Octobert 7th 2022
Scientists may have already discovered a “miracle” fix for climate change
Climate scientist Saul Griffith wants you to hear him out: Electrify everything.Cavan Images/Cavan/Getty ImagesSaul Griffith and The ReaderOct. 1, 2022
With climate change, the science is clear. We know, with certainty, that we are hurtling toward multiple environmental and human catastrophes. We can no longer debate the science. Yet for some people, science-based arguments will never be enough. After all, the scientific theory of evolution has existed for more than 150 years, with irrefutable evidence, yet only about 35 percent of Americans believe that we evolved by natural processes.
For those who likewise doubt the science of global warming, there are plenty of reasons to support efforts for a zero-carbon future: It will likely save us all money, improve the overall economy, clean our air, and improve our health.
Still, whatever evidence we deploy, it’s likely we’ll have to solve climate change without broad consensus because culture moves more slowly than science. But what if we presented, to policymakers and skeptics, a realistic and feasible action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment? I have such a plan, which can be summed up simply: Electrify everything.
Below, I offer you dinner party-ready talking points for the main questions that people will inevitably have when you suggest such a plan. Each topic is worthy of a book in itself. If I dispose of a favorite baby of yours too quickly here, or you think I have it all ass-backward, then we should grab a beer sometime.
The problem with Carbon Sequestration
Carbon sequestration would be a great technology to support if only it were a good idea. It is attractive because it gives us the illusion we can just keep on burning fossil fuels if we can figure out how to suck the emissions back out of the air.
This idea derives from the natural processes that have kept our planet in balance for millions of years. Trees, plants, and microbes evolved to turn atmospheric CO2 into a useful product — biomass or wood. They do so using cascades of elegant chemical reactions and enzymes. Plants create a large surface area in their leaves and branches, which allows them to do a great job of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. All of the planet’s trees and grasses and other biological machines pull a grand total of about two gigatons (GT) of carbon a year. To put that in context, our fossil burning emits 40 GT a year. Imagining that we can build machines that work 20 times better than all of biology is a fantasy created by the fossil-fuel industry so they can keep on burning.
When considering carbon sequestration, we should first remind you just how staggering 40 GT of CO2 is. If you had a giant set of scales and put all the things humans make or move on one side and all of the CO2 we produce on the other, the CO2 would weigh more.
The worst version of carbon sequestration is the most seductive one: capturing CO2 from thin air. This is energetically difficult, and by that, I mean as difficult as juggling babies, bowling balls, electric chainsaws, and flaming tiki torches. You have to sort through a million molecules to find the 400 that is carbon, then convince those 400 to become something they don’t naturally want to be: a liquid or, better yet, a solid. That sorting and conversion costs energy — a lot of it. Even if we could make it work reasonably, we’d have to install zero-carbon energy to run it, which is like using zero-carbon energy to supply our energy needs anyway, except it’s more complicated and expensive to add the carbon-sequestration step. The government should fund sequestration research, within reason and with some skepticism, understanding that it’s a miracle technology we’d like to have but don’t technically need and probably can’t afford.
The challenge of air capture is like a treasure hunt looking for CO2 needles in the atmospheric haystack. You have to look at 2,500 molecules before you find 1 CO2 molecule. For context, it is far easier to find Waldo, who in his various books appears at concentrations of around 1,200 to 4,500 PPM (or more accurately WPP, Waldos Per People).
More seriously, the paper on the topic that I think is the most informative is that by Kurt Zenz House and his colleagues. House analyzes carbon capture from chemistry-first principles and places a very high bar on anyone claiming to be able to sequester carbon dioxide from ambient air cost-effectively. They project it would likely cost $1,000 per ton of CO2; the most optimistic estimate is $300 per ton. Using the likely overly optimistic number, that would be the equivalent of adding 30¢/kWh to the cost of coal-fired electricity or 15¢/kWh to the cost of natural gas. We should invest our time and money in things that will work instead.
This is an expensive, multi-layered cake of bad ideas topped with cynical frosting.
A slightly better idea is capturing the highly concentrated CO2 gas in a smokestack and somehow burying it. It is a little bit easier than the troubling idea of atmospheric CO2 separations because, for some fossil fuels, you can start with a concentrated flow of CO2 in the smokestack instead of a dilute gas that must be filtered from the atmosphere.
Sounds promising. But when we burn fossil fuels, we mix them with oxygen (thats what combustion is), and in so doing, the burned fuels become much larger (and also a gas which makes them larger still). The idea behind carbon sequestration of fossil fuels is basically to stuff the carbon back in the hole in the ground from whence it came. But even if you squeeze carbon dioxide back down into liquid form, which costs you yet more energy and money, the volume is much larger (around five times greater) than the volume you originally took from the ground. That’s because when it came up, it was mostly carbon, and when it goes back, it is carbon with lots of oxygen. People propose putting carbon in other underground reservoirs or at the bottom of the sea where the pressure of the water could contain it. But if you spring a leak, you lose all that hard work.
The economic argument against sequestration is that renewables are already competitive with coal and natural gas in most energy markets, and the added expense of carbon sequestration will not help fossil fuels compete. It is not unreasonable to say that the expense of carbon sequestration would be the death knell of fossil fuels.
Even though smokestack sequestration is a bad idea, the fossil-fuel industry is happy to have the American public confuse that bad idea with the worse idea of capturing the more diffuse emissions from cars, furnaces, or kitchen stoves. Those emissions are extremely distributed — they are generated at the furnace and stovetop ends of the 4.4 million miles of the US natural gas pipeline distribution network and our 260 million tailpipes. It is nearly unimaginably difficult to collect CO2 from those sources and render it into a form that doesn’t end up in the atmosphere.
In addition to the obvious business-as-usual reasons for the fossil industry to champion fossil fuels with carbon sequestration, the self-interest goes further. By injecting this CO2 into the ground, the industry can force more fossil fuels back up; in fact, most of the CO2 that humans have sequestered so far has been used to help with “enhanced” oil and fossil fuel recovery — further perpetuating our reliance on fossil fuel. This is an expensive, multi-layered cake of bad ideas topped with cynical frosting.
The problem with Natural Gas and Fracking
Natural gas sounds benign, like the energy version of organic kale. But despite the “natural” label, it’s largely methane mixed with ethane, propane, butanes, and pentanes. When natural gas burns, like other fossil fuels, it emits carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other carbon, nitrogen, and sulfurous compounds into the atmosphere, contributing to the global greenhouse-gas effect and local air pollution. Don’t be fooled by those who will profit from confusion by promoting ideas like natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to the clean-energy future. Coal gets more air-time as a dirtier fuel, but natural gas is just as filthy if you account for the fugitive emissions. Natural gas is an unsafe, collapsing bridge to nowhere. We burned that bridge… with natural gas.
Fracking — or hydraulic fracturing — is the process of pumping pressurized liquid into good holes to fracture the surrounding rock, which enables gas and other hydrocarbons to be more readily extracted. This technology, and the accompanying revolution of horizontal drilling, gave the U.S. cheap natural gas at exactly the wrong moment in history.
Fracking spews methane directly from the mining sites, which offsets the nominal win from burning natural gas instead of coal. It also leaks from its network of distribution pipes. There are many other underlying problems with mining natural gas, such as water-table pollution and the creation of seismic instabilities. What’s more, it’s a huge distraction from the things that we know to be zero-carbon, like solar, wind, nuclear, pumped hydro, electric vehicles, and heat pumps.
The trouble with Geoengineering and hydrogen
We already are geoengineering, we are just doing it badly — we’re heating the earth and destroying the planet’s lungs. Burning fossil fuels is geoengineering that gives us climate change. The question is, can we geoengineer for good instead?
Read More https://www.inverse.com/science/fix-for-climate-change?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
September 22nd 2022
How many people can Earth handle? (Image credit: Alamy)
By Zaria Gorvett6th September 2022Towards the end of 2022, the human population on Earth is expected to reach eight billion. To mark the occasion, BBC Future takes a look at one of the most controversial issues of our time. Are there too many of us? Or is this the wrong question?O
One moment, the valley was a tranquil, swampy wetland. Grasses and palm trees cast fuzzy shadows on the water below. Fish lurked warily at the edges of mangroves. Orangutans sought out fruit with leathery fingers. Then a dormant giant awoke from its sleep.
It was around 72,000 BC on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The Toba supervolcano was erupting, in what is thought to have been the greatest such event in the last 100,000 years. A series of thunderous explosions blasted out 9.5 quadrillion kilograms of ash, which billowed out in sky-darkening clouds that crept around 47km (29 miles) into the atmosphere.
In the aftermath, a vast area across Asia was blanketed in a layer of soft dust 3-10cm thick. It choked water sources and stuck to vegetation like cement – deposits from Toba have been found as far away as East Africa, 7,300km (4,536 miles) west of the eruption. But crucially, some scientists believe it plunged the world into a volcanic winter that lasted decades – and nearly made our species extinct.
Back in 1993, a team of American researchers studied the human genome for clues to its deep past, and discovered the tell-tale signature of a major “population bottleneck” – a moment when humanity shrank so drastically, all subsequent generations outside Africa were significantly more closely related.
Later studies have revealed that in this precarious era, which may have occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, our collective numbers may have hit as few as 10,000 people – equivalent to the current population of the sleepy settlement of Elkhorn in Wisconsin, or the number who attended a single drive-through wedding in Malaysia in 2020. The least affected part of the world was Africa, where genetic diversity remains high to this day – on this single continent, there are larger genetic differences between certain groups than there are between Africans and Europeans.
Some think this timing isn’t a coincidence – they believe it was the Toba volcanic eruption that did it. The idea is hotly disputed, but there’s no doubt that much of humanity is descended from a relatively modest number of super-hardy ancestors. At times, the inhabitants of entire regions of the world have been in great peril.
Fast-forward 74,000 years and our once-obscure species of hairless ape has undergone a population explosion, colonising nearly every habitat on the planet and exerting our influence on even the remotest corners – in 2018, scientists found a plastic bag 10,898m (35,754ft) below the ocean’s surface at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, while another team recently discovered man-made “forever chemicals” on Mount Everest. No part of the world is pristine – every lake, forest and canyon has been touched by human activity.
Read More https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220905-is-the-world-overpopulated?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
What can and can’t be recycledShare using EmailShare on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on Linkedin(Image credit: Getty Images)
By William Park27th May 2022While the specifics of recycling vary around the globe, there are some common rules – and pervasive myths. Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about it.H
Have you ever wondered if you need to wash your plastic trays before putting them into the recycling? Or should you put them in a plastic bag before throwing them into the recycling bin? How about soaking the labels off bottles before putting them out for collection? And what about leaving the caps on bottles?
The rules of recycling can feel confusing, particularly when they can differ so much from area to area. While BBC Future can’t claim to provide a definitive guide on what to recycle where you live, we decided to embark on a journey to learn what exactly happens to our recycling after it is collected. Along the way we will correct some of the myths, and share tips from the experts on how to recycle considerately.
So where does your recycling go? And what happens to it?
Domestic recycling first goes to a material recovery facility (MRF). These buildings, typically the size of a football pitch, are a whirling mass of conveyors and machines. The recycling is first unloaded and then tipped into a machine that shreds plastic bags with a mechanical claw. While in much of Europe it is normal for communal recycling bins to be segregated by type, in the UK and the US household recycling is usually commingled – and that’s what I’ve come to see.
At the next stage, the recycling is given a first pass by a small team of human sorters. According to Tim Duret, director of sustainable technology at Veolia in the UK, 80% of the sorting is done by machines and 20% is done by hand. These first human sorters search for large items that shouldn’t be there and might slow down the machines, such as clothes or towels, which can get tangled up. On my visit, two bins filled with frying pans stand to one side, and a beaten up microwave is pulled from the belt. These definitely shouldn’t be in with the domestic recycling.
In the UK and the US, most household recycling is collected commingled and then sorted by material at an MRF (Credit: Veolia UK)
Duret says the rise in popularity of vegan milks has helped to create demand to recycle liquid beverage cartons. But they weren’t always recyclable. The problem with cartons and plastic pouches is that they are made of a mix of materials – plastic with either card or foil – and they can’t be recycled back into their original components.
After the first human sort, the waste proceeds along a series of disc screens. These are made up of rows of rotating bars interspersed with oval discs. It works a little like a conveyor belt, bouncing larger items along while smaller ones fall through the gaps onto another belt below. Larger cardboard boxes are extracted at this point.
Do I have to wash my recycling?
No, but if the food is 3D – ie a chunk of leftover pizza – remove it. You don’t need to wash off sauces, oil and stains, says Duret. There is no need to wash out shampoos and cosmetics either.
The remaining recycling then passes onto a similar disc screen with smaller gaps and the process is repeated. Here, smaller boxes or large plastic items are pulled out. Then follows a machine that shatters glass. The waste is split into the smallest items – usually bottle caps, small bits of paper and glass fragments – and pieces about the size of soft drinks bottles or newspapers. The smallest waste is bounced around in a machine that works a little like a sieve, separating the heavier glass fragments from the lighter bottle caps or pieces of paper.
The other waste goes past a type of magnet called an eddy current, which induces a current in non-magnetic metals. The current repels aluminium cans, flinging them off the belt and onto another track. Magnetic metals like iron and steel are extracted with another magnet. Optical sorters detect paper with lights and cameras at lightning speed as it cascades over the end of a conveyor belt. While in mid-air, it’s hit with a precise puff of air to remove it from the belt.
Medicine blister packs can end up in with metals because of the layer of foil used to seal them
Humans also give the waste a scan to make sure that nothing erroneous has beaten the system. For example, medicine blister packs, the kind with individually-sealed pills, can end up in the wrong place. While most of the packet is made from plastic, the top surface is made from aluminium foil. This can mean they end up with the metals. (Duret recommends not trying to recycle these and throwing them away instead.)
At a glance, each conveyor belt looks a bit messy. There are still plenty of plastic bags and other bits and pieces that are in the wrong place, but Duret says that recycling can typically go around four or five times before ending up in the right place. The system is designed to keep pushing the material around, and humans are on hand to pull out anything that shouldn’t be there. By the end, neat lines of plastic bottles and card wind their way to baling machines that crush and bind them into cubes, ready to be shipped out to another facility for more specialist sorting.
Read More https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220525-what-can-and-cant-be-recycled
September 13th 2022
Diet for a Hotter Climate: Five Plants That Could Help Feed the World
As the planet warms, these five drought-tolerant and highly nutritious crops offer hope for greater resiliency
- Cecilia Nowell
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Quinoa field in Chile. Photo by Cristobal Demarta/Getty Images
Over the course of human history, scientists believe that humans have cultivated more than 6,000 different plant species. But over time, farmers gravitated toward planting those with the largest yields. Today, just three crops – rice, wheat and corn – provide nearly half of the world’s calories.
That reliance on a small number of crops has made agriculture vulnerable to pests, plant-borne diseases and soil erosion, which thrive on monoculture – the practice of growing only one crop at a time. It has also meant losing out on the resilience other crops show in surviving drought and other natural disasters.
As the impacts of the climate crisis become starker, farmers across the world are rediscovering ancient crops and developing new hybrids that might prove more hardy in the face of drought or epidemics, while also offering important nutrients.
“You hear all the statistics like, ‘We’ve lost 90% of our varieties’. It’s only recently that I realized the greatest sadness isn’t that we’ve lost that diversity. It’s that we don’t even know that we’ve lost that diversity,” says Chris Smith, founder of the Utopian Seed Project.
Here’s a look at five crops, beyond rice, wheat and corn, that farmers across the world are now growing in hopes of feeding the planet as it warms:
Amaranth: the plant that survived colonization
From leaf to seed, the entirety of the amaranth plant is edible. Standing up to eight feet tall, amaranth stalks are topped off with red, orange or green seed-filled plumes. Across Africa and Asia, amaranth has long been eaten as a vegetable – whereas Indigenous Americans also ate the plant’s seed: a pseudocereal like buckwheat or quinoa.
While amaranth leaves can be sautéed or cooked into a stir-fry, the seed is commonly toasted and then eaten with honey or milk. A complete protein with all nine essential amino acids, amaranth is a good source of vitamins and antioxidants.
In the Americas, Spanish colonizers banned the Aztecs and Maya from growing amaranth when they arrived on the continent. However, the plant continued to grow as a weed and many farmers saved amaranth seeds, passing them down for generations, until their descendants were allowed to grow it again.
Today, Indigenous farmers in Guatemala, Mexico and the US are collaborating to grow this drought-resistant crop. Like fonio, an African grain, amaranth is not a new crop, but one that is experiencing a resurgence as communities adapt to the climate crisis. “Everything that’s new was old once,” said Matthew Blair, a professor at Tennessee State University and co-president of the Amaranth Institute.
Amaranth has found its way into European kitchens, with Ukraine coming in as the crop’s largest producer on the continent.
Fonio: the drought-resistant traditional grain
For thousands of years, farmers across west Africa have cultivated fonio – a kind of millet that tastes like a slightly nuttier couscous or quinoa. Historically, fonio is considered to be Africa’s oldest cultivated cereal and was regarded by some as the food of chiefs and kings. In countries such as Senegal, Burkina Faso and Mali, fonio would be served on holy days, like at weddings and during the month of Ramadan.
Today, attention is increasingly focused on fonio for its resilience and health benefits. As the climate continues to change, fonio’s drought resistance and ability to grow in poor soil has made it a standout crop in water-scarce regions. It also has important nutritional value as a low glycemic, gluten-free grain – making it a good source of amino acids for people with diabetes or gluten intolerance.
While Europeans once called fonio “hungry rice”, European companies are now manufacturing their own fonio. The Italian company Obà Food helped introduce fonio to the EU in December 2018. And in the US, the Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam sources fonio from the aid organization SOS Sahel for his brand Yolélé, also the name of his cookbook celebrating west African cuisine.
Cowpeas: the fully edible plant
In the 1940s, more than 5m acres of cowpeas were grown in the US – the majority, as their name suggests, for hay to feed livestock. But long before cowpeas – also called southern peas or black-eyed peas – came to the Americas, they were grown for human consumption in west Africa. Although cowpea production has declined in the US in recent decades, the crop is hugely important in much of Africa. Nigeria is the world’s largest cowpea producer.
As scientists look for alternative crops, Blair said it was important to identify ones where the entire plant is edible. Although historically people have mostly eaten cowpeas’ seeds, the leaves and pods are also a good source of protein.
Because cowpeas are highly drought tolerant, they’re also a good candidate as the climate changes. At Tennessee State University, Blair is part of a team studying the introduction of cowpeas to Latin America, as an alternative to beans, like pinto and black beans, with similar flavor profiles that may soon become more difficult to grow.
Taro: adapting the tropical crop for colder climes
In the tropics of south-east Asia and Polynesia, taro has long been grown as a root vegetable, not unlike the potato. But as rising temperatures threaten cultivation of the crop in its natural habitat, farmers in the continental US are trying to adapt the tropical perennial to grow as a temperate annual, because it cannot survive the cold of US winters.
At the Utopian Seed Project in North Carolina, founder Chris Smith and his team have been experimenting with tropical crops, looking for ways to help the plants survive the winter. Today, they’re growing eight varieties of taro, including ones sourced from Korea, the Philippines, Hawaii, China and Puerto Rico.
“We want to introduce taro because we truly believe that that will give us a more secure food system,” Smith says. “But the beautiful byproduct is that that also allows us to engage with foods that are traditionally from either Indigenous or peasant farming communities. And I think it really gives those traditionally underserved populations an opportunity to engage with the food system that they don’t usually get.”
Like fonio, amaranth and cowpeas, taro isn’t a new crop – it’s just new to the US food system. Which is why the Utopian Seed Project isn’t just learning how to grow taro, but also teaching people how to cook it. “These crops are just foods that are embedded in cultures around the world in a way that they’re not embedded here,” Smith said. “It takes work to build that community and desire for that crop.”
Kernza: the crop bred for the climate crisis
While many alternative crops are just plants that were grown somewhere else in the world generations ago, others have been cultivated specifically to withstand climate change.
In the 1980s, researchers at the Pennsylvania-based Rodale Institute identified a wheat-like grass called intermediate wheatgrass as a perennial cereal crop that could be developed as a substitute for annual grains like wheat. The goal was to minimize the environmental impacts of grain production.
In 2019, the Kansas-based Land Institute, a non-profit research organization focused on sustainable agriculture, introduced Kernza, a cereal crop developed from intermediate wheatgrass and trademarked to ensure farmers know they’ve bought seeds from the official breeding program. Although researchers are still working to improve the grain’s yield, farmers in Minnesota, Kansas and Montana are today growing nearly 4,000 acres of Kernza.
“Growers immediately understand the benefits of perennials on their landscapes,” said Tessa Peters, director of crop stewardship at the Land Institute, “and for those working in grain-producing areas, Kernza is very appealing.”
September 5th 2022
Polio Is Back in the US and UK. Here’s How That Happened
For every person paralyzed, hundreds or thousands could be infected. It’s a setback for the long-overdue plan to eradicate the virus from the world.
The discovery that polio has partially paralyzed a young man in a New York suburb feels wearying, yet shocking. Wearying, because it’s the third highly infectious virus to make a surprise landfall in the US in three years, after monkeypox and SARS-CoV-2. And shocking because, for decades, polio hasn’t spread in rich nations, where sanitation, vaccination, and solid public health funding are presumed to keep populations safe. Transmission was eliminated in the US in 1979, all of the Americas in 1994, and the UK in 2003. And yet there it was, in the wastewater of the county where the young man lives and a neighboring one, in New York City, and also in London.
Of course, polio exists in other parts of the world. A global campaign to eradicate it has been laboring on that exhausting task since 1988. Last year, poliovirus caused paralysis—which can’t be treated or cured—in two countries where it has never been contained, and another 21 where it has rebounded.
Disease experts, though, were not surprised to see it reappear in Western nations. For years they’ve watched as protection against the disease was undermined by funding cuts, vaccine hesitancy, forgetfulness—and the wily nature of the virus. “This should be a wake-up call to people,” says Heidi Larson, a professor and founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “We have been saying that until we can get this fully eradicated, we are all at risk.”
Public health experts consider this an emergency, because polio paralysis cases represent the tip of an immunological iceberg: For every person paralyzed, at least several hundred more have likely carried asymptomatic infections, providing a refuge for the virus to replicate and transmit itself. That takes time. Wastewater findings show that polio has been circulating possibly since February in London, and for at least several months in New York.
This feeling of urgency is why London health authorities have offered booster doses of vaccine to any kids 9 years or younger, and why their counterparts in New York City—where 40 percent of kids in some zip codes are not vaccinated—have urged parents to bring children in for shots. “The number one way to prevent paralytic polio is to get vaccinated against the poliovirus, and the vaccine is over 99 percent effective at preventing paralysis,” says Daniel Pastula, a physician and associate professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus who studies neuro-invasive diseases. “If you are unvaccinated, or your children are unvaccinated against polio, and poliovirus is circulating in your community, you are at risk for developing paralytic polio.”
To understand how polio ended up in these cities, it helps to review a little history. Two histories, in fact: one for the polio vaccine, and one for how it’s been deployed to chase the disease from the world.
Start with the vaccine formula—or formulas, actually, because there are two. They were born from a ferocious mid-20th century rivalry between scientists Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. Salk’s formula, the first to be approved, is injected; it uses an inactivated version of the virus, and protects against developing disease, but does not stop viral transmission. Sabin’s formula, which came a few years later, used an artificially-weakened live virus. It does block transmission, and—because it is a liquid that gets squirted into a child’s mouth—it is cheaper to make and easier to distribute, since it doesn’t require trained healthcare workers or careful disposal of needles. Those qualities made the Sabin oral version, known as OPV, the bulwark of polio control, and eventually the main weapon in the global eradication campaign.Advertisement
The oral vaccine had a unique benefit. Wild-type polio is actually a gut virus: It locks onto receptors in the intestinal lining and replicates there before migrating to the nerve cells that control muscles. But because it’s in the gut, it also passes out of the body in feces and then spreads to other people in contaminated water. The Sabin vaccine takes advantage of that process: The vaccine virus replicates in a child, gets pooped out, and spreads its protection to unvaccinated neighbors.
Yet that benefit concealed a tragic flaw. Once out of every several million doses, the weakened virus reverted to the neurovirulence of the wild type, destroying those motor neurons and causing polio paralysis. That mutation would also make a child who harbored the reverted virus a potential source of infection, rather than protection. That risk is what caused rich nations to abandon the oral version: In 1996, when wild polio was no longer occurring in the US, the oral vaccine caused about 10 cases of polio paralysis in children. The US switched to the injectable formula, known as IPV, in 2000, and the UK followed in 2004.
Polio vaccination requires several doses to create full protection, and once that occurs, children are protected against both wild-type and vaccine-derived versions of the virus. So the international vaccination campaign continued to rely on OPV, arguing that the risk would diminish as more children received protection. That was a reasonable gamble when the effort was new and health authorities thought it would take 10 to 12 years to achieve eradication. But thanks to funding shortfalls, political and religious unrest, and the Covid pandemic—which imposed a slowdown not just on eradication activities but on all childhood vaccines—it’s now been 34 years, and the job is not done. Meanwhile, last year in 20 countries there were a total of 688 cases of paralysis of what’s called “circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus,” and only six cases of wild-type polio, in three nations.
There’s a further complexity driving the emergence of vaccine-derived virus, and that arises from a combination of its natural history and the vaccination roll-out. Poliovirus comes in three strains: types 1, 2, and 3. Originally, both vaccines contained all three. As time went on and more people gained immunity, the strains began to occur less frequently, but not at the same rate. The first to disappear was type 2, so in 2016 planners decided to take that strain out of OPV. (Because type 2 attaches to the gut more efficiently than the others, its inclusion interfered with establishing immunity to the other types, and it no longer made sense to let a strain that wasn’t circulating dominate the immune response.) In one enormous coordinated action, known as “the switch,” the eradication campaign swapped the three-strain vaccine for a bivalent one.
But removing type 2 from the formula meant that if any type 2 virus reemerged in the world—from an environmental reservoir, or from someone whose system harbored a mutated vaccine virus—there would be little defense against it. And the bet on the switch did not pay off.
“I think the best way to describe this is as an honest mistake,” says Svea Closser, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies polio eradication. “They did not expect the extent and spread, and global reach, of these type 2 outbreaks.”
Most of the vaccine-derived virus now circulating is mutated type 2. It primarily has appeared in Central Africa, where outbreaks have spread across national borders. The polioviruses found in New York and London are mutated type 2, as well. Importantly, though these two viruses are related to each other—and to vaccine-derived viruses found earlier in Israel—there is not yet any genomic evidence that they are related to African viruses. They have fewer genetic changes from the vaccine virus than the African-circulating ones do, indicating that they emerged more recently. They likely were imported from somewhere that once used OPV (as Israel did in the 2000s) or continues to.
That’s significant, and not just because these type 2 viruses may have emerged from the misplaced optimism of the switch. The generally accepted data about the incidence of polio—about one case of paralysis for every 200 infections—comes from research into type 1. Some data suggests that the numbers for type 2 are different: one case of paralysis for every 2,000 infected. Thus, if one New Yorker is paralyzed, thousands might be passing on the virus unknowingly. Add in neighborhood clusters of low vaccination rates, and the area could be more vulnerable than people understand.
August 26th 2022
Climate change: Russia burns off gas as Europe’s energy bills rocket
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Climate change: Russia burns off gas as Europe’s energy bills rocket
Matt McGrath – Environment correspondentFri, August 26, 2022 at 3:10 PM·5 min read
As Europe’s energy costs skyrocket, Russia is burning off large amounts of natural gas, according to analysis shared with BBC News.
They say the plant, near the border with Finland, is burning an estimated $10m (£8.4m) worth of gas every day.
Experts say the gas would previously have been exported to Germany.
Germany’s ambassador to the UK told BBC News that Russia was burning the gas because “they couldn’t sell it elsewhere”.
Scientists are concerned about the large volumes of carbon dioxide and soot it is creating, which could exacerbate the melting of Arctic ice.
The analysis by Rystad Energy indicates that around 4.34 million cubic metres of gas are being burned by the flare every day.
It is coming from a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Portovaya, north-west of St Petersburg.
The first signs that something was awry came from Finnish citizens over the nearby border who spotted a large flame on the horizon earlier this summer.
Portovaya is located close to a compressor station at the start of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline which carries gas under the sea to Germany.
Supplies through the pipeline have been curtailed since mid-July, with the Russians blaming technical issues for the restriction. Germany says it was purely a political move following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But since June, researchers have noted a significant increase in heat emanating from the facility – thought to be from gas flaring, the burning of natural gas.
While burning off gas is common at processing plants – normally done for technical or safety reasons – the scale of this burn has confounded experts.
“I’ve never seen an LNG plant flare so much,” said Dr Jessica McCarty, an expert on satellite data from Miami University in Ohio.
“Starting around June, we saw this huge peak, and it just didn’t go away. It’s stayed very anomalously high.”
Miguel Berger, the German ambassador to the UK, told BBC News that European efforts to reduce reliance on Russian gas were “having a strong effect on the Russian economy”.
August 17th 2022
Fossil fuels will still provide 60% of energy in 2040, compared to 85% today, but the pattern of use will change, away from coal and towards gas, and increasingly concentrated in industry. Fossil fuel prices would be lower in a 2˚C scenario, with less need to mobilise high-cost reserves to meet demand.
7 Things to Know About Carbon Capture and Storage Technology
24/09/2021
When it comes to technology that’s essential to reducing industrial CO2 emissions, all eyes are on carbon capture and storage, or CCS.
And it’s easy to understand why.
CCS is the process of capturing CO2 from industrial activities that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere then injecting that CO2 into deep geologic formations for safe, secure and permanent storage underground. Its ability to decarbonize emission-intensive sectors like manufacturing and power generation will be crucial as society works to address climate change and meet society’s goals of the Paris Agreement. While renewable energy sources will play an important role in the world’s energy transition, CCS remains one of the few proven technologies capable of significantly reducing emissions in these hard-to-decarbonize sectors.
But like all energy technologies, there’s a lot of information out there to digest. So here are just seven examples of why CCS is one of the keys that could unlock a lower-emission future.
