This is the 530th 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. 4 Green Spotlight. More than 27,980 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
gmoke writes—MIT Energy Hackathon Puerto Rico (Caribbean) Challenge Results: “The MIT Energy Hackathon began on Friday night, November 3 and ended Sunday morning, November 5. 9 energy challenges were presented to about 300 people for 2 minutes each. After a take-out dinner, each presenter had the chance to talk with individual and small groups of students for an hour and a half and to check back in over the weekend. I presented my challenge, Rebuilding Energy Infrastructure in the Caribbean After the Hurricanes, the only one submitted by an individual not a corporation, as best I could. There were over 40 teams at the Hackathon working on problems with Shell and GM’s and other’ climate goals, beer and other food and beverage waste treatment, drilling fluids, building energy use, and other topics. Three teams took the hurricane reconstruction challenge up. Each of them concentrated on Puerto Rico although I had specifically reminded them of the situation on Barbuda, which was a much smaller scale, about 2000 people rather than more than 3 million. One team redesigned Puerto Rico’s electrical system as modular micro-grids with energy storage to provide 40% of the island's power from renewables within a reasonable time period. Hawaii, with a population of about 1.5 million, is planning on 70% of its energy from renewables by 2030. This team intends to keep working on their proposal for another upcoming hackathon.”
OhioDem1 writes—A Plan to rebuild Puerto Rico: “Puerto Rico and other storm-ravaged areas in the Caribbean and elsewhere are in great need of big plans, both for the purpose of putting their lives and infrastructure back together, and as a means to protect themselves from future hurricanes, which, due to Global Warming are likely to be both more frequent and far stronger because the warming increases both the temperature of tropical seas and oceans, but the depth of heating provides more energy available to power the storms, making them both more destructive with wind and water from rain and storm surge. The red lines on the map above is a BIG plan to rebuild Puerto Rico. The red lines are a massive transportation backbone for the island territory of the United States, home to 3.2 million American Citizens, who are suffering because of recent Hurricane Maria and the woefully inadequate humanitarian response of the United States government, which of course is “led” by Donald J. Trump, whose job of play-acting a president is woefully less skillfully done then that by President Reagan two generations ago. So what do the red lines indicate? Consider a quarter mile wide right-of-way for the installation of passenger and freight rail, highways, a new electrical distribution hub, complete with high reliability long line transmission, substations, and a network of higher elevation storm shelters, all within 10 to 20 miles of every resident of Puerto Rico. Most of the network will be in the foothills of the mountain range, and well above where it can be damaged by a storm surge.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - rare Sea Otter sighting! The title picture above is one of only two I got of this lone Sea Otter, first I’ve ever seen in the inland waters of the Salish Sea. Full disclosure, I didn’t recognize it as such at the time; I just noted something unusual in shape, and snapped a couple of photos as we went by. In the boat, we are at some distance from creatures (especially in kelp beds — hazardous for props), plus the rolling of the boat, light reflecting off waves and such, means I miss more than I see, like the crowd of sea lions this time rough-housing and leaping into the air — I didn’t catch a single decent photo. But sometimes I get lucky and catch something in a photo I didn’t know was significant until later. Like this Sea otter! I’ve seen them out on the open coast off the Olympic peninsula, but have only heard of occasional sightings here in the Salish Sea, and never come across one myself in all the boating I’ve done.”
Mark Sumner writes—The Endangered Species Act is more endangered than it has been in the last 44 years: “Utah Congressman Rob Bishop is edging ever closer to driving the Endangered Species Act itself to extinction. [...] The Endangered Species Act is one of the great success stories of the nation. While it’s true that most of the animals and plants that have been protected under the act are still there, the biggest reason for that is time. Plants and animals can’t be manufactured overnight. Bringing a population back from the brink can take many generations and some of those species listed by the ESA may actually be gone. The Center for Biodiversity took a look at 110 species protected by the ESA from all regions of the nation, and found that the Endangered Species Act was ‘remarkably successful.’ Ninety percent of the species examined were on track to recover within the twenty-five period under the plan. Some of these species were down to a very small number of individuals, but are still on the road to reach a level that would take them off the list. So, naturally, Republicans have worked almost from the beginning to destroy the ESA.”
