Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
No. Both will lead to disaster. That's like asking would you rather lose an eye or a hand. Neither for me please.
Yeah, sorry, Lerx but I have to go with static111: neither choice. We don't have time to fool around with phony rhetoric and measures that are mere facades that continue to line the pockets of corporate heads and do nowhere near enough to slow climate change. COP is like saying, "OK, your house is flooded up to the rafters so we're going to lower the water a couple of inches... [and get rich while doing it]."
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what some would call "radical" talk, or doomsday negativity, but it's not. It's just what is. The evidence is plain to see and has been mounting for years... no, decades. Scientists have been talking about global warming since the 70's, when I first heard about it. We can't afford to inch along for another fifty years.
Ok bri and static, where are we in global emissions vs 15 years ago? We need allies to continue the fight, especially if Americans are only interested in voting for cheap gas and drill baby drill, as they are expected to do tomorrow. We need corporate America, especially corporations headquartered in cities, with their left leaning employees, to win this fight. Considering how vain the typical voter is, weighted by rural power the constitution allows, not sure what other allies the climate fight has.
We are currently emitting about 4 billion tons of emissions per year more now than we were 15 years ago. Yes, we need allies in order to lower that. I don't see COP as being strong enough allies. I'll take what we can get, but it's just not enough.
In any case, what we really need right now are as many democrats as possible to get out and vote against MAGA republicans. Democrats are more likely to help alleviate climate change issues. But honestly, I still don't see that as being enough.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
No. Both will lead to disaster. That's like asking would you rather lose an eye or a hand. Neither for me please.
Yeah, sorry, Lerx but I have to go with static111: neither choice. We don't have time to fool around with phony rhetoric and measures that are mere facades that continue to line the pockets of corporate heads and do nowhere near enough to slow climate change. COP is like saying, "OK, your house is flooded up to the rafters so we're going to lower the water a couple of inches... [and get rich while doing it]."
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what some would call "radical" talk, or doomsday negativity, but it's not. It's just what is. The evidence is plain to see and has been mounting for years... no, decades. Scientists have been talking about global warming since the 70's, when I first heard about it. We can't afford to inch along for another fifty years.
Ok bri and static, where are we in global emissions vs 15 years ago? We need allies to continue the fight, especially if Americans are only interested in voting for cheap gas and drill baby drill, as they are expected to do tomorrow. We need corporate America, especially corporations headquartered in cities, with their left leaning employees, to win this fight. Considering how vain the typical voter is, weighted by rural power the constitution allows, not sure what other allies the climate fight has.
This take assumes some benevolence on the part of the corporation, which would be nice since they are made up of actual people. Unfortunately actual people don't have the strength to affect the flow of a corporations business without a whole lot of organization and things like walking out and boycotting and striking. But like the independents that are going to vote for gas prices the people employed by corps have to pay the bills and are not likely to put too much pressure on the company that cuts their checks.
Where I think the snag is here is the purpose of the corp to provide dividends to shareholders above all else. Because the very successful people that make big decisions are so insulated from the downstream effects they have no reason to alter their course regardless of the dominant political party or societal values of the day, as long as the profits keep rolling in. If anything is gonna get done at a corporate level this means share values go down because of citizen unrest and the corporation then remedies this by appealing to the needs of the citizens so they can become profitable again for the shareholders. As long as people keep buying single use plastic bottles of Coke, coke isn't gonna do anything but talk, as long as people continue buying packages from amazon as cheap as possible and shipping them back and forth across the globe, nothing is going to get done but empty talk as long as profits don't get effected.
We the people as ridiculous as that cliche is beginning to sound have to stop making it financially profitable for these companies to continue on the current course by divesting and boycotting. As long as we are more concerned with our 401k value and getting things as cheaply as possible right now than the environment and moving to a cleaner greener future, it is likely that corps do as little as possible. It sucks but that is the way I see it and it looks like Bri sees it that way too.
When corporations purposefully start taking a hit to their bottom line by putting the earth first and putting shareholders second I will gladly change my tune.
Scio me nihil scire
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,284
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
No. Both will lead to disaster. That's like asking would you rather lose an eye or a hand. Neither for me please.
Yeah, sorry, Lerx but I have to go with static111: neither choice. We don't have time to fool around with phony rhetoric and measures that are mere facades that continue to line the pockets of corporate heads and do nowhere near enough to slow climate change. COP is like saying, "OK, your house is flooded up to the rafters so we're going to lower the water a couple of inches... [and get rich while doing it]."
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what some would call "radical" talk, or doomsday negativity, but it's not. It's just what is. The evidence is plain to see and has been mounting for years... no, decades. Scientists have been talking about global warming since the 70's, when I first heard about it. We can't afford to inch along for another fifty years.
Ok bri and static, where are we in global emissions vs 15 years ago? We need allies to continue the fight, especially if Americans are only interested in voting for cheap gas and drill baby drill, as they are expected to do tomorrow. We need corporate America, especially corporations headquartered in cities, with their left leaning employees, to win this fight. Considering how vain the typical voter is, weighted by rural power the constitution allows, not sure what other allies the climate fight has.
This take assumes some benevolence on the part of the corporation, which would be nice since they are made up of actual people. Unfortunately actual people don't have the strength to affect the flow of a corporations business without a whole lot of organization and things like walking out and boycotting and striking. But like the independents that are going to vote for gas prices the people employed by corps have to pay the bills and are not likely to put too much pressure on the company that cuts their checks.
Where I think the snag is here is the purpose of the corp to provide dividends to shareholders above all else. Because the very successful people that make big decisions are so insulated from the downstream effects they have no reason to alter their course regardless of the dominant political party or societal values of the day, as long as the profits keep rolling in. If anything is gonna get done at a corporate level this means share values go down because of citizen unrest and the corporation then remedies this by appealing to the needs of the citizens so they can become profitable again for the shareholders. As long as people keep buying single use plastic bottles of Coke, coke isn't gonna do anything but talk, as long as people continue buying packages from amazon as cheap as possible and shipping them back and forth across the globe, nothing is going to get done but empty talk as long as profits don't get effected.
We the people as ridiculous as that cliche is beginning to sound have to stop making it financially profitable for these companies to continue on the current course by divesting and boycotting. As long as we are more concerned with our 401k value and getting things as cheaply as possible right now than the environment and moving to a cleaner greener future, it is likely that corps do as little as possible. It sucks but that is the way I see it and it looks like Bri sees it that way too.
When corporations purposefully start taking a hit to their bottom line by putting the earth first and putting shareholders second I will gladly change my tune.
Good stuff here.
And Lerxst, do know we are working toward the same goal. Just different ways of getting there. I just don't see going the slow route via corporate or political action as it stands as being enough effort soon enough. It's literally a race against time for us to act strongly and expeditiously enough to make a viable difference.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
The problem with renewables is scaling up to macro supply levels and transmission logistics.
Using the US electric transmission industry as an example, there is abundent transmission capacity from eastern Canada which needs to get to the northeast US, because there is abundent clean supply to the north and usage to the south. This is the current logistical setup
The challenge for wind and solar is its anticipated to be abundant in the central US, but is needed along the coasts where population is largest. The transmission to move the energy from production regions to usage just does not currently exist in the capacity needed
Sure we'd love for renewables to solve the Russia gas problem, but building out an entirely new infrastructure, with tech that barely exists today, is a time consuming logistics challenge. The type thats measured more in a decade or so.
..
Its like when PJ loves to play the small towns. They overwhelm existing infrastructure to handle all the big metropolitan fans traveling out to the small towns to stay at hotels.
For example, I was almost stranded in Ottawa due to a hotel error, in the midst of a thousand mile round trip journey. Driving 500 miles with no sleep? Not an issue in the PJ planning world when they set up a tour
Most days getting a hotel would be no big deal in Ottawa. When PJ is in town on a Saturday night, there were no rooms available from Ottawa to Kingston almost to Montreal.
A good analogy for the EU heating problems
If Pearl Jam wants to play small towns, why not play a smaller venue with ticket availability to accommodate the size of the town. Also make tickets available locally first. That would be the appropriate and responsible thing to do, right? Same hold true for our society in general. If we don't live sustainably, we run into problems. Simple logic.
I think that's great in theory, but would likely be a logistical nightmare, don't you think (I don't know, I've never been involved in touring organizing)
"Oh Canada...you're beautiful when you're drunk" -EV 8/14/93
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,284
The problem with renewables is scaling up to macro supply levels and transmission logistics.