Carbon capture and storage is one of the few proven technologies that can deliver deep emissions reductions in industrial sectors
Decarbonization is incredibly difficult in industrial sectors like power generation and manufacturing due to the massive amounts of energy required to keep facilities running. And all that energy adds up to more than 70% of all global energy-related emissions. Currently, CCS is one of the few proven technologies with the potential to decarbonize these sectors while also being cost-effective and scalable.
ExxonMobil’s proposed CCS hub in Houston could capture up to 100 million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2040 from the industrial area around the Houston Ship Channel. It could also lay the groundwork for future CCS hubs across the country.
CCS could capture more than 90% of CO2 emissions
Experts agree that carbon capture and storage will be crucial to mitigating the risks of climate change
Natural gas with CCS ensures a more stable and cost-effective energy supply than renewables alone
Natural gas coupled with CCS could be an energy combination of choice in a lower-carbon future. That’s because natural gas can keep up with changing energy demand, and it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels, like coal. For energy-intensive industries, those factors are especially important for reaching lower-emission goals.
There’s more than one way to capture CO2
CO2 can be safely and permanently stored underground
Thanks to their geological makeup, certain rock formations can safely and permanently trap CO2 underground. In fact, underground geological storage of CO2 has been a naturally occurring process for hundreds of millions of years. Independent studies, including from Carnegie Mellon University, agree that geologic CO2 storage remains a safe option to address climate change.
ExxonMobil is responsible for capturing 40% of all the CO2 ever captured
With more than 30 years of experience in the field, ExxonMobil is a leader in CCS, having captured more CO2 than any other company in the world. Currently, ExxonMobil captures about 9 million metric tons of CO2 per year at facilities in the United States, Australia and Qatar, and is exploring multiple new opportunities, including one in Houston’s industrial area. The company’s experience scaling up major projects and expertise in CCS makes it uniquely qualified to lead the charge in turning these plans into a reality.
While no single solution can fully address climate change, CCS technology will be essential to significantly lowering emissions on a global scale. Learn more about our carbon capture and storage research and how we’re driving innovation.
Comment This article does not account for massive and increasing overpopulation with all of the associated energy, food and other resource demands, leading to more pollution, violence, war, disease and famine. Expanding population leads to deforestation, rising Co2 without trees to recycle it into oxygen, rising temperatures and forest fires. Overpopulation is the problem, pushing nature ever more out of balance. Meanwhile ruling elites distract ignorant pseudo ediucated masses stoking up the race and gender wars – pyschological imperialism based on good old divide and rule strategy. R J Cook
July 19th 2022
The Fire Next Time
Paris (CNN)Extreme heat has engulfed parts of western Europe, with wildfires raging in France and Spain, a worsening drought in Portugal, and the third hottest day on record in the UK on Monday.Fire has spread across27,000 acres in the Gironde department of southwest France, forcing 32,000 people to evacuate, the local prefecture said Monday night.The nearby town of Cazaux recorded 42.4 degrees Celsius (108.3 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, the hottest it has seen since its weather station first opened more than 100 years ago in 1921, according to French national meteorological service Météo France. Major cities in Western France, such as Nantes and Brest, also hit new heat records, it said. In Finistère, on the country’s Atlantic coast, fires had first been reported on Monday afternoon; less than eight hours later, the flames had decimated more than 700 acres of land, prompting the evacuation of several villages. In Spain, wildfires swept the central region of Castile and Léon, as well as the northern region of Galicia Sunday, Reuters reported. Fire also forced the state railway company to suspend service between Madrid and Galicia.More than 70,000 hectares have been destroyed in Spain because of fires this year, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday. “Seventy-thousand hectares, to give you an idea, is almost double the last decade’s average,” he said.
The heat wave in Portugal has intensified a pre-existing drought and sparked wildfires in central parts of the country, including in the village of Memoria, in the Leiria municipality. The country’s Carlos III Health Institute on Monday estimated a cumulative total of more than 510 heatwave-related deaths in the country, based on statistical calculation of excess deaths.Hundreds have also died in neighboring Portugal, where sweltering temperatures exacerbate a severe drought. On Saturday, Portugal’s Health Ministry said 659 mainly elderly people had died in the previous seven days, Reuters reported.An elderly couple also died Monday after their vehicle overturned while fleeing wildfires in northern Portugal, the country’s state broadcaster RTP reported.In total, over 1,100 people are thought to have died due to the ongoing heatwave in southern Europe.
‘Peak of intensity’
The blistering heat wave is expected to peak early this week. As the heatwave moves across the country, French capital Paris is expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday. In the UK — where Monday’s temperatures reached 38.1 degrees in eastern England’s Santon Downham, making it the third hottest day on record — officials warned things would likely get worse.
The head of the UK’s Met Office said the country could experience the “hottest day” on record Monday.Tuesday is “expected to be even hotter,” according to the Met Office’s CEO, Penelope Endersby. “It’s tomorrow that we’re really seeing the higher chance of 40 degrees and temperatures above that,” Endersby told BBC Radio on Monday.”Even possibly above that, 41 is not off the cards. We’ve even got some 43s in the model but we’re hoping it won’t be as high as that.”In France, the heat wave is expected to move away from the western part of the country on Tuesday, heading toward the center and eastern part instead, including Paris.Belgium’s Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI/IRM) has issued a “code red” weather warning for heat in two provinces on Tuesday, forecasting temperatures up to 40 Celsius in the west and southwest.”With such very high temperatures certain measures will be necessary: drink regularly, wear lighter clothes, spend the day in cooler rooms, monitor the state of your health regularly, eat easily digestible food (and in smaller portions), keep doors and windows closed to keep the heat out. Pets and animals also need extra care,” it warned residents.
Facing drought
Nearly half of Europe’s territory, including the UK, is “at risk” of drought, researchers at the EU Commission said Monday. The Joint Research Centre highlighted that the drought in much of Europe is “critical” as the “winter-spring precipitation deficit … was exacerbated by early heatwaves in May and June.”Water supply may be “compromised” in the coming months, according to the report. Speaking to CNN on Monday, Oxford University Professor Myles Allen warned that such heatwaves will be inevitable if mankind doesn’t soon reduce its carbon emissions.”This isn’t a new normal because we’re just on a trend towards ever hotter temperatures,” Allen told CNN on Monday.The solution, he said, is sweeping change across the energy industry. Individual companies are unlikely to change their business models unilaterally due to concerns over losing competitiveness with rivals, he added.”It’s got to be a regulation on the industry as a whole,” said Allen.
Joseph Ataman, Jimmy Hutcheon and Xiaofei Xu reported from Paris. Zahid Mahmood and Sana Noor Haq reported from London. CNN’s Renee Bertini, James Frater and Sharon Braithwaite contributed reporting to this post.
Hubris, lies and the gay affair that brought down BP boss
Lavish gifts: Lord Browne had a four-year relationship with Jeff Chevalier and was said to have made substantial payments to him
The 59-year-old, once one of Britain’s most powerful businessmen, could face a charge of perjury or perverting the course of justice.
He will also lose £15 million in cash and shares he would have received if he had retired, as he planned, in July.
Read Lord Browne’s statement in full here
Read the Mail on Sunday’s full response to Lord Browne’s statement here
Browne, once known as the “Sun King” of the oil industry, stood down after losing a four-month legal battle against the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the “BP oil spill“) was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect,[6][7][8][9] considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 Mbbl (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3).[3] After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.[10] Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking.[11][12] The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in American history.
A massive response ensued to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1.84×106 US gal (7,000 m3) of oil dispersant.[13] Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and fishing and tourism industries was reported.[14] In Louisiana, 4,900,000 lb (2,200 t) of oily material was removed from the beaches in 2013, over double the amount collected in 2012. Oil cleanup crews worked four days a week on 55 mi (89 km) of Louisiana shoreline throughout 2013.[15] Oil continued to be found as far from the Macondo site as the waters off the Florida Panhandle and Tampa Bay, where scientists said the oil and dispersant mixture is embedded in the sand.[16] In April 2013, it was reported that dolphins and other marine life continued to die in record numbers with infant dolphins dying at six times the normal rate.[17] One study released in 2014 reported that tuna and amberjack that were exposed to oil from the spill developed deformities of the heart and other organs that would be expected to be fatal or at least life-shortening and another study found that cardiotoxicity might have been widespread in animal life exposed to the spill.[18][19]
Numerous investigations explored the causes of the explosion and record-setting spill. The U.S. Government report, published in September 2011, pointed to defective cement on the well, faulting mostly BP, but also rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton.[20][21] Earlier in 2011, a White House commission likewise blamed BP and its partners for a series of cost cutting decisions and an inadequate safety system, but also concluded that the spill resulted from “systemic” root causes and “absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur”.[22]
In November 2012, BP and the United States Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges, with BP pleading guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to Congress. BP also agreed to four years of government monitoring of its safety practices and ethics, and the Environmental Protection Agency announced that BP would be temporarily banned from new contracts with the US government. BP and the Department of Justice agreed to a record-setting $4.525 billion in fines and other payments.[23][24][25] As of 2018, cleanup costs, charges and penalties had cost the company more than $65 billion.[26][27]
In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct.[28] In April 2016, BP agreed to pay $20.8 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in United States history.[29]
Read More Deepwater Horizon oil spill – Wikipedia
Videos of Videos Deep Water Horizon Fire
bing.com/videos2:01Deep Water horizon : RIG On Fire 60FPS55K viewsJul 30, 2017YouTubeMALAY SCREEN2:51Anniversary of Deep Water Horizon explosion; Survivor talks for first time957 viewsApr 21, 2020YouTubeWKRG23:47Deepwater Horizon: Fire and Greed in the Gulf of Mexico523K viewsApr 17, 2020YouTubeGeographics
Deepwater Horizon: Fire and Greed in the Gulf of Mexico
Former BP Engineer Convicted for Obstruction of Justice in Connection with the Deepwater Horizon Criminal Investigation
Kurt Mix, a former engineer for BP plc, was convicted today of intentionally destroying evidence requested by federal criminal authorities investigating the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Anderson of the FBI’s New Orleans Division made the announcement after the verdict was announced by U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr.
Mix, 52, of Katy, Texas, was convicted by a federal jury in the Eastern District of Louisiana of one count of obstruction of justice and was acquitted on a second count of obstruction of justice. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on March 26, 2014.
“Today a jury in New Orleans found that Kurt Mix purposefully obstructed the efforts of law enforcement during the investigation of the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman. “This prosecution shows the commitment of the Justice Department to hold accountable those who attempt to interfere with the administration of justice. I want to thank the committed prosecutors and agents who have worked tirelessly over so many years on the Deepwater Horizon Task Force for their dedication and tenacity.”
According to court documents and evidence at trial, on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig experienced an uncontrolled blowout and related explosions while closing the Macondo well. The catastrophe killed 11 men on board and resulted in the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Mix was a drilling and completions project engineer for BP. Following the blowout, Mix worked on internal BP efforts to estimate the amount of oil leaking from the well and was involved in various efforts to stop the leak. Those efforts included Top Kill, the failed BP effort to pump heavy mud into the blown-out wellhead to try to stop the oil flow. BP sent numerous notices to Mix requiring him to retain all information concerning Macondo, including his text messages.
On or about Oct. 4, 2010, after Mix learned that his electronic files were to be collected by a vendor working for BP’s lawyers, Mix deleted on his iPhone a text string containing more than 300 text messages with his BP supervisor. The deleted messages included a text sent on the evening of May 26, 2010, at the end of the first day of Top Kill. In the text, Mix stated, among other things, “Too much flowrate – over 15,000.” Before Top Kill commenced, Mix and other engineers had concluded internally that Top Kill was unlikely to succeed if the flow rate was greater than 15,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). At the time, BP’s public estimate of the flow rate was 5,000 BOPD – three times lower than the minimum flow rate indicated in Mix’s text.
By the time Mix deleted these texts, he had received numerous legal hold notices requiring him to preserve such data and had been put on notice of the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The Deepwater Horizon Task Force, based in New Orleans, is supervised by Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman and led by William Pericak, a deputy chief in the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section who serves as the director of the task force. The task force includes prosecutors from the Criminal Division and the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana and other U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and investigating agents from the FBI, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal law enforcement agencies. The task force’s investigation of this and other matters concerning the Deepwater Horizon disaster is ongoing.
The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Jennifer L. Saulino and Trial Attorney Leo R. Tsao of the Fraud Section.
Comment It was arrogant gay Thatcher lover boy Lord Browne who took BP into the post nationalisation greed phase, sacking in house engineers, contracting work out to Halliburton cowboys. Browne is not mentioned in the Deep Water Horizon movie even though this Thatcher age hero was responsible for the greed cost cutting culture that caused this disaster.
Miss Roberta Jane Cook.
April 1st 2022
NEW WORLD ORDER
If we are seriously going to have a new world order and government, it cannot be led by a U.S WASP elite paying lip service to diversity with stupid boxes like LGBTQI and TERF feminism championed by the likes of Harry Potty writer Rowling or sycophant obsessive ( I love free speech for me and my like minded friends) Linehan who is worried about his daughters meeting trans women latent rapists in the very scarce U.K public lavatories – most of these having been sold off by Tories to property developers..
I learned exactly what the transgender clinic were all about when they told me I could complete my sex change surgery as long as I took powerful anti psychotics. Come on, I am a very sexy woman and want to enjoy being seriously fucked by real justifiably angry men, not fucked up by the Police State and its truncheon waving inadequate Sarah Everard killer types. I do not want terminal orgasms while I am strangled & comatose for the pleasure of top notch policemen necrophiliacs like PC Wayne Couzens- in spite of what quack lying Dr C R Ramsay has to say about me.
So a New World Order should not be led by a western hypocrisy that locks up war crime whistle-blowers or minor dissidents like me. It should be headed by people with souls above money , not the likes of the EU’s Ursula Von der Leyen, descendant of slave traders. Nor should it be for the wealthy or those who aspire to wealth. We need to get past the greed culture and face upto the basic human overpopulation issues. We need to stop fawning to idiotic religion as ‘ the opium of the masses.’ Science is the way to truth, but social science is perverted by feminism, natural sciences are perverted by militarism. Wheeling out the likes of gurning poor little rich girl Greta is sick and absurd. She is another stooge and has no idea what she is talking about. Power comes from the barrel of a gun. If we don’t get past that obsession with power and women’s vaginas, then we have no hope.
R J Cook
March 16th 2022
Even before Russia’s tanks started rolling into Ukraine, we were already hearing that the best way to stop Vladimir Putin’s aggression is to ramp up fossil fuel production in North America.
Within hours of the invasion, every planet-torching project that the climate justice movement had managed to block over the past decade was being frantically rushed back onto the table: every canceled oil pipeline, every nixed gas export terminal, every protected fracking field, every Arctic drilling dream.
Since Putin’s war machine is funded with petrodollars, the solution, we are told, is to drill, frack, and ship more of our own — no matter the cost to our planet and our future.
Oil CEOs and politicians like Sen. Joe Manchin are advocating for more drilling at home to help supply European allies like Germany, which just announced its own construction of two huge import terminals that could lock in emissions for decades to come.
With politicians and pundits scrambling to bring back the failed oil dreams of the past, I’m more committed than ever to The Intercept’s ongoing investigation of climate criminals and corporate polluters. Our reporters don’t just lament rising temperatures, they name names and follow the money, from the billionaire donors that obstruct climate action to the front lines of protest against pipeline construction and fossil fuel extraction.
February 28th 2022
IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted and there is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said.
Even at current levels, human actions in heating the climate are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes of the natural world and rendering many areas unliveable, according to the landmark report published on Monday.
Read More IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown (msn.com)
New Clear Winter – a comment by Roberta Jane Cook
The major environmental issue is over population. It must not be talked about because it is driven by religion and Third World exploitation. Ignorance is essential to elite hegemony, which is where feminism and BLM come in, dividing and distracting the masses. Overpopulation destroys nature, ravages the earth, creates famine , war disease and dictatorship.
The current Ukraine crisis is about the elite using their media and minions to encircle Russia so they can steal the resources – that was their plan in Afghanistan and is ongoing in Latin America. As long as Muslim and Catholic masses are duped into suffering and barely living for the afterlife, there is no hope.
I suspect we are past the tipping point in numbers and beyond redeeming any worth while education. In the self congratulating west, education is all about a BLM TERFS and feminism rainbow culture.
I should be allowed to debunk religion while others worship. I should not be forced to take anti psychotics and accept that being female or transsexual is a different culture to the equivalent male world . It should be seen for what it is, part of one culture. That can’t be allowed because it is a class divided culture, with the elite pretending to care about the planet in this grave new world of have yachts and have nots. The Ukraine propaganda is elite opportunism. R J Cook
February 4th 2022
Satellites for first time reveal ‘ultra-emitters’ of methane major bursts across six countries including US and Russia
Zoe Tidman
Satellite data has exposed for the first time how huge bursts of the potent, planet-heating greenhouse gas methane are being spewed from oil and gas fields across the world.
New study looks at methane emissions from oil and gas production- Getty Images/iStockphoto
Researchers found 1,200 “ultra-emitters” in six major oil-producing countries including the US and Russia over the past two years alone.
The global team of scientists found oil and gas facilities were releasing a significant amount of methane – the second-worst contributor to global warming – in sporadic bursts.
Comment Why is this surprising ? Oil and natural gas are energy and raw materials for ever expanding industry driven by predominantly BAME Islamic population growth. These people have high expectations of consumer over satiation, according to God’s will, with inevitable pollution, and unquenched 3rd World over spill into the west – and they’re hoping to go east toward Russia with NUKUS help. The only logic here is the elite’s greed. R J Cook
February 3rd 2022
Footage purports to show 2 million barrel oil tanker exploding off coast of Nigeria
View via link Footage purports to show 2 million barrel oil tanker exploding off coast of Nigeria (msn.com)
Comment Those like Greta Thunberg and those who brief her, denying an overpopulation link with climate change, do so on the assumption that the masses can be equalled ever downwards, brain washed with a new official religion, Islam, while the elite continues to extract profit until such time as they can get to another planet. R J Cook
January 21st 2022
A68: ‘Megaberg’ dumped billions of tonnes of water into ocean every day
Emily Atkinson
The iceberg that was once the largest in the world was dumping more than 1.5 billion tonnes of freshwater into the ocean every day at the peak of its melting, experts say.
One of the largest recorded icebergs, A68a, floating near the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, 23 December 2020- AP
A68 covered an area of nearly 2,300 square miles and was bigger than Norfolk when it broke away from the Larsen C ice shelf in the Weddell Sea on the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula in mid-2017.
Read More A68: ‘Megaberg’ dumped billions of tonnes of water into ocean every day (msn.com)
January 16th 2022
Met Office predicts the collapse of society following climate disaster
Glenn Owen For The Mail On Sunday
It is a bleak forecast even by the Met Office’s standards – the complete collapse of society leaving armed militias and criminal gangs to roam the land unchallenged.
Read More Met Office predicts the collapse of society following climate disaster (msn.com)
Comment This is starting to happen and will go critical. The bland patronising blasé elite’s smug welcoming attitude to the massive influx of North African and Middle Eastern migrants says it all.
Covid is a seriously related issue with major impact on BAME, leading to ever more stringent controls on the rest of us, along with predictions of white militias arming for rebellion – police and MI5 preparing to respond..
Religion is not compatible with science and technology; Religion is more than compatible with world overpopulation and is rife in what we used to call the Third World, before political correctness had us rename it the Developing World.
Africa and the Middle East are rich in resources. It is not the ordinary western white persons fault that primitive religious tyrannies and hedonistic ones like the Saudis perpetuate these problems. Meanwhile these tyrants have their London , Paris and New York mansions and their pick of anything they want , including high class escorts. The world’s super rich of all ethnicities, are driving the planet’s ruin.
The white masses are the scapegoats , some of whom see this as genocide, especially with feminism promoting abortions and the stupid idea that women should put careers first and have it all. This is what our effective global multi racial government of rich elites want.
As a geography teacher, I was mocked for my environmental concerns in the 1980s and had a promotion blocked by a Tory Head of Bucks Education Committee , Gillian Miscampbell, on the grounds I was ‘politicising. My crime was writing and producing a song for BBC Radio, called the Nuclear Winter. It was about the Chernobyl disaster and the insanity of putting the future of Britain’s energy in Nuclear. Three 13 year olds sang the song and were interviewed, with 6th former John Newton the recording engineer and keyboard player.
Obviously I mentioned the 1957 Windscale explosiion, the 250 acre exclusion zone on former farm land, now a radioactive wasteland, along with two headed fish caught by local trawlers and birth defects across the water in Northern Ireland. I called it Britain’s Chernobyl , so bad the name was changed to Sellafield. That was dangerous talk because Tory Head of Governors was a Thatcherite and they wanted coal miners out of the way.
Energy is a big issue incapable of keeping pace with demand – the Nordstream 2 debacle is another case in point, where power mad politicians put greed before caring for their peoples.
Renewables as solution are delusion because the population growth means more consumption, more waste, more disease spread , more competition, stress and war – ultimately nuclear as we see with Russia trying to save itself from the contamination of western decline, superficiality and identity politics. Religious people don’t get it. They put faith in and thank God, expecting their big share of a cake baked at the earths expense. Education in the west is embracing a revival of worship for a God some of us are pretty sure does not exist. But nature does and humans are stealing from it more and more every day.
Try telling that to the global elite who own most of the world’s wealth, control the rest and create 55 % of greenhouse gasses per annum. Any of us low life calling out massive Third World pollution, on going regime infighting and matters of fact, such as the average African woman has 16 babies is declaimed as racist.
That is not sustainable and if it goes on with the migration path, the West will overload and places like Africa will fill the space left by the migrants. To say so is hate speech and race crime if you are white. Race is now a big and rather nasty issue. Mainstream politicians either don’t want to or dare not confront it.
R J Cook
January 8th 2022
November 11th 2021
Cop26: UK snubs pact to end oil and gas as small group of nations forge path away from fossil fuels
Daisy Dunne
New oil and gas production must end if the world is to meet its climate goals, experts say- AP
Cop26 host the UK has declined to join an international alliance aiming to end new oil and gas projects, leaving a small group of other countries led by Costa Rica and Denmark to forge a path away from fossil fuels.
November 10th 2021
Don’t Laugh – Comment by R J Cook
So much of the following 17 article is true. Overpopulation is never discussed though it was acceptable for a black female professor from Rutgers University to exalt at the demise of the white birth ratee. I
n respect of whites, feminists dominate female culture , media and aspirations. Where whiteS produce children, at least one in three will end up with only female role models, fathers ostracised , vilified and marginalised. Many of thise children will have identity problems and social difficulties. The elite don’t care.
As for carbon, if mass education was not such dogmatic brainwashing crap, the masses would know that carbon is essential to plant life which is food and produces oxygen after absorbing our carbon dioxide and monoxide. Sprawling BAME and Islamic populations overflowing into the west, from places like Afghanistan , where only 2% of the land is forest, keeps the PC liberals smug. It is the mind set of an Ostrich. R J Cook
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
This article is more than 17 years old
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be ‘Siberian’ in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New YorkSun 22 Feb 2004 01.33 GMT
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
Read More Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us | Environment | The Guardian
‘Reality check’: Global CO2 emissions shooting back to record levels – November 4th 2021
Damian Carrington
Patient 1 by Charlotte Raven review – living with Huntington’sFrom idol to true love! These stars married fans!
Global carbon emissions are shooting back to the record level seen before the coronavirus pandemic levels, new analysis has shown. Scientists said the finding is a “reality check” for the world’s nations gathered at the Cop26 climate summit.
Read More ‘Reality check’: Global CO2 emissions shooting back to record levels (msn.com)
From waste to resource: Can recycling CO2 help Saudi Arabia go green?
Several companies in Saudi Arabia are now recycling carbon dioxide to reduce emissions. But what does the future look like? – October 18th 2021
Black, viscous and millions of years old, crude oil is never far from controversy. But given its component parts go into everything from lifesaving pacemakers to the toiletries we use every day, it’s a valuable resource that – for now at least – we can’t afford not to use.
Read More Can recycling CO2 help Saudi Arabia go green? | The Independent
Boeing takes on Airbus in green aviation battle – October 6th 2021
Alan Tovey
Sarah Ferguson says royal family ‘moves together as a unit’ amid Andrew scandalsWhat happened to the girl who shocked the world in the 1970s?
Airlines are trying to work out how to slash the carbon emissions from their flights, but Boeing thinks it may have the answer in the form of sustainable aviation fuel. 
It is made from sustainable feedstocks such as plants, cooking oil, food scraps and non-recyclable household waste, while “synthetic” versions can also be made from waste gases
Read More Boeing takes on Airbus in green aviation battle (msn.com)
Cornwall could become EU’s essential source of key raw material – August 29th 2021
Ciaran McGrath
And Jeremy Wrathall, the founder and CEO of Cornish Lithium Ltd, has said the rich seam of the alkali metal also can also further Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit Global Britain ambitions. Pro-Brexit think tank Facts4EU’s report points out that, despite a worldwide scarcity, it is found in the English county.
Read More Cornwall could become EU’s essential source of key raw material (msn.com)
Food shortages at worse level than I have ever seen, says Co-op boss – August 25th 2021
Henry Saker-Clark
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The boss of one of the UK’s biggest retailers has warned that current food shortages are at a “worse level” than he has ever seen.
Read More Food shortages at worse level than I have ever seen, says Co-op boss (msn.com)
Comment There are a lot of heart wrenching stories in mainstream media at present, concerning refugees from Afghanistan. Woke western liberals want their countries to take in more. The important thing is that these comfortable people should feel good about themselves and never guilty while they patronise the masses who pay for everything through tax on their minimum wages.
On RT this morning a documentary featured one man pleading poverty with his seven children, To quote Rev Thomas Malthus in this context risks the easy award of racism. Malthus observed that population growth is a geometric progression, food production is an arithmetic one .
Liars and idiots will tell you that science can turn arithmetic into geography with new methods ,advanced machines, irrigation ,pesticides and fertiliser – in spite of climate change already caused by too many ever expanding, hungry , ambitious, competing human and religious groupings .
With less than 2,500 owning 62% of global wealth , 5 rich black African families owning 55 % of Africa’s wealth and all investors in the 500 dominant global corporations, you are never going to get democracy or honesty. You will get more policing, viruses and lockdowns to keep you in line on the way to the Lemming’s cliff edge. R J Cook
It’s now or never: Scientists warn time of reckoning has come for the planet – August 15th 2021
At the end of the 60s sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, the camera pans across the Daily Express case room to a front page proof hanging on a wall. “Earth Saved”, screams the headline. The camera pans. “Earth Doomed”, announces the proof beside it.
The head printer looks baffled. Which page will he be told to select? We never find out, for the film concludes without revealing the fate of our planet whose rotation has been sent spiralling out of control by simultaneous Soviet and US atom bomb tests. All we know is that Earth’s fate hangs in the balance thanks to human stupidity.
Related: Scientists issue a climate code red
Such a vision may be the stuff of popular entertainment but it comes uncomfortably close to our own uncertain future, as highlighted last week by an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which effectively announced “a code red” warning for our species. Unequivocal evidence showed greenhouse gas emissions were propelling us towards a calamitous fiery future triggered by extreme climate change, it announced. Only urgent reductions of fossil fuel emissions can hope to save us.
It was a vision vividly endorsed by scientists, normally the most circumspect of commentators about world events. “Our future climate could well become some kind of hell on Earth,” said Prof Tim Palmer, of Oxford University. Or, as Prof Dave Reay, executive director of Edinburgh University’s Climate Change Institute, put it: “This is not just another scientific report. This is hell and high water writ large.”
Certainly the numbers outlined in the report were stark and strikingly emphatic in comparison with past, far more cautious, IPCC offerings. As it makes clear, humans have pumped around 2,400bn tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 1850, creating concentrations of the gas that have not been seen on Earth in the last 2 million years.
Heatwaves and the heavy rains that cause flooding have become more intense and more frequent since the 1950s in most parts of the world, and climate change is now affecting all inhabited regions of the planet. Drought is increasing in many places and it is more than 66% likely that numbers of major hurricanes and typhoons have risen since the 1970s. “If there was still a need for a proof that climate changes is caused by human activities, then this is the report that provides it,” said Prof Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia.
And the consequences of humanity’s massive act of atmospheric interference are now clear: what is hot today will become hotter tomorrow; extreme floods will become more frequent, wildfires more dangerous and deadly droughts more widespread. In short, things can only get worse.
Indeed, by the end of the century they could become threatening to civilisation if emissions are allowed to continue at their present rate. “That might seem like a long way away but there are millions of children already born who should be alive well into the 22nd century,” added Prof Jonathan Bamber of Bristol University, another report author.
In fact, they could become utterly catastrophic with the occurrence of world-changing events – such as continent-wide forest die-backs or collapsing Antarctic ice sheets, says Prof Andrew Watson of Edinburgh University. “The IPCC report gives a comprehensive update on the knowns of climate change, and that makes for grim reading. But it also makes the point that climate models don’t include ‘low probability-high impact’ events, such as drastic changes in ocean circulation, that also become more likely the more the climate is changed. These ‘known unknowns’ are scarier still.”
The new IPCC report is certainly a very different, uncompromising document compared with previous versions, as meteorologist Keith Shine of Reading University pointed out. “I was heavily involved in IPCC’s first assessment report back in 1990. We weren’t even sure then that observed climate change was due to human activity. The IPCC now says the evidence is ‘unequivocal’. That means there is no hiding place for policymakers.”
It is plain that any hopes that climate change might turn out to be not as bad as expected were forlornProf Rowan Sutton
The crucial point is that this report was agreed not just by scientists but by government representatives on the committee, men and women who have made it clear they are also convinced of the urgency of the situation. “They also see the direct link between greenhouse gas emissions and forest fires, floods and other recent extreme weather events, and that makes it essential for their own governments to act,” said Lord Deben, chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee.
At the Paris climate meeting in 2015, those governments pledged to try to keep temperature rises well below 2C, and not more than 1.5C if possible, from pre-industrial days. The trouble now is that the world has already heated up by almost 1.1C, which means only drastic cutbacks in emissions will succeed in preventing far more serious, intense global warming. It will be tight going. The most ambitious of emission scenarios described by the IPCC offers less than a 50% chance of keeping below that 1.5C threshold.
