said these things before, but they bear repeating in one place. You can tell them that it no longer matters what they believe, because renewable energy is cheaper than coal, and we are closing in on oil and natural gas. Of Two Global Warming Debates, One is Over The world passed Peak Coal in 2013, as first noted by Goldman-Sachs, no den of tree-huggers. Coal has been in severe decline, with massive bankruptcies and cancellations of plant and port construction worldwide. It can only get worse for the industry, like candles and whale oil and draft horses and the proverbial buggy-whip makers before them.”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
DarkSyde writes—The heat is really on: “As if the desert southwest needed more heat at this time of year, here’s a cheery observation: This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend. The chart above, based on data from James Hansen, a retired NASA climate scientist and professor at Columbia University, shows how summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades. … Practically, that means most summers are now either hot or extremely hot compared with the mid-20th century.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—California DFW issues permit to kill endangered salmon & smelt in Delta Tunnels: “The mission of the CDFW “is to manage California's diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public.” However, in an apparent violation of its mission, the permit allows the project to kill state-listed species, including Sacramento River spring and winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other fish species, during the construction and operation of the two massive 35 mile long tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. ‘Issuance of this permit represents another significant milestone in the WaterFix planning process,’ proclaimed the announcement about the permit on the California WaterFix website. ‘As described in the permit application, WaterFix will implement measures for construction and operation of the project to fully mitigate the impacts of any incidental take of state-listed species, and will provide additional protection through real-time operation of the facilities in a manner that avoids and minimizes incidental take’.”
Dan Bacher writes—Big Oil spent $10.8 million last quarter to pass Jerry Brown's cap-and-trade bill: “State officials and the mainstream media depicted the passage of Governor Jerry Brown’s cap-and-trade bill last month as a “historic climate victory,” but over 65 environmental justice, conservation and public interest organizations slammed the bill because of the devastating impact it will have on front line communities, the people of California and our air and water. The lobbying expenses by the oil industry in the second quarter of 2017 revealed how urgent the industry felt it was to pass the bill, AB 398, that was based on a Big Oil wish list. Chevron, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and Tesoro took the top three spots for lobbying expenses between April 1 and June 30, 2017, according to data filed with the California Secretary of State. The groups said they spent the money to lobby for AB 398, along with lobbying for and against other legislation. The San Ramon-based Chevron and subsidiaries topped all other lobbyists with $6,153,952 spent, followed by the Sacramento-based WSPA with $2,528,751 and San Antonio-based Tesoro Refining and Marketing Co. LLC with $2,193.489. (cal-access.sos.ca.gov/...) That’s a total of $10,876,192 — in just one quarter!”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Kerry Eleveld writes—New group aims to do for scientists what Emily's List did for female candidates: “Breast cancer researcher Shaughnessy Naughton ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Pennsylvania in both 2014 and 2016. Now, she's got a new mission: Helping scientists like herself get elected in the age of fake news and rampant denialism. Naughton founded the Pi-inspired group 314 Action and it is starting to pay dividends, write sMother Jones' Tim Murphy: The candidates also include a volcanologist who’s worried that her favorite research spot will be opened up for development; an aerospace engineer who’s running against the climate-denying head of the House Science Committee; a pediatrician who spends part of the year treating leprosy patients in Vietnam; and a physicist who worries what budget cuts would mean to the federal research facility where she spent her career. All told, more than a dozen Democratic candidates with science backgrounds have announced their candidacies for Congress or are expected to in the coming months.”
ENERGY
Fossil Fuels
Karen Feridun writes—Pennsylvania Needs a Ban on Fracking, Not a Severance Tax: “The severance tax on shale gas extraction is on the table in Pennsylvania … again. Only this time, it has a chance of passing. The state Senate has already voted for a budget that includes a small severance tax in exchange for the gutting of the DEP’s authority over shale gas development. (DEP, it would be a lot easier to defend you if you’d actually work in the best interest of the public and the environment once in a while. See Mariner East 2. See Auditor General’s report. See flawed air quality study. See fracking waste landfill records. See unexplained drop of $8.9 million fine. See water contamination records. See the Woodlands. See the Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force.) The House has yet to vote on the tax. They’ve generally been more resistant to a severance tax than the Senate has been, so it’s probably just to make a point that an alternative has been offered as part of a ‘People’s Budget,’ SB 566, a severance tax with ‘no strings attached’.”