Using the US electric transmission industry as an example, there is abundent transmission capacity from eastern Canada which needs to get to the northeast US, because there is abundent clean supply to the north and usage to the south. This is the current logistical setup
The challenge for wind and solar is its anticipated to be abundant in the central US, but is needed along the coasts where population is largest. The transmission to move the energy from production regions to usage just does not currently exist in the capacity needed
Sure we'd love for renewables to solve the Russia gas problem, but building out an entirely new infrastructure, with tech that barely exists today, is a time consuming logistics challenge. The type thats measured more in a decade or so.
..
Its like when PJ loves to play the small towns. They overwhelm existing infrastructure to handle all the big metropolitan fans traveling out to the small towns to stay at hotels.
For example, I was almost stranded in Ottawa due to a hotel error, in the midst of a thousand mile round trip journey. Driving 500 miles with no sleep? Not an issue in the PJ planning world when they set up a tour
Most days getting a hotel would be no big deal in Ottawa. When PJ is in town on a Saturday night, there were no rooms available from Ottawa to Kingston almost to Montreal.
A good analogy for the EU heating problems
If Pearl Jam wants to play small towns, why not play a smaller venue with ticket availability to accommodate the size of the town. Also make tickets available locally first. That would be the appropriate and responsible thing to do, right? Same hold true for our society in general. If we don't live sustainably, we run into problems. Simple logic.
I think that's great in theory, but would likely be a logistical nightmare, don't you think (I don't know, I've never been involved in touring organizing)
"If they can send a man to the moon..."
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
No. Both will lead to disaster. That's like asking would you rather lose an eye or a hand. Neither for me please.
Yeah, sorry, Lerx but I have to go with static111: neither choice. We don't have time to fool around with phony rhetoric and measures that are mere facades that continue to line the pockets of corporate heads and do nowhere near enough to slow climate change. COP is like saying, "OK, your house is flooded up to the rafters so we're going to lower the water a couple of inches... [and get rich while doing it]."
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what some would call "radical" talk, or doomsday negativity, but it's not. It's just what is. The evidence is plain to see and has been mounting for years... no, decades. Scientists have been talking about global warming since the 70's, when I first heard about it. We can't afford to inch along for another fifty years.
Ok bri and static, where are we in global emissions vs 15 years ago? We need allies to continue the fight, especially if Americans are only interested in voting for cheap gas and drill baby drill, as they are expected to do tomorrow. We need corporate America, especially corporations headquartered in cities, with their left leaning employees, to win this fight. Considering how vain the typical voter is, weighted by rural power the constitution allows, not sure what other allies the climate fight has.
We are currently emitting about 4 billion tons of emissions per year more now than we were 15 years ago. Yes, we need allies in order to lower that. I don't see COP as being strong enough allies. I'll take what we can get, but it's just not enough.
In any case, what we really need right now are as many democrats as possible to get out and vote against MAGA republicans. Democrats are more likely to help alleviate climate change issues. But honestly, I still don't see that as being enough.
I was referring to US emissions, which are down 15% since 2005. I understand global is more important, however looking at how the US was able to cut emissions gives me some hope.
What doesn't is how our election day is expected to go. Americans are about to give the party of coal and more drilling control of US spending
In comparison, our big blue city corps may be a better partner than the American voter in this fight.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,284
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
Another (yawn) Climate Change Conference next month.
This time however it's going to be different.
How can it go wrong with Coca-Cola as an official sponsor?
I mean why not have one of the planet's top polluters as a sponsor?
This company produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute amounting to some 3 million tons of plastic every year.
The company sells over 470 billion plastic bottles a year.
The sugary poison will be flowing freely at the conference for all those thirsty "environmentalists" once again engaged in the fruitless, endless, litany of false hopes and promises that these COP conferences spew out.
I attended COP 21 back in 2015 in Paris where the fishing industry was sponsoring the Ocean forum where I spoke and where anything I had to say was most definitely not welcome.
Who next? Monsanto, Shell, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ford?
This reminds me of the 1992 U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development in Brazil where Maurice Strong of Petro-Canada was an organizer and one of the sponsors was MacDonalds. Every single promise made at that meeting never materialized.
These COP meetings have achieved absolutely nothing but false promises and I speak as someone who was there in Stockholm at the very first U.N. Environmental Conference where young people were urged to get involved, but not too much involved. You can hold a sign that says, "Save the Whales" but don't go out to sea to actually save the whales.
The hurricanes keep getting stronger, the flood waters keep getting higher, the reservoirs keep getting lower, the forest fires keep getting more intense, biodiversity continues to diminish, human populations continue to rise as more and climate migrants struggle to escape the places they were born.
And the meetings continue, and more meetings and more meetings, more talks, more promises, more pledges, more photo ops for world leaders and more marketing of products that contribute to climate chaos.
Last year Boris Johnson said it was just one minute to midnight on the climate change doomsday clock. Maybe they will make progress and announce that it is now 30 seconds to midnight.
After the speech, Johnson did absolutely nothing to address the threat, nor did any other leader. Putin started a war, arms manufacturing increased fracking increased, lithium mining increased, the oil pumps kept pumping, the coal plants kept spewing and an American Senate candidate said the problem was good American air was drifting to China and dirty Chinese air was moving to America and a former President said windmills cause cancer.
We are trying to find real solutions in a swamp of stupidity where only money talks.
And the money will continue to talk, next year and the year after next year. Cop 27 next month on to COP 28, 29, ..... to COP 50. Corporations will be competing to be the official sponsor.
An industry has been created employing lobbyists, delegates, educators. publicists, advertisers, and marketeers all to promote solutions that are never realized. You have to marvel at the sheer audacity of someone successfully promoting Coke-Cola as an official sponsor for COP 27
The only thing they can agree on is that Extinction Rebellion is too extreme and we need to be more upbeat about the future because technology will save the day or we can all move to Mars.
On the bright side, delegates can visit the pyramids where they can sit in the desert sand contemplating the death of the Nile with a nice complimentary cold plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in hand.
It's just as good of a read the second time. All these corporate self serving bullshit talks with empty pledges and broken promises. I don't know how people can trust any of it.
Hit the nail right on the head, my friend. The whole COP this is a farce propagated by bullshit artists who, unfortunately, are quite adept at fooling massive numbers of people.
Isn’t cop27 better than what is occurring in the USA tomorrow, independents voting for republicans to control America’s wallet? The rest of the world is at least trying to come up with something while Americans are voting Republican, because independents vote mostly based on how cheap gas costs to fill up the tank
And we can curse out corporations for all their ills, but we are not getting there without their help. Most major companies, including coke, are looking to cut emissions 25 to50 percent in the next decade or two - without their investment (and pressure from within - their employees) Americans will continue to elect republicans who will push for more coal, by far the biggest pollution problem, because alternatives to coal currently exist. Unlike musk and his snake oil vehicles. And of course more drill baby drill. Can’t wait for America’s tomorrow.
My reply is why Dems lose a lot of elections, a short attack is much easier to communicate than a nuanced message.
No. Both will lead to disaster. That's like asking would you rather lose an eye or a hand. Neither for me please.
Yeah, sorry, Lerx but I have to go with static111: neither choice. We don't have time to fool around with phony rhetoric and measures that are mere facades that continue to line the pockets of corporate heads and do nowhere near enough to slow climate change. COP is like saying, "OK, your house is flooded up to the rafters so we're going to lower the water a couple of inches... [and get rich while doing it]."
I know that sounds like hyperbole, or what some would call "radical" talk, or doomsday negativity, but it's not. It's just what is. The evidence is plain to see and has been mounting for years... no, decades. Scientists have been talking about global warming since the 70's, when I first heard about it. We can't afford to inch along for another fifty years.
Ok bri and static, where are we in global emissions vs 15 years ago? We need allies to continue the fight, especially if Americans are only interested in voting for cheap gas and drill baby drill, as they are expected to do tomorrow. We need corporate America, especially corporations headquartered in cities, with their left leaning employees, to win this fight. Considering how vain the typical voter is, weighted by rural power the constitution allows, not sure what other allies the climate fight has.
We are currently emitting about 4 billion tons of emissions per year more now than we were 15 years ago. Yes, we need allies in order to lower that. I don't see COP as being strong enough allies. I'll take what we can get, but it's just not enough.