Prospects for limiting global warming to 2C are better but will still require reductions far in excess of those that have been pledged by nations in the run up to Cop26, the UN climate summit to be held in Glasgow in November. “It is plain that any hopes that climate change might turn out to be ‘not as bad as expected’ were forlorn,” said Prof Rowan Sutton, of Reading University’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science. “It is happening now and it is happening very fast. Dealing with this crisis means taking urgent actions.”
That will not be an easy task, however. As Nick Starkey, director of policy at the Royal Academy of Engineering, pointed out last week. “The UK is not on track to meet existing carbon targets and our goal of 78% emissions reduction by 2035 will not be reached without deep energy efficiency measures,” he said.
What is needed is “a society wide vision”, a national plan that would be instigated to ensure implementation of all the different policies – from transport to power generation and from home heating to farming – that will be needed to make sure emissions are cut as quickly as possible. “We need to put policies in place throughout society otherwise our targets will just become empty promises,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.
It is a suggestion backed by Lord Deben. “In the UK, we need a new planning act that ensures all local authorities have to take climate change into account every time they make a planning decision. At present, they get absolutely no advice about how to go about this business.” Such processes would ensure that the fine detail of ensuring carbon emissions are controlled and mistakes – such as the recent granting of planning permission for a new coal mine in Cumbria – are not repeated, he added.
© Provided by The Guardian San Francisco’s sky turns orange from wildfire smoke in September 2020. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA
However, it will take considerable, sustained effort for the nation to keep up such efforts. On Tuesday, national front pages were filled with images of burning Greek villages and lurid headlines. “PM: wake up to red alert to climate crisis,” warned the Daily Express; “As doomsday report warns of apocalyptic climate change: can UK lead world back from the brink,” asked the Mail; while the Telegraph announced “UN warns of climate ‘reality check’”. Given that many of these papers have gone to lengthy efforts in the past to denigrate climate science and to question the reality of global warming, these were radical announcements. It remains to be seen just how long each publication remains committed to the science.
“The climate story was all over the front pages on Tuesday but by Friday, three days later, it was hardly mentioned,” added Prof Martin Siegert of Imperial College, London. “Yet this is the most important thing that humanity needs to do in the next 30 years. It is going to change our lives, it is going to change the way we regard ourselves on the planet. And if we don’t, we are going to stoke up huge problems for our children. But after three days we seemed to be forgotten despite the fact this is something that needs decades of consistent, persistent work.”
Siegert added that it had been estimated that investment levels equivalent to 1% of GDP are needed to ensure the country’s transition to net-zero status. “However, we are currently spending about 0.01%… a 100th of that estimated price tag. And this is also well below what the government is spending on things that will actually add to our emissions, such as airport expansion plans and the tens of billions it has pledged on new road schemes, which will only make it easier to drive around and burn more fossil fuel.”
These are all issues for the UK to hammer out, as a matter of urgency, over coming months, although the opening of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow is going to be an even more pressing event. At the meeting, which begins on 1 November, delegates from more than 190 nations will gather to hammer out a deal that will determine just how hot life will get on Earth. At Paris, in 2015, nations pledged emission cuts that now urgently need to be updated or global temperatures will soar to well over 2C. Similarly agreements will have to be reached on how to phase out coal power stations as quickly as possible, to protect carbon-dioxide-absorbing forests, and to agree aid for developing nations to help them survive the impacts of global warming.
It will be a fine-run thing and it is very likely that we will not know if negotiators succeed until the very last minutes of the Glasgow conference. In this way we will learn the planet’s fate in November, exactly 60 years after the cinematic release of The Day the Earth Caught Fire. We may then have a better idea of whether “Earth Saved” or “Earth Doomed” was the right front page headline.
THE FIRE NEXT TIME – A COMMENT August 8th 2021
One of the first things Greta Thornburg said when she rocketed to fame as a role model for Woke young women and girls everywhere was ‘It is not about overpopulation.’ From that first utterance , I realised she was a stooge. it was a set up , a diversion , and the choice of this elfin female was to make any criticism a crime against the fairer sex.
The problem we have is very much about overpopulation. Sir Richard Attenborough said so , very vociferously during his 1980s Reith Lectures. He does not mention that now because it is offensive and racist to the Third World where most of the overpopulation , pollution and deforestation happens. The horrors and dictatorships of those regions is why 10,000 illegal immigrants -called refugees by woke white liberal middle class people who put virtue signalling first- entered Britain this year..
As much as so called experts lecture us on ‘The Science’- to reinforce their message and mantra that they know best and we should obey or else – science is not a fixed body of knowledge. Science is a methodology.
Unfortunately State schools don’t teach science that way. Inquiring minds are not encouraged. The State with its experts and tame media, tell us what we ‘need; to know.
If super advanced aliens came to earth – assuming they haven’t and are not already here just torturing us out of sight or even under our noses – they would consider the masses slavish for their adulation of a made up God who doesn’t appear to care about mass suffering. They would laugh at how that Judaic Christian Islamic God and all its split off groups distract so many with in fighting and war.
Their leaders sell the suffering as a training course for heaven. For Catholics and Muslims it is still very much the message of they have the only truth and their followers must go forth and multiply. Old Testament warnings of ‘The fire next time’ etc , do not mesh with world wide greed and hunger for the better life.
That better life will never happen because the world’s masses just don’t see how the mixed race global rich are having a laugh, dividing and ruling. Blacks are sold BLM resentment. The have all the wealth and are to blame for most of the climate change through their profiteering and extravagant lifestyles. White masses are blamed for slavery which enriched black and white elites including the super rich British monarchy.
The lower class whites are the whipping boys. They will have to pay for any improvements to ethnic lifestyle by reductions to their own because the rich must get richer. Their class makes the laws and they have done well from the pandemic. They have no issue with mass immigration because feminism has massively reduced white birth rates , and along with migrants , they have lowered real wages and inflated prices of everyhing essential, along with profits.
The elites present lofty moralising judgemental words and airs when the inevitable racial conflict vents. We saw this with England’s obscenely well paid football team , their manager and the likes of our future King William.
But , because population is growing so fast , the real petrol for the climate fire, these hedonistic moralisers leading businesses and governments, are destroying the planet at an accelerating rate. The poor pay the police. The police work for the rich. So we get conflicts about defunding because of events like the killing of George Floyd.
Back in the 1988 , my late mother called me into her room where she was watching a Bradford City football match on T.V. A small fire had started at one end of the stand of the old wooden tar and pitch rooved stadium main stand.
The BBC commentator uttered reassuring words because his TV camera had spotted and zoomed in to show a few police officers looking at it. The camera swept back up the pitch , following players and ball . By the time the camera swept back , the stand had exploded into an inferno with spectators unable to get out of the back gates running on to the pitch , one was on fire and in agony.
Bradford was s a metaphor for the planet and what is happening now. HAARP being used to control the weather ,and possibly manipulate Covid spread, will make some places colder, but consequently others much hotter. The population must either be controlled by humans or more will be wiped out as nature struggles to achieve balance.
For all of humanity’s great achievements there has been dreadful cost. Humans need to stop blind faith in religion and the arrogance of believing they are mini Gods in their maker’s image. It is a myth and they wouldn’t believe in God if they saw him , which is why they crucified Jesus and why Muslims won’t allow images of God. Jesus was much more valuable to the elite as a dead man and a martyr. The past is not all about black slavery –
If you care about slavery and Africa, then don’t let elite media distract you. All things on earth are connected. It is a small world. Look what black tyrants and white powers are doing to poor ignorant overpopulating blacks in Africa now. That is why migrants move to Europe , but it is not a solution because Africa’s population will keep expanding and flow over into Europe , bringing poverty with it. what is happening and who profits from africa;s wealth , the land of diamonds, which needs considering. It is a sign of woke censorship that we are not supposed to talk about it, We are supposed to believe in Rainbow land. well no person has ever found a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow because there isn’t one. There is no end. It is an optical illusion, which is what greedy rich governments are selling us all the time.
People get a very false sense of security from our authorities. They are even worse than when I worked among them, High salaries , status, security and promotions are what they are after ,a s we saw with so called NHS heroes of Covid threatening strike action if they don’t get an inflation busting pay rise.
Selfishness is the order of the day in our fake democracy where who you vote for makes no difference because real alternative parties would be banned before they started. Sadly , as with the drift in to the last two rich man’s world wars, more disaster is inevitable. R.J Cook
Greed , pollution , oil wars and profit were the order of the day. They tried to sack her for teaching about the dangers of nuclear power. Tories wanted rid of troublesome coal miners. Boris Johnson recently claimed that Thatcher was a great environmentalist for closing coal mines and other industries going bust, state industries sold off for profit & efficiency to benefit the environment. Image Copyright Appledene Photographics
RICHARD NORTH: Where will the electricity come from for electric cars? – August 8th 2021
Richard North For The Mail On Sunday 21 hrs agoLike94 Comments|88
Ministers are convinced that electric cars are the bright green future, opening up our way to an emission-free paradise.
That’s why they have taken the dramatic step of banning the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030. All motorists must turn to battery power within a decade.
No wonder there was much consternation last week when the Prime Minister’s official climate spokeswoman, Allegra Stratton, stated she wouldn’t lead by example and buy an electric vehicle (EV) herself, preferring to stick with her ‘third-hand’ diesel Volkswagen.
Ms Stratton argued that she visits elderly relatives living up to 250 miles away and claimed the limited range of EVs would not allow her to do that easily.
On this point, she was not entirely right. The performance of electric models is improving all the time and many have a range of more than 200 miles without recharging.
But range is the least of the obstacles to a battery-powered future.
‘People can’t sleep’: Rhonda valley flood leaves climate fear in its wake – August 8th 2021
Steven Morris
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In February last year, Storm Dennis wreaked havoc in the Rhondda valley, causing flooding in hundreds of homes and businesses, leaving landslips, ruined roads, smashed bridges and broken hearts in its wake.
Eighteen months on, many people in this close-knit corner of south Wales continue to suffer. “I still have nightmares about the river rising again,” said Katie Whelan, whose end-of-terrace house in the village of Ynyshir, near Pontypridd, was flooded.
“Looking back I can’t believe the water rose so quickly and so violently. I keep sandbags in the back garden for if it happens again. I don’t think I’ll ever relax again.”
There was a time, before the storm, when it would have been easy to find climate emergency deniers in this area. They are fewer now. The people of the Rhondda have had first-hand experience of the crisis.
In the nearby village of Pentre, where 159 homes flooded, Lian Roderick, who had to endure flooding followed by lockdown in a damp terrace house with two teenage children, said the authorities in charge of clearing drains and culverts were directly to blame. “But I do worry about climate change. We had the flooding and it’s been so hot this year. Now this week it’s been raining heavily again. It’s crazy.”
Like many, Roderick gets worried every time the storm clouds roll in. “We’ve got a floodgate now. Back in the winter every time it rained that went up.”
In the town of Pontypridd, Caspar Harris, who helps run the wholefoods store Pete’s Shop and is a seasoned environmental campaigner, shuddered as he recalled how dirty water poured into the business.
“The thought that it could happen again – probably will happen again – is always on your mind,” he said. Harris believes the flooding had changed residents’ attitudes to the climate crisis. “You get the occasional person still in denial but not that many now. I don’t think enough is being done quickly enough to fight it. I’m sick of governments and councils setting distant goals. We need action now.”
Hayley Richards, a Pete’s Shop regular and co-chair of the town’s Friends of the Earth group, recalled how as part of the global climate strikes in September 2019, young people in Pontypridd had led a march through the town. “Ponty hadn’t seen anything like that. I remember some shopkeepers telling the children they ought to be in school. A few months later, those same shops were flooded.”
Richards said her nine-year-old son, Rowan, worried about his future. “He’s asked me if we need to move to a higher place. He feels climate change is at our door.”
Activists are doing their bit – a repair cafe, river litter picks, seed swaps. “But we need an honest dialogue,” said Richards. “We can’t survive if society continues to be about making money and exploiting the earth. And the government and councils must do more. There’s always something to distract them – Brexit, Covid, whatever.”
Pontypridd Museum remains closed after its basement was flooded with the loss of almost 1,000 objects. Staff are putting the finishing touches to new storage areas, building shelves above the level the flood water rose to last February. “We had 2ft of dirty water and sludge in the basement,” said the curator, Morwenna Lewis. “It’s been a really hard slog to get back. We hope to be open again by Christmas. But there’s always the worry now it could happen again.”
Pontypridd town council has declared a climate emergency. The councillor Lynda Davies said at all meetings there was a reminder that every decision had to be considered in the light of Wales’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, which enshrines the idea that the environment has to be at the centre of all policy.
On a practical level, Davies said the council was thinking of investing in electric vehicles, improving allotments, looking at investing in solar tiles. She admits progress is slow. “But we are taking steps. The mindset has to be, is everything we are doing sustainable?”
Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) council has produced a climate change strategy and aims to be carbon neutral by 2030. Rhys Lewis, a council cabinet member and the “climate change champion” for the authority, said flooding was not the only threat. Heatwaves were putting health at risk and causing frequent hillside fires.
Lewis said RCT was heading or supporting a wide range of initiatives, from the south Wales metro system to retrofitting its buildings with solar panels. It is also exploring the development of micro hydroelectric schemes, tapping into thermal springs and planting trees on denuded hillsides.
He said the people of the Rhondda were engaged. When the council asked what they could do to combat climate change, hundreds sent in suggestions including better bus routes, solutions to the problem of parking bikes, and setting up electric vehicle charging points on terraces, creating “final mile” delivery schemes using electric vehicles.
Lewis said there were massive challenges. “A decade of austerity has made it very difficult for us,” he said. But he said the council was committed to act. “We face challenging times ahead. Now is the time for us all to talk, and more importantly to act.”
Many people worry things are not moving quickly enough. Heledd Fychan, a Plaid Cymru councillor for Pontypridd, said she did not detect a sense of urgency from RCT council or the Welsh or UK governments. “Whenever it rains heavily now I get countless messages from people saying, is it going to flood again. People can’t sleep at night, they are traumatised. Nobody feels reassured.”
Leo Carey-Read, 16, from Pontypridd, a youth climate ambassador, said he had not seen much change since February last year. This summer the council unveiled, with something of a fanfare, a pilot “rain garden” in Mill Street, Pontypridd – a small plot of land designed to stop rainwater running into businesses. “That’s such a tiny scheme,” said Carey-Read. “They need to be so much more ambitious.
“We’ve reached the point when we’re starting to see the results of the climate emergency. We’re not going to avoid it, it’s just a matter of how bad it’s going to be.”
British firefighters prepare to battle apocalyptic blazes on Greek island of Evia – August 8th 2021
Ministers accused of ‘mixed messages’ over work from home policyDennis ‘Dee Tee’ Thomas obituary
A specialised team of British firefighters is preparing to battle fierce wildfires on Greece’s second largest island as their Greek counterparts toil amid apocalyptic scenes to save lives and property.
The team of 21 experienced firefighters was expected to be deployed to the Aegean island of Evia shortly after their arrival in Athens on Sunday evening.
The heavily forested island has been devastated by fires which have burned for days, charring huge areas of pine woodland, incinerating homes and forcing both locals and tourists to evacuate by sea.
The Greek coastguard has evacuated more than 2,000 people from the island in dramatic sea rescues in the last few days, against a backdrop of burning trees and blood-red skies.
Fires rage across southern Europe, forcing hundreds to evacuate
Turkey’s defence ministry released satellite images showing the extent of the damage, with forest areas turned black and smoke still visible.
- By Raziye Akkoc with AFP bureausAugust 2, 2021 04:11 BST
Dozens of villages were evacuated in tourist hotspots in southern Turkey on Sunday as wildfires that have claimed eight lives raged for a fifth day, while blazes also hit Greece, Italy and Spain.
Fanned by soaring temperatures and strong winds — with experts saying that climate change increases both the frequency and intensity of such blazes — this year’s fire season has been significantly more destructive than the previous average, EU data shows.
Turkey is suffering its worst fires in at least a decade with nearly 95,000 hectares (235,000 acres) burnt so far this year, compared with an average of 13,516 at the same point in the years between 2008 and 2020.
A neighbourhood in the tourist city of Bodrum has been evacuated, CNN Turk broadcaster reported, as strong winds fanned flames from the nearby Milas district.
Unable to leave by road, 540 residents were taken to hotels by boats, the channel said.
People were also evacuated from the resort city of Antalya, and two bodies were found in that region on Sunday, taking the number of people killed to eight.
After hitting record levels last month, temperatures are set to remain high.
Tsunami watch issued for Hawaii after 8.2 magnitude earthquake hits Alaska
By Reuters
July 29, 2021
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A shallow earthquake of magnitude 8.2 struck the Alaska Peninsula late on Wednesday, prompting tsunami warnings in the region, authorities said.
There were no immediate reports on loss of property or life.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which struck at 10:15 p.m. local time, was at a depth of 35 km.
In Alaska, the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) issued warnings for southern parts, the Peninsula, and Pacific coastal areas from Hinchinbrook Entrance to Unimak Pass. It also issued a “tsunami watch” for the US state of Hawaii.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said the possibility of a tsunami threat to the US state of Hawaii and the US Pacific territory of Guam was being investigated.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency was investigating whether there was a possibility of a tsunami hitting Japan, the public broadcaster NHK said.
Authorities in New Zealand also said they were assessing if there was any danger to coastal regions.
The US NTWC said it was evaluating the level of tsunami danger for other US and Canadian Pacific coastal areas.
The tremor struck about 91 km east-southeast of Perryville in Alaska. It was about 800 km (500 miles) from Anchorage, Alaska’s biggest city. It was followed by seven aftershocks, two of them above magnitude 6.0, according to USGS
Comment It is a cliche , but the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
Robert Cook
Record funding for flood defences in England as climate crisis worsens risks
Damian Carrington Environment editor 2 hrs ago
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The government will spend a record £5.2bn on reducing flooding in England over the next six years, as the climate crisis increases the risk to homes and businesses. German railways have suffered £1.5 billion flood damage.
The Environment Agency will spend £860m next year to support more than 1,000 schemes, with significant funds for Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west, regions that have been hit hard in recent years.
Ministers also announced tighter guidance to deter the building of new homes in flood-prone areas and changes to a government-backed insurance scheme to allow flooded homeowners to be paid to better protect their homes.
The government said 336,000 properties would be better protected by 2027, helping to avoid £32bn in damage to the economy and reducing the national flood risk by up to 11%. The EA said, however, that not all flooding would be prevented and that people should check their flood risk.
The moves were broadly welcomed, but some experts said maintenance budgets for flood defences would also need to rise and that local authorities still needed more resources.
Events such as the flash floods in London this week will get more common as a result of global heating because warmer air can hold more water. The UK Met Office has already observed an increase in intense downpours. Scientists said earlier in July that the catastrophic floods that struck Europe recently could become much more frequent because of global heating.
The UK government has been repeatedly told in recent years that its preparations to protect people from increased extreme weather were failing. Parliament’s public accounts committee said in February that the government was not doing enough on flooding and that local authorities needed much more help, including more cash.
Announcing the flood spending, the environment secretary, George Eustice, said: “The tragic recent events in Germany and Belgium serve as a sobering reminder of how devastating flooding can be. We are standing by communities and will bolster defences against flooding across England with many thousands more properties better protected by 2027.”
Emma Howard Boyd, the EA’s chair, said: “No one can prevent all flooding and climate change means the risk is increasing, but we can reduce the risks. [However], no one should have a false sense of security. I strongly urge people to sign up for flood warnings and regularly check flood risk online.”
Neil Parish MP, the chair of the Commons environment select committee, said: “The new investment plan is a welcome step toward greater flood resilience as we adjust our homes and our lives to cope with the changing climate. However [the investment in defences] must be matched by a long-term budget for maintenance.” He said local authorities also needed the resources to factor the impacts of the climate crisis into development decisions.
Changes to Flood Re, the insurance scheme for homes at high risk of flooding, will allow insurers to help flooded households make their homes more resilient. This could include installing air brick covers, flood doors and flood-resistant plasterboard, and homeowners could then benefit from lower premiums.
“The government is finally waking up and smelling the floodwater,” said Mary Dhonau, a flood resilience consultant. “Repairing flooded homes on a ‘like-for-like basis’ is money ill spent. Giving financial support to help those newly flooded to ‘build back better’ is a win for both the homeowner and the insurance industry.”
Paul Cobbing, the chief executive of the National Flood Forum, a charity that supports people at risk of flooding, said the announcements were “a really positive message for communities” but added: “The detail will be important, including how this all considers the impacts of future climate change.”
He said proposals to improve planning decisions in areas at risk of surface water flooding were of particular note. “Thousands of people currently suffer from development proposals that are inappropriate and we need to rapidly rectify the situation,” he said.
A recent government review of residential property planning decisions found that while 97% were made in line with EA advice in 2019-20, 866 homes were granted permission contrary to it. New guidance will reaffirm that planning authorities must refer decisions to ministers when the EA objects to a proposal on flood risk grounds.
“Flooding has a devastating impact on people’s lives and that’s why we’re strengthening our guidance,” said the communities secretary, Robert Jenrick.
Space & Junk Pollution – July 25th 2021
For many, the rise of commercial space tourism is a vulgar display of wealth and power. Amid several global crises, including climate change and a pandemic, billionaires are spending their cash on launching themselves into space for fun. When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told reporters after his first space tourism trip on Tuesday that Amazon customers and employees had “paid” for his flight, that only intensified that criticism.
But critics won’t deter Bezos and the other superrich. Space tourism is now a reality for the people who can afford it — and it will have repercussions for everyone on Earth.
In fact, all signs indicate that the market for these trips is already big enough that they’ll keep happening. Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company Blue Origin already has two more trips scheduled later this year, while Virgin Galactic, the space firm founded by billionaire Richard Branson, has at least 600 people who have already paid around $250,000 each for future tickets on its spaceplane.
Now, as the commercial space tourism market (literally) gets off the ground, there are big questions facing future space travelers — and everyone else on the planet. Here are answers to the six biggest ones.
1. What will people actually be able to see and experience on a space trip?
The biggest perk of traveling to space is the view. Just past the boundary between space and Earth, passengers can catch a stunning glimpse of our planet juxtaposed against the wide unknown of space. If a passenger is riding on a Virgin Galactic flight, they will get about 53 miles above sea level. Blue Origin riders will get a little bit higher, about 62 miles above sea level and past the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space. Overall, the experience on both flights is pretty simil
Dubai is making its own fake rain to beat 122F heat – July 21st 2021
Bevan Hurley
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The monsoon-like downpour drenches a busy highway, causing tricky driving conditions for the stream of SUVs. Sudden waterfalls appear on the side of the road.
According to the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology, the precipitation was enhanced by cloud seeding operations to increase rainfall in the Gulf country.- UAE’s National Center of Meteorology
It would be a common sight in parts of Southeast Asia, but this is the United Arab Emirates, in the height of a summer heatwave which has seen temperatures regularly surpass 120F.
On Sunday, the UAE’s national weather service released video footage of the heavy downpours.
Its cloud seeding operations are part of an ongoing mission to generate precipitation in the Middle East country, which has an average rainfall of just four inches.
The enhanced rain is created using drone technology that unleashes electrical charges into clouds in order for them to clump together and form precipitation.
The National reported the heavy rainfall caused waterfalls to appear in the city of Ail Ain and made driving conditions hazardous.
In an effort to curb the country’s sinking water table, the UAE invested $15 million in nine different rain-making projects in 2017.
The current system being used to change the electrical charge of the clouds is being led by researchers at the University of Reading in England. Professor Maarten Ambaum, who worked on the project, told the BBC in March that the UAE has enough clouds to create conditions conducive to rain.
The project tries to get the water drops to merge and stick when they receive an electrical pulse, “like dry hair to a comb”.
“When the drops merge and are big enough, they will fall as rain”, Prof Ambaum told the BBC.
Applying electrical shocks to clouds is preferred as it doesn’t require the use of chemicals.
China floods: Horrifying footage shows flooded subway with neck-high water as 12 dead in Zhengzho – July 21st 2021
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At least 12 people have died and 100,000 have been evacuated in Zhengzhou city, the capital of central China’s Henan province, after heavy rains led to large areas of the province being submerged in water.
A man wades past a submerged car along a flooded street following heavy rains in Zhengzhou on Tuesday- AFP via Getty Images
Visuals posted on social media show flooded streets, submerged subway stations and people trapped in neck-high water inside subway trains. Entire vehicles were seen to be either covered in water or floating across flooded neighbourhoods.
The rain in the city was estimated by some weather forecasters to be the worst in at least 1,000 years, according to news agency Reuters.
The city, on the banks of the Yellow River, is home to at least 12 million people.
More than 200 millimetres of rain fell in one hour in the city on Tuesday, forcing train operators to halt services. Apart from Zhengzhou’s transport services, schools and hospital services were also badly affected.
The First Affiliated Hospital in the city – a large treatment centre with 7,000 beds – lost all power, including reserve. Efforts were ongoing on Wednesday to transport at least 600 critically ill patients from there to other hospitals, according to the People’s Daily.
The total rainfall that poured down on Zhengzhou from Saturday evening till Tuesday was recorded at 617.1mm, almost matching the annual average of 640.88mm.
Local media cited meteorologists as saying that the rain seen in over three days was seen only “once in a thousand years”.
Similar scenes of flooding were reported in the streets of at least a dozen other cities, as levels in reservoirs and dams across the province breached warning levels.
The lives of millions of people across Henan – a tourist and logistics hub – have been upended because the unusually active rainy season has led to the rivers in the Yellow River basin rising rapidly.
The Yihetan dam in Luoyang city west of Zhengzhou “could collapse at any time”, local authorities said overnight, according to Reuters.
The Associated Press reported China’s military blasted a dam at Luoyang to release floodwaters that threaten Henan, which is one of the country’s most heavily populated provinces.
Of Henan’s 4,098 rain measuring stations, 606 registered more than 250mm of precipitation since the weekend, the province’s chief weather forecaster told local media.
Henan’s tourist attractions have not been spared. The famous Shaolin temple to the north of Zhengzhou, known for its historical association with martial arts, was badly hit and has been temporarily shut, according to the Associated Press.
Similarly, the rising Yi river has threatened to hit the Longmen Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site that has old Buddhist statues etched in limestone.
Several of those stranded in the rain have been forced to sleep at their workplaces or check into hotels.
Wang Guirong, a 56-year-old restaurant manager, told AP she planned to sleep on a couch at her restaurant because there was no power in the neighbourhood she stays in.
“I have lived in Zhengzhou all my life and have never seen such a heavy rainstorm as today,” she said.
Spain fire: Holiday hell as hundreds of tourists forced to evacuate – ‘inexcusable’ – July 18th 2021
ANDREA BLAZQUEZ
The emergency services in the region of Costa Brava, Spain, have asked holidaymakers to evacuate their houses as soon as they can, as the wildfire has already burnt 1,000 acres.
A fire in Costa Brava, on the north-east coast of Spain, started yesterday and it hasn’t yet been extinguished causing chaos in the holiday hotspot.
At the moment, firefighters are using water-carrying planes to try to control the wildfire.
More than 400 people have already been evacuated from their homes, said the fire service.
Costa Brava is a very popular holiday hotspot, with its main city Cadaques attracting thousands of Britons every year.
Currently, it is believed the fire was started by a discarded cigarette.
The fire, which tore through more than 1,000 acres, has its epicentre in the Cap de Creus Natural park, a very popular tourist location.
The regional Government said: “We’re trying to bring the fire under control at the moment using six aircraft, which are pouring water onto the flames and 90 fire crews on the ground,” said Sergi Palacios from the fire service.
Videos released earlier today showed the firefighters clambering across the rocky park during the night.
More than three residential areas have already been evacuated as the fire reached the houses this morning.
The local council has prepared hotels and temporary accommodation after hundreds of tourists had to evacuate their holiday homes.
Most roads are now closed and police are urging people to leave their houses as the situation is expected to get worse.
The police have explained anyone found responsible will face criminal charges.
“One negligent cigarette butt is 50 years of reforestation,” said Jordi Puignero.
The Costa Brava area is known for its strong winds, which will make the fire even more difficult to extinguish.
Experts warned it could burn up to 5,000 acres if the situation doesn’t improve.
A lot of tourists have been affected as since the fire started, they have been unable to get to their apartments and hotels.
The local Government has asked France for help, as the Costa Brava region is very close to the French border. France is expected to provide more water-carrying planes later today.
Many locals have taken to social media as the situation got worse.
“The Government took more than 12 hours to ask France for help. Inexcusable,” said one.
“The hypothesis that the cause is a discarded cigarette is despicable,” said another resident.
Trains cost ‘50% more than planes’, so why fly? July 18th 2021
Emily Cope
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We all know the stats by now. Taking a flight – the single worst thing you can do to the environment in your daily life – emits around six times the amount of carbon as travelling by rail.
If that was the only maths involved in booking a holiday, the weight of our collective flight shame would have forced us all to swap polluting planes for guilt-free trains long ago.
However, research from Which? has confirmed the other half of the equation: rail travel costs a fortune while flying is still really cheap.
Torn between low fares and reducing their carbon footprint, environmentally conscious travellers face paying a hefty “green premium” to travel by train, according to the consumer rights website.
Its snapshot investigation of UK routes found that in eight out of 10 instances, it was more expensive to take the train, costing 49 per cent more on average than flying, with Birmingham to Newquay costing more than two-and-a-half times the equivalent flight.
As long as the cost is not prohibitive, most holidaymakers favour booking the eco-friendly option. On-demand car rental service Zipcar says that electric vehicles are the most popular in its fleet, while Skyscanner says that many customers choose to pay a premium for lower-carbon flights, with more than 11 million travellers selecting the lowest-emissions ticket since the booking site introduced carbon labelling in 2019.
Governments in Europe are starting to take action against the perverse incentives at play in an economy where the cheapest mode of transport is also the most carbon-intensive.
In April, French MPs voted to suspend domestic flights on routes that can be travelled by direct train in less than two-and-a-half hours, bringing an end to all flights from Paris to Lyon, Bordeaux and Nantes.
And this week the European Commission announced plans to tax jet fuel for the first time, in a bid to meet ambitious targets for carbon emissions.
Yet, in the UK, the opposite is happening. In a year when train ticket prices were allowed to rise by 1.6 per cent, the Government is to reduce airline taxes, announcing plans in March to cut air passenger duty on domestic flights.