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Autumn Views: Photo Diary.
owktree writes—Daily Bucket: Ducks of Autumn: “I visited the John Heinz NWR in Philadelphia about a month ago and saw relatively little migratory duck action. A visit this past week was a bit different.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Rmuse writes—Climate Report Release Is A Trump F*ck You to the World: “A few months ago there was an ‘exhaustive scientific report’ about the state of the climate allegedly leaked to the media to prevent the Trump administration from burying it because it contradicted his assertion that climate change is a Chinese hoax to hurt America. On Friday, the White House actually approved the report mandated by Congress for release and it literally destroys everything Trump and EPA chief Scott Pruitt claim about global warming; specifically that humans have no impact on the climate. According to ‘several White House officials,’ Trump was ‘hardly aware of the report’s existence’ and it was left to Trump’s National Economic Council director, Gary D. Cohn, to approve the report for release. Cohn was concerned that blocking the report’s release might be a distraction from the GOP’s crusade to explode the deficit, rape the poor and infirm, and hand over the treasury to the rich and corporations; what Republicans are calling ‘tax reform. [...] In allowing the report’s release and still refusing to acknowledge the reality of climate change Trump is giving a big ‘fuck you’ to national security, scientific research, America’s global leadership, and the health and welfare of the American people; exactly as he’s done since the day of his poorly-attended inauguration.”
Rmuse writes—Trump’s America Is Exceptionally Isolated Against the World: “It was a big deal that a nation devastated by civil war signed on to the Paris Climate Accord this week because it appeared to be a barely functioning government. Still, Syria did what every other country on the planet, except America, did and joined the climate change battle likely because a fair amount of Syria’s woes are a direct result of global warming. Of course there is no part of America that hasn’t been adversely affected by anthropogenic climate change; a fact a recent ‘Climate Report’ cited as a reason to take immediate action. But Trump and company refuse to accept the empirical data showing that it will take a concerted global effort to save the climate for future generations and in fact refuse to acknowledge that the climate is changing for the worse. With Syria announcing at the COP23 climate summit that it was joining the global effort to combat climate change, Trump’s “America First” mantra means that America is alone, an outlier, and an anomaly among the “family of nations,” and not in a good way.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—New Climate Report, Same Denial Response: It’s Cherry-Picking Season: “Friday’s release of the Climate Science Special Report first and foremost contradicts the Trump administration and the GOP’s claims that scientists are unable to gauge the degree to which human activity is responsible for climate change. The report shows 92-123% of warming is caused by people, as we mentioned last week. That contradiction between the administration’s party line and the report’s dire findings--technically released by the administration itself--was a common frame in the mainstream media. But the message the denier world received seemed to be that the report justified whatever the writer’s position has been all along. The Trump Administration’s responded to the report with a brief message pointing to uncertainty regarding climate sensitivity mentioned in the report before quickly pivoting to a clunky version of the old (false) energy poverty angle. The White House’s chosen quote on climate sensitivity omits the previous line from the report, which states that our future emission choices will determine, to a greater extent, the range of possible warming: a classic cherry pick.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Denier Dredges Old National Geographic for Imagined Irony: “This week, a guest post by Doug Ferguson (who seems to be a random nobody) writes about a 1976 story from National Geographic titled What’s Happening to Our Climate? According to Ferguson and his denier-fueled logic, the story is an example of ‘Climatic Irony.’ In reality, it’s a frank discussion about the state of climate science in the early days of modeling, as we were still sorting out what pollution cools and what warms the atmosphere. At that point in time, as Ferguson excerpts from the article, scientists weren’t quite sure which direction we were headed: warming or cooling. As scientists mapped out the natural climate influences, and the cooling influence of aerosol pollution, it seemed as though global cooling could be in store. But when scientists added fossil fuels and greenhouse gasses to the picture painted by natural cycles, it looked like warming was on the horizon, as the 1976 article describes.”