In any case, what we really need right now are as many democrats as possible to get out and vote against MAGA republicans. Democrats are more likely to help alleviate climate change issues. But honestly, I still don't see that as being enough.
I was referring to US emissions, which are down 15% since 2005. I understand global is more important, however looking at how the US was able to cut emissions gives me some hope.
What doesn't is how our election day is expected to go. Americans are about to give the party of coal and more drilling control of US spending
In comparison, our big blue city corps may be a better partner than the American voter in this fight.
Yeah, I've been dreading this day but we'll see how it shakes out. Hoping for miracles.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Volvo announces its FIRST electric vehicle, ok makes sense, but also announces it will ONLY produce EVs in 8 years. For investors, what sense does this make?8 years? Their ENTIRE FLEET? 40% of global electricity is coal sourced, (and growing!!), which is by far the dirtiest of the dirty fossil fuels, among a litany of problems EVs present including toxic raw materials and safe disposal.
Another example of misplaced priorities (here comes SC)…. World would be better off if companies invested in JVs with developing nations energy infrastructure, to get them away from coal and towards renewable generation. Get in on the ground floor and help the world for real. Biden is right yesterday at cop27, the American taxpayer is not going to finance this, our best hope is for companies to invest wisely
Volvo announces its FIRST electric vehicle, ok makes sense, but also announces it will ONLY produce EVs in 8 years. For investors, what sense does this make?8 years? Their ENTIRE FLEET? 40% of global electricity is coal sourced, (and growing!!), which is by far the dirtiest of the dirty fossil fuels, among a litany of problems EVs present including toxic raw materials and safe disposal.
Another example of misplaced priorities (here comes SC)…. World would be better off if companies invested in JVs with developing nations energy infrastructure, to get them away from coal and towards renewable generation. Get in on the ground floor and help the world for real. Biden is right yesterday at cop27, the American taxpayer is not going to finance this, our best hope is for companies to invest wisely
Volvo announces its FIRST electric vehicle, ok makes sense, but also announces it will ONLY produce EVs in 8 years. For investors, what sense does this make?8 years? Their ENTIRE FLEET? 40% of global electricity is coal sourced, (and growing!!), which is by far the dirtiest of the dirty fossil fuels, among a litany of problems EVs present including toxic raw materials and safe disposal.
Another example of misplaced priorities (here comes SC)…. World would be better off if companies invested in JVs with developing nations energy infrastructure, to get them away from coal and towards renewable generation. Get in on the ground floor and help the world for real. Biden is right yesterday at cop27, the American taxpayer is not going to finance this, our best hope is for companies to invest wisely
Volvo announces its FIRST electric vehicle, ok makes sense, but also announces it will ONLY produce EVs in 8 years. For investors, what sense does this make?8 years? Their ENTIRE FLEET? 40% of global electricity is coal sourced, (and growing!!), which is by far the dirtiest of the dirty fossil fuels, among a litany of problems EVs present including toxic raw materials and safe disposal.
Another example of misplaced priorities (here comes SC)…. World would be better off if companies invested in JVs with developing nations energy infrastructure, to get them away from coal and towards renewable generation. Get in on the ground floor and help the world for real. Biden is right yesterday at cop27, the American taxpayer is not going to finance this, our best hope is for companies to invest wisely
HSBC updates climate policy to stop funding new oil and gas
6 mins ago
LONDON (AP) — Europe's biggest bank HSBC announced Wednesday it will no longer finance new oil and gas fields as part of its updated climate strategy.
Climate campaigners welcomed the moved saying HSBC provided a new baseline for other major banks but urged the bank to go further.
The bank said it would still provide financing to existing fossil fuel projects “in line with current and future declining global oil and gas demand.” It would also continue to provide finance and advisory services to energy sector clients but will assess the companies' plans to transition to clean energy.
“It sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net zero," said Jeanne Martin, from the campaign group ShareAction. But she added the change “doesn’t deal with the much larger proportion of finance it (HSBC) still provides to companies that have oil and gas expansion plans.” She called for new proposals to address the issue of corporate-level financing for energy companies “as soon as possible.”
In a report last year the International Energy Agency said investments in new coal mines, oil and gas wells need to end immediately if the world stood a chance of meeting its commitment in the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Earlier this year a group of institutional investors found that several banks — including HSBC — would need to significantly step up their efforts on climate if the Paris goal is to be met.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
HSBC updates climate policy to stop funding new oil and gas
6 mins ago
LONDON (AP) — Europe's biggest bank HSBC announced Wednesday it will no longer finance new oil and gas fields as part of its updated climate strategy.
Climate campaigners welcomed the moved saying HSBC provided a new baseline for other major banks but urged the bank to go further.
The bank said it would still provide financing to existing fossil fuel projects “in line with current and future declining global oil and gas demand.” It would also continue to provide finance and advisory services to energy sector clients but will assess the companies' plans to transition to clean energy.
“It sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net zero," said Jeanne Martin, from the campaign group ShareAction. But she added the change “doesn’t deal with the much larger proportion of finance it (HSBC) still provides to companies that have oil and gas expansion plans.” She called for new proposals to address the issue of corporate-level financing for energy companies “as soon as possible.”
In a report last year the International Energy Agency said investments in new coal mines, oil and gas wells need to end immediately if the world stood a chance of meeting its commitment in the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Earlier this year a group of institutional investors found that several banks — including HSBC — would need to significantly step up their efforts on climate if the Paris goal is to be met.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
HSBC updates climate policy to stop funding new oil and gas
6 mins ago
LONDON (AP) — Europe's biggest bank HSBC announced Wednesday it will no longer finance new oil and gas fields as part of its updated climate strategy.
Climate campaigners welcomed the moved saying HSBC provided a new baseline for other major banks but urged the bank to go further.
The bank said it would still provide financing to existing fossil fuel projects “in line with current and future declining global oil and gas demand.” It would also continue to provide finance and advisory services to energy sector clients but will assess the companies' plans to transition to clean energy.
“It sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net zero," said Jeanne Martin, from the campaign group ShareAction. But she added the change “doesn’t deal with the much larger proportion of finance it (HSBC) still provides to companies that have oil and gas expansion plans.” She called for new proposals to address the issue of corporate-level financing for energy companies “as soon as possible.”
In a report last year the International Energy Agency said investments in new coal mines, oil and gas wells need to end immediately if the world stood a chance of meeting its commitment in the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Earlier this year a group of institutional investors found that several banks — including HSBC — would need to significantly step up their efforts on climate if the Paris goal is to be met.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Parts of Greenland now hotter than at any time in the past 1,000 years, scientists say
New research in the northern part of Greenland finds temperatures are already 2.7 degrees warmer than they were in the 20th century
The coldest and highest parts of the Greenland ice sheet, nearly two miles above sea level in many locations, are warming rapidly and showing changes that are unprecedented in at least a millennium, scientists reportedWednesday.
That’s the finding from research that extracted multiple 100-foot or longer cores of ice from atop the world’s second-largest ice sheet. The samples allowed the researchers to construct anew temperature record based on the oxygen bubbles stored inside them, which reflect the temperatures at the time when the ice was originally laid down.
“We find the 2001-2011 decade the warmest of the whole period of 1,000 years,” said Maria Hörhold, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
And since warming has only continued since that time, the finding is probably an underestimate of how much the climate inthe high-altitude areas of northern and central Greenland has changed. That is bad news for the planet’s coastlines, because it suggests a long-term process of melting is being set in motion that could ultimately deliver some significant, if hard to quantify, fraction of Greenland’s total mass into the oceans.Overall, Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 20 feet.
Parts of Greenland now hotter than at any time in the past 1,000 years, scientists say
New research in the northern part of Greenland finds temperatures are already 2.7 degrees warmer than they were in the 20th century
The coldest and highest parts of the Greenland ice sheet, nearly two miles above sea level in many locations, are warming rapidly and showing changes that are unprecedented in at least a millennium, scientists reportedWednesday.
That’s the finding from research that extracted multiple 100-foot or longer cores of ice from atop the world’s second-largest ice sheet. The samples allowed the researchers to construct anew temperature record based on the oxygen bubbles stored inside them, which reflect the temperatures at the time when the ice was originally laid down.