The move, followed in June by easyJet’s announcement of 12 new domestic routes, including the rail-beating bargain of £22.99 tickets from Birmingham to Newquay, was slammed by Friends of the Earth which said it simply “beggars belief”.
The Department of Transport’s “Jet Zero” consultation, part of Grant Shapps’s Decarbonisation Plan published on Wednesday, hasn’t fared much better in the court of climate opinion.
Slammed by environmental groups, it seeks to avoid the planes versus trains debate entirely, by focusing instead on investment in technology that airlines claim will one day lead to zero-carbon flights.
Greenpeace described the plans as “a very big bet on very long odds” and has called instead for a frequent flyer levy, while Paul Tuohy, chief executive of Campaign for Better Transport, says: “We don’t need to wait decades for ‘zero jets’, we simply need to make rail the better option.”
Tour operator Responsible Travel reports higher interest in rail holidays, but says the best intentions of a few travellers can’t compete with the reality of prices on the ground, and in the air.
The holiday booking site has set out its own manifesto for how it thinks the Government should even the playing field. Founder Justin Francis says that rather than a frequent flyer levy, which would be difficult to implement and police, the Government should tax aviation fuel and spend the proceeds on cheaper rail links.
“If aviation fuel were taxed at the same rate as petrol at the pump, it would raise £10bn a year, as opposed to the £3bn currently brought in by air passenger duty,” he reasons. “We’ve proposed a ‘Green Flying Duty’, which would ring-fence that money to be spent on improving our railways, as well as research and development for sustainable flight technology.”
With carbon-neutral flights still a long way off and little appetite from Government for more radical reforms, it appears that eco-minded travellers will continue to pay a premium for their clear climate conscience for a while yet.
In the meantime, Which? travel editor Rory Boland suggests looking into railcards to see if you can save up to a third on train travel. “You may be able to make further savings by checking if split-ticketing is an option on your chosen route,” he adds.
For those who can’t brook the idea of scouring timetables for the perfect connection, new “slow travel” tour operator Byway is taking the hard work out of planning a train, ferry and bike getaway. The company’s algorithms and support team (on hand via WhatsApp) remove all the hassle of researching and booking multi-part itineraries.
If you’ve tried all that and you are still feeling bitter that your train journey is taking longer than a flight that is half the price, Richard Hammond, founder of travel website Green Traveller, suggests trying to enjoy the ride as much as the destination.
“Holidaying by train is nothing like the experience of commuting by rail,” he says. “When travelling on the weekend, carriages are never packed, you can enjoy beautiful views, play cards around a table or just relax and read a book.
“I’d recommend the east coast route,” he adds, “where you can castle-hop between historic sites such as Leeds and Durham, passing cathedrals and fortresses that you’d miss when you’re 3,000 metres up in the air. There’s a real joy in taking the train.”
Row as 143-year-old Queensbury Tunnel threatened by Highways England – July 17th 2021
Richard Marsden for the Daily Mail
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It is an impressive feat of Victorian engineering that has stood rock solid in the heart of Bronte country for 143 years.
But now the Queensbury Tunnel is threatened by the same ‘cultural vandals’ at Highways England who have filled historic railway bridges with concrete.
The officials want to block the 1.4mile structure despite pleas from the Victorian Society and campaigners who want to turn it into Britain’s longest underground cycle path.
A planning application has been lodged and preparatory works have already started on the tunnel, which took four years to build and cost the lives of ten workers.
Some 7,700 objections have been lodged against the controversial proposal in West Yorkshire. Bradford Council, which is considering the planning application, has not set a date for its decision.
Norah McWilliam, of the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: ‘It’s nonsensical and outrageous. They seem determined to write off structures like Queensbury Tunnel, which is an incredible piece of Victorian engineering and when there is a clear vision for its use.’
The retired lecturer, 73, added: ‘It’s very clear that Highways England and the Department for Transport have not recognised the strategic value of Queensbury Tunnel for future transport use and have managed it blindly as a liability for many years.’
The tunnel, with a maximum depth of 400ft, was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1878 connecting Bradford, Halifax and Keighley. But the line was closed in 1956 after traffic dwindled.
So far, preparatory work for the blocking of the tunnel has included fitting a steel and concrete lining to some sections.
The Victorian Society, which campaigns to protect 19th-century architecture, claim the ‘rapidly deteriorating tunnel symbolises the irreplaceable infrastructure legacy left to us by the Victorians’.
Christopher Costelloe, one of the society’s directors, said: ‘Queensbury Tunnel could be the heart of a new transport revolution, bringing cyclists and tourists to this part of Yorkshire.
‘If it is filled-in this irreplaceable asset will be lost for ever.’
Controversy rages over plans by Highways England – which manages disused railway structures across England, Scotland and Wales – to fill in nearly 70 old bridges with concrete and demolish 14 others. It has refused to say which bridges are under threat.
It said of the Queensbury Tunnel: ‘The structure is flooded, causing the tunnel lining to deteriorate at a rapid pace. It needs to be strengthened and preventing an uncontrolled collapse is the best option for keeping this tunnel feasible.’
However, peers have previously called the infilling and demolition programme ‘cultural vandalism’.
Laws of nature: could UK rivers be given the same rights as people? July 17th 2021
Isabella Kaminski
The River Frome murmurs and babbles through the woods and fields of north Somerset. It is popular with anglers and wild swimmers but is often polluted with a cocktail of agricultural runoff, leading to frequent complaints from the public.
In 2018, Frome Town Council tried to pass a bylaw giving part of the river and the adjacent Rodden meadow the status of a person in law. This would establish their right to exist, flourish and thrive, and for the river to flow freely and have a natural water cycle, as well as ensuring timely and effective restoration if they were damaged. The council and a local charity, Friends of the River Frome, were to be made joint guardians of the river and meadow, tasked with balancing their interests with the health and safety of local people.
The bylaw was turned down in 2020, but the fight to give UK rivers rights continues today. On midsummer’s eve, members of Cambridge community group Friends of the Cam held a ceremony to establish the rights of their river based on the Earth Law Center’s Universal Declaration of River Rights. Sharing songs and stories about people’s individual connections with the river, they declared that the Cam had the right to flow, to be free from over-abstration and pollution and to host native biodiversity – and appointed themselves as its guardians.
“I think it’s great to keep this idea alive,” says Frome councillor Richard Ackroyd. “It’s possible, it’s not an airy fairy idea with no chance. It could be a reality and wouldn’t that change things?”
The idea of giving rights to nature has been around for years; laws giving natural features such as rivers and mountains, or ecosystems, legal personhood have been enacted around the world, from Ecuador to New Zealand, and have recently been subject to the first enforcement case in the US. But no such law has been passed in the UK.
Campaigners have tentatively explored rights for British rivers such as the Thames and the Findhorn in north-east Scotland, but efforts in Frome have been the most advanced.
Mumta Ito, a lawyer and founder of NGO Nature’s Rights who seeded the idea of the bylaw as a test case, says it would have set an important legal precedent. “Environmental law tackles the stuff that is illegal. The whole point of nature’s rights is to tackle all the stuff that destroys nature that is legal but not aligned with a regenerative culture. The real problem on the Frome is diffuse pollution, so if the river had been given rights how would agriculture need to change to respect those rights?”
The bylaw would have made it easier for individuals and the local authority to take action when the river ecosystem was damaged, says Ackroyd. “What I liked about it was that it takes away the idea that the only influence you’ve got is if you’re a big landowner, or your property has been damaged in some way.”
He said the response to the proposed bylaw had been overwhelmingly positive in the council and among the public, but as the town was unable to pass such a law by itself it had to ask the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for approval.
The request was rejected last year on the grounds that it would duplicate existing environmental laws. “But of course it wouldn’t, because the seismic shift of it is that it’s not really based on property rights,” says Ackroyd.
Ito is sceptical of the UK’s readiness for such a fundamental cultural shift. “At its roots, nature’s rights is about a big restructuring, because concentration of wealth and power happened on the back of property rights, which was a system of exclusion. If private property was subject to the rights of the ecosystems that inhabit that property then it’s not free for the trash and burn – it comes with a duty of care.”
“This country’s going to be a bit of a hard nut to crack,” agrees Paul Powlesland, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers and founder of NGO Lawyers for Nature, who is keen to advance nature rights in the UK. “In many ways we came up with – and exported around the world – the idea of nature as a dead thing to be exploited.”
In many ways [the UK] came up with – and exported around the world – the idea of nature as a dead thing to be exploitedPaul Powlesland
He points out that even existing laws to protect nature, particularly rivers, are being “fundamentally ignored”, and that the institutions tasked with upholding them are failing. As well as being affected by farming waste, the Frome is one of many rivers across the country that has been polluted with sewage from overflowing drainage systems, a problem highlighted by the Guardian.
But the law is not immutable, says Powlesland. “Over the years there has been a gradual extension of those who are the subject rather than the object of legal rights.” Once the preserve of rich white men, rights have been gradually extended to include all humans. “We even managed to figure out how to give rights to [companies] before we figured out how to give rights to living things which we rely on for our own existence.”
It is notable that many countries that have passed nature rights laws have strong indigenous cultures in which nature is a core principle and has intrinsic value.
“We have lost our indigenous voice,” says Powlesland, “but I believe that we can all go back to a deeper relationship with nature and these lands. The current political system is possibly not that amenable to a radical concept like rights of nature, but any law could be changed to anything if parliament wanted to do so.”
Ito is more circumspect. A few years ago, she succeeded in convincing all the UK’s green parties to support the principle of nature rights, but is disappointed that the commitment to these rights has not appeared in manifestos or had much political traction.
In fact, in the two years that it took the UK government to make a decision on the Frome bylaw, Ito made “much more headway” at EU level. She was invited to produce a study on nature rights for the European Economic and Social Council and is now in discussions about an EU charter on fundamental rights of nature.
“They’re actually entering into conversation with us about it,” she says. “Here in the UK, you get a one-liner from the secretary of state and that’s it. There’s nobody you can talk to; it’s a closed shop.”
Undaunted, Powlesland is working on a toolkit to help people imagine and enforce nature rights within the current legal framework. “I am seeing more people clearly expressing their love of nature and desire to protect it. The magic of this rights of nature discourse is it takes a lot of the things that people are doing already – there are some amazing activists doing excellent work all around the country – and puts it into a framework that has a power to it.
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“If enough people started to peacefully stand up for nature on a national level, regardless of what the current rules are, that would change those rules,” he says.
Nature rights around the world
Canada: Canada’s first rights of nature law was passed in February by the Minganie regional county municipality and the Innu council of Ekuanitshit in Quebec. The local authority and indigenous council assigned the Magpie river nine rights, including the right to be safe from pollution and the right to sue, as well as the ability to assign legal guardians to ensure those rights are respected.
Ecuador: The first country to adopt a rights of nature law in its national constitution, Ecuador states that nature (known as pachamama) has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate. Those rights have been upheld several times in court, although ensuring the legal rulings are enforced has proved more difficult.
Bangladesh: All rivers in Bangladesh were given explicit rights to be protected in 2019, after people complained that the shores of the Turag river were being excessively built-up and the water was too polluted. The high court agreed this was a problem and granted all rivers in the country legal personhood, a decision upheld by the supreme court last year.
US: In May, a network of streams, lakes and marshes in Orange county, Florida, sued a developer and the state to try to stop a housing development from destroying them. While many US municipalities have adopted rights of nature laws, this was the first time anyone had tried to enforce them in court.
‘Places like this could become uninhabitable’: The California city facing record-breaking heat – July 14th 2021
Greg Milam, in Palm Springs, California
The long-range weather forecast from meteorologist Mike Everett is bleak: “Places like this could become uninhabitable.”
He has spent the last week guiding viewers of NBC News in Palm Springs, California, through its latest record-breaking heatwave.
The desert city is used to the heat but things are extreme. It has recorded its hottest June ever, multiple days in the mid-to-high 40s Celsius and equalled its record high of 50C (122F).
And what is traditionally the hottest part of the year is still to come.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
And what is traditionally the hottest part of the year is still to come.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
And what is traditionally the hottest part of the year is still to come.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
And what is traditionally the hottest part of the year is still to come.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
And what is traditionally the hottest part of the year is still to come.
Within decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
vWithin decades, Mike says, the increasing frequency and intensity of these heatwaves could turn this resort playground into a ghost town in summer.
Surging California wildfire prompts evacuations in Nevada – July 10th 2021
By Associated Press Reporters
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A California wildfire exploding through bone-dry timber has prompted Nevada authorities to evacuate a border community as flames leapt on ridgetops of nearby mountains.
The Beckwourth Complex — a merging of two lightning-caused fires in northern California — headed into Saturday showing no sign of slowing its rush north east from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size a few days earlier.
The fire is one of several threatening homes across western states that are expected to see fierce heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region.
On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a high of 54.4C. If verified, it would be the hottest recorded there since July 1913 when the same Furnace Creek desert area hit 56.6C, considered the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth.
California’s northern mountain areas have already seen several large fires that have destroyed more than a dozen homes.
Although there are no confirmed reports of building damage, the fire prompted evacuation orders or warnings for hundreds of homes and several campgrounds in California along with the closure of nearly 200 square miles of Plumas National Forest.
On Friday, ridgetop winds up to 20mph combined with ferocious heat as the fire raged through bone-dry pine, fir and chaparral. As the fire’s north-eastern flank raged near the border, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office asked people to evacuate some areas in the rural communities of Ranch Haven and Flanagan Flats, north of Reno.
Hot rising air formed a gigantic, smoky cloud that reached thousands of feet high and created its own lightning, fire information officer Lisa Cox said.
Spot fires caused by embers leapt up to a mile ahead of the north-eastern flank — too far for firefighters to safely battle, and winds funnelled the fire up draws and canyons full of dry fuel, where “it can actually pick up speed”, she added.
Nearly 1,000 firefighters were aided by aircraft but the blaze is expected to continue forging ahead because of the heat and low humidity that dried out vegetation. The air was so dry that some of the water dropped by aircraft evaporated before reaching the ground, Ms Cox said.
The blaze, which is only 11% contained, had officially blackened more than 38 square miles, but that figure is expected to increase dramatically when fire officials can make better observations.
Meanwhile, other fires are burning in Oregon, Arizona and Idaho.
In Oregon, pushed by strong winds, a wildfire in Klamath County grew from nearly 26 square miles on Thursday to nearly 61 square miles on Friday in Fremont-Winema National Forest and on private land. An evacuation order was issued for people in certain areas north of Beatty and near Sprague River.
That fire is threatening transmission lines that send electricity to California, which along with expected heat-related demand prompted California governor Gavin Newsom on Friday to issue an emergency proclamation suspending some rules to allow for more power capacity.
The state’s electrical grid operator also issued a state-wide alert calling for consumers to voluntarily conserve electricity by reducing the use of appliances and keeping the thermostat higher during evening hours when solar energy is diminished or no longer available.© Provided by PA Media The Jack Fire burns about 40 miles east of Roseburg, Oregon (Oregon Department of Transportation/AP)
In north-central Arizona, increased humidity slowed a big wildfire that posed a threat to the rural community of Crown King. The 24.5-square-mile lightning-caused fire in Yavapai County was 29% contained. Recent rains allowed five national forests and state land managers to lift public-access closures.
In Idaho, governor Brad Little declared a wildfire emergency on Friday and mobilised the state’s National Guard to help fight fires sparked after lightning storms swept across the drought-stricken region.
Fire crews in north-central Idaho faced extreme conditions and gusts as they fought two wildfires covering a combined 19.5 square miles. The blazes threatened homes and forced evacuations in the tiny, remote community of Dixie, about 40 miles south east of Grangeville.
A history of global temperature for those who never studied geology – Posted July 2nd 2021
By CFACT Ed, Terigi Ciccone, Dr. Jay Lehr |October 6th, 2020|Climate|Comments Offon A history of global temperature for those who never studied geology
We have long thought that if more people had been required to take a course in Geology in High School, the human-caused global warming exaggerations would be more difficult to pull off on an unsuspecting public. Our simplified version of what is going on in and around the Earth should help fill the void.
The way the Earth formed, its rotational path around our sun, and its own axis are typically taught in Geology but ignored by the well-financed climate modelers. They are arrogant enough to throw a few variables into an equation claiming its solution predicts our Earth’s temperature decades hence. Sadly you and they disregard the known fact that your TV weatherman is correct on his 7-day forecast only 56% of the time. The modelers will tell you that climate and weather are two different things if you believe that they may have an island in New York’s Hudson River to sell you too. Generally, the climate is considered a 30-year compilation of weather. If we can not predict the weather 7-days hence with any certainty, how do they expect to predict climate?
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty
See also: List of conspiracy theories: Weaponry
What is a heat dome? Record-breaking weather system hits US and Canada -June 30th 2021
Record high temperatures are being recorded across North America, with more than 100 deaths reported so far in Canada and states in the north-western US, caused by a so-called “heat dome”.
A heat dome is a weather phenomenon in which high-pressure atmospheric conditions have trapped air coming in from the Pacific Ocean, heating the air column while compressing it down, like a lid on a saucepan.
This area of atmospheric pressure has created a blocking pattern, sandwiching the high pressure between areas of low pressure, pushing cooler air away from the heat dome.
Usually winds can move a heat dome around, creating a heatwave, but because this dome stretches high into the atmosphere, the high pressure system isn’t easy to move and appears to be stationary.
Although it is difficult to attribute single incidents of extreme weather to climate change, which is based on a much longer-term analysis, extremely rare events such as this are expected to become more common due to the general increase in global temperatures.
On Tuesday 29 June, Canada experienced its highest ever recorded temperature at 121F (49.6C) – making it the third consecutive day in which records had been broken.
The record heat has also led to record drops in temperature overnight in some places, such as Portland, Oregon, dropping from 116F (46C) to 64F (17C).
The US National Weather Service has warned that the “dangerously hot conditions” could last until Thursday, with Washington State and Oregon having both seen temperatures well above
Canada saw 103 heat records broken on Monday across the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
To cope with the severe heat, dry ice is being used to cool water, people have been sleeping in “cooling shelters”, and a swimming pool in Seattle was closed because the surrounding deck area was “dangerously” hot.
Police in British Columbia said they had responded to 65 sudden death callouts since the heatwave began in the region on Friday.
“Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it,” Sergeant Steve Addison of Vancouver Police said.
Commenting on the crisis in Canada, British Columbia’s premier John Horgan said that it served as a “big lesson that the climate crisis is not a fiction”.
“This is not a British Columbia problem, it’s not a Canada problem, it is a global challenge,” he said.
“And we all need to have citizens of the world coming together as we have, quite frankly, to address a global pandemic.”
Russia launches largest submarine built in 30 years
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Russia has tested a giant new nuclear submarine in open waters for the first time, just days after a tense standoff in the Black Sea with Britain involving a Royal Navy destroyer.
The ‘Belgorod’, believed to be the largest submarine developed anywhere in the world in 30 years, was trialled in the White Sea over the weekend, according to Russian state media.
Once approved for use, the vessel will be capable of launching nuclear strikes with six intercontinental ‘Poseidon’ torpedoes.
It will also act as a mothership for smaller, deep-diving submarines with robotic arms that can tamper with or even cut vital cables that lie on the seafloor.
The Royal Navy announced earlier this year that it would deploy a ‘spy ship’ specifically to stop such submarines sabotaging Britain’s internet through such tactics.
The Belgorod, the exact specifications of which are not known, is currently undergoing manufacturer’s tests and is set to be handed over to the Russian state towards the end of 2021.
It is set to serve in the country’s Pacific Fleet, sources close to the Russian Defense Ministry told state media.
But there are concerns in the West that it will be deployed to the Arctic and North Atlantic, where Moscow has significantly increased its submarine activity in recent years.
Last month, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the Telegraph that Moscow was the UK’s “number one adversary threat” and that Britain’s waters were “regularly visited” by Russian ships.
Russian naval assets have been detected by the UK more than 150 times since 2013.
The testing of the Belgorod comes just days after a confrontation with Britain in the Black Sea, when a Royal Navy defender passed through contested waters.
It was an area that Russia has claimed as its own since its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Britain still recognises it as Ukrainian territory.
Russia said it fired warning shots and dropped bombs close to the ship, a claim disputed by Downing Street.
General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff, later warned that any misstep in such a standoff could lead to all-out war, describing the risk of an “unwarranted escalation” as “the thing that keeps me awake at night”.
Russia also said at the weekend it was monitoring the American missile destroyer USS Ross, which entered the Black Sea on Saturday.
Comment
I suppose we are supposed to fear Russia in the Arctic. We should be more afraid of what the Anglo U.S are doing there and HAARP. Then there are all those other areas of Anglo U.S neo imperialism. Johnson’s response to the ironically named HMS Defender incident says it all. It is high time the Russians rebuilt their military to show what they are capable of. The balance of power is , like all else that matters , well out of balance. Here in the west we are in the hands of corrupt lying bloated greedy upper class hypocritical imbeciles.
Robert Cook
Cop26 will cause ‘inevitable’ disruption to day-to-day policing, review warns by Douglas Barrie – Posted June 25th 2021
It is “inevitable” that a major climate conference being held in Glasgow later this year will cause disruption to day-to-day policing, a review has warned.
An assurance review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) found policing plans are “progressing well” for Cop26, which will take place in the city from October 31 to November 12 after being delayed from last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly 120 heads of state are expected to attend along with around 20,000 accredited delegates, meaning officers from forces across the UK will gather to help police the area.
HMICS said: “Given the complexity and challenge of policing Cop26, the size and scale of the event which will put exceptional demand on resources, HMICS believed it to be inevitable there will be an element of disruption in day-to-day policing.”
I am confident the leadership of Police Scotland, its officers and staff are committed to the effective and efficient policing of the event whilst maintaining delivery of business as usualGill Imery, Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland
Its report said “where there is policy of non-attendance to calls of a certain nature or geographical area as a result of Cop26, this would be a policy decision and would require community communications” – suggesting some routine day-to-day calls will not be answered.
Gill Imery, Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland, said: “This will be the biggest and most complex event staged in Scotland.
“It will place significant demands across policing and necessitate the largest mass mobilisation of police officers that has taken place in the UK in many years.
“As climate change is a high profile issue and as world leaders are due to attend, it will attract global political, public and media interest.
“Following our review, I am confident the leadership of Police Scotland its officers and staff are committed to the effective and efficient policing of the event whilst maintaining delivery of business as usual and monitoring and supporting staff wellbeing.
“Covid-19 proved to be an unexpected challenge for those involved in policing and preparing for Cop26.
“Although the conference was delayed for a year, it did not necessarily mean there was more preparation time as many resources and personnel were diverted to support policing of the pandemic.
“An important observation from this review is the professional commitment by officers and staff who continued to deliver policing of the pandemic and planning for Cop26 against a backdrop of compliance with public health guidelines and lockdown restrictions.
“We also witnessed some examples of good practice which can be shared with other forces throughout the UK.”
The review offered only one recommendation: “Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) should put in place measures to monitor progress against the areas for development outlined in this assurance review ensuring regular reporting of progress at SPA meetings.”
Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr told the PA news agency: “The report was in the main very, very positive.
“It said that in terms of the welfare of the officers, in terms of operational planning, in terms of a range of other things you would expect, in terms of police in preparation for an event at a scale, I see that as really positive.
“It gives that assurance to our formal accountability that the things that they’ve identified are things that you would expect a number of months out from a massive operation of the scale that we’re still working our way through.
“So we welcome the report – it’s really helpful to have an external body come and look at what we’re doing and give us that sense of we’re in the right place at the right time in terms of our planning assumptions and planning preparations.
“But overall the report was incredibly positive and said that we’re in the right place and our planning is spot on.”
Is the real reason the US is so interested in what’s going on in Xinjiang because it contains so much oil?
Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.21 Jun, 2021 15:20Get short URL
© FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP
Follow RT onThe Americans have made a lot of noise about the Uighurs, but given the region’s strategic importance to China and its richness in natural resources, that may be more about geopolitical machinations than human rights.
Last week, China made a significant announcement that went somewhat under the radar. In the Xinjiang autonomous region in the far west, its oil companies have discovered an oil reserve that amounts to nearly one billion tons. This is the largest found in China in decades, and adds to an ever-growing number of discoveries in this region. READ MORE‘It’s OK when we do it!’ America calling out China for protecting its national interests in Africa is the height of hypocrisy
While it may not be a complete gamechanger, given China is, by some distance, the world’s largest consumer of crude oil, with a booming industrial economy and 1.4 billion people, the find is clearly important nonetheless.
Beijing is on a quest not just for mere energy, but for ‘energy independence’ – the idea that a country does not need to rely on others for its power and fuel. But the question is why is this such a priority?
While the reality is that China as a whole will never have the oil reserves to be completely free from relying on others, and is currently dependent on extensive imports from the Middle East, in Beijing’s eyes, the status quo isn’t tenable.
The traditional route of importing oil across the Indian Ocean, through the Strait of Malacca and up through the South China Sea, is at the mercy of the United States, which, through its ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ strategy, is aiming to military encircle China via the water around it.
There’s a hypothetical fear that, in a conflict, Washington could embargo shipping routes from beyond China’s periphery and, by extension, cut off oil imports. It would be a quick route to crippling Beijing, if the US were to pull it off.
This consideration has transformed Xinjiang into one of the most strategically important regions in China, not just for Beijing but for its enemies too. It’s a lynchpin, not just in terms of its vast energy resources, but also in its geographical importance as a gateway to the West, towards central Europe, and the Middle East.
HAARP Posted June 5th 2021
HAARP is the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Various individuals have speculated about hidden motivations and capabilities of the project. For example, Rosalie Bertell warned in 1996 about the deployment of HAARP as a military weapon.[35] Michel Chossudovsky stated in a book published by the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform that “recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the capability of triggering floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes.”[36] Over time, HAARP has been blamed for generating such catastrophes, as well as thunderstorms, in Iran, Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey, Greece and the Philippines, and even major power outages, the downing of TWA Flight 800, Gulf War syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.[6][37][38]
Allegations include the following:
- Nick Begich Jr., the son of the late U.S. Representative Nick Begich and brother of former U.S. Senator Mark Begich, is the author of Angels Don’t Play This HAARP. He has claimed that the HAARP facility could trigger earthquakes and turn the upper atmosphere into a giant lens so that “the sky would literally appear to burn.” He maintains a website that claims HAARP is a mind control device.[39][40]
- A Russian military journal wrote that ionospheric testing would “trigger a cascade of electrons that could flip Earth’s magnetic poles”.[39]
The ionosphere is the layer of the earth’s atmosphere which contains a high concentration of ions and free electrons and is able to reflect radio waves. It lies above the mesosphere and extends from about 80 to 1,000 km above the earth’s surface.
The earth’s atmosphere consists of the troposphere, from sea level to about 16 km above the earth’s surface; the stratosphere (which contains the ozone level) which extends from about the 16 to 48 km above the earth; and the ionosphere which extends from 48 km to over 50,000 km above the surface of the earth.
The earth’s protective atmosphere or “skin” extends beyond 3,200 km above sea level to the large magnetic fields, called the Van Allen Belts, which can capture the charged particles sprayed through the cosmos by the solar and galactic winds. These belts were discovered in 1958 during the first weeks of the operation of America’s first satellite, Explorer I. They appear to contain charged particles trapped in the earth’s gravity and magnetic fields. Primary galactic cosmic rays enter the solar system from interstellar space, and are made up of protons with energies above 100 MeV, extending up to astronomically high energies. They make up about 10% of the high energy rays. Solar rays are generally of lower energy, below 20 MeV (which is still high energy in earth terms). These high energy particles are affected by the earth’s magnetic field and by geomagnetic latitude (distance above or below the geomagnetic equator). The flux density of low energy protons at the top of the atmosphere is normally greater at the poles than at the equator. The density also varies with solar activity, a minimum when solar flares are at a maximum.
The Van Allen belts capture charged particles (protons, electrons and alpha particles) and these spiral along the magnetic force lines toward the polar regions where the force lines converge. They are reflected back and forth between the magnetic force lines near the poles. The lower Van Allen Belt is about 7700 km above the earth’s surface, and the outer Van Allen Belt is about 51,500 km above the surface. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Van Allen belts are most intense along the equator, and effectively absent over the poles. They dip to 400 km over the South Atlantic Ocean, and are about 1,000 km high over the Central Pacific Ocean. In the lower Van Allen Belt, the proton intensity is about 20,000 particles with energy above 30 MeV per second per square centimetre. Electrons reach a maximum energy of 1 MeV, and their intensity has a maximum of 100 million per second per square centimetre. In the outer Belt, proton energy averages only 1 MeV. For comparison, most charged particles discharged in a nuclear explosion are range between 0.3 and 3 MeV, while diagnostic medical X-ray has peak voltage around 0.5 MeV.
Project Argus (1958)
Between August and September 1958, the US Navy exploded three fission type nuclear bombs 480 km above the South Atlantic Ocean, in the part of the lower Van Allen Belt closest to the earth’s surface. In addition, two hydrogen bombs were detonated 160 km over Johnston Island in the Pacific. This was called, by the military, “the biggest scientific experiment ever undertaken”. It was designed by the US Department of Defence and the US Atomic Energy Commission, under the code name Project Argus. The purpose appears to be to assess the impact of high altitude nuclear explosions on radio transmission and radar operations because of the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP), and to increase understanding of the geomagnetic field and the behaviour of the charged particles in it. [1]
This gigantic experiment created new (inner) magnetic radiation belts encompassing almost the whole earth, and injected sufficient electrons and other energetic particles into the ionosphere to cause world wide effects. The electrons travelled back and forth along magnetic force lines, causing an artificial “aurora” when striking the atmosphere near the North Pole. US Military planed to create a “telecommunications shield” in the ionosphere, reported in 13-20 August 1961, Keesings Historisch Archief (K.H.A.). This shield would be created “in the ionosphere at 3,000 km height, by bringing into orbit 350,000 million copper needles, each 2-4 cm long (total weight 16 kg), forming a belt 10 km thick and 40 km wide, the needles spaced about 100 m apart.” This was designed to replace the ionosphere “because telecommunications are impaired by magnetic storms and solar flares”. The US planned to add to the number of copper needles if the experiment proved to be successful. This plan was strongly opposed by the International Union of Astronomers.