Mary Anne Hitt writes—Scott Pruitt Must Not Delay Critical Water Toxics Standards for Coal Plants: “This week, I was honored to stand in Washington, D.C., alongside community and environmental leaders from 10 states to oppose Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt’s continuing efforts to weaken clean water protections against coal plant pollution. We started the day with a press conference at the National Press Club, where I called on Trump and Pruitt to ‘stop pandering to polluters with deep pockets and do their job of protecting local water supplies from industrial coal sludge that is spewing out of power plants across our country.’ We then moved to EPA headquarters for a public hearing, which was dominated by people who opposed the weakening the protections. According to the EPA, coal-fired power plants are the single biggest source of toxic water pollution in this country, more than all other industrial sources combined. Every year they release millions of pounds of toxic metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury into our streams, rivers, and lakes. This poses a real and present danger to millions of Americans, because these toxins are linked to health problems ranging from cancer to birth defects, and nearly 40 percent of all coal plants dump their toxic wastewater within five miles of a downstream community’s drinking water intake.”
Michael T. Klare via TomDispatch writes—Spreading the Cult of Carbon: “To spread the mantra of fossil fuels, Trump has become the nation’s carbon-pusher in chief. He’s already personally engaged in energy diplomacy, while demanding that various cabinet officials make oil, gas, and coal exports a priority. On June 29th, for instance, he publicly ordered the Treasury Department to do away with ‘barriers to the financing of highly efficient overseas coal energy plants.’ In the same speech, he spoke of his desire to supply American coal to Ukraine, currently cut off from Russian natural gas thanks to its ongoing conflict with that country. ‘Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons [of coal] right now,’ Trump said, pointing out that there are many other countries in a similar state, ‘and we want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who needs it.’ He added, ‘We are a top producer of petroleum and the number-one producer of natural gas. We have so much more than we ever thought possible, and we’re going to be an exporter… We will export American energy all over the world, all around the globe’.”
charliehall2 writes—Our insane fixation on fossil fuel development will give Trump a big victory: “A catastrophe may be about to happen in Virginia. Lt. Governor Ralph Northam won a hotly contested primary for Virginia Governor over former congressman Tom Perriello, who has endorsed Northam in the general election. The race is absolutely the most high visibility in the country this year as a Democrat is strongly favored to win the Governor’s race in New Jersey and Bill De Blasio looks like an easy re-elect in New York City. [...] And the nutty far left is going all out to destroy Northam over an issue that isn't even a state issue: Gas pipeline construction. The Washington Post has a story on this: Basically, Dominion Energy, which owns Virginia’s largest electric and gas utility, wants to build a pipeline to better serve its customers and potentially to allow more gas rather than coal to be used to generate electricity and to export natural gas to markets overseas. There are no negatives in this! Replacing coal with gas as an electric power generation fuel is all good, and pipelines are the only safe and economic way to transport the fuel. The alternative in this part of the US is coal and we should be way beyond needing to discuss why coal is 100% bad.”
Emissions Controls & Carbon Taxes
Meteor Blades writes—Court delivers another kick to Trump regime over delaying methane reductions, but fight isn't over: “In a ruling issued Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia smacked the Environmental Protection Agency again, requiring that it immediately begin enforcing an Obama administration rule that set standards for the oil and natural gas industry’s methane emissions. The Trump regime had issued a two-year delay for enforcing the rule. Although environmental advocates were pleased by the court’s decision, industry and some conservative organizations have appealed to the full 11-judge circuit court in hopes it will overrule the panel and allow the methane rule to be postponed while further studies are undertaken. Thus, the fight will continue.”
Lefty Coaster writes—DC Appeals Court rules EPA must enforce new Methane pollution rule: “A federal court told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Monday that it has to enforce an Obama administration methane pollution rule. The order from Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came after the judges gave the agency a two-week reprieve from its ruling earlier in July that the EPA broke the law when it tried to delay enforcement earlier. Despite the reprieve, the Trump administration has not asked for the entire 11-judge court to rehear its case, the standard next step for appealing a ruling for a three-judge panel.”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Michael Brune writes—Full Speed Ahead in California: “Remember President Trump’s first visit to California? Probably not, because Air Force One has barely been west of the Mississippi. Not once has Trump set foot in California, even though he owns a perfectly good golf course in Los Angeles County. What’s he afraid of? Massive protests and withering public scorn from a state that he lost by more than 4 million votes and has done his best to alienate ever since? If so, he’s misguided. Donald Trump should be grateful to California. As someone with no real interest in responsible governance (or responsible anything, for that matter), he should appreciate that California has real leaders doing real work on solving real problems. Somebody has to do it, right? At least, as the failing increasingly profitable New York Times put it in an op-ed last week, ‘until there are more responsible adults in the White House.’ Realistically, Californians shouldn’t expect a thank you note from the White House anytime soon. The rest of us, though, should be not only grateful but also encouraged by what’s happening in California. The state has been pushing the envelope on clean energy and climate action for more than a decade, and Trump’s election has inspired its leaders to push even harder—with real results.”