“We find the 2001-2011 decade the warmest of the whole period of 1,000 years,” said Maria Hörhold, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
And since warming has only continued since that time, the finding is probably an underestimate of how much the climate inthe high-altitude areas of northern and central Greenland has changed. That is bad news for the planet’s coastlines, because it suggests a long-term process of melting is being set in motion that could ultimately deliver some significant, if hard to quantify, fraction of Greenland’s total mass into the oceans.Overall, Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 20 feet.
"Doomed": Yeah, but only for a few tens of thousands of year. :-(
Also saw an article that talked about most of the corporate carbon offsets are bogus and not making a difference. We could have done so much more, now will have to live and die with the consequences.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even its coffee room — as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing.
The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon's resources to be exploited at the expense of the environment.
As Wapichana performed the ritual, Indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!’’ — a reference to the agency she will lead.
Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation.
To carry out these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro had filled with allies of agribusiness and military officers.
In Lula's previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and Indigenous issues. And he is certain to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.
The federal officials Lula has already named to key posts “have the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction that we have suffered over these four years of the Bolsonaro government,” said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama, Brazil’s environmental law-enforcement agency.
Bolsonaro's supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula's promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and punish people for activities that had previously been allowed. Some supporters with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical assistance to rioters who earlier this month stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court.
When Bolsonaro was president, he defanged Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to soar to its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from Indigenous people faced few consequences.
(AP Photos/Leo Correa, File)
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon declined by 38% compared with the previous four years, according an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.
One of the strongest signs yet of Lula's intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva to lead the country's environmental ministry. Silva formerly held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed to be too lenient.
Silva strikes a strong contrast with Bolsonaro’s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he had facilitated the export of illegally felled timber.
Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:
— Signing a decree that would rejuvenate the most significant international effort to preserve the rainforest — the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro had gutted, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development of the Amazon.
— Revoking a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in Indigenous and environmental protection areas.
— Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will oversee everything from land boundaries to education. This ministry will be led by Sônia Guajajara, the country's first Indigenous woman in such a high government post.
“It won't be easy to overcome 504 years in only four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a take-back of Brazil's spiritual force," Guajajara said during her induction ceremony, which was delayed by the damage pro-Bolsonaro rioters caused to the presidential palace.
The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro viewed management of the Amazon as an internal affair, causing Brazil's global reputation to take a hit. Lula is trying to undo that damage.
During the UN’s climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil had been scheduled to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018 right after he was elected.
While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex hurdles. For example, getting cooperation from local officials won't be easy.
Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. Those include Rondonia, where settlers of European descent control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers who had long fought to preserve the rainforest to take up cattle grazing instead.
The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries, such as Peru and Venezuela. The illegal mining causes mercury contamination of rivers that Indigenous peoples rely upon for fishing and drinking.
“Its main cause is the state's absence,” says Gustavo Geiser, a forensics expert with the Federal Police who has worked in the Amazon for over 15 years.
One area where Lula has more control is in designating Indigenous territories, which are the best preserved regions in the Amazon.
Lula is under pressure to create 13 new Indigenous territories — a process that had stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to grant “one more inch” of land to Indigenous peoples.
A major step will be to expand the size of Uneiuxi, part of one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions of the world that is home to 23 peoples. The process of expanding the boundaries of Uneiuxi started four decades ago, and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).
“Lula already indicated that he would not have any problem doing that,” said Kleber Karipuna, a close aide of Guajajara.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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When scientists tagged a curious seal, he led them to signs of a potential climate disaster By Chris Mooney and Simon Ducroquet January 21, 2023 at 12:00 ET This is a story about a curious seal, a wayward robot and a gigantic climate change disaster that may be waiting to happen. Scientists tagged a southern elephant seal on the island of Kerguelen, an extraordinarily remote spot in the far southern Indian Ocean, in 2011. The seal was a male close to 11 feet long weighing nearly 1,800 pounds, and they fitted his head with an ocean sensor, a device that these massive seals barely notice but that have proved vital to scientific research. Elephant seals like this one swim more than 1,500 miles south from Kerguelen to Antarctica, where they often forage on the seafloor, diving to depths that can exceed a mile below the surface. As summer in the Southern Hemisphere peaked, the seal made a standard Antarctic journey, but then went in an unusual direction. In March 2011, he appeared just offshore from a vast oceanfront glacier called Denman, where elephant seals are not generally known to go. He dived into a deep trough in the ocean bed, roughly half a mile below the surface. And that is when something striking happened: He provided an early bit of evidence that Denman Glacier could be a major threat to global coastlines. The seal swam through unusually warm water, just below the freezing point, but in the Antarctic, that is warm. Given its salt content and the extreme depths and pressures involved — in some regions Denman Glacier rests on a seafloor that is over a mile deep — such warm water can destroy large amounts of ice. And it certainly could have been doing so at Denman.
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EPA considers tougher regulation of livestock farm pollution
By JOHN FLESHER
18 mins ago
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will study whether to toughen regulation of large livestock farms that release manure and other pollutants into waterways.
EPA has not revised its rules dealing with the nation's largest animal operations — which hold thousands of hogs, chickens and cattle — since 2008. The agency said in 2021 it planned no changes but announced Friday it had reconsidered in response to an environmental group's lawsuit.
While not committing to stronger requirements, EPA acknowledged needing more recent data about the extent of the problem — and affordable methods to limit it.
“EPA has decided to gather additional information and conduct a detailed study on these issues in order to be able to make an informed decision as to whether to undertake rulemaking,” the agency said.
Food & Water Watch, whose lawsuit prompted the agency's reversal, said a new approach was long overdue.
“For decades EPA’s lax rules have allowed for devastating and widespread public health and environmental impacts on vulnerable communities across the country,” Tarah Heinzen, the group's legal director, said Monday.
Beef, poultry and pork have become more affordable staples in the American diet thanks to industry consolidation and the rise of giant farms. Yet federal and state environmental agencies often lack basic information such as where they’re located, how many animals they’re raising and how they deal with manure.
Runoff of waste and fertilizers from the operations — and from croplands where manure is spread — fouls streams, rivers and lakes. It's a leading cause of algae blooms that create hazards in many waterways and dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie.
Under the Clean Water Act, EPA regulates large farms — known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs — covered by federal pollution permits. Federal law requires only those known to discharge waste to obtain permits, although some states make others do so.
EPA's most recent tally shows 6,266 of the nation's 21,237 CAFOs have permits.
In its plan, the agency said its rules impose “substantial and detailed requirements” on production areas — barns and feedlots where animals are held, plus manure storage facilities — as well as land where manure and wastewater are spread.
While prohibiting releases to waterways, the rules make exceptions for production area discharges caused by severe rainfall and for stormwater-related runoff from croplands where waste was applied in keeping with plans that manage factors such as timing and amounts.
In deciding whether to revise the rules, EPA said it would consider how well they're controlling pollution and how changing them would bring improvements.
The agency conceded its data on discharges to waterways is “sparse,” with a preliminary analysis based on reports from only 16 CAFOs. In addition to seeking information from more farms, EPA said it would assess whether discharges are widespread nationally or concentrated in particular states or regions.
It also will look into practices and technologies developed since the rules were last revised, their potential effectiveness at preventing releases, and their cost to farm owners and operators. Under the law, new requirements on farms must be “technologically available and economically achievable.”
Revising water pollution rules typically takes several years, three full-time employees and $1 million per year for contractor help, EPA said. The study will determine whether “the potential environmental benefits of undertaking rulemaking justify devoting the significant resources that are required," it said.
Livestock groups have said government regulation is strong enough and that voluntary measures such as planting off-season cover crops and buffer strips between croplands and waterways are the best way to curb runoff. The American Farm Bureau Federation declined comment Monday.
Environmental groups argue regulations should cover more farms, require better construction of manure lagoons to avoid leaks, and outlaw practices such as spreading waste on frozen ground, where it often washes away during rainstorms or thaws.
“We're not talking about really expensive fixes here," said Emily Miller, staff attorney with Food & Water Watch. “We need the standards to be stronger so they actually prevent discharges as they're supposed to do.”