Project Starfish (1962)
On 9 July 1962, the US began a further series of experiments with the ionosphere. From their description: “one kiloton device, at a height of 60 km and one megaton and one multi-megaton, at several hundred kilometres height” (K.H.A., 29 June 1962). These tests seriously disturbed the lower Van Allen Belt, substantially altering its shape and intensity. “In this experiment the inner Van Allen Belt will be practically destroyed for a period of time; particles from the Belt will be transported to the atmosphere. It is anticipated that the earth’s magnetic field will be disturbed over long distances for several hours, preventing radio communication. The explosion in the inner radiation belt will create an artificial dome of polar light that will be visible from Los Angeles.”(K.H.A. 11 May 1962). A Fijian Sailor, present at this nuclear explosion told me that the whole sky was on fire and he thought it would be the end of the world. This was the experiment which called forth the strong protest of the Queen’s Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle in the UK. • Watch this Video on YouTube “The ionosphere (according to the understanding at that time) that part of the atmosphere between 65 and 80 km and 280-320 km height, will be disrupted by mechanical forces caused by the pressure wave following the explosion. At the same time, large quantities of ionizing radiation will be released, further ionizing the gaseous components of the atmosphere at this height. This ionization effect is strengthened by the radiation from the fission products. . . . The lower Van Allen Belt, consisting of charged particles that move along the geomagnetic field lines . . . will similarly be disrupted. As a result of the explosion, this field will be locally destroyed, while countless new electrons will be introduced into the lower belt.” (K.H.A. 11 May 1962) “On 19 July . . . NASA announced that as a consequence of the high altitude nuclear test of July 9, a new radiation belt had been formed, stretching from a height of about 400 km to 1600 km; it can be seen as a temporary extension of the lower Van Allen Belt.” (K.H.A. 5 August 1962)
As explained in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Starfish made a much wider belt (than Project Argus) that extends from low altitude out past L=3 (i.e. three earth radiuses or about 13,000 km above the surface of the earth)” Later in 1962, the USSR undertook similar planetary experiments, creating three new radiation belts between 7,000 and 13,000 km above the earth. According to the Encyclopaedia, the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen Belt have changed markedly since the 1962 high-altitude nuclear explosions by the US and USSR, never returning to their former state. According to American scientists, it could take many hundreds of years for the Van Allen Belts to restabilise at their normal levels. (Research done by: Nigel Harle, Borderland Archives, Cortenbachstraat 32, 6136 CH Sittard, Netherlands.) • Watch this Video on YouTube
SPS: Solar Power Satellite Project (1968)
In 1968 the US military proposed Solar Powered Satellites in geostationary orbit some 40,000 km above the earth, which would intercept solar radiation using solar cells on satellites and transmit it via a microwave beam to receiving antennas, called rectennas, [2] on earth. The US Congress mandated the Department of Energy and NASA to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment on this project, to be completed by June 1980, and costing $25 Million. This project was designed to construct 60 Solar Powered Satellites [3] over a thirty year period at a cost between $500 and $800 thousand million (in 1968 dollars), providing 10% of the US energy needs in the year 2025 at a cost of $3000 per kW. At that time, the project cost was two to three times larger than the whole Department of Energy budget, and the projected cost of the electricity was well above the cost of most conventional energy sources. The rectenna sites on earth were expected to take up to 145 square kilometres of land, and would preclude habitation by any humans, animals or even vegetation. Each Satellite was to be the size of Manhattan Island.
Saturn V Rocket (1975)
Due to a malfunction, the Saturn V Rocket burned unusually high in the atmosphere, above 300 km. This burn produced “a large ionospheric hole” (Mendillo, M. Et al., Science 187,343, 1975). The disturbance reduced the total electron content more than 60% over an area 1,000 km in radius, and lasted for several hours. It prevented all telecommunications over a large area of the Atlantic Ocean. The phenomenon was apparently caused by a reaction between the exhaust gases and ionospheric oxygen ions. The reaction emitted a 6300 A airglow. Between 1975 and 1981 NASA and the US Military began to design ways to test this new phenomena through deliberate experimentation with the ionosphere. [4]
SPS Military Implications (1978)
Early review of the Solar Powered Satellite Project began in around 1978, and I was on the review panel. Although this was proposed as an energy program, it had significant military implications. One of the most significant, first pointed out by Michael J. Ozeroff, was the possibility of developing a satellite borne beam weapon for anti-ballistic missile (ABM) use. The satellites were to be in geosynchronous orbits, each providing an excellent vantage point from which an entire hemisphere can be surveyed continuously. It was speculated that a high energy laser beam could function as a thermal weapon to disable or destroy enemy missiles. There was some discussion of electron weapon beams, through the use of a laser beam to preheat a path for the following electron beam. [5] Here is an artist’s concept of what beaming all that energy down to the ground looks like:
Source: DeathRaytheorp [6] The SPS was also described as a psychological and anti-personnel weapon, which could be directed toward an enemy. If the main microwave beam was redirected away from its rectenna, toward enemy personnel, it could use an infrared radiation wavelength (invisible) as an anti-personnel weapon. It might also be possible to transmit high enough energy to ignite combustible materials. Laser beam power relays could be made from the SPS satellite to other satellites or platforms, for example aircraft, for military purposes. One application might be a laser powered turbofan engine which would receive the laser beam directly in its combustion chamber, producing the required high temperature gas for its cruising operation. This would allow unlimited on-station cruise time. As a psychological weapon, the SPS was capable of causing general panic.
The SPS would be able to transmit power to remote military operations anywhere needed on earth. The manned platform of the SPS would provide surveillance and early warning capability, and ELF linkage to submarines. It would also provide the capability of jamming enemy communications. The potential for jamming and creating communications is significant. The SPS was also capable of causing physical changes in the ionosphere.
Climatological and heating effects of the microwave power transmission system in the lower atmosphere.
Between 60 and 500 km, the atmosphere is subject to modification from rocket thruster effluents and from oblation materials generated upon vehicle reentry. The major effects appear to occur in the ionospheric F2 region, resulting primarily in enhanced airglow. While not posing any threat to safety at ground level, it may affect planetside optical sensing devices. Beyond 500 km, the effects are related to heavy ion concentration due to rocket effluents, and to electric and magnetic fields generated by the orbiting SPS. These potential problems are not well understood and require further study. Because of deficiencies in our understanding of the physical and chemical processes above 40 or 50 km, especially with regard to water budget, there is a large uncertainty connected with any prediction. However, climatic effects that may arise from SPS-related perturbations in stratospheric and mesospheric composition are not expected to be highly significant (U.S. DOE, 1978a). [7]
President Carter approved the SPS Project and gave it a go-ahead, in spite of the reservation which many reviewers, myself included, expressed. Fortunately, it was so expensive, exceeding the entire Department of Energy budget, that funding was denied by the Congress. I approached the United Nations Committee on Disarmament on this project, but was told that as long as the program was called Solar Energy by the United States, it could not be considered a weapons project. The same project resurfaced in the US under President Reagan, moved to the much larger budget of the Department of Defence, and called Star Wars. [8] Since this is more recent history, I will not discuss the debate which raged over this phase of the plan. By 1978, it was apparent to the US Military that communications in a nuclear hostile environment would not be possible using traditional methods of radio and television technology (Jane’s Military Communications 1978). By 1982, GTE Sylvania (Needham Heights, Massachusetts), had developed a command control electronic sub-system for the US Air Force’s Ground Launch Cruise Missiles (GLCM) that would enable military commanders to monitor and control the missile prior to launch both in hostile and non-hostile environments. The system contains six radio subsystems, created with visible light using a dark beam (not visible), resistant to the disruptions experienced by radio and television. [9] Dark beams contribute to the formation of energetic plasma in the atmosphere. This plasma can become visible as smog or fog. Some has a different charge than the sun’s energy, and accumulates in places where the sun’s energy is absent, like the polar regions in the winter. When the polar spring occurs, the sun appears and repels this plasma, contributing to holes in the ozone layer. This military system is called: Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). (See The SECOM II Communication System, by Wayne Olsen, SAND 78-0391, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 1978). This innovative emergency radio system was apparently never implimented in Europe, and exists only in North America.
Orbit Maneuvering System (1981)
Part of the plan to build the SPS space platforms was the demand for reusable space shuttles, since they could not afford to keep discarding rockets. The NASA Spacelab 3 Mission of the Space Shuttle made, in 1981, “a series of passes over a network of five ground based observatories” in order to study what happened to the ionosphere when the Shuttle injected gases into it from the Orbit Maneuvering System (OMS). [10][11]They discovered that they could “induce ionospheric holes”, and began to experiment with holes made in the day time, or at night over Millstone, Connecticut, and Arecibo, Puerto Rico. [12][13] They experimented with the effects of “artificially induced ionospheric depletions on very low frequency wave lengths, on equatorial plasma instabilities, and on low frequency radio astronomical observations over Roberval, Quebec, Kwajelein, in the Marshall Islands and Hobart, Tasmania. (Advanced Space Research, Vol.8, No. 1, 1988)
Innovative Shuttle Experiments (1985)
An innovative use of the Space Shuttle to preform space physics experiments in earth orbit was launched, using the OMS injections of gases to “cause a sudden depletion in the local plasma concentration, the creation of a so-called ionospheric hole”. [14] This artificially induced plasma depletion can then be used to investigate other space phenomena, such as the growth of the plasma instabilities or the modification of radio propagation paths. The 47 second OMS burn of July 29,1985, produced the largest and most long-lived ionospheric hole to date, dumping some 830 kg of exhaust into the ionosphere at sunset. [15] A 6 second, 68 km OMS release above Connecticut in August 1985, produced an airglow which covered over 400,000 square km. [16]
During the 1980’s rocket launches globally numbered about 500 to 600 a year, peaking at 1500 in 1989. There were many more during the Gulf War. The Shuttle is the largest of the solid fuel rockets, with twin 45 meter boosters. All solid fuel rockets release large amounts of hydrochloric acid in their exhaust, each Shuttle flight injecting about 75 tonnes of ozone destroying chlorine into the stratosphere. Those launched since 1992 inject even more ozone destroying chlorine, about 187 tonnes, into the stratosphere (which contains the ozone layer).
“An example of acid rain that is principally due to hydrochloric acid occurs in Cape Canaveral, Florida when a space shuttle is launched. The space shuttle has two solid rocket boosters that operate for the first two minutes of flight to provide the additional thrust needed for the shuttle to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. The incredible amount of energy comes from the oxidation of aluminum to alumina by ammonium perchlorate. This reaction produces about 60 tons of HCl close enough to the ground to cause severe environmental damage in areas within 20 miles of the launch site.” “Every launch the shuttle uses 1.1 million pounds of solid fuel propellant costing 1.72 million dollars. This solid propellant is 70% ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer), 16% aluminum powder, 12% polybutadiene acrylic acid acrylo nitrite as a complex polymeric binder, 2% epoxy curing agent and 0.17% iron oxide powder as a catalyst.” [17][18]
Mighty Oaks (1986)
In April 1986, just before the Chernobyl disaster, [19] the US had a failed hydrogen test at the Nevada Test Site called Mighty Oaks. [20] This test, conducted far underground, consisted of a hydrogen bomb explosion in one chamber, with a leaded steel door to the chamber, two metres thick, closing within milliseconds of the blast. The door was to allow only the first radioactive beam to escape into the “control room” in which expensive instrumentation was located. The radiation was to be captured as a weapon beam. The door failed to close as quickly as planned, causing the radioactive gases and debris to fill the control room, destroying millions of dollars worth of equipment. The experiment was part of a program to develop X-ray and particle beam weapons. The radioactive releases from Mighty Oaks were vented, under a “licensed venting”, and were likely responsible for many of the North American nuclear fallout reports in May 1986, which were attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. [21]
Desert Storm (1991)
According to Defence News, April 13 – 19, 1992, the US deployed an electromagnetic pulse weapon (EMP) in Desert Storm, designed to mimic the flash of electricity from a nuclear bomb. The Sandia National Laboratory had built a 23,000 square metre laboratory on the Kirkland Air Force Base, 1989, to house the Hermes III electron beam generator capable of producing 20 Trillion Watt pulses lasting 20 billionths to 25 billionths of a second. This X-ray simulator is called a Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator. [22] A stream of electrons hitting a metal plate can produce a pulsed X-ray or gamma ray. Hermes II had produced electron beams since 1974. These devises were apparently tested during the Gulf War, although detailed information on them is sparse.
On SPUR and the ACRR: “Odd facility 1 is a 2-reactor facility; I spent a week there while I worked for the lab. The inner facility is the SPUR, Sandia Pulse reactor. Plates of enriched uranium, basically, with a negative temperature coefficient. It´s used to irradiate military stuff (or used to be, I have no idea when it was last used) as a simulation of an atomic explosion. According to the people who had been there a while, when SPUR fired you could be in the parking lot on the left with your eyes closed, and the blue flashes you´d see were fast neutrons zipping through your eyeballs. Nice, eh? Anyway, SPUR uses ´weapons grade´ material, thus the safeguards. None of this was classified when I was there, by the way. The other area inside the main fence is ACRR, (Annular core research reactor), a 2MW toy reactor used for various tests. We used it to play with diffractive optics; fun project. There´s also GIF, the gamma irradiation facility, inside the same building. Amusingly, the office building on the left was a minor scandal at the time; major cost overruns.” [23] Last November, the pulsed-power Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator Z-pinch configuration (PBFA-Z) produced 1.8 megajoules (mj) of energy — the same energy level that NIF theoretically would produce. The PBFA-Z’s X-ray power peaked at more than 160 trillion watts, prompting a Sandia newsletter to report that the powerful “shots” could “provide data for computer simulations used to predict the physics within, and effect of, a nuclear blast.”[24][25][26][27][28]
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program HAARP (1993)
The HAARP Program is jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy, and is based in Gakona, Alaska. [29][30][31] It is designed to “understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems”. The HAARP system intends to beam 3.6 Gigawatts of effective radiated power of high frequency radio energy into the ionosphere in order to: generate extremely low frequency (ELF) waves for communicating with:
- submerged submarines,
- conduct geophysical probes to identify and characterize natural ionospheric processes so that techniques can be developed to mitigate or control them,
- generate ionospheric lenses to focus large amounts of high frequency (HF) energy, thus providing a means of triggering ionospheric processes that potentially could be exploited for Department of Defence purposes,
- electron acceleration for infrared (IR) and other optical emissions which could be used to control radio wave propagation properties,
- generate geomagnetic field aligned ionization to control the reflectionscattering properties of radio waves,
- use oblique heating to produce effects on radio wave propagation, thus broadening the potential military applications of ionospheric enhancement technology.
Poker Flat Rocket Launch (1968 to Present)
The Pocker Flat Research Range is located about 50 km North of Fairbanks, Alaska, and it was established in 1968. [32] It is operated by the Geophysical Institute with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, under NASA contract. About 250 major rocket launches have taken place from this site, and in 1994, a 16 metre long rocket was launched to help NASA “understand chemical reactions in the atmosphere associated with global climate change”. Similar experiments, but using Chemical Release Modules (CRM) have been launched from Churchill, Manitoba. In 1980, Brian Whelan’s “Project Waterhole”, disrupted an aurora borealis, bringing it to a temporary halt. [33] In February 1983, the chemical released into the ionosphere caused an aurora borealis over Churchill. In March 1989, two Black Brant X’s and two Nike Orions rockets were launched over Canada, releasing barium at high altitudes and creating artificial clouds. These Churchill artificial clouds were observed from as far away as Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The US Navy has also been carrying on High Power Auroral Stimulation (HIPAS) research in Alaska. [34] Through a series of wires and a 15 meter antenna, they have beamed high intensity signals into the upper atmosphere, generating a controlled disturbance in the ionosphere. As early as 1992, the Navy talked of creating 10 kilometer long antennas in the sky to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) waves needed for communicating with submarines. [35]
Another purpose of these experiments is to study the Aurora Borealis, called by some an outdoor plasma lab for studying the principles of fusion. Shuttle flights are now able to generate auroras with an electron beam. On November 10, 1991, and aurora borealis appeared in the Texas sky for the first time ever recorded, and it was seen by people as far away as Ohio and Utah, Nebraska and Missouri. The sky was “Christmas colours”, and various scientists were quick to blame it on solar activity. However, when pressed most would admit that the ionosphere must have been weakened at the time, so that the electrically charged particle hitting the earth’s atmosphere created the highly visible light called airglow. These charged particles are normally pulled northwards by the earths magnetic forces, to the magnetic north pole. The Northern Lights, as the aurora borealis is called, normally occurs in the vortex at the pole where the energetic particles, directed by the magnetic force lines, are directed.
Conclusions
It would be rash to assume that HAARP is an isolated experiment which would not be expanded. It is related to fifty years of intensive and increasingly destructive programs to understand and control the upper atmosphere. It would be rash not to associate HAARP with the space laboratory construction which is separately being planned by the United States. HAARP is an integral part of a long history of space research and development of a deliberate military nature. The military implications of combining these projects is alarming. Basic to this project is control of communications, both disruption and reliability in hostile environments. The power wielded by such control is obvious. The ability of the HAARP / Spacelab/ rocket combination to deliver a very large amount of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth via laser and particle beams, are frightening. The project is likely to be “sold” to the public as a space shield against incoming weapons, or , for the more gullible, a devise for repairing the ozone layer. source: http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45492.html • Watch this Video on YouTube
Farm Harm May 27th 2021
G7 Rich Man’s Heaven May 25th 2021
The police force in charge of law and order at the G7 summit in Cornwall has said it faces challenges ranging from the “tricky” business of liaising with foreign leaders’ security details to not wrecking people’s holidays – and stopping gulls from attacking their drones.
Devon and Cornwall police, which is leading the operation for next month’s summit, said officers, backed by military planners and intelligence agencies, would patrol from the land, air and sea to keep the event safe.
On Tuesday it allowed reporters to watch firearms officers going through their paces and drone pilots practising their skills as final preparations were made for the largest operation in its history.
Officers fired Heckler and Koch G36 carbines and Glock pistols in an indoor range at the force’s headquarters in Exeter. They will also have access to a range of other equipment including baton rounds, typically used in riot control, Taser stun guns, smoke and stun grenades and incapacitant spray.
The force said it knew of no specific threat to world leaders, who will include Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, but its firearms officers were being backed by colleagues from across the UK.
Insp Greg Hodgkiss, of the force’s tactical firearms team and a national police firearms tactical advisor, conceded that the geography of Cornwall and the main sites, the coastal village of Carbis Bay and seaside towns of St Ives and Falmouth, presented “challenges”. He said: “Everything is being looked at.”
Asked how adapting to the needs of foreign security services protecting the various world leaders will be, Hodgkiss said: “I imagine it’s going to be fairly tricky but we have got a decent team involved and lots of planning has gone into it.”
Cornwall will be experiencing one of its busiest summers ever this year following the lockdowns and given the uncertainty of foreign travel.
Hodgkiss said: “A lot of the population are going to look to the south-west to come for holidays, so it’s something we have to factor in.”
Devon and Cornwall police said they were in overall command of the policing operation but were drawing on the expertise of other forces. “It’s a big combined operation,” said Hodgkiss.
Police said the airspace above Cornwall would be largely shut over the weekend of the summit and they were working with pilots of civilian drones, light aircraft and paragliders to make them aware of the restrictions.
Acting Sgt Chris Lindzey demonstrated one of the force’s 18 drones that may be called on during the summit to give officers on the ground a bird’s eye view.
He said the drones could be grounded by bad weather – and wildlife. “We do our utmost to avoid any nesting birds. Birds do sometimes swoop on our drones. If you are getting too much interest from wildlife, from a seagull, you give them respect and move out of the way.”
Activists are expected to disrupt the summit by blocking main roads into the county, trying to obstruct convoys carrying world leaders and perhaps even targeting a cruise ship that will be anchored off the coast as extra accommodation for police officers.
Resist G7, a coalition of groups planning to protest at the summit, said on Tuesday: “It is clear the summit will cause massive disruption. The police are likely to try and blame most of this on protesters. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if there wasn’t a single protest, the community would be faced with utter chaos.
“We didn’t ask for the G7 to take place in Cornwall and those of us who live here are angry about it being on our doorstep. Time and again the police are othering protesters. They want local people to believe that protesters are outsiders, coming to Cornwall to disrupt their lives. But in truth, many of those protesting live and work in Cornwall.”
Comment: Heavy handed policing of political protestors in the UK is nothing new. The police – wherever in the UK they operate – serve the politicians rather than the working class public who pay the majority of the taxes that fund the salaries of these overpaid self proclaimed heroes of the public sector. Politicians serve only themselves and the vile upper classes.
Welcome to the brave new world of a so called liberal western democracy where those who dissent are labelled outsiders to be socially and legally ostracised by the ignorant conformist cowardly majority. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich with its Gestapo and SS could not have done better at creating a national socialist utopia. We are all in it together lest anyone should forget.
10 Solutions for Climate Change May 12th 2021
Ten possibilities for staving off catastrophic climate change
- By David Biello on November 26, 2007
The enormity of global warming can be daunting and dispiriting. What can one person, or even one nation, do on their own to slow and reverse climate change? But just as ecologist Stephen Pacala and physicist Robert Socolow, both at Princeton University, came up with 15 so-called “wedges” for nations to utilize toward this goal—each of which is challenging but feasible and, in some combination, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safer levels—there are personal lifestyle changes that you can make too that, in some combination, can help reduce your carbon impact. Not all are right for everybody. Some you may already be doing or absolutely abhor. But implementing just a few of them could make a difference.Featured eBook
Expanded Coverage Read More by David Biello and Other Experts 5.99 View Details
Forego Fossil Fuels—The first challenge is eliminating the burning of coal, oil and, eventually, natural gas. This is perhaps the most daunting challenge as denizens of richer nations literally eat, wear, work, play and even sleep on the products made from such fossilized sunshine. And citizens of developing nations want and arguably deserve the same comforts, which are largely thanks to the energy stored in such fuels.
Oil is the lubricant of the global economy, hidden inside such ubiquitous items as plastic and corn, and fundamental to the transportation of both consumers and goods. Coal is the substrate, supplying roughly half of the electricity used in the U.S. and nearly that much worldwide—a percentage that is likely to grow, according to the International Energy Agency. There are no perfect solutions for reducing dependence on fossil fuels (for example, carbon neutral biofuels can drive up the price of food and lead to forest destruction, and while nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, it does produce radioactive waste), but every bit counts.
Can climate change be made simple enough to solve?
By Joel Makower
July 2, 2019
I’ve been fascinated and more than a little perplexed by a statistic from Suzanne Shelton, whose well-regarded marketing firm has helped shape the agenda for companies speaking up on sustainability issues.
At our recent Circularity 19 conference, Shelton shared her firm’s research showing that Americans are more concerned about plastic waste than about climate change. (The research originally was published in March, although Shelton’s terrific presentation on the closing day of Circularity helped dig it out of the pile of mind-numbing reports that regularly cross our in-boxes.)
The research was based on a survey of 1,013 Americans, who were first asked which environmental issues they’d been hearing about the most — from news, social media, family and friends. Plastics and climate change roughly were tied: 57 percent of respondents said they were aware of the problem of plastics in the ocean while 59 percent said were aware of climate change. (The survey’s margin of error was 3.1 percent.)
Awareness was one thing; concern another. As Shelton explained:
When offered up a list of 10 environmental issues, 65 percent of Americans say they are concerned/very concerned about plastics in the ocean, compared to 58 percent for climate change.
What in the name of Al Gore is going on here? While the plastic waste problem seems to have hit critical levels, with debris choking rivers and other waterways, how could it possibly be seen as more concerning than stabilizing the climate, the changes to which could have existential implications for countless millions, for generations?
One explanation may be found in something called “solution aversion.”
In my quest to understand this state of affairs, I stumbled upon a 2014 study conducted at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. It explored why people looking at the same scientific information about climate change could come to wildly different conclusions about the existence of the problem, with one group accepting it and the other denying it, or at least strenuously questioning it.
The Duke researchers proposed a “solution aversion model” to explain why people are often so divided over scientific evidence, and why this divide often occurs across political party lines.
Interestingly, they found that one’s acceptance of a problem can be correlated to their acceptance of the solutions to that problem. In other words, if people don’t believe a problem is solvable, they’re more likely to deny the problem’s existence.
Wow. Maybe it should be called “solution delusion.”
It’s not surprising that getting one’s brain, let alone one’s heart, wrapped around solving climate change has been such as Sisyphean task.
All of the above
The Duke hypothesis hits home when you consider the complexity of climate solutions. Stemming the worst impacts of the climate crisis will involve an all-of-the-above approach: scaling renewable energy and other clean technologies; making significant dietary changes; and fomenting revolutions in land use, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, finance, buildings, food systems, infrastructure and pretty much everything else we buy and do. Plus, all of the policy decisions and market mechanisms these changes will require.
That is, it’s not so simple. Far from it. Especially when compared to banning plastic straws and shopping bags, two relatively simple actions to end plastic waste that have gained widespread public and political support, and which seem to sync with consumers’ willingness to make behavioral changes in the name of Mother Earth.
It’s not surprising, then, that getting one’s brain, let alone one’s heart, wrapped around solving climate change has been such as Sisyphean task. Pondering all that needs to be done, and all of the changes we need to make, individually and collectively, is perplexing even to those of us who grok the magnitude of the climate challenge and have committed to solving it.
For everyone else, there’s “solution aversion.”
“People may deny problems not because of the inherent seriousness of the problems themselves but because of the ideological or tangible threat posed by the associated policy solutions,” wrote the Fuqua researchers. “It suggests that debates that appear to be about scientific evidence may instead be fueled by something entirely unrelated to the veracity of the science: the policies most commonly proposed as the solution.”
The most commonly discussed policy solutions to climate change, note the authors, “have overwhelmingly been pollution taxes, emissions restrictions and general governmental intervention” — not particularly aspirational stuff compared to, say, buying a snazzy electric vehicle, installing solar panels on your roof or ingesting an uber-hip plant-based burger.
The opportunity, then, is to make climate solutions seem within reach, without necessarily sugarcoating things. That’s hard to do, especially as people want simple solutions to complex challenges — not just to climate change, but to health care, immigration, poverty, hunger, job disruption due to technological innovations and all the rest.What would a set of solutions look like that could serve as an onramp to the uncommitted? And with climate change, simple solutions for individuals tend to be, almost by definition, small in nature, necessary but insufficient to address the magnitude of the problem: taking shorter showers; swapping out light bulbs; carpooling; reducing meat consumption; recycling; planting trees; flying less. The bigger, systemic solutions — decarbonizing the electric grid, buildings and cars; tropical forest restoration; family planning; expanding carbon markets worldwide; ending fossil fuel subsidies, among others — are downright knotty and expensive things to do.
Uncommitted on-ramp
So, can climate change be made simple enough to gain the engagement and support of those who, to date, have been sitting on the sidelines or opposing action altogether?
That’s an open question. What would a set of solutions look like that could serve as an on-ramp to the uncommitted? Could these solutions be made to seem not just important, but cool? Could they be rationalized as no-regrets measures that would be worth the effort even if, in the immortal words of one denier, climate change turned out to be the “greatest hoax” ever perpetuated on all us rubes?
I truly wish I had answers, but I don’t. If they’re there, they’re hard to see. Perhaps it’ll take a phalanx of social scientists working with policymakers and marketing mavens to create the kind of framing and messaging that will overcome solution aversion. But then again, all the marketing minds in the world haven’t yet managed to do this, and a number have tried.
What will it take to transform this state of affairs — to make societal solutions to climate change simple, attainable and compelling enough to overcome solution aversion?
Or is solution aversion itself one of those wicked problems that leads us to deny its very existence?
All White Problem May 7th 2021
Comment There is no question of criticising the reckless religiously motivated high birth rates in the Third World. The average number of births to African women is 15. India has a population of 1.7 billion – 38 % in dirty crowded cities. There is a massive media campaign to protect the third world cheap labour supply and the 3 % of hideously rich super elite who account for 33% of all greenhouse gases.
Fast fashion is crucial to third world slave labour jobs. The whole world economy is a house of cards. Our ruling elites have been bombing folk out of the Middle East for years, bombing for democracy ( sic) where all they care about is cheap oil and their placemen ethnic rulers in their old empires.
The trick now is to brazenly blame the lower order white people, telling them to have fewer children because Europe must accommodate Third World overspill in search of better lives .All whites are privileged and racists.
Robert Cook
Human Whites by Robert Cook May 4th 2021
The following article is a mainstream comment on Vogue’s publishing a woke feminist piece arguing that whites must breed less to save the planet. Feminism has made sure that they are already doing that.
White masses are fair game. Their culture is projected , by the white elite culture , as the oppressors of all other racial and religious variations. The class element, which exists in all races, is ignored.
It should be self evident that human overpopulation is the major factor , in climate change and pollution. The rich elite have benefitted from an apparently endless supply of religion driven ethnic masses – but whites have been slaves too and cannon fodder. Injustice has destroyed too many white lives at the bottom.
The global elite have a bigger deeper carbon footprint than the rest of the world’s population put together – and that include s black and Middle Eastern tyrants. Overpopulation is a BAME issue , as well as one for poor white Latin American populations. As I have said and written many times, the average African woman has 15 babies.
A massive regular annual flow of African and Middle Eastern populations into Europe and of Latinos into the United States , is about those people wanting better lives elsewhere than amongst those of its ever growing native populations, environmental degradation, ignorance , poverty and disease.
To argue that whites should stop breeding to make room for these people is to add to the problem. However , the Woke generation and elite populations with their on side politicians , will tolerate no argument , on pain of issuing racists labels and criminal records. Robert Cook
Vogue slammed for ‘completely insane’ article asking if having a baby is ‘environmental vandalism’
April 29, 2021
SA British Vogue article caught the ire of the internet for asking the question, “Is having a baby in 2021 pure environmental vandalism?” The author suggested that people should consider the “current climate emergency” before procreating, despite that she had already given birth to a baby and saying that she would gladly bringanother human being into the world.
“For the scientifically-engaged person, there are few questions more troubling when looking at the current climate emergency than that of having a baby,” Nell Frizzell wrote in the fashion magazine. “Whether your body throbs to reproduce, you passively believe that it is on the cards for you one day, or you actively seek to remain child-free, the declining health of the planet cannot help but factor in your thinking.”