StopCorporateAbuse writes—Planet Earth in serious trouble as Big Polluters capture global climate treaty talks: “’Polluting Paris: How Big Polluters are Undermining Global Climate Policy’ is a first-of-its-kind assessment of corporate capture in the history of the U.N. climate treaty (formally known as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change). It finds that transnational corporations, and the governments in their pockets, are pushing a pro-industry, anti-regulation agenda. As a result, a menu of false solutions are front and center in the treaty negotiations where delegates hope to hammer out the details in implementing the Paris Agreement over the next weeks. For example, corporate influence has tilted the negotiations toward market-oriented trading mechanisms that benefit the industry groups and corporations supporting them. Meanwhile, non-market solutions like direct finance and binding emissions reductions—solutions backed by evidence proving their effectiveness—have been pushed to the back burner.”
Pakalolo writes—West Antarctica's Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers Accelerate Toward the Sea: “The polar regions play a critical role in the global environment. Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers, located in West Antarctica, are two of Antarctica’s fastest glaciers Both flow into the Amundsen Sea. These long thick rivers of ice combined drain about one fifth of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Both glaciers are grounded well below sea level and warm water is carving underwater channels into the underside of the ice shelves. These channels cause the marine extension of the glacier to crack and birth icebergs while weakening any buttressing that they may have provided to keep Antarctica’s land ice from accelerating into the ocean and raising sea levels worldwide by 4 feet. Melting from below the ice makes the glaciers anchored at the bedrock susceptible to instabilities and changing the dynamics of the ice flow making them even more sensitive to changes in a warming world.”
Pakalolo writes—Puerto Rico is "still in emergency mode". Hope of improvement is fading. 60 Minutes sent a team to Puerto Rico 46 days after Hurricane Maria barreled over the island. It’s not a surprise that things have not improved. It is incredibly sad that people are leaving the island in droves for the US mainland because they have given up hope that things will improve. ‘At night, it really quiets down because it's dark,’ says 60 Minutes associate producer Jack Weingart. ‘The street lights are out, and most homes and businesses are also dark. So at night, you just hear this constant humming of the generators.’ But generators aren't designed to run constantly for weeks on end, so eventually they break down. Then the backup generators, now largely responsible for powering a city, fail. Such is life in Puerto Rico 46 days after the storm.”
Meteor Blades writes—There are so many Puerto Ricans still without electricity that nobody knows how many there are: “As Denise Oliver-Velez and Pakalolo have written here and here, thanks in great part to the Trump regime’s failure to respond effectively, that situation includes a lack of basic human necessities like safe drinking water, the spread of diseases like scabies and conjunctivitis, stench-saturated piles of debris that are breeding grounds for rats, roaches, mosquitos, and that include human feces and decomposing animal corpses, contact with which can spread worse diseases such as plague, dengue, chikungunya and Zika. And most Puerto Ricans still don’t have electricity. How many have had their power restored? CNN reporters tried to find out. They couldn’t. The island’s leaders say that 40 percent of power has been restored. But there is a difference between getting power stations back on line and actually delivering electricity to residents and businesses. The government and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority don’t know what that number is. But one union leader at PREPA, Evans Castro Aponte, told CNN that, based on what he’s been hearing, he estimates just 5 percent of customers have electricity. That may be an exaggeration. But even if it’s 50 percent, it’s appalling.”
Craig Hunter writes—'None of this is normal.' Was ousted EPA science board chair targeted by Pruitt? Sure seems that way: “Deborah Swackhamer was, until this earlier week, the chairwoman of a key science advisory board for the Environmental Protection Agency, bringing to bear her considerable experience as a water chemist and a former professor at the University of Minnesota. That was until her cell phone rang while she was at an airport in Zagreb, Croatia, and she found out EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had, well, dumped her. A friend had forwarded to Swackhamer, the chairwoman of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors, who was returning from vacation in Europe, a news article saying Administrator Scott Pruitt had launched a sweeping directive to reshape the agency's science panels. Pruitt had also named new chairmen for some of those boards, including Paul Gilman to lead BOSC, which Swackhamer currently heads up. ‘I was getting hints from inside EPA from its Office of Research and Development asking me if I wanted to stay, tiptoeing around it,’ Swackhamer told E&E News. ‘I officially found out yesterday when I saw Paul Gilman's name in the paper’."