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Earth’s inner core seems to be slowing its spin By Carolyn Y. Johnson January 23, 2023 at 11:00 ET In the mid-1990s scientists found evidence that Earth’s inner core, a superheated ball of iron slightly smaller than the moon, was spinning at its own pace, just a bit faster than the rest of the planet. Now a study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that around 2009, the core slowed its rotation to whirl in sync with the surface for a time — and is now lagging behind it. The provocative findings come after years of research and deep scientific disagreements about the core and how it influences some of the most fundamental aspects of our planet, including the length of a day and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. Three thousand miles below the surface, a scorching hot ball of solid iron floats inside a liquid outer core. Geologists believe that the energy released by the inner core causes the liquid in the outer core to move, generating electrical currents that in turn spawn a magnetic field surrounding the planet. This magnetic shielding protects organisms on the surface from the most damaging cosmic radiation. Don’t panic. The core’s slowing down isn’t the beginning of the end times. The same thing appears to have happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the study authors at Peking University in China suggest it may represent a 70-year cycle of the core’s spin speeding up and slowing down. But while other experts praised the rigor of the analysis, the study will sharpen, not settle, the fierce scientific debate about what the mysterious metal sphere at the center of the Earth is up to. “It’s only contentious because we can’t figure it out,” said John Vidale, a geophysicist at the University of Southern California. “It’s probably benign, but we don’t want to have things we don’t understand deep in the Earth.” The new study was led by Xiaodong Song, a geoscientist at Peking University whose work in 1996 first brought forward the evidence that the core was doing its own thing. Buried beneath the mantle and the crust, the core is too deep to visualize directly, but scientists can use seismic waves triggered by earthquakes to infer what’s happening in the planet’s innards. Seismic waves travel at different speeds depending on the density and temperature of the rock, so they act as a kind of X-ray for Earth. The study examined seismic waves that traveled from the sites of earthquakes to sensors on the flip side of the planet, passing through the core on the way. By comparing waves from similar earthquakes that struck the same spot over the years, the scientists were able to search for and analyze time lags and perturbations in the waves that gave them indirect information about the core — or as some scientists call it, the planet within our planet. “The inner core is the deepest layer of Earth, and its relative rotation is one of the most intriguing and challenging problems in deep-earth science,” Song said in an email. [Scientists are slowly unlocking the secrets of the Earth’s mysterious hum] The behavior of the core may be linked to minute changes in the length of a day, though the precise details are a matter of debate. The length of a day has been growing by milliseconds over centuries because of other forces, including the moon’s pull on Earth. But ultraprecise atomic clocks have measured mysterious fluctuations.
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US company gets $120 million boost to make 'green steel'
By ED DAVEY
Yesterday
The manufacture of "green steel" moved one step closer to reality Friday as Massachusetts-based Boston Metal announced a $120 million investment from the world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.
Boston Metal will use the injection of funds to expand production at a pilot plant in Woburn, near Boston, and help launch commercial production in Brazil. The company uses renewable electricity to convert iron ore into steel.
Steel is one of the world’s dirtiest heavy industries. Three-quarters of world production uses a traditional method that burns through train loads of coal to heat the furnaces and drive the reaction that releases pure iron from ore.
Making steel releases more climate-warming carbon dioxide than any other industry, according to the International Energy Agency — about 8% of worldwide emissions. Many companies are working on alternatives.
The financial package by global steel giant ArcelorMittal is the biggest single investment made to date by the firm’s carbon innovation fund. Microsoft is another investor.
Tadeu Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal, said its technology is “designed to decarbonize steel production at scale” and would “disrupt the industry.”
The company's technology was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professors Donald Sadoway and Antoine Allanore, experts in energy storage and metallurgy respectively, are the founders.
Instead of burning coal, their process runs electricity through iron ore in a metal box or “cell” the size of a school bus to separate the iron from the oxide. Operators then collect the liquid iron from the bottom, Carneiro said. Boston Metal said it can eliminate all carbon dioxide from its steel production and hopes to ramp up production to millions of tons by 2026. As a bonus, it said, it is able to extract metals from slag normally considered waste.
Steel is in the early stages of a transition to cleaner processes that have less impact on the climate. Many major European steelmakers have announced alternatives to traditional coal-fired steelmaking and some automakers are buying the cleaner steel to fulfill promises to shareholders and customers.
By far the most steel is made in Asia. Both China and Japan have made moves in the direction of cleaner steel.
In the United States, most steel is already cleaner, because it is made by melting down old steel, for example junked cars. That can be done in electric kilns and emits a fraction of the climate-changing gases as virgin steel production.
It will be years before steel is cleaned up on a mass scale, Carneiro said. “It takes time to develop and scale up and get traditional and conservative industries to change things.”
Several industry alliances are working to speed things up. A non-profit called ResponsibleSteel, for example, brings together stakeholders from up and down the supply chain — mining to finished steel products — to cooperate on cleaning up steel.
In related news, on Thursday, U.S. steelmaker Nucor announced it will start making heavy grade steel at a new $1.7 billion mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky, using electric furnaces to make new steel from scrap. The company says the product is intended for the offshore wind industry.
Offshore wind is key to many plans to address climate change, because it partially replaces fossil fuel-burning electricity. It will require massive amounts of steel as turbines are built miles offshore from U.S. coastlines. Nearly 90% of an offshore turbine’s weight is steel, and each one, including the foundation, requires roughly 180 tons of steel per megawatt, according to the industry group American Clean Power.
————
Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, R.I. contributed.
———
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Nevada battery recycler wins $2B loan from Energy Department
By MATTHEW DALY and GABE STERN
9 Feb 2023
MCCARRAN, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada company that recycles batteries for electric vehicles has won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration.
Redwood Materials, a recycling venture founded by the former chief technology officer at Tesla Inc., secured the conditional loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which helped Tesla more than a decade ago.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the grant Thursday at Redwood’s facility in Nevada with Gov. Joe Lombardo, where they spoke from a stage to dozens of employees.
“This region is leading the way to a broader story of what is happening in the country,” Granholm said, pointing to a map of 80 battery manufacturing or supply chain companies that are expanding or opening in the U.S. Most have been announced in response to the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021 and the climate law he signed last year, she said.
Battery recycling will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain, a major goal of the Biden administration as it seeks to move away from gas-powered cars in the larger fight against climate change. Biden also has promoted domestic production of critical minerals used in EVs and other electronics, as part of the climate fight and to counter China's longtime dominance in the supply chain.
With Redwood and other projects underway, “China might be starting to worry,″ Granholm boasted. “And to that I say we’re just getting started.″
The Energy Department said its conditional commitment demonstrates its intent to finance the Nevada project, but several steps remain before officials approve a final loan.
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by Jeffrey “JB” Straubel, Tesla’s former chief technology officer. It now has more than 300 employees who recycle used batteries and has supply contracts with Ford and with Panasonic, which makes batteries for Tesla.
Straubel said the company already has more material than it can process from spent consumer batteries from lawnmowers, cellphones and toothbrushes, as well as production scraps from lithium-ion battery manufacturing.
The company says it can recover more than 95% of the elements in a spent battery, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. The metals are then used to make anode and cathode components for new battery cells.
Redwood Materials “is going to play this outsized role in bringing the batteries supply chain home — because you’re focused on the pieces that we don’t have in the United States,'' Granholm told employees at Thursday's event. “You guys are making history in this.''
Redwood Materials is expected to create about 3,400 construction jobs and employ about 1,600 full-time workers, the department said.
Redwood Materials’ history in Nevada started under former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who was in attendance on Thursday. It continued under Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak before the loan was conditionally approved under Lombardo, who acknowledged he was a latecomer to negotiations. The investments and subsequent jobs help fulfill a campaign pledge by Lombardo and past governors to diversify Nevada’s casino and tourism-based economy.
“This is what we’re going to have to do to have success in the state of Nevada,” Lombardo said. “We can’t have all our eggs in one basket.”
In December, the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development awarded $105 million in tax incentives to Redwood, the second-largest capital investment in the office’s history, behind Tesla.
Once fully operational, the battery materials campus in McCarran, Nevada, outside Reno, will be the first domestic facility to support production of anode copper foil and cathode active materials for a lithium-ion battery manufacturing process. The process would recycle end-of-life battery and production scrap and remanufacture it into critical materials, the Energy Department said in a blog post.
Straubel, Redwood’s CEO, told The Associated Press last year that recycling battery materials will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain. China now dominates the EV supply chain, including critical minerals needed for EV batteries.
“Redwood fills a critical gap in that whole piece, and our goal is to close the loop on all the materials that we’ve already mined and produced into products, keep them in the regions where they were bought and are being used,'' Straubel told the AP. "Every battery that we can recycle is one battery worth of materials that we don’t need to mine again.''