Frizzell claimed that before she got pregnant that she “worried feverishly about the strain on the earth’s resources that another Western child would add,” including the food he ate and the electricity the baby would use. The writer also panicked over a possible dystopian future on a planet with no water and crops that her son would live in decades from now when he is an elderly man.
Despite her professed overwhelming fears, Frizzell got pregnant and brought another person into the world.
“And yet, like millions of others, I did it anyway,” Frizzell said. “I had a baby. I’d have another if my partner agreed.”
Frizzell attempted to justify her decision to have a child by stating that everyone who has a baby needs to be “learning to live within our environmental means, of turning away from the fever of consumerism and overturning a political system that rewards a tiny rich minority at the expense of everyone else.”
Frizzell’s Malthusian argument was challenged by Human Progress, an organization that presents evidence from individual scholars, academic institutions, and international organizations to show “dramatic improvements in human well-being throughout much of the world.”
“Children do not strain the world’s resources,” the Cato Institute-linked organization wrote on Twitter. “In fact, the opposite is true: each new child is correlated with an increase in resource abundance.”
Another dubious claim in the article: “Pollution now kills more people than tobacco – and three times as many as AI… https://t.co/YO1vIVW9ln
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress.org)1619577611.0
There was backlash to the article questioning the morals of childbearing Westerners.
“The View” co-host Meghan McCain responded to the piece by saying, “NOT TODAY SATAN!”
Insider columnist Josh Barro wrote, “These people are completely insane. This is an issue for your therapist, not for a major fashion magazine.”
Political commentator Liz Wheeler reacted by tweeting, “This is crazy. If you don’t have a baby, that won’t do a THING to impact the climate. But you’ll deprive yourself of the greatest joy you’ve ever known… & the world a new soul. Plant a tree. Go to church. Stop voting for Democrats. And have a baby.”
Emily Domenech, senior policy adviser for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, lampooned the article, “‘For the scientifically-engaged person, there are few questions more troubling when looking at the current climate emergency than that of having a baby.’ This is unscientific trash, much like the rest of this deeply silly article. If you are lucky enough to have a partner, have a baby! Don’t let them scare you — this beautiful planet full of innovative people will continue to survive and thrive. So many of us will never get this opportunity. Don’t waste your chance to be a parent because of unscientific fear-mongering.”
Ricochet editor Bethany S. Mandel tweeted, “The breeders will inherit the Earth.”
Turning Point media administrator Reagan Escudé Scott shot back, “Nothing motivates me to have children more than garbage takes like this. I can’t wait to have 10+ kids just to spite these loons.”
Evolutionary psychologist and professor Gad Saad responded with snark, “I apologize to @GretaThunberg, to @AOC, and to @JohnKerry for having had children. I will try to starve them to offset their carbon footprint. Again, my apologies. I’ll do better.”
Radio host Erick Erickson quipped, “Really alarming that Vogue would let a person write this piece and presume the gender of her child before the child could decide for itself.”
Controlling The Conversation by Robert Cook , April 30th 2021
Humans have 5 known senses, sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Many believe in a 6th sense and a third eye. Whatever, all of these senses are dependent of the pathways in our brains and the connections we are encouraged and able to make.
History informs me that our historically established power structures and resulting hierarchical mentalities of dominance and submission, are not about encouraging open minds. Minds must have tracks like rail roads under maintenance of state police and belief systems.
So to me, the idea that the elite , with lackey self interested media , educationalists and publishers would want to start a conversation about anything or solve problems that are really about anyone’s interest but their own , is absurd.
For the purposes of this page , I will confine comments here to conversation about the planet eaters and environment , but my principles can be applied to anything extant in ‘modern’ society , including banal pop music and mind numbing self obsessed feminazi dominated solidarity woke ‘youth culture’ in a world where youth does not rhyme.
I stopped listening to little Greta Thurnberg from the moment when she began her first speech with the line that climate crisis had nothing to do with over population. It depends on how tendentious you want to be with the teleology. Ultimately everything is to do with the small global elite who have been breeding mindless indoctrinated deferential brainwashed frightened simpletons for years.
They are essential to elite life style, as cannon fodder, police officers , scapegoats and consumers and so much more. Hitler’s elite regime used them for bio experiments . leading to mine and many other ridiculed conspiracy theorists to wonder about the origin, nature, spread and elite response to Covid 19 – where so much money has been made and elite control extended and ossified , with diktat about a ‘new normal.’
Robert Cook
EWR versus nature April 24th 2021
The digger is helping to prepare a new track bed for the reopening of the east west railway which was closed to passengers by the arrogant Labour Transport Minister Barbara Castle in 1968 – just as the work was started on the new town of Milton Keynes.
The land in the foreground was purchased off Freemantle Estates , depriving the tenant farmer of 50 acres grazing land. The environmental impact of this and the HS2 line which it will feed has been massive. I
Image Appledene Photographics/RJC
Food Production Struggles Against Climate Change , Prejudice And Manipulative Supermarket Moguls . April 23rd 2021
Image Appeldene Photographics/RJC
Image Appledene Photographcs/RJC
Climb Hate Campaign – April 22nd 2021
There appears to be a league of victims in all aspects of human social and economic life and death. It is ludicrous to use the term BAME from a whole world white point of view.
The following article is a long winded pseudo science opinion point of view, presented as facts. The real facts behind climate change are outcomes from 2,400 people owning 60% of global wealth. Only 500 global corporations control two thirds of the global economy, They have profited by the managed Covid 19 panic.
Built on this , we have massive overpopulation in the old Third World where Islam and Catholicism are drugs masking economic reality, lulling people into faith in a better after life and taking their frustratons out in absurd religious wars. Ladies of the west still require fine clothes, expensive perfume , make up and shoes. These , along all the paraphenalia of hairdressing , are hideously pollutinng. Their men love powerful big cars. Battery power raises other issues of polluting manufacture and disposal. Blacks are no better in this outlook and China has become workshop of the world meeting insatiable demand in a world led by disgusting hypocrits.
On top of this, we have the elite hungry to devour ever more of the planet, feeding off world wide minions including the moronic dumbed down white masses. Education is so appalling , scapegoat mentality the underpinning of mass idiocy . Thus we have absolutely no reason to believe any of the following except as more anti white propanganda.
An environmental disaster is waiting to happen in Egypt – Arabs are Caucasians so stop calling them BAME. Islam was a Caucasian spin off of Caucasian Judaism and Christianity. Jews , Muslims and Christians are not a race. Poor people from all races were patronised and comforted by missionaries. It is , as Marx said : ‘Religion is the opium of the masses.’
The ruling elite want the masses divided , arguing and fighting – wallowing in ignorance and fanatsy after life. They are the ones with the big carbon footprint. The technology serves and profits them. The first railways were in Britain. They were funded by the rich for the rich. They were routed into London and elsewhere through slum areas so as not to be dirty eyesores to the rich. Whites are not automatically privileged. Class is the issue , and all ethnic groups have class systems. Powerful blacks sold lower order blacks into slavery. That is fact. Still blacks can be blamed for nothing. BLM arrogance will get worse.
Women vie with blacks in the underdog league. If a white man says anything outside the permitted agenda and propaganda he is racist, mansplaining or both. Feminist and black racism is legitimated as truth, just as Hitler’s master race was. That is why they claimed George Flloyd as a martyr rather than face the truth about modern policing and officer mentality.
Private aircraft have been filling the Covid skies like migrating swallows. Formula One playboys have been plying their polluting trade regardless. The Anglo U.S elite have been on a rolling spree of war, greedy for more resources , causing massive pollution with lies about democracy. Their elites have been venting displaced persons into the west as humanitarianism , leaving countries of origin to continue with their environemntally destructive over population and pollution.
That is the truth of environmental racism. The more people , the more poison and pollution. People feed and grow off the planet’s resources. On average , African women have 15 babies each. People are biosystems competing for and sucking sustenance, then pumping out waste including gasses. Natural systems are about numbers and balance. Malthus is still correct. Overpopulation results in violence , war , disease , famine and death. Articles like the following are about burying truth along with all the other corpses.
Robert Cook
What Is Environmental Racism? 10 Facts About How It Works
There’s a lot to learn.
By Ivana RamirezApril 21, 2021
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Lingering sunlight and suggestions of swelter are lifting spirits across the United States. For many, the spring air marks a transition out of the seasonal depression that comes with winter. For others, however, rising temperatures mean it’s time to find a cooling center.
These centers, which are used by cities like New York to provide air-conditioning for residents who don’t have it at home, are the end result of a decades-long fight against “environmental racism,” a term which refers to environmental injustice that occurs both in practice and policy. Factors like rising temperatures and a pandemic affect how comfortably people can live in their communities, and more often than not discomforts fall disproportionately on communities of color.
Young people have advocated for an intersectional approach to the climate crisis that addresses the realities of environmental racism. Here’s what to know about the unexpected effects of discriminatory environmental policies.
1. Living amid industry can impact mental health.
While it is acknowledged that living near landfills or toxic dump sites can disrupt physical health, there is less research available on how this impacts mental health. However, a 2007 study from Social Science Research found “sociodemographic, perceived exposure, objective exposure, and food consumption variables are significant predictors of physical health and psychological well-being,” and that there was “a significant relationship between physical health and psychological well-being,” specifically in low-income, Black communities in close proximity to a hazardous waste site.
A 2005 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior also found that perceived exposure can affect the mental well-being of communities of color. “Residential proximity to industrial activity is psychologically harmful because many individuals perceive industrial activity negatively, as a potential health threat or a sign of neighborhood disorder,” the authors wrote.
2. Areas with higher temperatures within cities are the same areas that were segregated decades ago.
Neighborhoods with higher temperatures are the same areas that were subject to the racist practice of redlining, in which banks and insurance companies systematically refused or limited loans, mortgages, or insurance to communities of color.
According to NPR, in a study of 108 urban areas nationwide, the formerly redlined neighborhoods in nearly every city studied were hotter than those not subjected to redlining. The temperature difference in some areas was nearly 13 degrees.
In fact, according to analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “counties with large African American populations are exposed to extreme temperatures 2-3 more days per year than those counties with smaller African American populations.” Those same counties are projected to experience about 20 more extreme-heat days per year by around 2050, according to the analysis.
“[Formerly segregated communities] tend to have less green space — fewer trees along the street, less access to parks,” Gerald Torres, a professor at Yale Law School and the Yale School of the Environment, tells Teen Vogue. “Urban areas tend to be hotter, in general, just because there’s more concrete that stores heat. But where they store heat and they don’t have the mediating environmental amenities, the places just get hot.”
This phenomenon explains the “urban heat island effect,” meaning areas are much hotter with fewer places to cool down. In 2019, Los Angeles hired the city’s first forest officer in an effort to increase the amount of shade in underserved areas by planting more trees. L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti has described shade as “an equity issue.”
3. Environmental racism is a leading cause of death in communities of color.
There are many factors that threaten the well-being of minority communities, such as discriminatory policing and housing availability, but environmental discrimination is actually one of the main causes of mortality for these residents.
“Air pollution and extreme heat are killing inner-city residents at a higher rate than almost all other causes,” Scientific American reported. “And as average temperatures continue to rise — contributing to what scientists call the ‘urban heat island effect’ — death and illness from the effects of climate change are expected to rise further.”
4. It is cheaper for a corporation to pollute communities of color than white communities.
“Research has shown that if you have a corporation who has violated environmental laws, the corporation is going to be fined. The fines tend to be lower in communities of color, especially Black communities and poor communities,” Dorceta Taylor, professor at the Yale School of the Environment and author of Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility, tells Teen Vogue. “Corporations, they’re not idiots — they can see this difference.”
Lower fines lead to more pollution, which often decreases the land value of existing homes near a factory or landfill. As a result, more industry moves into the area, creating a vicious cycle. Left with little opportunity for mobility and sparse political clout, the remaining residents are subjected to continually worsening living conditions.
“One factor that might be playing into this is whether or not the communities are able to organize and mobilize to push for the cleanup that they should be getting,” Taylor says, “or even know when these [cleanup] cases are going to court.”
5. Many environmental conservation organizations have racist founders or namesakes.
Some of the best-known environmental conservation groups have racist histories. For example, John Muir, known as the “father” of the national parks system and founder of the nation’s oldest conservation organization, the Sierra Club, used offensive slurs and called Indigenous people he encountered on a walk “dirty.” John James Audubon, namesake of the famous bird conservation group, was a slaveholder. Henry Field Osborn, a founder of the Save the Redwoods League, supported eugenics.
6. A lack of government and organizational diversity perpetuates the problem.
In a similar vein, many argue that a lack of diversity at climate conservation organizations and in government sectors affects whether or not an entity will rightfully put communities of color at the forefront of the conversation about climate change.
Larger environmental, nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) typically receive the most funding. These same organizations, across the board, are predominantly white.
“Where you have people from marginalized communities [in leadership], they’re going to cause you to ask questions you might not have considered,” Torres says. “You can think of it as, essentially, improving information flows so that decisions are better.”
7. Environmental racism doesn’t affect only low-income communities.
“Even if you are a middle-class, highly educated Black person in this country, you’re more likely to still be living beside or close to communities with hazardous waste sites than if you are white, working-class with low educational attainment,” Taylor says. “So, however we slice it, there is a ratio that is more correlated with exposure to toxics and hazards with race than with the class.”
In the notable 1978 court case Bean vs. Southwestern Waste Management Corp., a Black neighborhood of homeowners in Houston sued a waste management company, arguing that a permit for a new facility violated their constitutional rights. A judge ruled in favor of the waste management company. According to sociologist Robert Bullard, who collected data for the lawsuit and has since been dubbed “the father of environmental justice,” of the plaintiffs in the case, 85% of the people owned their homes and were considered middle-class.Most Popular
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8. Minority communities often live in affected areas before hazardous facilities are built.
A study by University of Southern California sociology professor Manuel Pastor reviewed data for minority populations and move-ins before and after the arrival of toxic storage and disposal facilities in Los Angeles County from 1970 to 1990. Areas scheduled to receive waste factories were mostly minority communities; after the facilities arrived, there were no significant increases in the minority population.
A 2003 United States Commission on Civil Rights report also concluded: “It appears, therefore, that minorities attract toxic storage and disposal facilities, but these facilities do not attract minorities.”
According to Bullard, in Houston during the time of the Bean vs. Southwestern case, all the city-owned landfills and 75% of the city-owned incinerators were in Black neighborhoods, even though they made up only 25% of the population during that period of time.
“There is a deliberate attempt to move into people of color communities. So that path of least resistance tends to run through people of color communities — if you look in the South, you’ll find Black communities, Latinx communities, Native American communities that were there before,” says Taylor. “That big, polluting factory came just before the waste dump was put beside their neighborhood.”
9. Environmental racism can also be expensive for people of color.
Energy and utility bills are a more subtle indicator of the ways that environmental policies can impact people unequally based on race. A paper from the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas found that, when controlling for year, income, household size, and city of residence, Black renters paid $273 more per year for energy than white renters between 2010 and 2017.
Additionally, an American Public Radio report found that residents in Detroit and other cities near the Great Lakes with large Black populations pay a lot more for their water than those in a city like Phoenix, which pumps its water from 300 miles aways.
“[Communities of color] get higher bills because their houses are not as weather-tight and therefore use more energy to heat a similar space [as their white counterparts],” says Torres. “To reduce [energy] bills to marginalized communities, you would put in new weather stripping around the doors or double-glaze windows — things that are really low-tech. But [without these measures], the course of a year [can] generate enormous costs because of the loss of energy.”
10. United States policies aren’t just a United States issue.
Discriminatory environmental policies within the U.S. extend far beyond the borders of our country. According to reporting from Mother Jones, in Ipoh, a city in Western Malaysia, only half of the waste found at a dump site appeared to have originated in the country. The other half came from a wide variety of other countries, including the U.S. Much of the overseas waste was comprised of items collected for “recycling.”
Other countries, such as Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and Taiwan, are subjected to similar waste dumping. Without a coordinated effort to combat dumping in the Global South, marginalized communities overseas are disproportionately affected by the polluting practices of the United States and other countries.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: COVID-19 Shows Us Rapid Global Response To Climate Change Is Possible
What Is Environmental Racism? 10 Facts About How It Works – April 22nd 2021
There’s a lot to learn.
By Ivana RamirezApril 21, 2021
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Lingering sunlight and suggestions of swelter are lifting spirits across the United States. For many, the spring air marks a transition out of the seasonal depression that comes with winter. For others, however, rising temperatures mean it’s time to find a cooling center.
These centers, which are used by cities like New York to provide air-conditioning for residents who don’t have it at home, are the end result of a decades-long fight against “environmental racism,” a term which refers to environmental injustice that occurs both in practice and policy. Factors like rising temperatures and a pandemic affect how comfortably people can live in their communities, and more often than not discomforts fall disproportionately on communities of color.
Young people have advocated for an intersectional approach to the climate crisis that addresses the realities of environmental racism. Here’s what to know about the unexpected effects of discriminatory environmental policies.
1. Living amid industry can impact mental health.
While it is acknowledged that living near landfills or toxic dump sites can disrupt physical health, there is less research available on how this impacts mental health. However, a 2007 study from Social Science Research found “sociodemographic, perceived exposure, objective exposure, and food consumption variables are significant predictors of physical health and psychological well-being,” and that there was “a significant relationship between physical health and psychological well-being,” specifically in low-income, Black communities in close proximity to a hazardous waste site.
A 2005 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior also found that perceived exposure can affect the mental well-being of communities of color. “Residential proximity to industrial activity is psychologically harmful because many individuals perceive industrial activity negatively, as a potential health threat or a sign of neighborhood disorder,” the authors wrote.
2. Areas with higher temperatures within cities are the same areas that were segregated decades ago.
Neighborhoods with higher temperatures are the same areas that were subject to the racist practice of redlining, in which banks and insurance companies systematically refused or limited loans, mortgages, or insurance to communities of color.
According to NPR, in a study of 108 urban areas nationwide, the formerly redlined neighborhoods in nearly every city studied were hotter than those not subjected to redlining. The temperature difference in some areas was nearly 13 degrees.
In fact, according to analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, “counties with large African American populations are exposed to extreme temperatures 2-3 more days per year than those counties with smaller African American populations.” Those same counties are projected to experience about 20 more extreme-heat days per year by around 2050, according to the analysis.
“[Formerly segregated communities] tend to have less green space — fewer trees along the street, less access to parks,” Gerald Torres, a professor at Yale Law School and the Yale School of the Environment, tells Teen Vogue. “Urban areas tend to be hotter, in general, just because there’s more concrete that stores heat. But where they store heat and they don’t have the mediating environmental amenities, the places just get hot.”
This phenomenon explains the “urban heat island effect,” meaning areas are much hotter with fewer places to cool down. In 2019, Los Angeles hired the city’s first forest officer in an effort to increase the amount of shade in underserved areas by planting more trees. L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti has described shade as “an equity issue.”
3. Environmental racism is a leading cause of death in communities of color.
There are many factors that threaten the well-being of minority communities, such as discriminatory policing and housing availability, but environmental discrimination is actually one of the main causes of mortality for these residents.
“Air pollution and extreme heat are killing inner-city residents at a higher rate than almost all other causes,” Scientific American reported. “And as average temperatures continue to rise — contributing to what scientists call the ‘urban heat island effect’ — death and illness from the effects of climate change are expected to rise further.”
4. It is cheaper for a corporation to pollute communities of color than white communities.
“Research has shown that if you have a corporation who has violated environmental laws, the corporation is going to be fined. The fines tend to be lower in communities of color, especially Black communities and poor communities,” Dorceta Taylor, professor at the Yale School of the Environment and author of Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility, tells Teen Vogue. “Corporations, they’re not idiots — they can see this difference.”
Lower fines lead to more pollution, which often decreases the land value of existing homes near a factory or landfill. As a result, more industry moves into the area, creating a vicious cycle. Left with little opportunity for mobility and sparse political clout, the remaining residents are subjected to continually worsening living conditions.
“One factor that might be playing into this is whether or not the communities are able to organize and mobilize to push for the cleanup that they should be getting,” Taylor says, “or even know when these [cleanup] cases are going to court.”
5. Many environmental conservation organizations have racist founders or namesakes.
Some of the best-known environmental conservation groups have racist histories. For example, John Muir, known as the “father” of the national parks system and founder of the nation’s oldest conservation organization, the Sierra Club, used offensive slurs and called Indigenous people he encountered on a walk “dirty.” John James Audubon, namesake of the famous bird conservation group, was a slaveholder. Henry Field Osborn, a founder of the Save the Redwoods League, supported eugenics.
6. A lack of government and organizational diversity perpetuates the problem.
In a similar vein, many argue that a lack of diversity at climate conservation organizations and in government sectors affects whether or not an entity will rightfully put communities of color at the forefront of the conversation about climate change.
Larger environmental, nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) typically receive the most funding. These same organizations, across the board, are predominantly white.
“Where you have people from marginalized communities [in leadership], they’re going to cause you to ask questions you might not have considered,” Torres says. “You can think of it as, essentially, improving information flows so that decisions are better.”
7. Environmental racism doesn’t affect only low-income communities.
“Even if you are a middle-class, highly educated Black person in this country, you’re more likely to still be living beside or close to communities with hazardous waste sites than if you are white, working-class with low educational attainment,” Taylor says. “So, however we slice it, there is a ratio that is more correlated with exposure to toxics and hazards with race than with the class.”
In the notable 1978 court case Bean vs. Southwestern Waste Management Corp., a Black neighborhood of homeowners in Houston sued a waste management company, arguing that a permit for a new facility violated their constitutional rights. A judge ruled in favor of the waste management company. According to sociologist Robert Bullard, who collected data for the lawsuit and has since been dubbed “the father of environmental justice,” of the plaintiffs in the case, 85% of the people owned their homes and were considered middle-class.Most Popular
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8. Minority communities often live in affected areas before hazardous facilities are built.
A study by University of Southern California sociology professor Manuel Pastor reviewed data for minority populations and move-ins before and after the arrival of toxic storage and disposal facilities in Los Angeles County from 1970 to 1990. Areas scheduled to receive waste factories were mostly minority communities; after the facilities arrived, there were no significant increases in the minority population.
A 2003 United States Commission on Civil Rights report also concluded: “It appears, therefore, that minorities attract toxic storage and disposal facilities, but these facilities do not attract minorities.”
According to Bullard, in Houston during the time of the Bean vs. Southwestern case, all the city-owned landfills and 75% of the city-owned incinerators were in Black neighborhoods, even though they made up only 25% of the population during that period of time.
“There is a deliberate attempt to move into people of color communities. So that path of least resistance tends to run through people of color communities — if you look in the South, you’ll find Black communities, Latinx communities, Native American communities that were there before,” says Taylor. “That big, polluting factory came just before the waste dump was put beside their neighborhood.”
9. Environmental racism can also be expensive for people of color.
Energy and utility bills are a more subtle indicator of the ways that environmental policies can impact people unequally based on race. A paper from the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas found that, when controlling for year, income, household size, and city of residence, Black renters paid $273 more per year for energy than white renters between 2010 and 2017.
Additionally, an American Public Radio report found that residents in Detroit and other cities near the Great Lakes with large Black populations pay a lot more for their water than those in a city like Phoenix, which pumps its water from 300 miles aways.
“[Communities of color] get higher bills because their houses are not as weather-tight and therefore use more energy to heat a similar space [as their white counterparts],” says Torres. “To reduce [energy] bills to marginalized communities, you would put in new weather stripping around the doors or double-glaze windows — things that are really low-tech. But [without these measures], the course of a year [can] generate enormous costs because of the loss of energy.”
10. United States policies aren’t just a United States issue.
Discriminatory environmental policies within the U.S. extend far beyond the borders of our country. According to reporting from Mother Jones, in Ipoh, a city in Western Malaysia, only half of the waste found at a dump site appeared to have originated in the country. The other half came from a wide variety of other countries, including the U.S. Much of the overseas waste was comprised of items collected for “recycling.”
Other countries, such as Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and Taiwan, are subjected to similar waste dumping. Without a coordinated effort to combat dumping in the Global South, marginalized communities overseas are disproportionately affected by the polluting practices of the United States and other countries.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: COVID-19 Shows Us Rapid Global Response To Climate Change Is Possible
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Spring Not Quite Springing April 16t 2021 – Robert Cook
Frozen Out By Nuclear Winter by Robert Cook April 15th 2021
In today’s WOKE world it is a crime to question the massive and continuing population growth, and consequent overflow into Europe and United States. We little people are supposed to take blame for climate change , accepting cultural and racial genocide. Muslims must have their rights in the west , but this is not reciprocated in the ‘go forth and multiply’ Islamic world.
In my logistic industry work, my excellent boss used to accuse me of overthinking. Given all the things that could go wrong there, I thought that reasonable. In writing , I aim to simplify without trivialising.
The full potential of this developing climate disaster is easily exemplified by my favourite statistic : The average African woman has 15 babies each. Africa is a land of immense natural wealth. That wealth is controlled by black dictators and the 500 corporations who control two thirds of the global economy.
The current officially backed BLM campaign about slavery , compensation , re writing history and tearing down statues is a distraction. It works to suit vested interests and incenses ignorant badly educated youth – especially the feminists and the ones who have the conceit and arrogance sold to them on their expensive ‘uni ‘courses.
By June 1986 I had left maths , science and P.E teaching behind and was teaching geography. The first years were still called second years – I forget the year that intake were officially renamed eigth years. It was also the year and time the Chernobyl Nuclear power station blew up.
We were then on the topic ‘chance factors influencing agriculture.’ I am ashamed to admit to being a Guardian reader back then. Covering the Chernobyl diaster , a Guardian journalist had written about Laplanders having to destroy their entire staple Reindeer population , due to the radioactive fallout.
So I wove this into my lessons. Dabbling with music and song writing at the time, I had written a simple tune in the key of C Major , using the additional fourth , fifth and relative minor chords in common time with lots of quavers to make it bounce. It was called ‘The Nuclear Winter.’ My son Kieran was nearly one year old. I was angry that morons were destroying the world and my boy’s future.
Off the top of my head , some of the words went something like this :
‘The Nuclear Winter is coming, coming down on the breeze.
‘Old Reagan , he says it don’t matter , he says it’s just God with a sneeze.
‘And your flesh will burn and your bones will melt and your heart won’t beat anymore.
‘And there’s nowhere to run when the show goes down , and there’s nowhere to hide when it rains.
‘We’re gonna grow old in a minute , and we wanted to be kids all our lives’ x 2.
I was working for the local ‘Aylesbury Plus’ news paper as well as teaching with Bucks County Council. One of my sixth formers , John Newton’ was into synthesisers so arranged the music, then recorded it on 8 track with three 8th years on vocals, pictured above.
I was already very concerned about the environment and thought it my job to make matters relevant in my teaching. This was before the dead hand of the Thatcher Government’s National Curriculum – intended to take the masess back to the nineteenth century ignorance , reinforced by computer woship instead of God.
Using a contact on BBC Radio Oxford , I got early morning air time and later national radio exposure. Admittedly I was also trying to get exposure for John Newton and his band ,Tu Tu Tango. The three child vocalists were also interviewed about their opinions on the Chernobyl disaster. I didn’t script them. Their parents , one deputy head of neighbouring Aylesbury High School, had given written permission to be involved in the project , as had the headmaster , Ray Jones.
The fall out for me was serious. At the time I was due for promotion to head the new GCSE Integrated Humanities project. I had been leading the training of teachers for this across Aylesbury Vale.
Gillian Miscampbell was chair of Bucks Education Committee and a rampant Thatcherite. Thatcher hated coal miners and was planning a whole string of dangerous Nuclear Advanced Gas Cooled Reators ( AGCRs ) to replace them. Her greedy Tories were afraid of Chernobyl becoming a PR disaster. Trawsfynydd had very nerly blown up in North Wales due to a similar catastophe.
Gillian Miscampbell heard the broadcast and called for an inquiry. I was accused of politicising and advised to leave with the headmaster’s blessing. My promotion was withdrawn. By this time, I was not going to jeaporadise my other job on the local paper. Writing seemed rather important. So I stayed ,making myself a nuisance, looking at Misscampbell’ s interesting other work on the health authority and in planning – she was also a District Councillor married to a lawyer.
There was lots of raw material about her et al for me in the anonymous ‘Paul Pry’ column . I also started the ‘Junius’ column ridiculing and exposing the Bucks selective education system, appalling management and dreadful GCSE examination. That was how I came to create the ‘Blancmange School , the school with the sweet smell of success.’Robert Cook.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely – Robert Cook April 10th 2021
The problem with the following article is that the majority of the ever expanding world population are less than minimalist as how Covid 19 is a real problem in Brazil demonstrates.
This is a comfortble person who , by Britain’s declining average standard and rising homelessness , has no right to preach or judge. He needs to evaluate the greedy super rich elite who have more wealth than most of the world’s population put together. They have the material , media and hence political power. They are the cause of the problems because , as Bertand Russel wrote : ‘Power corrupts. Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.’ So , in my view , Becker’s article is more pseudo self help intended to distract people from what is really going on behind the scenes.
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970). Philosopher, mathematician, educational and sexual reformer, pacifist, prolific letter writer, author and columnist, Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1950 for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his “rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West.”
Robert Cook
The Problem with Always Wanting More
Written by joshua becker · 46 Comments
We live in a culture that is never satisfied and always desires more:
More money. More clothing. More toys. More square feet. More followers.
In fact, in many ways, the pursuit of more defines our entire society:
More power. More wealth. More prestige. More reputation. More sex. More. More. More
But there is a problem with the lifestyle choice of desiring more. When we constantly desire more, we are never satisfied. Because no matter how much we accumulate or achieve, more always exists.
By definition, it is unquenchable.
No matter how much money is in your bank account… there can always be more. No matter how big your house… there can always be more. No matter how many likes on your Instagram post or views on your Tik-Tok video… there can always be more.
When more is the goal, we never fully arrive. It is insatiable. And that is the problem with always wanting more. Happiness and contentment will always elude us if we are looking for it in the acquisition of more.
I suppose, if it was commonplace to see an end to this pursuit, that would be a different story. If human beings eventually arrived at a level of more, and suddenly became content, we could all strive to reach that magical level.
But that is not the example surrounding us. Quite the opposite in fact. Most everybody who acquires more, only continues to pursue it.
We see it in the lives of individuals who amass great fortunes but are not satisfied.