Meteor Blades writes—U.S. now supercalifragilisticexceptionalist as planet's only nation to reject Paris Climate Accord: “The world’s second-greatest producer of greenhouse gas emissions (and No.1 historically) has become the only nation on the planet that rejects the Paris Climate Accord. That happened Tuesday when Syrian delegates to the ongoing climate conference in Bonn announced their nation would join the accord. Pr*@%!^#t Donald Trump announced in June that the United States would be withdrawing from the accord even though it cannot formally abandon it until Nov. 4, 2020. [...] Responding to the Syrian move, Eric Holthaus at Grist lays it out: That fact is so shocking it’s worth repeating: The United States is now the only nation on Earth not on board with working together to solve climate change. Even rogue regimes like Syria and North Korea have taken time out from plotting mass murder to acknowledge the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Laurence Lewis writes—Syria to sign Paris climate accord, making Trump's America the world's sole climate pariah: “American exceptionalism: Syria announced during United Nations climate talks on Tuesday that it would sign the Paris agreement on climate change. The move, which comes on the heels of Nicaragua signing the accord last month, will leave the United States as the only country that has rejected the global pact. According to several people who were in a plenary session at the climate talks in Bonn, Germany, a Syrian delegate announced that the country was poised to send its ratification of the Paris agreement to the United Nations.”
Mystic54 writes—Syria joined Paris climate accord. US now only country on Earth to abstain.
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—World Rolls Eyes as Team Trump Pushes Fossil Fuels at Bonn Climate Talks: “By far the most concerning Bonn attendee from the US, however, is Senate EPW staffer Mandy Gunasekara, who more or less pledged allegiance to coal country back in May. Gunasekara’s presence plus Tillerson’s ‘seat at the table’ answer to Paris questions means it’s no surprise the administration is using its influence to push for more fossil fuels at a presentation moderated by Francis Brooke and featuring pro-coal, oil and nuclear speakers. Officially though, US negotiators are expected to play relatively nicely with the rest of the world, and the fossil fuel industry’s blatant attempt at advertising its products at COP probably won’t have much of an impact on the actual negotiations. While the industry might not get a windfall from this COP, Trump’s position has been useful enough as a rallying cry for the rest of the world. A year ago, Trump’s ascension triggered fears of mass defections from Paris. In fact, the opposite has happened, and no other international leader has followed in Trump’s footsteps. In fact the number of signatories has increased thanks to Nicaragua, and now even Syria, joining in.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
A Siegel writes—R-t F--king Virginians: GOP dirty tricks team at work against environmentalists ....? “Lots of r-tf—king is underway in Virginia (like Russia troll farm operations) with this clear example yesterday
Like the best r-tf—king actions, there is sadly truth here: Northam is on the wrong side of economics, the environment, and history when it comes to the natural gas pipelines. However, HOWEVER … there a more fundamental truth: despite that, Northam is the FAR better choice on environmental issues (along with every single other issue) than fossil-foolish Gillespie (whose recent clients, by the way, include some of the worst climate-science denier organizations).”
ENERGY
Fossil Fuels
Mark Sumner writes—Trump is warping the energy market to help just one supporter—at a cost to climate, health, and jobs: “Donald Trump has wrecked America’s standing in the world by unilaterally removing the nation from the Paris agreement, placed millions at risk from climate change by dumping the Clean Power Plan, buried hundreds of miles of streams and rivers with an executive order to remove limits on dumping waste, and cut short the lives of thousands by requiring utilities to keep more polluting power sources in the mix. And all of it, all of it, helps one man. A proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry to alter the nation's electricity markets would provide a windfall for a small group of companies — most strikingly one owned by coal magnate Bob Murray, a prominent backer of President Donald Trump. The ‘reliability’ standards being pushed by Perry’s Department of Energy explicitly penalize utilities for using wind or solar power and reward providers who keep aging coal power and nuclear plants up and running. Even natural gas-powered plants aren’t allowed to meet the specifications that were specifically drawn to protect coal.”