___
Daly reported from Washington.
___
Associated Press auto writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.
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Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,284
Nevada battery recycler wins $2B loan from Energy Department
By MATTHEW DALY and GABE STERN
9 Feb 2023
MCCARRAN, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada company that recycles batteries for electric vehicles has won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration.
Redwood Materials, a recycling venture founded by the former chief technology officer at Tesla Inc., secured the conditional loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which helped Tesla more than a decade ago.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the grant Thursday at Redwood’s facility in Nevada with Gov. Joe Lombardo, where they spoke from a stage to dozens of employees.
“This region is leading the way to a broader story of what is happening in the country,” Granholm said, pointing to a map of 80 battery manufacturing or supply chain companies that are expanding or opening in the U.S. Most have been announced in response to the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021 and the climate law he signed last year, she said.
Battery recycling will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain, a major goal of the Biden administration as it seeks to move away from gas-powered cars in the larger fight against climate change. Biden also has promoted domestic production of critical minerals used in EVs and other electronics, as part of the climate fight and to counter China's longtime dominance in the supply chain.
With Redwood and other projects underway, “China might be starting to worry,″ Granholm boasted. “And to that I say we’re just getting started.″
The Energy Department said its conditional commitment demonstrates its intent to finance the Nevada project, but several steps remain before officials approve a final loan.
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by Jeffrey “JB” Straubel, Tesla’s former chief technology officer. It now has more than 300 employees who recycle used batteries and has supply contracts with Ford and with Panasonic, which makes batteries for Tesla.
Straubel said the company already has more material than it can process from spent consumer batteries from lawnmowers, cellphones and toothbrushes, as well as production scraps from lithium-ion battery manufacturing.
The company says it can recover more than 95% of the elements in a spent battery, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. The metals are then used to make anode and cathode components for new battery cells.
Redwood Materials “is going to play this outsized role in bringing the batteries supply chain home — because you’re focused on the pieces that we don’t have in the United States,'' Granholm told employees at Thursday's event. “You guys are making history in this.''
Redwood Materials is expected to create about 3,400 construction jobs and employ about 1,600 full-time workers, the department said.
Redwood Materials’ history in Nevada started under former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who was in attendance on Thursday. It continued under Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak before the loan was conditionally approved under Lombardo, who acknowledged he was a latecomer to negotiations. The investments and subsequent jobs help fulfill a campaign pledge by Lombardo and past governors to diversify Nevada’s casino and tourism-based economy.
“This is what we’re going to have to do to have success in the state of Nevada,” Lombardo said. “We can’t have all our eggs in one basket.”
In December, the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development awarded $105 million in tax incentives to Redwood, the second-largest capital investment in the office’s history, behind Tesla.
Once fully operational, the battery materials campus in McCarran, Nevada, outside Reno, will be the first domestic facility to support production of anode copper foil and cathode active materials for a lithium-ion battery manufacturing process. The process would recycle end-of-life battery and production scrap and remanufacture it into critical materials, the Energy Department said in a blog post.
Straubel, Redwood’s CEO, told The Associated Press last year that recycling battery materials will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain. China now dominates the EV supply chain, including critical minerals needed for EV batteries.
“Redwood fills a critical gap in that whole piece, and our goal is to close the loop on all the materials that we’ve already mined and produced into products, keep them in the regions where they were bought and are being used,'' Straubel told the AP. "Every battery that we can recycle is one battery worth of materials that we don’t need to mine again.''
___
Daly reported from Washington.
___
Associated Press auto writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.
"The company says it can recover more than 95% of the elements in a spent
battery, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. The
metals are then used to make anode and cathode components for new
battery cells."
That is WAY good news!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Another train wreck but thankfully the propane on it stayed in tact.
Another big winter storm is coming in. the 395 up to Mammoth is closed again. While it helps the skiing seasons longer extension it shuts down it's only path out there.
They say snow in LA? Really?
This record snowfall is good for the spring/summer droughts but too much rail that falls at once is a problem.
Comments
But honestly, I still don't see that as being enough.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Where I think the snag is here is the purpose of the corp to provide dividends to shareholders above all else. Because the very successful people that make big decisions are so insulated from the downstream effects they have no reason to alter their course regardless of the dominant political party or societal values of the day, as long as the profits keep rolling in. If anything is gonna get done at a corporate level this means share values go down because of citizen unrest and the corporation then remedies this by appealing to the needs of the citizens so they can become profitable again for the shareholders. As long as people keep buying single use plastic bottles of Coke, coke isn't gonna do anything but talk, as long as people continue buying packages from amazon as cheap as possible and shipping them back and forth across the globe, nothing is going to get done but empty talk as long as profits don't get effected.
We the people as ridiculous as that cliche is beginning to sound have to stop making it financially profitable for these companies to continue on the current course by divesting and boycotting. As long as we are more concerned with our 401k value and getting things as cheaply as possible right now than the environment and moving to a cleaner greener future, it is likely that corps do as little as possible. It sucks but that is the way I see it and it looks like Bri sees it that way too.
When corporations purposefully start taking a hit to their bottom line by putting the earth first and putting shareholders second I will gladly change my tune.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-EV 8/14/93
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I was referring to US emissions, which are down 15% since 2005. I understand global is more important, however looking at how the US was able to cut emissions gives me some hope.
What doesn't is how our election day is expected to go. Americans are about to give the party of coal and more drilling control of US spending
In comparison, our big blue city corps may be a better partner than the American voter in this fight.
Yeah, I've been dreading this day but we'll see how it shakes out. Hoping for miracles.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Another example of misplaced priorities (here comes SC)…. World would be better off if companies invested in JVs with developing nations energy infrastructure, to get them away from coal and towards renewable generation. Get in on the ground floor and help the world for real. Biden is right yesterday at cop27, the American taxpayer is not going to finance this, our best hope is for companies to invest wisely
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/volvo-reveals-new-80000-electric-suv-with-luminar-lidar.html
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-EV 8/14/93
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
LONDON (AP) — Europe's biggest bank HSBC announced Wednesday it will no longer finance new oil and gas fields as part of its updated climate strategy.
Climate campaigners welcomed the moved saying HSBC provided a new baseline for other major banks but urged the bank to go further.
The bank said it would still provide financing to existing fossil fuel projects “in line with current and future declining global oil and gas demand.” It would also continue to provide finance and advisory services to energy sector clients but will assess the companies' plans to transition to clean energy.
“It sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net zero," said Jeanne Martin, from the campaign group ShareAction. But she added the change “doesn’t deal with the much larger proportion of finance it (HSBC) still provides to companies that have oil and gas expansion plans.” She called for new proposals to address the issue of corporate-level financing for energy companies “as soon as possible.”
In a report last year the International Energy Agency said investments in new coal mines, oil and gas wells need to end immediately if the world stood a chance of meeting its commitment in the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
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Earlier this year a group of institutional investors found that several banks — including HSBC — would need to significantly step up their efforts on climate if the Paris goal is to be met.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Parts of Greenland now hotter than at any time in the past 1,000 years, scientists say
New research in the northern part of Greenland finds temperatures are already 2.7 degrees warmer than they were in the 20th century
The coldest and highest parts of the Greenland ice sheet, nearly two miles above sea level in many locations, are warming rapidly and showing changes that are unprecedented in at least a millennium, scientists reportedWednesday.
That’s the finding from research that extracted multiple 100-foot or longer cores of ice from atop the world’s second-largest ice sheet. The samples allowed the researchers to construct a new temperature record based on the oxygen bubbles stored inside them, which reflect the temperatures at the time when the ice was originally laid down.
“We find the 2001-2011 decade the warmest of the whole period of 1,000 years,” said Maria Hörhold, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
And since warming has only continued since that time, the finding is probably an underestimate of how much the climate in the high-altitude areas of northern and central Greenland has changed. That is bad news for the planet’s coastlines, because it suggests a long-term process of melting is being set in motion that could ultimately deliver some significant, if hard to quantify, fraction of Greenland’s total mass into the oceans. Overall, Greenland contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 20 feet.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
By FABIANO MAISONNAVE and DIANE JEANTET
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even its coffee room — as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing.
The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon's resources to be exploited at the expense of the environment.