REGULATIONS & PROTECTIONS
Walter Einenkel writes—Top EPA official resigns and slams Pruitt, Trump: 'The truth is there is NO war on coal': “While EPA head Scott Pruitt “reorganizes” the Environmental Protection Agency by moving funds away from actual science programs to fund his own personal security force and figuring out ways to turn the agency into a climate denial propaganda machine, serious people are finding themselves with no other option but to leave. Meet Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Southland worked at the EPA for the last 30 years. Ms. Southland has decided to leave and she wrote a scathing exit letter that has surfaced and is reported on by The Hill. In the letter, Southland talks about the good things the EPA has done during her career in the hopes of protecting our air and water from pollution.—not perfectly or quickly, obviously, but always moving in the right direction.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS, OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Gabe Ortiz writes—CBP may fast-track a three-mile chunk of wall straight through a Texas wildlife refuge: “Donald Trump’s border wall that Mexico will never pay for won’t do shit to stop the illegal border crossings that are actually already at a record low thanks in large part to the work of his predecessor. But according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official, Customs and Border Protection the government ‘has been quietly preparing a site to build a nearly 3-mile border barrier through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge,’ a plan that stands to cut straight through a wildcat refuge and “some of the last surviving stands of sabal palm trees in South Texas”: A wall cutting through the refuge could do serious environmental damage, Chapman said, undermining the reason Congress appropriated money to buy the land in the first place. But under a 2005 law, the Department of Homeland Security can waive any environmental regulations that would normally impede construction in a sensitive wildlife area.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
RhodeIslandAspie writes—Alt-right Non-scientist Is Trump's Choice To Be Top Scientist at USDA: “According to CNN, Trump has picked yet another extremist for an important administration position, namely, top scientist at the USDA. According to the article, he has no qualifications whatsoever for the job, other being up to his neck in far right politics. According to the CNN piece, he has maintained a now-defunct blog for years in which he accused progressives of "enslaving" minorities, called black leaders "race traders," and labeled former President Barack Obama a "Maoist" with "communist" roots. Politico also carries a devastating piece about him, although they don’t seen to care much about the hate mongering and prefer to concentrate on his complete lack of qualifications for the job.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
PeninsulaProgCHS writes—Why We Fight for Better Transit in Charleston, SC & the Lowcountry: “Charleston, SC- 102 Million Dollars of your Transit Funding may have been diverted, deferred, or something else. The difference doesn’t matter much when you are standing in the rain waiting for a CARTA bus which comes once an hour. I know this is long, but since I missed a day at the beach to write it, if you care, you should read it. You’ll be done before the bus arrives. If you are waiting on a bus to take you to a local beach, you can finish War and Peace as well. [...] Bus service in the Lowcountry has been so bad for so long that riders care about little more than wether or not the bus comes on time, a critical issue when many routes run only once an hour and your hours are only worth 8 or 9 dollars each to your employer. Many transit riders here spend 11 to 12 hours a day on their job and transit commute. If they get a full shift, that’s 8 hours. The rest is spent waiting at stops and crawling through traffic. If the dirty water doesn’t get too deep running across the rubber mats covering the floor to drain out of the doors, they don’t really care. They just want to get home.”
MISCELLANY
Walter Einenkel writes—It turns out that Foxconn's deal includes billions in tax breaks and huge environmental law waivers: “When unpopular President Donald Trump isn’t fabricating congratulatory phone calls he’s received from Steve Bannon holding a handkerchief over the phone the Boy Scouts, he’s trying to tout the big $10 billion investment in Wisconsin being made by Tawanese electronics giant Foxconn. That’s a big deal. I wonder how they made it happen? With ‘incentives’ of course. [...] The Taiwanese company will require an array of air and water pollution permits, ranging from prescribed limits on smokestacks to the construction of green infrastructure to keeping rain from washing off a 1,000-acre campus and flooding neighboring areas. ‘This is going to require all hands on deck,’ former Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank said. Business Insider points out that the need to create space, and soon, for Foxconn means cutting some corners—and by ‘corners’ we mean ‘breathable air’ and ‘non-polluted water.’”