Renewables, Efficiency & Conservation
Uncle writes—Puerto Rico to Tesla - Will the REAL Elon Musk stand up? “Elon Musk is the world’s face for solar. His hype, money, lovely blazers, etc. blocks out the sun on anybody else who wants to talk solar and he is simply not in Puerto Rico. Yes, Tesla energized one small hospital but ignored the rest of the 3.5 million souls living in the dark without water, refrigeration, cell service, internet, you name it. And if you wanted to go buy any Tesla product in Puerto Rico you have a better chance of getting a monkey to fly our of your butt. Why? Is Tesla simply a fraud? Is there a reason they are getting sued for non-delivery of their cars? Is their enormously over valued company the next Enron? If Tesla was for real, Puerto Rico is a fantastic opportunity and yet, all we hear are crickets (coquis). Puerto Rico has one of the world’s sunniest environs on the planet and still no Tesla. I even tried to buy my own system and put a $2,000 deposit down with a local company. After weeks of delay the company now says that they can’t even think of installing a system for months.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
gmoke writes—City Agriculture - November 6, 2017: “Many believe that vertical farms and indoor growing are more resource-intensive than open field farming. Could be. I asked one of the principals of Freight Farm a year or so ago if they had maximized their operations for energy efficiency and was told no. This debate will continue until the indoor growers do all they can to operate as energy and resource efficiently as possible. It may be that they can become less energy and resource intensive than open field farming but we’ll have to wait awhile to be certain. Most haven’t even yet begun that process. The Netherlands feeds the world - a tiny country is the world’s second largest food exporter.”
Paul Bland for Public Justice writes—Tell Congress: Don’t Let Factory Farms Pollute Rural Drinking Water: “This Thursday, the House Committee on Agriculture’s Environment subcommittee will hold a hearing on a proposal to wipe away an essential tool for helping rural America’s hold factory farms accountable for polluting its drinking water.The problem is very real, and comes with very dire consequences: Huge, industrial animal agriculture operations – known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (or CAFOs) - are increasingly located in areas of the country where citizens depend exclusively on private wells to supply them, and their families, with clean drinking water. The CAFOs, which can house thousands of animals on nearby land produce extraordinary amounts of animal waste. And while most of these operations are good neighbors and manage waste appropriately, those that do not pose serious threats to public health. Consider that a herd of 11,000 cows produces more waste than the entire population of Philadelphia. If mismanaged, such waste can seep into aquifers supplying the water used for drinking, bathing and cooking.”
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
this is only a test writes—In Praise of a Humble Plug-In Hybrid: “I never thought I’d buy another car. I’ve been biking to work for years; my wife often bikes to work too, and our son can walk to his job. Besides, our sturdy old Corolla may be 15 years old, but it has low mileage and is still going strong when we need it. (For reference, we’ve put about 20k miles on the Corolla over the last 5 years, and I’ve put a bit over 48k miles on my bikes since I started vanity tracking in 2012.) But we’re getting older, and our new grand-puppy is now way too large and unruly to trailer behind a bike, and we wanted to take some longer trips with lots of gear, and … Well, this summer we got a second car: A 2017 Ford plug-in hybrid. It’s basically a 40 mpg hybrid with an extra 20-mile EV-only capability. I’ve been surprised by three things about this car.”
MISCELLANY
Pakalolo writes—Local conditions are ideal for disease in Puerto Rico. Mosquitoes spreading Zika and Dengue: “Conditions are ideal for disease in Puerto Rico. Rains have left pools of standing water that have become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. People are living without roofs and/or without walls in many locations after Hurricane Maria’s 155 mph winds devastated the island. Hurricane Irma destroyed many islands including the US Virgin Islands. Those without access water have been forced to resort to contaminated streams and rivers to wash their clothes, taking a bath and even drinking water risking severe gastro-intestinal diseases such as gastroenteritis and conjunctivitis. ‘There are 47 types of adenoviruses and the diseases resulting from infections include conjunctivitis, pharyngitis, pneumonia; acute and chronic appendicitis, exanthematous disease, bronchiolitis, acute respiratory disease, and gastroenteritis (types 40 and 41)’.”
SemDem writes—Rick Perry Really Said Oil Will Prevent Rape. Here's Where I Have to Show Him Otherwise...”Perry thinks his main duty as Energy Secretary is to sell oil, and he even sucks at doing that. (He once explained the law of supply and demand as: ‘You put the supply out there and the demand will follow.’) Dumb as a lump of coal. On a recent selling trip that included Northern Africa, the last place in the world that needs oil, Rick Perry brought back this word salad: It’s going to take fossil fuels to push power out into those villages ... But also from the standpoint of sexual assault, when the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. Yup, that’s not out of context. He actually said fossil fuels prevent rape.”