As Wapichana performed the ritual, Indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!’’ — a reference to the agency she will lead.
Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation.
To carry out these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro had filled with allies of agribusiness and military officers.
In Lula's previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and Indigenous issues. And he is certain to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.
The federal officials Lula has already named to key posts “have the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction that we have suffered over these four years of the Bolsonaro government,” said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama, Brazil’s environmental law-enforcement agency.
Bolsonaro's supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula's promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and punish people for activities that had previously been allowed. Some supporters with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical assistance to rioters who earlier this month stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court.
When Bolsonaro was president, he defanged Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to soar to its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from Indigenous people faced few consequences.
(AP Photos/Leo Correa, File)
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon declined by 38% compared with the previous four years, according an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.
One of the strongest signs yet of Lula's intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva to lead the country's environmental ministry. Silva formerly held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed to be too lenient.
Silva strikes a strong contrast with Bolsonaro’s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he had facilitated the export of illegally felled timber.
Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:
— Signing a decree that would rejuvenate the most significant international effort to preserve the rainforest — the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro had gutted, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development of the Amazon.
— Revoking a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in Indigenous and environmental protection areas.
— Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will oversee everything from land boundaries to education. This ministry will be led by Sônia Guajajara, the country's first Indigenous woman in such a high government post.
“It won't be easy to overcome 504 years in only four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a take-back of Brazil's spiritual force," Guajajara said during her induction ceremony, which was delayed by the damage pro-Bolsonaro rioters caused to the presidential palace.
The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro viewed management of the Amazon as an internal affair, causing Brazil's global reputation to take a hit. Lula is trying to undo that damage.
During the UN’s climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil had been scheduled to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018 right after he was elected.
While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex hurdles. For example, getting cooperation from local officials won't be easy.
Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. Those include Rondonia, where settlers of European descent control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers who had long fought to preserve the rainforest to take up cattle grazing instead.
The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries, such as Peru and Venezuela. The illegal mining causes mercury contamination of rivers that Indigenous peoples rely upon for fishing and drinking.
“Its main cause is the state's absence,” says Gustavo Geiser, a forensics expert with the Federal Police who has worked in the Amazon for over 15 years.
One area where Lula has more control is in designating Indigenous territories, which are the best preserved regions in the Amazon.
Lula is under pressure to create 13 new Indigenous territories — a process that had stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to grant “one more inch” of land to Indigenous peoples.
A major step will be to expand the size of Uneiuxi, part of one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions of the world that is home to 23 peoples. The process of expanding the boundaries of Uneiuxi started four decades ago, and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).
“Lula already indicated that he would not have any problem doing that,” said Kleber Karipuna, a close aide of Guajajara.
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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By Chris Mooney and Simon Ducroquet
January 21, 2023 at 12:00 ET
This is a story about a curious seal, a wayward robot and a gigantic climate change disaster that may be waiting to happen.
Scientists tagged a southern elephant seal on the island of Kerguelen, an extraordinarily remote spot in the far southern Indian Ocean, in 2011. The seal was a male close to 11 feet long weighing nearly 1,800 pounds, and they fitted his head with an ocean sensor, a device that these massive seals barely notice but that have proved vital to scientific research.
Elephant seals like this one swim more than 1,500 miles south from Kerguelen to Antarctica, where they often forage on the seafloor, diving to depths that can exceed a mile below the surface. As summer in the Southern Hemisphere peaked, the seal made a standard Antarctic journey, but then went in an unusual direction.
In March 2011, he appeared just offshore from a vast oceanfront glacier called Denman, where elephant seals are not generally known to go. He dived into a deep trough in the ocean bed, roughly half a mile below the surface. And that is when something striking happened: He provided an early bit of evidence that Denman Glacier could be a major threat to global coastlines.
The seal swam through unusually warm water, just below the freezing point, but in the Antarctic, that is warm. Given its salt content and the extreme depths and pressures involved — in some regions Denman Glacier rests on a seafloor that is over a mile deep — such warm water can destroy large amounts of ice. And it certainly could have been doing so at Denman.
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Did somebody here do, support, or propose such an act?
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will study whether to toughen regulation of large livestock farms that release manure and other pollutants into waterways.
EPA has not revised its rules dealing with the nation's largest animal operations — which hold thousands of hogs, chickens and cattle — since 2008. The agency said in 2021 it planned no changes but announced Friday it had reconsidered in response to an environmental group's lawsuit.
While not committing to stronger requirements, EPA acknowledged needing more recent data about the extent of the problem — and affordable methods to limit it.
“EPA has decided to gather additional information and conduct a detailed study on these issues in order to be able to make an informed decision as to whether to undertake rulemaking,” the agency said.
Food & Water Watch, whose lawsuit prompted the agency's reversal, said a new approach was long overdue.
“For decades EPA’s lax rules have allowed for devastating and widespread public health and environmental impacts on vulnerable communities across the country,” Tarah Heinzen, the group's legal director, said Monday.
Beef, poultry and pork have become more affordable staples in the American diet thanks to industry consolidation and the rise of giant farms. Yet federal and state environmental agencies often lack basic information such as where they’re located, how many animals they’re raising and how they deal with manure.
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Runoff of waste and fertilizers from the operations — and from croplands where manure is spread — fouls streams, rivers and lakes. It's a leading cause of algae blooms that create hazards in many waterways and dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie.
Under the Clean Water Act, EPA regulates large farms — known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs — covered by federal pollution permits. Federal law requires only those known to discharge waste to obtain permits, although some states make others do so.
EPA's most recent tally shows 6,266 of the nation's 21,237 CAFOs have permits.
In its plan, the agency said its rules impose “substantial and detailed requirements” on production areas — barns and feedlots where animals are held, plus manure storage facilities — as well as land where manure and wastewater are spread.
While prohibiting releases to waterways, the rules make exceptions for production area discharges caused by severe rainfall and for stormwater-related runoff from croplands where waste was applied in keeping with plans that manage factors such as timing and amounts.
In deciding whether to revise the rules, EPA said it would consider how well they're controlling pollution and how changing them would bring improvements.
The agency conceded its data on discharges to waterways is “sparse,” with a preliminary analysis based on reports from only 16 CAFOs. In addition to seeking information from more farms, EPA said it would assess whether discharges are widespread nationally or concentrated in particular states or regions.
It also will look into practices and technologies developed since the rules were last revised, their potential effectiveness at preventing releases, and their cost to farm owners and operators. Under the law, new requirements on farms must be “technologically available and economically achievable.”
Revising water pollution rules typically takes several years, three full-time employees and $1 million per year for contractor help, EPA said. The study will determine whether “the potential environmental benefits of undertaking rulemaking justify devoting the significant resources that are required," it said.
Livestock groups have said government regulation is strong enough and that voluntary measures such as planting off-season cover crops and buffer strips between croplands and waterways are the best way to curb runoff. The American Farm Bureau Federation declined comment Monday.
Environmental groups argue regulations should cover more farms, require better construction of manure lagoons to avoid leaks, and outlaw practices such as spreading waste on frozen ground, where it often washes away during rainstorms or thaws.
“We're not talking about really expensive fixes here," said Emily Miller, staff attorney with Food & Water Watch. “We need the standards to be stronger so they actually prevent discharges as they're supposed to do.”
___
Follow John Flesher on Twitter: @JohnFlesher
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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By Carolyn Y. Johnson
January 23, 2023 at 11:00 ET
In the mid-1990s scientists found evidence that Earth’s inner core, a superheated ball of iron slightly smaller than the moon, was spinning at its own pace, just a bit faster than the rest of the planet. Now a study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that around 2009, the core slowed its rotation to whirl in sync with the surface for a time — and is now lagging behind it.
The provocative findings come after years of research and deep scientific disagreements about the core and how it influences some of the most fundamental aspects of our planet, including the length of a day and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field.
Three thousand miles below the surface, a scorching hot ball of solid iron floats inside a liquid outer core. Geologists believe that the energy released by the inner core causes the liquid in the outer core to move, generating electrical currents that in turn spawn a magnetic field surrounding the planet. This magnetic shielding protects organisms on the surface from the most damaging cosmic radiation.
Don’t panic. The core’s slowing down isn’t the beginning of the end times. The same thing appears to have happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the study authors at Peking University in China suggest it may represent a 70-year cycle of the core’s spin speeding up and slowing down.