We see it in the world’s largest corporations who continue to pursue greater and greater market share and profits.
We see it in those who acquire power and then work relentlessly to keep it and expand upon it.
In the early 1900’s, John D. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world. He was once famously asked by a reporter, “How much money is enough money?” Rockefeller replied, “Just a little bit more.”
The richest man in the world, not satisfied, still in pursuit of more. More can never satisfy.
Other larger, less anecdotal studies, come to the same conclusion that even the wealthiest among us are never fully satisfied.
Of course, we don’t need to look at the lives of others to understand this phenomenon. One look in the mirror reveals the same motivation inside us.
The average American home has tripled in size in the last 50 years and continues to grow larger and larger. The average American woman owns 4X the amount of clothes as her grandmother, but continues to purchase. The average American home has 300,000 items inside it… and yet Amazon arrives on our doorstep several times each week.
When more is the goal, we will never find contentment. More is always a moving target. Never fully attainable.
We live life with only two options:
1. We can continue to pursue more. We can believe there is a better life waiting if we were just to acquire more money, more property, more fame.
2. We can reject the false notion that more is needed to discover happiness. And we can find contentment in our circumstances and gratitude for the blessings we already possess.
The choice is yours.
As for me, I’ll choose contentment with less.
US warships set sail for Black Sea amid stand-off with Russia over military conflict in Eastern Ukraine, Turkish diplomats report – RT Posted April 10th 2021
9 Apr, 2021 16:24 Get short URL
FILE PHOTO. The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) sets sail in the Bosphorus, on its way to the Black Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey December 2, 2020. © Reuters / Yoruk Isik
Follow RT on American sailors have set course for the Black Sea, off the south coast of Russia, in a move widely seen as a show of support for Ukraine, where fighting between Kiev’s forces and separatist militias has worsened in recent weeks.
On Friday, a source at the Turkish foreign ministry told TASS that it had received a notification from Washington that two US warships would pass through the Bosporus straits and into the Black Sea. Under international law, Ankara controls access to the inland body of water for certain types of vessels, including navy ships.
In accordance with these conventions, Turkish envoys say they “were notified through diplomatic channels 15 days ago that two US warships would enter the Black Sea. The ships will remain there until 4 May,” the unnamed official said. The journey will take the crews almost 9,000 miles from the eastern seaboard of America, near to coastal Ukraine and Russia, including the sensitive and disputed Crimean peninsula. Also on rt.com ‘Stop your saber rattling!’ Russia tells US to sail its warships in its own waters, and not jeopardize peace in far-away Black Sea
Since then, the vessels have been named by Istanbul-based news network NTV as the USS Roosevelt, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer that was previously intercepted by Russian jets off the coast of Kaliningrad, in the Baltic Sea.
The maneuver comes amid an escalating military conflict in the East of Ukraine between Kiev’s army and separatist forces in the Donbass, who are backed by Moscow. The Kremlin has described the situation as “frightening,” and has held talks this week with counterparts in Washington to “explain” the situation.
The US, however, has highlighted “credible” reports of Russian troops massing on the borders with Ukraine, and State Department spokesman Ned Price issued a “call on Russia to refrain from escalatory actions.” Read more Full-scale Ukrainian war would threaten Russian security Kremlin warns, pledging action to prevent ‘humanitarian catastrophe’
On Friday, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that “the situation on the contact line in Ukraine is extremely unstable,” he said. “The dynamics of the development of this state of affairs, and the behavior of the Ukrainian side, creates the danger of a resumption of full-scale hostilities.”
In the event of an offensive or a further escalation in fighting, “all countries, including Russia, would take measures to prevent such tragedies from happening again,” the official said.
In February, Russia warned that US naval exercises in the Black Sea were jeopardizing the stability of the region and could lead to disaster. In response to a group of American warships announcing the drills, Moscow’s embassy in Washington said that “it looks like the US 6th fleet can’t wait to find an enemy in the Black Sea. It is desperately looking for a pretext – now openly under the banner of warfare exercises – for ramping up presence in the region.”
CO2 Surpasses 420 Parts Per Million for First Time
Apr 07, 2021
In climate news, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed 420 parts per million for the first time in recorded history. The measurement puts the planet roughly at the halfway point on the path to doubling preindustrial CO2 levels. The reading was taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii this past weekend.Topics:
The Coal Plant Next Door
Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs. Posted April 5th 2021
by Max Blau for Georgia Health News March 22, 5 a.m. EDT
Republish Co-published with Georgia Health News. Series: Sunken Costs Coal Ash in Georgia
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
This article was produced in partnership with Georgia Health News, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
Mark Berry raised his right hand, pledging to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The bespectacled mechanical engineer took his seat inside the cherry-wood witness stand. He pulled his microphone close to his yellow bow tie and glanced left toward five of Georgia’s most influential elected officials. As one of Georgia Power’s top environmental lobbyists, Berry had a clear mission on that rainy day in April 2019: Convince those five energy regulators that the company’s customers should foot the bill for one of the most expensive toxic waste cleanup efforts in state history.
When Berry became Georgia Power’s vice president of environmental affairs in 2015, he inherited responsibility for a dark corporate legacy dating back to before he was born. For many decades, power companies had burnt billions of tons of coal, dumping the leftover ash — loaded with toxic contaminants — into human-made “ponds” larger than many lakes. But after a pair of coal-ash pond disasters in Tennessee and North Carolina exposed the environmental and health risks of those largely unregulated dumps, the Obama administration required power companies to stop using the aging disposal sites.
Berry had spent nearly two decades climbing the ranks of Southern Company, America’s second-largest energy provider and the owner of Georgia Power. By the time he was under oath that day, company execs had vowed to store newly burnt coal ash in landfills designed for safely disposing of such waste. But an unprecedented challenge remained: Figuring out what to do with 90 million tons of coal ash — enough to fill more than 50 Major League Baseball stadiums to the brim — that had accumulated over the better part of a century in ash ponds that were now leaking.
Georgia Power would have to shut down roughly 30 ponds from the Appalachian foothills to the wetlands near the Georgia coast. After draining all the ponds, the company would have two options for disposing of the highly contaminated dry ash left behind: It could either move the ash into a landfill fitted with a protective liner, or pack the dry ash into a smaller footprint and place a cover on top — leaving a gaping hole in the ground that, in some places, would be larger than Disneyland. The former would cost more but vastly reduce the possibility of toxic leakage; the latter lowered expenses but would perpetually risk contaminating drinking water in neighboring communities.
As scientists had grown more aware of the threat posed by coal ash, Southern states like Virginia and North Carolina had forced utilities to move ash into lined landfills. But Georgia was something of an outlier. The state historically was known as a coal ash capital, a place where lawmakers touted their pro-business bona fides by denouncing regulations, and Georgia Power had a track record of delaying or blocking efforts to regulate pollution. The company was lobbying hard for the cheaper option.
Of course, the $7.3 billion price tag wasn’t all that cheap. Sitting on the Georgia Public Service Commission’s witness stand, Berry and his top deputy spent hours arguing that the whopping costs of cleaning up Georgia Power’s coal-ash ponds should be passed along to its customers. If Berry could persuade the regulators that the costs were both “reasonable” and “prudent,” the company could tack a monthly fee onto the bills of 2.2 million residential customers for decades to come, which would work out to each customer footing $3,300 of the bill to clean up the company’s mess. If he failed, the commissioners could effectively force Georgia Power to eat those costs — a major blow to investors in a publicly traded company that has annual operating revenues of over $8 billion.
During Berry’s testimony, PSC commissioner Tim Echols said he has concerns about putting ratepayers on the hook for the costs of cleaning up the ash ponds — and whether Georgia Power is spending more than it has to. “This is enormously expensive,” he said.
Berry didn’t mention that the cleanup costs could increase by billions of dollars if Georgia’s environmental officials adopted the safer standards used by neighboring states. Anticipating Echols’ next question, Berry said that Georgia Power’s $7.3 billion plan was the “most cost-effective way” to comply with coal-ash regulations.
“If we were to do something less,” Berry added, state environmental officials “would force us to go back and redo what we did not do right the first time.”
Had those five energy regulators swiveling in their chairs asked more pointed questions about Georgia Power’s waste-disposal practices, Berry would have been pressured to tell a long-hidden story about ash and avarice. In the second half of the 20th century, Georgia Power had saved money by building some of America’s largest coal-ash ponds without a protective liner underneath, despite knowing some of the risks of contaminating residents’ drinking water. It had also sought to do as little as possible to protect drinking water that’s now believed to be tainted by coal-ash toxins.
A yearlong investigation by Georgia Health News and ProPublica has revealed that Georgia Power and its parent company have spent millions of dollars on lobbying tactics to dodge billions in environmental costs. Thousands of pages of previously unpublished documents obtained by the news organizations shed new light on how Georgia Power leveraged political tensions to reduce a massive financial liability that could decimate its bottom line — and how it pushed disinformation to distance itself from patterns of sickness among people who lived near its coal-ash ponds.
Georgia Power spokesperson John Kraft declined to answer most of the news organizations’ questions and to make Berry available for an interview. Kraft said in a statement that Georgia Power has worked to “quickly and safely begin closing all of our ash ponds” in a manner that complies with federal and state coal-ash regulations.
But at the hearing in April 2019, none of the energy regulators pressed Berry on the topic of coal-ash contamination. Because they didn’t ask, Berry remained mum. His silence would make it easier for the regulators to stomach the idea of passing the cost of the cleanup on to customers — and easier for Georgia Power to avoid responsibility for the much more expensive fix. And it allowed Georgia Power to continue its longstanding efforts to cover up the hazards of coal ash across the state, most notably in a tiny town where the company operates the largest coal-fired plant in the Western Hemisphere.
In the spring of 1974, as Atlanta Braves slugger Hank Aaron shattered Babe Ruth’s home run record and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson first forged a friendship with Gov. Jimmy Carter ahead of his presidential campaign, a towering attorney named Tommy Malone set his sights on a white two-story house in the sleepy central Georgia town of Juliette.
Malone would, years later, become one of the state’s most successful medical malpractice attorneys. At the time, though, he ran a firm that had hit a financial rough patch. To cover payroll, he’d landed a gig representing Georgia Power, which sought to buy thousands of acres for a new coal-fired power plant. Georgia law allowed the utility to condemn nearly any property it wanted. But the actual use of eminent domain spurred negative headlines and local resentment — both of which could undermine Georgia Power’s carefully cultivated corporate reputation. So Georgia Power dispatched Malone to convince residents of Juliette to sell their land. He’d been scouting properties along Luther Smith Road, a winding two-lane street hugged by Georgia pines. The white house belonged to a retired cowboy named Brack Goolsby. Malone hoped Goolsby might willingly sell more than 300 acres.
The Goolsby family home had stood long before Brack rode his first horse, before his hometown was established in the 1880s, and even before General William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops passed through it on the infamous March to the Sea. Brack’s family had such deep roots in Juliette that the road he lived on was named for his Uncle Luther.
When Luther Smith died in the early 1950s, he left the family home to his nephew. Brack and his wife, Betty, raised two sons, Mark and Bob, who grew up exploring the family’s untamed forests. Two decades later, when Georgia Power announced its plans to build a 12,000-acre plant site abutting Luther Smith Road, some neighbors balked. They fought the company’s use of eminent domain. One farmer’s wife mailed a desperate letter to Carter, writing that their land, tended by them through good times and bad, is “not for sale at any price. … We hold precious its beauty, the quiet and peace.”
A small-town peanut farmer who frequently rafted down Georgia rivers, Carter raised concerns to his aides about the plant’s environmental impact. The aides peppered Georgia Power Executive Vice President Harold McKenzie with questions about how much energy — and pollution — the plant would generate. When the conversation turned to a waste-disposal site nearly the size of Central Park, one Carter aide asked McKenzie: What do you do when the ash pond fills up?
Clean it up, McKenzie promised, according to the Carter administration’s notes from that meeting.
Carter’s hands were ultimately tied: Georgia lawmakers had previously granted the utility immense power for an investor-owned company. (A spokesperson for President Carter did not respond to an interview request.) Not only could Georgia Power use eminent domain to condemn property without public hearings, it had the authority to build new plants nearly wherever it wanted. Georgia Power quickly acquired the land for its new coal-fired plant site. The company would eventually name the plant after McKenzie’s boss, CEO Bob Scherer, who guided Georgia Power through a tumultuous period marked by the oil embargo of the 1970s.
In the midst of Georgia Power’s land-buying spree, Brack Goolsby took Malone’s offer and sold 312 acres of land for $207,524. Goolsby kept roughly 30 acres and his house, which was on the other side of Luther Smith Road from the Plant Scherer site. Goolsby was relieved that the home would remain there for his kids and grandkids. For several years, whenever he turned right out of his driveway, Brack watched as the company felled trees and dug deep into the red Georgia clay to build a pit for all the ash left over from burning mountains of coal.
In late 1976, two years after Georgia Power bought the Goolsbys’ land, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, granting the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the disposal of waste, including everything from household garbage to some radioactive materials. The EPA considered whether coal ash should be classified as a hazardous waste. The designation would have required electric utilities to install a protective liner under every existing or proposed ash pond to prevent contaminants from seeping into underground aquifers.
Roughly four out of five Americans get their household water from their city or county. That water is typically sourced from lakes and rivers, tested for toxins, treated, and piped directly to homes. But 43 million people, largely in rural areas, rely on a private drinking well that pumps up groundwater from an underground aquifer.
By the time the act was passed, scientists knew coal ash contained trace metals such as arsenic, chromium, lead and other chemicals recognizable from the periodic table, all of which could slowly infiltrate groundwater. In 1979, Tennessee ecologist Robert Van Hook wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives that the trace metals in coal ash “may constitute human health problems,” including increased risk of cancer. With utilities burning record levels of coal each year, and thus producing more ash, Van Hook called for an evaluation of the “potential for contamination of drinking water supplies by trace elements in leachates from settling ponds.”
Most ash ponds at that time had not been built with protective liners, and America’s power company execs feared that retrofitting them would collectively cost more than $20 billion — $72 billion in today’s dollars. Coal ash’s designation as “hazardous” would not only impact Georgia Power, but also Alabama Power, Gulf Power and other utilities in the Southern Company system. Southern Company soon found an ally in Congressman Tom Bevill, then a seven-term Alabama Democrat whose father had mined coal on the northwest outskirts of Birmingham, where coal had burned at one of the system’s oldest plants since World War I.
During a speech in 1980, as lawmakers debated a bill to strengthen the EPA’s ability to enforce waste regulations, Bevill told his colleagues he knew of no evidence that coal ash “has ever presented a substantial hazard to human health or the environment.” He proposed to exempt coal ash from hazardous waste regulations until the EPA conducted more studies. His amendment passed with minimal attention.
The Bevill Amendment ushered in an era during which Georgia Power and other utilities could keep dumping coal ash into unlined ponds — despite emerging evidence of contamination. That same year, an EPA study described how trace metals in coal-ash ponds could seep deep enough into the ground to come into contact with groundwater. Recognizing the threat, some utilities changed their coal-ash practices absent any federal mandates, including the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, which installed a $2.3 million liner under an ash pond that was leaking wastewater. And while some states like Maryland and Louisiana created tougher regulations for coal-ash disposal, other states, such as Georgia and Ohio, did not.
By the early 1980s, Southern Company execs knew that storing coal ash in ponds without a protective liner could contaminate groundwater. Internal corporate filings obtained by Georgia Health News and ProPublica from multiple state archives show that an in-house research and development company called Southern Company Services Inc. was established to design plant sites for utilities in the Southern Company system. In the 1970s, Florida environmental regulators denied an SCSI-designed ash pond proposal for Plant Crist in Pensacola, which was owned by Southern Company’s Gulf Power, because the plans lacked a “suitable liner … constructed to prevent leaching,” according to the records. In response, from 1977 to 1982, SCSI developed a $20 million waste-disposal system to hold dry coal ash with a liner underneath.
Simultaneously, SCSI designed Plant Scherer in Juliette, where it could have included a liner like it did at Plant Crist. However, Georgia Power claimed in filings that a protective liner at Plant Scherer was “not economically feasible.” Indeed, the installation of a liner at Plant Scherer’s ash pond could have cost as much as $95 million, according to industry estimates from the time.
When Georgia Power fired up Plant Scherer’s first unit in late 1982, water and ash flowed into a giant hole buttressed by an earthen berm that stood 100 feet tall. Engineers had designed the pond to be large enough to accept waste into the next century. With each week that passed, tiny contaminants in the ash pond seeped through soil under the pond and into an underground aquifer, according to company filings. And as weeks turned to years, water in the aquifer slowly carried those contaminants closer to Luther Smith Road.
Water is part of Andrea Goolsby’s earliest memories of her grandparents’ home. She watered her father’s tomatoes, sipped from her grandfather’s garden hose and ate fresh strawberries washed by her grandmother. The idea that Brack and Betty Goolsby’s water might be contaminated by the nearby power plant never figured into family conversations back then. It hadn’t crossed the minds of Andrea’s grandparents, parents or sisters, nor those of her aunts, uncles or cousins, who also lived near Plant Scherer.
“I’d see the ash pond,” Andrea later recalled. “It just looked like a big lake.”
Bevill had indicated back in 1980 that two years of EPA research would definitively rule out the possibility that coal ash could be harmful to human health. But the agency didn’t issue a report for another eight years, informing Congress in 1988 that while coal ash had caused some cases of groundwater contamination, the agency had insufficient evidence to reclassify coal ash as a hazardous waste. That same year, investigators with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division collected groundwater samples from several older Georgia Power plant sites that revealed evidence of contamination. Groundwater at Plant McManus in Brunswick contained chromium at levels 16 times higher than Georgia deemed safe for drinking. And at Plant Mitchell in Albany, groundwater contained levels of lead that exceeded federal drinking water standards. The investigators, who estimated that thousands of residents near the plants relied on private wells for drinking water, recommended further examination of groundwater contamination. (Current EPD spokesperson Kevin Chambers said the division has no records indicating that officials followed up with subsequent investigations; Georgia Power declined to elaborate on the findings of the reports.)
Georgians who lived near coal-ash ponds, including ones at newer plant sites like Scherer, told GHN and ProPublica they were never informed by the EPD or Georgia Power that their drinking water might be contaminated. As a child, Andrea had played at Plant Scherer cookouts held for hundreds of employees, including her father and uncle. As a teenager, she benefited from Georgia Power’s tax dollars that helped fund one of the state’s best public school systems. Many of Andrea’s neighbors believed that Georgia Power had revived Juliette, a place that, after serving as the backdrop for the 1991 Kathy Bates film “Fried Green Tomatoes,” became a quaint symbol of small-town America.
Andrea loved her small town. Juliette felt safe, a place untouched by tragedy. She had experienced little in the way of loss until one windy Thursday in November 2002. Andrea, then a 15-year-old high school student, watched her grandfather writhe in pain on the living room couch. Earlier that week, Brack had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer in his bile duct, a tube that connects the liver to the small intestine. She hugged him tight, worried it might be the last time. Indeed, it was. Brack died the next day.
Three days later, Andrea stayed home from school to say goodbye to her grandfather, who was buried at the Juliette United Methodist Church cemetery, two miles north of Plant Scherer’s front gates. His death would be first in a string of nine cancers among her extended family members who lived near the plant. At first, no one suspected that the sicknesses that came next — a great aunt diagnosed with breast cancer, two distant relatives who died from leukemia — were anything but coincidental.
But then Andrea’s family noticed changes around the family’s land: Their plants and animals were dying more often than usual. The Goolsby family began to wonder why, after years of good health, a wave of sickness and death had descended on Luther Smith Road.
In December 2008, four months after Andrea’s second relative died of leukemia, more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry broke through a dike at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant. A wave of dark, gray sludge spread over 300 acres, as deep as 6 feet, downing power lines, pushing a home off its foundation and filling a nearby river with toxins. As the hidden dangers of coal ash flooded into plain sight and workers began cleaning up the waste, environmentalists swiftly called for stricter regulations, including a liner mandate to prevent toxins from seeping out of unlined ash ponds.
Until the Kingston spill devastated the 6,300-person town of Harriman, located 250 miles north of Juliette, air pollution from coal-fired power plants had long overshadowed the peril of groundwater contamination caused by coal ash. Around the turn of the millennium, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had filed an epic lawsuit against Southern Company and other utility giants for allegedly violating the Clean Air Act. Plant Scherer was one of more than two dozen coal-fired plants that, according to the EPA, had “illegally released massive amounts of air pollutants.” (Southern Company wrote in an annual report that “the action against Georgia Power has been administratively closed.”) As Reno’s lawsuit grabbed headlines, Southern Company quietly partnered with its allies to quash a stricter coal-ash regulation.
In the late 1990s, nearly two decades after the Bevill amendment exempted coal ash from being classified as a hazardous waste (and after Bevill promised that a definitive analysis of coal ash’s danger would be available in two years), the EPA finally wrapped up its coal-ash studies, which determined that coal ash posed “significant risks to human health and the environment when not properly managed.” The agency cited 11 cases where coal ash contaminants were found in ground or surface water at levels that exceeded health standards, as well as dozens of other newly reported cases of water contamination. Communities from Faulkner, Maryland, to Velva, North Dakota, were grappling with the consequences of coal ash. Regulators forced utilities in Wisconsin and Virginia to pay to hook homes up to a public water supply after contaminating their private drinking wells. Beyond these cases, the EPA determined that utilities had installed well networks to monitor groundwater quality at only 38% of the nation’s ash ponds and installed protective liners at just 26% of them. Given those low percentages and the limited oversight by states, EPA officials recommended tougher coal ash regulations — ones that stopped short of reclassifying coal ash as a hazardous waste.
Medical experts say that over a dozen trace metals in coal ash can lead to health ailments ranging from mild (nausea) to serious (organ damage). The type and extent of health problems can vary greatly depending on the amount of contaminants entering the body, the duration of the consumption and even where the coal was originally mined. Of those dozen toxins, several — including arsenic and hexavalent chromium — are considered to be carcinogenic if consumed even in small amounts over a long period of time. The list of cancers linked to coal ash contaminants include ones in the liver and lungs, prostate and bladder, and stomach and skin.
In 2000, as the EPA proposed tougher coal-ash regulations, Southern Company fought those efforts. Georgia Power, Alabama Power and Gulf Power were all dues-paying members of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, an industry association of over 100 utilities. Led by a lobbyist named Jim Roewer, USWAG had previously recruited power company employees to testify against the hazardous waste designation and attack environmental studies that were being considered by the EPA. (Roewer did not respond to multiple interview requests.) On behalf of Southern Company and other utilities, USWAG lobbyists aggressively pressured the Clinton administration to stop the EPA proposal, citing the billions of dollars it would take to clean up toxins from the ash ponds. They argued against the regulation in letters and in-person meetings. Ultimately, the Clinton administration backed off from the tougher coal ash regulations.
But the risks the EPA tracked remained hidden from the public. During the George W. Bush administration, EPA officials had produced internal reports that showed people who lived close to unlined coal-ash ponds were more susceptible to cancer. The EPA report found that nearby residents had as much as a 1 in 50 lifetime risk of developing cancer from drinking water with high levels of arsenic, one of the most common coal-ash contaminants. That’s 200 times higher than the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s recommended risk level for limiting worker exposure to any carcinogen. When environmental advocates tried to obtain those records, officials delayed their release for years; they were made public by the Obama administration only after the Kingston spill.
Georgians rarely heard about problems with Georgia Power’s ash ponds. In 2002, local journalists covered the story of a 4-acre sinkhole at northwest Georgia’s Plant Bowen, which released over 2 million gallons of arsenic-laced ash and water into a nearby creek. From 1988 to 2008, GHN and ProPublica found that Georgia Power had disclosed to state regulators dozens of other unpermitted discharges at its coal plants. The vast majority, which were logged by state environmental officials, were not publicized by those officials or the media.
After chilling images of toxic Tennessee ash circulated in 2008, Obama’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, vowed that environmental disasters like the one in Kingston “should never happen anywhere.” When EPA officials sought further information from the records of coal-ash pond safety inspections after the Kingston spill, Georgia Power initially moved to prevent the release of that information, claiming those records contained trade secrets. The EPA rejected that argument. Ultimately, the EPA found that over a quarter of the country’s 559 coal-ash ponds were rated “poor” in a safety assessment and required remedial action to correct their flaws. (One of Georgia Power’s ash ponds at Plant Hammond was rated poor; most were deemed “satisfactory.”)
During a 2009 meeting with EPA officials, Southern Company CEO David Ratcliffe and other utility execs urged then-EPA Administrator Jackson not to impose liner mandates for coal-ash ponds. Jackson told the utility execs that she “understands all sides of the argument” regarding coal-ash regulations but did not comment specifically on the issue of liners, according to an EPA readout. (Jackson, who is no longer with the EPA, did not respond to a request for comment.) Southern Company’s top environmental affairs executive, Chris Hobson, followed that 2009 meeting with a letter that claimed its unlined ash ponds were “safe and functioning.”
Five years passed without new regulations. Then, in February 2014, a pipe ruptured at a Duke Energy coal-fired plant, flooding North Carolina’s Dan River with 39,000 tons of ash. The Dan River spill finally pushed the EPA to enact America’s first-ever federal coal-ash regulations in 2015. The rule sought to lower the risk of catastrophic failures, protect groundwater and outline best practices for shuttering ash ponds. Under those regulations, Georgia Power would be required to publicly disclose the results of groundwater monitoring tests near its ash ponds.
But the industry’s fierce lobbying campaign defanged stronger protections originally proposed by the EPA. Once again, utilities escaped the hazardous waste label for coal ash. Georgia Power could still dump the ash into unlined ponds so long as the utility proved that large amounts of contaminants were not leaking beyond a pond’s edges. Environmentalists criticized the rule for squandering a historic opportunity to pass strict regulations, including mandated liners.
“The coal-ash rule was a compromise,” said Avner Vengosh, professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University, who is one of the nation’s leading experts on coal ash. “Instead of declaring it as a hazardous waste, they were reluctant to do so for political reasons.”
In 2011, nine years after Brack’s death (and three years before the EPA finalized the coal-ash rule), Andrea noticed that her grandmother had stopped drinking water from the kitchen tap. She’d started to worry after word had spread that something might be wrong with the groundwater that supplied her drinking well. Suspicions grew that summer, after Georgia Power purchased the 2-acre lot next to the family’s property for $218,750, a stunning price considering the average acre in the area sold for four figures. The property belonged to Gloria Dorsett, Andrea’s great-aunt, the one diagnosed with breast cancer. Georgia Power required that Dorsett sign a nondisparagement agreement, razed her home and sealed off the drinking well, preventing future testing of its groundwater. (State law requires the utility to seal unused wells within three years to protect against accidents and illegal dumping.)
Andrea couldn’t help but think about all those summer days in her childhood, drinking from the garden hose. After switching to bottled water herself, she searched for news articles that mentioned groundwater contamination near coal plants. She then turned to scientific studies to better understand the effects of coal ash on human health.
From 2014 to 2018, Monroe County had one of Georgia’s highest rates of cancer incidence, at 522 cases per 100,000 people, which was 12% higher than the statewide average and 17% higher than the national one. Juliette, with 3,000 residents, accounted for about a tenth of Monroe County’s population. Andrea wondered if Juliette’s cancer rate was even higher than Monroe County’s — it would take just 16 new cancer incidences in an average year for Juliette to exceed the county rate. But no formal cancer-cluster study had been conducted to determine if coal-ash toxins had contributed to their sicknesses.
Dr. Alan Lockwood, a neurologist who wrote “The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health,” says that it’s “really difficult” to establish a link between the health outcomes reported by an individual — or even a single family like the Goolsbys, who’ve had numerous cancer incidences — and trace metals found in groundwater. To establish that link, epidemiologists must study data collected from private wells in an entire community over time and review the medical histories of residents to determine if a place is a cancer hotspot. Because of the costs, time and expertise needed, Lockwood said, “the deck is stacked in favor of the company because of how difficult it is to show a cause-and-effect relationship.”
To prove such a thing in court, residents must rely on deep-pocketed lawyers to fund class-action suits. If all the stars align, a company will be pressured into a settlement. More often than not, big corporations with seemingly endless resources can evade responsibility. Despite the long-shot odds of holding Georgia Power accountable, Andrea felt there was no other choice but to seek answers about the water. To her, the pursuit was not just a question of sickness or health, contaminated or not: It might reveal a greater, unsettling truth about the unintended consequences of a tightknit town placing its faith in the hands of a corporation that pledged to do right by its residents.
In 2013, three of Andrea’s relatives were among more than 100 current and former Monroe County residents who sued Georgia Power, claiming the utility had knowingly released toxins contained in coal ash into the air and groundwater. The lawsuit contended that contaminants from Plant Scherer caused a “loss of potable water supply and increased risk of diseases.” In court filings, Georgia Power denied the claims. But before the case proceeded to discovery, one of the law firms representing the plaintiffs abruptly dropped out, prompting the suit to be dismissed without prejudice in 2014 — a disposition that allowed for the filing of future claims. In a moment of despair, Andrea looked up the email of Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist who had uncovered evidence that Pacific Gas and Electric Company had contaminated drinking wells with hexavalent chromium in Hinkley, California, a tiny town more than 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Hundreds of Hinkley residents alleged that tainted drinking water had caused miscarriages, cancers and a scourge of chronic illnesses. After a three-year legal battle, PG&E agreed to pay a record-setting $333 million settlement in private arbitration. Andrea pasted into the email a news article about Juliette residents’ fears over contamination, followed by a brief, urgent message.
“What can we do about this?” Goolsby wrote.
Brockovich promised to look into the matter. But when Goolsby didn’t immediately hear back, her family looked for help closer to home. (Brockovich did not respond to a request for comment.) In the summer of 2016, Andrea’s father, Mark — who’d left Georgia Power the mid-’90s to become a funeral home director — learned of an environmental nonprofit called the Altamaha Riverkeeper that had called for his former employer to safely close its ash ponds. During a conversation with the organization’s executive director, Jen Hilburn, Mark Goolsby explained his concerns about potential groundwater contamination along Luther Smith Road. In response, Hilburn told a story about nearby Lake Sinclair in Milledgeville. Earlier that year, heavy rains had threatened to send water pouring over the top of an ash pond’s berm at Plant Branch, which could have caused a major breach. Hilburn received an anonymous tip that the plant had pumped wastewater into the lake, avoiding a violation of its permit but polluting that 24-square-mile body of water. She flew a camera drone overhead, sent her photos to state officials, and publicized the risks. Residents and lawmakers successfully pressured Georgia Power to move the ash out of the plant’s pond and into a lined landfill. (Georgia Power said in a statement that the decision was about “more than compliance” and reflected its commitment to “protecting water quality every step of the way.”)