But while other experts praised the rigor of the analysis, the study will sharpen, not settle, the fierce scientific debate about what the mysterious metal sphere at the center of the Earth is up to.
“It’s only contentious because we can’t figure it out,” said John Vidale, a geophysicist at the University of Southern California. “It’s probably benign, but we don’t want to have things we don’t understand deep in the Earth.”
The new study was led by Xiaodong Song, a geoscientist at Peking University whose work in 1996 first brought forward the evidence that the core was doing its own thing. Buried beneath the mantle and the crust, the core is too deep to visualize directly, but scientists can use seismic waves triggered by earthquakes to infer what’s happening in the planet’s innards. Seismic waves travel at different speeds depending on the density and temperature of the rock, so they act as a kind of X-ray for Earth.
The study examined seismic waves that traveled from the sites of earthquakes to sensors on the flip side of the planet, passing through the core on the way. By comparing waves from similar earthquakes that struck the same spot over the years, the scientists were able to search for and analyze time lags and perturbations in the waves that gave them indirect information about the core — or as some scientists call it, the planet within our planet.
“The inner core is the deepest layer of Earth, and its relative rotation is one of the most intriguing and challenging problems in deep-earth science,” Song said in an email.
[Scientists are slowly unlocking the secrets of the Earth’s mysterious hum]
The behavior of the core may be linked to minute changes in the length of a day, though the precise details are a matter of debate. The length of a day has been growing by milliseconds over centuries because of other forces, including the moon’s pull on Earth. But ultraprecise atomic clocks have measured mysterious fluctuations.
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The manufacture of "green steel" moved one step closer to reality Friday as Massachusetts-based Boston Metal announced a $120 million investment from the world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.
Boston Metal will use the injection of funds to expand production at a pilot plant in Woburn, near Boston, and help launch commercial production in Brazil. The company uses renewable electricity to convert iron ore into steel.
Steel is one of the world’s dirtiest heavy industries. Three-quarters of world production uses a traditional method that burns through train loads of coal to heat the furnaces and drive the reaction that releases pure iron from ore.
Making steel releases more climate-warming carbon dioxide than any other industry, according to the International Energy Agency — about 8% of worldwide emissions. Many companies are working on alternatives.
The financial package by global steel giant ArcelorMittal is the biggest single investment made to date by the firm’s carbon innovation fund. Microsoft is another investor.
Tadeu Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal, said its technology is “designed to decarbonize steel production at scale” and would “disrupt the industry.”
The company's technology was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professors Donald Sadoway and Antoine Allanore, experts in energy storage and metallurgy respectively, are the founders.
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Instead of burning coal, their process runs electricity through iron ore in a metal box or “cell” the size of a school bus to separate the iron from the oxide. Operators then collect the liquid iron from the bottom, Carneiro said. Boston Metal said it can eliminate all carbon dioxide from its steel production and hopes to ramp up production to millions of tons by 2026. As a bonus, it said, it is able to extract metals from slag normally considered waste.
Steel is in the early stages of a transition to cleaner processes that have less impact on the climate. Many major European steelmakers have announced alternatives to traditional coal-fired steelmaking and some automakers are buying the cleaner steel to fulfill promises to shareholders and customers.
By far the most steel is made in Asia. Both China and Japan have made moves in the direction of cleaner steel.
In the United States, most steel is already cleaner, because it is made by melting down old steel, for example junked cars. That can be done in electric kilns and emits a fraction of the climate-changing gases as virgin steel production.
It will be years before steel is cleaned up on a mass scale, Carneiro said. “It takes time to develop and scale up and get traditional and conservative industries to change things.”
Several industry alliances are working to speed things up. A non-profit called ResponsibleSteel, for example, brings together stakeholders from up and down the supply chain — mining to finished steel products — to cooperate on cleaning up steel.
In related news, on Thursday, U.S. steelmaker Nucor announced it will start making heavy grade steel at a new $1.7 billion mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky, using electric furnaces to make new steel from scrap. The company says the product is intended for the offshore wind industry.
Offshore wind is key to many plans to address climate change, because it partially replaces fossil fuel-burning electricity. It will require massive amounts of steel as turbines are built miles offshore from U.S. coastlines. Nearly 90% of an offshore turbine’s weight is steel, and each one, including the foundation, requires roughly 180 tons of steel per megawatt, according to the industry group American Clean Power.
————
Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, R.I. contributed.
———
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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MCCARRAN, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada company that recycles batteries for electric vehicles has won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration.
Redwood Materials, a recycling venture founded by the former chief technology officer at Tesla Inc., secured the conditional loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which helped Tesla more than a decade ago.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the grant Thursday at Redwood’s facility in Nevada with Gov. Joe Lombardo, where they spoke from a stage to dozens of employees.
“This region is leading the way to a broader story of what is happening in the country,” Granholm said, pointing to a map of 80 battery manufacturing or supply chain companies that are expanding or opening in the U.S. Most have been announced in response to the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021 and the climate law he signed last year, she said.
Battery recycling will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain, a major goal of the Biden administration as it seeks to move away from gas-powered cars in the larger fight against climate change. Biden also has promoted domestic production of critical minerals used in EVs and other electronics, as part of the climate fight and to counter China's longtime dominance in the supply chain.
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With Redwood and other projects underway, “China might be starting to worry,″ Granholm boasted. “And to that I say we’re just getting started.″
The Energy Department said its conditional commitment demonstrates its intent to finance the Nevada project, but several steps remain before officials approve a final loan.
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by Jeffrey “JB” Straubel, Tesla’s former chief technology officer. It now has more than 300 employees who recycle used batteries and has supply contracts with Ford and with Panasonic, which makes batteries for Tesla.
Straubel said the company already has more material than it can process from spent consumer batteries from lawnmowers, cellphones and toothbrushes, as well as production scraps from lithium-ion battery manufacturing.
The company says it can recover more than 95% of the elements in a spent battery, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. The metals are then used to make anode and cathode components for new battery cells.
Redwood Materials “is going to play this outsized role in bringing the batteries supply chain home — because you’re focused on the pieces that we don’t have in the United States,'' Granholm told employees at Thursday's event. “You guys are making history in this.''
Redwood Materials is expected to create about 3,400 construction jobs and employ about 1,600 full-time workers, the department said.
Redwood Materials’ history in Nevada started under former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who was in attendance on Thursday. It continued under Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak before the loan was conditionally approved under Lombardo, who acknowledged he was a latecomer to negotiations. The investments and subsequent jobs help fulfill a campaign pledge by Lombardo and past governors to diversify Nevada’s casino and tourism-based economy.
“This is what we’re going to have to do to have success in the state of Nevada,” Lombardo said. “We can’t have all our eggs in one basket.”
In December, the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development awarded $105 million in tax incentives to Redwood, the second-largest capital investment in the office’s history, behind Tesla.
Last month, the Energy Department announced a conditional loan of $700 million to an Australian company to mine lithium in northern Nevada as the U.S. seeks domestic supplies for the key component in electric vehicle batteries.
Redwood also has announced plans to build a $3.5 billion battery manufacturing and recycling factory in South Carolina.
Once fully operational, the battery materials campus in McCarran, Nevada, outside Reno, will be the first domestic facility to support production of anode copper foil and cathode active materials for a lithium-ion battery manufacturing process. The process would recycle end-of-life battery and production scrap and remanufacture it into critical materials, the Energy Department said in a blog post.
Straubel, Redwood’s CEO, told The Associated Press last year that recycling battery materials will help the U.S. establish its own electric-vehicle supply chain. China now dominates the EV supply chain, including critical minerals needed for EV batteries.
“Redwood fills a critical gap in that whole piece, and our goal is to close the loop on all the materials that we’ve already mined and produced into products, keep them in the regions where they were bought and are being used,'' Straubel told the AP. "Every battery that we can recycle is one battery worth of materials that we don’t need to mine again.''
___
Daly reported from Washington.
___
Associated Press auto writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
https://www.nytimes.com/article/ohio-train-derailment.html
This is a very big deal. I don't see how this doesn't poison the wells for years.
Another big winter storm is coming in. the 395 up to Mammoth is closed again. While it helps the skiing seasons longer extension it shuts down it's only path out there.
They say snow in LA? Really?
This record snowfall is good for the spring/summer droughts but too much rail that falls at once is a problem.
What crazy weather are you getting by you?