One afternoon that August, Hilburn traveled up Luther Smith Road to the Goolsby family home. Mark showed her the dying trees and the surface water on his property that had a sheen of oil. After walking over to a small roofed structure that housed the well that supplied water to Goolsby’s taps, Hilburn pulled on gloves, broke the seal of a sterile plastic bottle, and filled it with water. She collected several bottles and shipped them to a lab in North Carolina. The lab would determine if the contaminants found in Goolsby’s well were the same ones found in coal ash — and whether they were present at high enough levels to be harmful.
When the results came back a couple weeks later, Hilburn called Goolsby to explain that the well water sample confirmed the presence of several heavy metals such as boron, considered one of the DNA fingerprints of coal ash, and cobalt, a trace metal confirmed to be leaking out of Scherer’s ash pond at levels that exceeded federal groundwater-protection standards. She also said that the samples contained worrisome levels of hexavalent chromium: 2.3 parts per billion, 33 times higher than what North Carolina public health guidelines deem safe and 115 times higher than what California ones do. (California and North Carolina are the only two states to establish public health guidelines for hexavalent chromium in water.)
Georgia does not regulate hexavalent chromium, specifically, in water — only the broader category of “chromium,” which includes both chromium III, a naturally occurring trace metal, and hexavalent chromium, which can be naturally occurring or produced by industrial processes. But while relatively high levels of chromium III is considered safe in drinking water, experts say hexavalent chromium can be dangerous at much lower levels. Some scientists warn that hexavalent chromium, not chromium III, can lead to a higher risk of cancer. Georgia’s local public health departments offer a $122 well test that can detect a limited number of toxins, but not hexavalent chromium. If someone can’t afford to pay more for a private lab to test for that toxin, former EPA official Betsy Southerland says they’re “totally unprotected.”
In the fall of 2016, weeks after Mark Goolsby received the test results from his well water, Georgia Power purchased a string of properties along Luther Smith Road, part of a quiet buying spree in which the company ultimately paid more than $15 million for nearly 1,900 acres of land near five of its 12 coal-fired power plant sites, according to a previous investigation by Georgia Health News and ProPublica. A year later, in 2017, Andrea’s grandmother passed away after a stroke, and Andrea noticed the company had erected “no trespassing” signs along Luther Smith Road and knocked down more homes. More than four decades after attorney Tommy Malone pressed Brack Goolsby to sell most of his family’s land, Georgia Power returned with another offer — this time for the last of their property and the home that had belonged to the Goolsbys for more than 150 years. The company, which still wielded the power of eminent domain, said in a statement that its purchases of land near Plant Scherer would reduce the “short- and long-term inconvenience for our neighbors” during the process of shutting down the nearby ash pond. Georgia Power razes the Goolsby home after buying the property. Credit: Courtesy of Andrea Goolsby
On a windy day in March 2019, Andrea Goolsby, then 31, pulled down a gravel driveway toward the white two-story house on Luther Smith Road. Her father and uncle were just days away from handing it over. The terms of the sale prevented them from speaking publicly about the well tests that found hexavalent chromium in their drinking water. (Citing a nondisparagement agreement, Mark Goolsby declined to speak for this story. A spokesman for Georgia Power noted that confidentiality clauses are routinely inserted in its contracts but declined to comment regarding any purchases of individual properties off Luther Smith Road.)
As she walked inside, memories flooded back: the taste of her grandmother’s biscuit dough, the smell of fresh-tilled dirt in the garden, the sound of the blues playing from her daddy’s truck. She had recently helped her father clear out the house, sorting through her late grandmother’s old letters, church bulletins and photographs. She’d even stripped century-old wood off the walls of a bedroom in hopes of repurposing it someday. Tears fell past her straight blonde hair as she stepped into each room one final time. She felt like her grandparents had died once again.
“I had to say goodbye to a place where my son, nieces and nephews won’t be able to experience,” Andrea wrote in her journal that day. “I had to say goodbye to a piece of my heart.”
Two weeks after Andrea’s final visit to her family home, Mark Berry faced one of his toughest challenges as Georgia Power’s top environmental lobbyist: persuading five fiscally conservative energy regulators to allow his employer to offload more than $7 billion in coal-ash cleanup costs onto its customers.
Georgia Power, along with the Public Service Commission, has fought GHN and ProPublica’s attempts to obtain information about how much money the company is saving by not adopting the more protective measure of moving all of its coal ash into lined disposal sites. Last year at a town hall meeting in Monroe County, PSC commissioner Tim Echols said that at Plant Scherer alone, moving millions of tons of ash out of its current pond and into a disposal site with a protective liner would cost $1 billion. (Georgia Power did not dispute Echols’ estimate when asked if it’s accurate.) Industry cost estimates obtained by GHN and ProPublica indicate that Georgia Power could have originally installed a liner at Scherer back in the early 1980s for $95 million or less — $270 million in 2020 dollars, far cheaper than the $1 billion it would take to fully fix the problem today.
Getting approval for the cheaper plan from the five energy regulators on the state’s Public Service Commission would not be Georgia Power’s final hurdle. Even with the PSC’s rubber stamp, state environmental officials could reject the company’s plans to keep dry ash in unlined ponds at Scherer and five other plants. That would mean that Georgia Power’s $7.3 billion price tag could skyrocket to over $10 billion, potentially lowering the chances that the company would be able to get its customers to pick up the full bill. (A year after Berry took the stand, Georgia Power would disclose in a filing that its ash pond cleanup cost estimates increased by 11% to $8.1 billion.) PSC Commissioner Tricia Pridemore said the agency recently hired a consultant to review Georgia Power’s future coal-ash expenses. The other four commissioners declined to comment.
In the spring of 2019, the EPA’s administrator, former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, authorized Georgia to become one of America’s only states to take over the process of approving how utilities could clean up their ash ponds. Left to work with the state’s cash-strapped environmental agency (the EPD), Georgia Power pressured regulators to narrowly interpret the coal-ash rule in a way that would increase the chances of leaving its waste in unlined ponds, according to records obtained by GHN and ProPublica. Georgia Power did not respond to questions about lobbying tactics. But in his 2019 PSC testimony, Berry said Georgia Power is “actively involved in both federal and state rulemaking.” EPD spokesperson Kevin Chambers, who did not make any agency officials available for an interview, said in a statement that the EPD “does not provide deferential treatment” to Georgia Power.
In a closed-door meeting in early 2020, EPD Land Branch Chief Chuck Mueller met with a small group of Juliette residents, including Andrea and several members of the Goolsby family. Mueller explained that if the company could show its contaminants had not migrated beyond its property lines, the company would satisfy the state’s environmental requirements, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by GHN and ProPublica.
One Juliette resident, John Dupree, asked Mueller why the EPD hadn’t independently tested nearby Juliette residents’ wells for the presence of contaminants. Dupree recently tested his drinking well, finding levels of hexavalent chromium above the health standards set by California and North Carolina. He was concerned that coal ash would move off-site for years to come, perpetually jeopardizing his family’s drinking water.
“What I’ve got to determine is, is it coming from the ash pond, or is it naturally occurring, or is it from another source?” Mueller told the residents. “I don’t know.”
Berry assured residents that Georgia Power is “working hard to make things better.” But what he left unsaid was that Georgia Power’s recent purchase of over 1,000 acres of land near Scherer’s coal-ash pond would extend its property lines and limit its liability. Simply reducing the number of private wells in operation near the ash pond is far cheaper than installing a liner that would prevent further spread of contaminants.
After the conversation meandered into technical jargon, one of Andrea’s neighbors, Karl Cass — whose son and niece had survived two different kinds of childhood cancer — directed the conversation back toward Berry.
“I appreciate your commitment, based on what you’ve shared, that you want to do the right thing — did I hear that correctly?” Cass asked Berry.
“Yes sir, you did hear that correctly,” Berry said.
“I appreciate your commitment,” Cass continued. “Why the resistance on the liners?”
Berry said the company had “really studied” this site and concluded that burying the waste in an unlined pond was a viable option to comply with state regulations. The company’s groundwater modeling predicted that contaminants wouldn’t move out enough to warrant a liner. Because of that, he said, the residents didn’t need to worry. Georgia Power declined to comment on Berry’s remarks.
“If something is happening, EPD is going to ask us to fix it and we’re going to fix it,” Berry said.
In the months after Georgia Power purchased the Goolsby home, more family members got sick or died. One of Andrea’s cousins, Gloria Hammond, believed the prostate cancer that recently had killed her husband, Cason, was linked to toxins in the water. Two of Andrea’s other relatives, a retired grocery store owner named Tony Bowdoin and car bumper repairman named Mike Pless, were diagnosed shortly thereafter with colon and throat cancer, respectively. Few of the cancer-stricken family members were related by blood to the Goolsbys — some had married into the family — which, to Andrea, ruled out the possibility that the cancers were caused by a genetic predisposition. All three of her recently diagnosed family members lived close to Plant Scherer’s ash pond. The Altamaha Riverkeeper, now overseen by a former paratrooper named Fletcher Sams, had recently tested all three of their homes’ wells. Each one contained hexavalent chromium levels between 30 and 140 times higher than drinking-water guidelines in North Carolina, and between 100 and 490 times higher than those in California.
In early 2020, residents’ concerns about Plant Scherer’s coal-ash pond prompted a bill from Democratic state lawmakers that would force all of Georgia’s coal ash to be moved into lined disposal sites. One night in February 2020, the same month as the closed-door meeting with Berry, Andrea joined Hammond, Bowdoin, Pless and dozens of other Juliette residents inside a tiny Presbyterian church with stained-glass windows. They’d gathered to learn more about the ongoing groundwater test campaign conducted by the Altamaha Riverkeeper. For months, Sams had steered his red pickup truck down driveways near Plant Scherer and to homes farther away from the plant, collecting water samples from anyone who’d asked for their well to be tested. Now he was finally revealing the full results of what he’d found so far.
Standing before the crowd, Sams explained that almost all of the more than 30 wells he’d tested so far at homes near Plant Scherer had contained worrisome contaminants often present in coal ash that could be harmful to humans if consumed at high enough levels. The wells closer to Scherer’s ash ponds — including along Luther Smith Road — generally had levels of hexavalent chromium higher than those farther away. Pointing to a projector screen near the altar, Sams showed a Georgia Power filing certifying that parts of the ash pond are so deep that they’re below the water table, which meant those contaminants are in constant contact with the groundwater in the aquifer. He then pulled up an aerial image of Scherer’s ash pond, circled by red dots signifying locations of Georgia Power’s own groundwater monitoring wells where tests had exceeded federal protection standards for cobalt, a trace metal leaking out of Scherer’s ash pond.
Sams then rattled off other coal-ash contaminants that the tests had found, words most residents had only ever heard while studying the periodic table during chemistry class.
Residents had grown visibly uncomfortable by the end of Sams’ presentation. Afterward, some people suggested that Georgia Power should pay for county water lines to be built to their homes so they wouldn’t have to drink from the wells anymore. Hammond, one of the few Luther Smith Road homeowners who refused to sell to the company, said she doubted that would happen; doing so might signify an admission of guilt.
Incredulous, Andrea doubled down on the call for Georgia Power to fix the problem. She said the company was already “purchasing property and paying people hush money” so they would not discuss contamination. (Georgia Power did not respond when asked about Goolsby’s comment.)
At one point, Andrea noticed a man in a suit near the front of the church. When someone shouted a question his way, he walked toward the altar to grab the microphone from Sams. The man, PSC Commissioner Echols, explained that he and his colleagues had approved Georgia Power’s request to pass $7.3 billion in ash pond cleanup costs on to customers, adding that “we authorized a lot of money — billions of dollars.”
Listening closely, Andrea grew outraged as Echols — who had voted two months earlier to allow Georgia Power to start collecting money from its customers — shifted the responsibility for reining in Georgia Power to EPD, inaccurately claiming that the environmental agency had the sole authority to stop the company’s unlined pond proposal. (The Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter would later sue the PSC for unlawfully granting the bill surcharge; the company is approved to recoup a first round of $525 million, though it is expected to return to PSC for permission to recover the remainder of the cleanup costs in future rounds. The case could soon go before the Georgia Court of Appeals. Echols declined to answer GHN and ProPublica’s questions, but said in a brief statement, “I am confident we are on the right track.”)
“I wasn’t even born when the problem started, but I have to pay for this mess?” Andrea later said. “It’s hypocritical. They’re the ones doing this, but we have to pay for it, when it would have cost a lot less to do it right the first time or fix it when they knew it was a problem.”
As COVID-19 spread across Georgia, Berry’s team submitted more than 25,000 pages of filings to the EPD to prove how its plan to bury 48 million tons of coal ash in ponds without a protective liner was, in fact, legal and safe. But in corporate filings dated as recently as 2020, Georgia Power acknowledged that Plant Scherer’s ash pond was susceptible to a catastrophic dam failure that could mirror the Kingston spill, potentially sending a wave of ash toward homes, injuring or killing Juliette residents, and contaminating a span of at least 15 miles of the nearby Ocmulgee River. Parts of the ash pond had grown unstable enough that, in 2017, one contractor nearly died after a sinkhole larger than a basketball court suddenly opened up in the pond, causing part of the shoreline to collapse, according to photos of the incident and eyewitness accounts. (Georgia Power did not respond when asked about the sinkhole.)
On top of that, the company faced a growing number of hurdles related to coal-ash contaminants. Georgia Power had to notify a homeowner near Plant McManus in Brunswick of its discovery of levels of arsenic in groundwater that exceed federal and state safety limits. During a recent legislative hearing, state Rep. Mary Frances Williams told one of Berry’s deputies that she was “concerned” to discover contaminants had migrated off-site from Plant McDonough’s ash pond over to property owned by Cobb County in suburban Atlanta. “I’m not clear how you can prevent that from happening without liners,” she told the Georgia Power lobbyist.
Plant Scherer, however, posed the biggest challenge for Georgia Power. EPD scientists said last year that they would need more information before the agency could allow the company to move ahead with leaving dry ash in Scherer’s unlined pond. Georgia Power had disclosed to EPD the data from several dozen groundwater monitoring wells near Scherer, some of which detected the presence of contaminants often found in ash ponds at levels higher than groundwater-protection standards. The data also showed that contaminants were migrating toward the properties the company had purchased on Luther Smith Road. The EPD is now seeking to determine the speed at which groundwater flowed through and under Scherer’s ash pond and to what degree the contaminants posed a threat to remaining neighbors. (Chambers, the EPD spokesperson, said permits to leave coal ash in unlined ponds will not be issued to Georgia Power if its plans fail to comply with the coal-ash rule.)
The company downplayed the concerns from outside experts. Back in 2019, Berry testified that “advanced engineering methods” would allow Georgia Power to clean up its ash pond at Scherer in a way that complies with environmental regulations, but he has refused to disclose the methods because the company claims they are confidential. In January, Georgia Power submitted filings that claimed further risk evaluations of groundwater were no longer warranted because the ash pond’s contaminants “are not expected to pose a risk to human health or the environment.”
Read More About Georgia Power A Power Company’s Quiet Land-Buying Spree Could Shield It From Coal Ash Cleanup Costs
In another recent filing, Georgia Power claimed that contaminants such as hexavalent chromium at Plant Scherer come from “naturally occurring” sources instead of its operations. Researchers in North Carolina, led by Vengosh of Duke University, have found that high levels of hexavalent chromium found in drinking wells in the central part of that state are in fact naturally occurring. (A similar study has not been conducted to determine the source of the hexavalent chromium in Juliette’s drinking water wells.) On the other hand, Vengosh also has conducted research showing that ash from Wyoming-sourced Powder River Basin coal — the coal that Georgia Power uses at Plant Scherer — contains high levels of hexavalent chromium. Last year Vengosh wrote in an email to Monroe County officials that “even if the hexavalent chromium found in drinking water wells is not derived from coal ash contamination,” other coal ash metals could pose a “constant risk” to homeowners’ drinking water.
Residents’ fear of that constant risk has revived a legal battle against Georgia Power. Brian Adams, the Macon attorney behind the lawsuit that fizzled in 2014, found a powerful new partner in Atlanta attorney Stacey Evans. A state lawmaker who once ran for governor, Evans was looking for her next big case after winning a $495 million whistleblower settlement against DaVita, an international dialysis chain. Last July, Evans and Adams filed a new lawsuit on behalf of 45 residents who alleged that Plant Scherer is “poisoning” their community’s water. Their claims extend beyond those of the previous case: The lawsuit alleges that Georgia Power not only constructed and operated Plant Scherer in a way that led to contaminated drinking water, but also that the company built a network of monitoring wells at an elevation so high that their groundwater testing “evades representative results.” Georgia Power has denied those allegations in court filings.
One of the plaintiffs, Andrea’s cousin Tony Bowdoin, said last summer that he’s seeking damages to offset the six-figure costs of treatment for Stage IV colon cancer. Another plaintiff, Karl Cass, whose son is a survivor of childhood cancer, hopes a jury trial might deliver clarity in a saga that so far has offered no clear answers.
“I don’t want to see my kids have to fight this fight against Georgia Power,” Cass said. “And I hope their children won’t have to live in fear about what’s happening to their health.”
Asked what would make things right, Andrea explained that the answer is both simple and complicated. Driving around Juliette in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Andrea saw one type of yard sign more than any others. It wasn’t in support of President Donald Trump, as one would have expected in deep-red Monroe County, where 70% of voters cast ballots for him last year. It was one with a clear call to action: Georgia Power: Clean up your trASH.
At a hearing expected to be held in late 2021, Andrea intends to urge the EPD to reject Georgia Power’s plans to bury coal-ash waste in unlined ponds. If she and other Georgians get their way, state officials would force the company to submit a new plan to either retrofit the ponds with a liner or move the ash to a lined disposal site and begin the yearslong process of reducing the immediate threat to the groundwater.
Andrea said Georgia Power should also cover the costs of Monroe County’s $16 million project to extend water lines to the homes of about 850 Juliette residents who currently rely on drinking wells. (Those residents still would need to pay — as much as thousands of dollars — to have the line connected to their homes; Andrea says Georgia Power should pay for that, too.) Georgia Power has instead mailed residents packets touting the company’s environmental track record and accusing the Altamaha Riverkeeper of making “false claims” about contamination. To find the truth, Andrea said, there should finally be a cancer-cluster study to figure out whether coal-ash contaminants are linked to more than 40 cancer cases compiled by her and others in the community.
The more complicated solution, as Andrea explained, is compensating Juliette residents for “what they lost.” She’s thinking of her cousin, Hammond, who rejected recent offers by the company to buy her land on Luther Smith Road, in part because her well may hold answers to the question of why her husband died. Then there’s Mike Pless, another of her relatives, who, after surgery and two rounds of radiation therapy, has reckoned with his uncertain future and what that might mean for his family. “No easy choices, no guarantees,” he wrote on Facebook. “Welcome to the crucible.”
In late February, Andrea was once again reminded of all she has lost. A mile north of Luther Smith Road, she walked up a gravel path in a black funeral dress, past her grandparents’ tombstones, to find a sunflower-topped wooden casket holding her cousin, Tony Bowdoin, who had just died from colon cancer at age 58. In front of more than 100 mourners, Rev. Mark Goolsby, Andrea’s father, gave a moving eulogy honoring his nephew as an avid hunter and hardworking storekeeper, a serial gift-giver and a morbid joke-teller. Andrea thought of all the death since her grandfather Brack had passed nearly two decades earlier. How much more would her family lose? she wondered. What would Georgia Power’s ultimate cost be?
“They took things families can’t get back,” Andrea said. “There’s no amount of money that can ever give those things back.”
Help us investigate. Do you live next to a coal plant? Do you work around coal plants or ash ponds? We want to hear from you.
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Whitewash April 5th 2021
Comment on the following. I don’t think it is possible to trust any absolutist views on the subject of alarmism over climate change. Across the world, education of the masses is restrictive and not intended to encourage critical thinking. Currently we have the most blatant revival of state backed race and gender warfare along with the myth that lockdowns are a solution to COVID 19 spread.
The hidously wealthy elite control governments, although Russia and China struggle to create a basis of rationality in an insane hubristic human world. Both great nations are pilloried for trying to contain the expanding influence of unreformed Islam, conequently being labelled racist and human rights abusers.
We are not supposed to question the Assange case or the fact that the western elite have been bombing Muslim countries since 1990, in earnest and in the name of democracy. Now we in Britain and Europe are being told to respect Islam, with one British Imam warning he cannot be responsible for extreme Muslim behaviours if we don’t.
We are not supposed to point out that Islam is not a race or that – as their resistance to Covid 19 attests- they value fertility and large families. The view is rooted in the unreformed Judaic Old Testament origins of their all consuming religion. ‘Go forth and multiply’ was all very well before the means of extending individual life on a mass scale had been achieved. So much is the same view in Catholic Latin America and religion dominated Africa where females average 15 babies each. Overpopulation is the key issue. Against this background we have the devious elitist patronising nonsense of lockdowns to ‘beat the virus.’
The elite know this but stoking up so called respect for religious views with penalties for dissidents is an old story from ruling elites across the centuries. Divide and rule works wonders in a world where people are expected to tick one of the LGBTQI or religious boxes. We are supposed to enjoy the colours of the rainbow failing multi culture world which suppresses criticim and wants to reserve social media for dumbed down propaganda purposes. Those rainbow colours, paradoxically , are the ingredients of white. In this instance it isn’t the hated white skin, it is for whitewash. Their is no crock of gold at the end of the multi culture rainbow. Gold, like diamonds, is for the rich. Robert Cook
Climate alarmism is misleading the public Posted April 1st 2021
A new poll shows that many people think the planet is in a far worse state than it really is. Andrew Montford 1st April 2021
Share Topics PoliticsScience & TechUK
The British public has been subject to a consistent diet of climate alarmism for years. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that just 8.8 per cent of the general public are aware of the truth about so-called extreme-weather events: namely, that the number of people dying from such events has fallen by 95 per cent since the 1920s, as data from the OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database shows.
This revelation about public perception of climate change comes from new polling by Savanta, commissioned by my organisation, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The polling certainly shredded a few of the green lobby’s favourite myths, including showing that the young are, in general, less worried than the old about climate change. In fact, one in four Brits is ‘not concerned’ about the climate, contrary to claims of complete consensus on the issue (or ‘crisis’, as greens call it).
But, as indicated above, the polling did show that 12 per cent of Brits thought extreme-weather deaths had increased by a massive 95 per cent, and that 42 per cent thought they had increased by a quarter. Why were they so mistaken?
Maybe it has something to do with scaremongering headlines like these: ‘“Wilful ignorance”: Flood-hit Australia urged to rethink climate adaptation’; ‘Australia is being burned alive by the climate crisis – so why is it still promoting fossil fuels?’ and ‘Climate change: Extreme weather causes huge losses in 2020’.
That last report, from the BBC, stated that ‘the world continued to pay a very high price for extreme weather in 2020’. It had a terrifying, somewhat biblical tone, even referring to swarms of locusts sweeping Africa, before listing some truly terrible events no one would wish to make light of. By failing to put these events into historical context, it painted a picture of impending doom and worsening suffering and disaster that is not grounded in reality. Podcast Charlie Hebdo: a duty to offend spiked
In fact, in decades gone by, deaths from natural disasters and floods were in the millions. Now they are in the tens of thousands. In 1931, for example, an estimated three million people died due to flooding. In 2019, just 11,000 deaths were attributable to all natural disasters. But the huge progress we’ve made does not get mentioned in the numerous reports on the threat of extreme-weather events.
Take the terrible bushfires in Australia last year. You would think, given the borderline apocalyptic coverage of them, that they were proof of an increase in the threat posed by wildfires. Yet while there is evidence to suggest ‘fire weather’ is becoming more common in certain areas, overall human-fire suppression efforts are working. They have led the annual global burnt area since 2003 to shrink by up to a quarter, as shown by NASA satellites.
The public understandably had no awareness of this fact, given it was rarely reported. Indeed, 39 per cent thought the total land area affected by wildfires had actually increased by a quarter since 2003. Only 16 per cent gave the correct answer of a decrease by a quarter.
Human intervention is working to counter other forms of disaster, too. Entire cities used to be wiped from the face of the earth by volcanoes, earthquakes and floods. Once upon a time, famines might wipe out whole villages without the outside world ever knowing or being able to help. Now, seismologists and volcanologists give us warnings. Rescue workers in helicopters and excavators pluck the unlucky from the water and the rubble. And aid workers bring food and relief over great distances in an instant. Recommended Do we now need permission to be free? Tim Black
Human striving, ingenuity and advancement should provide the context within which climate change is reported. But it almost never does. Those pushing the alarmist narrative need us to be frightened and thinking the worst. They need us to believe that humans cannot overcome the challenges facing us. The green industry depends on such alarmism.
The final question in our survey concerned the good news about global food production increasing by more than a third since 2005, according to the UN. We’re making more with less land and the apocalyptic predictions of global starvation made in the 1970s look increasingly fantastical.
Yet, while two fifths of respondents correctly said food production had increased since 2005, one fifth thought food production had actually gone down, despite humanity’s immense technological progress.
The climate has always changed, due to natural and man-made reasons. But never before have we been better equipped to deal with such change. Alarmism and increasing censorship (in the media, online and from the government) around the climate means we are making decisions based on misconceptions and emotion rather than on facts and reason.
The danger is that the resulting green medicine could well turn out to be much, much worse than the disease. Net Zero is already negatively impacting on the economy, and the fear spread by the green doom-mongers is harming our mental health and faith in the future. Hopefully this polling can begin to expose the danger that alarmist reporting poses to the public and policymaking alike.
Andrew Montford is deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum.
Business
Stuck in Suez: Thousands of Animals Packed Tight on Ships
By Michael Hirtzer , Megan Durisin , and Sergio Chapa 26 March 2021, 22:51 GMT Updated on 27 March 2021, 17:19 GMT
- As many as 14 vessels stuck near the canal may have livestock
- Ships usually carry 2 or 3 days worth of extra feed: group
Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks trade and supply chains disrupted by the pandemic. Sign up here.
Of all the millions of tons of cargo that’s piled up in the Suez Canal, none is more delicate than the animals crammed into the hulls of several of the ships.
Scientists Are Planning to Build Noah’s Ark on the Moon Posted by R.J Cook March 25th 2021
Earth is destined for disaster. This is a good insurance policy.
By Courtney Linder Mar 12, 2021 
- Humans, plants, and animals on Earth face the dual threats of climate change and asteroids someday striking the planet.
- Scientists believe they can preserve all living things with a solar-powered lunar ark.
- This compound inside the moon’s lava tubes could store cryogenically frozen reproductive cells from 6.7 million species on Earth as a sort of insurance policy.
In 2013, a cataclysmic meteor the size of a six-story building broke apart above Chelyabinsk, Russia, and the resulting blast was stronger than a nuclear explosion. In 2068, astronomers believe a potentially hazardous “God of Chaos” asteroid could slam into Earth. Both events suggest humans—and every other animal and plant on Earth—are much more susceptible to total annihilation than we think.
That’s why scientists at the University of Arizona are proposing a far-out concept that just might save us all: a 21st-century version of Noah’s Ark … on the moon.
➡ You love weird f#@!-ing science. So do we. Let’s nerd out over this stuff together.
This ark wouldn’t contain two of every animal, but rather, a repository of cryogenically frozen reproductive cells from 6.7 million species on our planet.
Consider it a global insurance policy of sorts, says Jekan Thanga, Ph.D., the mastermind behind the project. Thanga is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, where he and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students have been toiling over this “lunar ark” concept for the past two years.
“As a human civilization, we’re in a fragile state,” Thanga tells Pop Mech. “We’re not really that rigid or able to face all kinds of adversities. And Earth’s ecosystem is also very fragile.” This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Enter the lunar ark, which would be a storage shelter filled to the brim with genetic material for the most important plants and animals on Earth.
From the network of lava tubes just beneath the moon’s surface where scientists hope to build the compound, to the lunar solar farm that generates electricity for the underground facility, to the robotic lab techs, the lunar ark sounds like the setting for a sci-fi novel. But Thanga says the possibility for such a shelter is very real—and it could come to fruition in the next few decades.
The Moon as a Storage Unit
The Marius Hills pit is a possible skylight in a lava tube in an ancient volcanic region of the moon called the Marius Hills. This LROC image is the highest resolution image of the pit to date. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
While we Earthlings may eventually need to evacuate our planet if we’re right in the trajectory of a massive asteroid, a moon colony isn’t necessarily the best option, Thanga says.
For the past seven years, his team has been studying the moon’s extensive network of over 200 lava tubes just beneath its rocky surface—the underground tunnels where a moon settlement would make the most sense. ➡️Moon Must-Reads Isaac Asimov: ‘How We’ll Live on the Moon’ Every. Single. Moon. Ranked. Why Mining the Moon Seems More Possible Than Ever
These tunnels formed billions of years ago when streams of lava melted through the soft rock underground. While the lava tubes are about 328 feet in diameter and could provide a sanctuary from solar radiation, micrometeorites, and cruel surface temperatures, they aren’t a particularly homey space for people to live in and thrive. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
“Setting up a base inside a lava tube seems like a plausible way to go if we wanted to set up a permanent settlement on the moon,” Thanga says, but these moon shafts may not be compatible with the human condition.
He puts it bluntly: “We as humans are not mole rats. We’re going to feel pretty stuffy being underground without being able to see outside.”
So what’s the next best use for a nearby celestial body with a stable environment that only takes about four days to reach on a supply mission? Turn it into a storage locker of sorts for the most precious data on Earth: our own reproductive cells.
Noah’s Ark 2.0
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to the lunar ark’s architecture, Thanga says. Scientists would build the complex inside ancient lava tubes beneath the lunar surface. Image courtesy of Arizona State University
To build a lunar ark, you don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel; much of Thanga’s inspiration for the architecture includes the kinds of materials you might use to build a structure on the surface of the moon, so long as the parts would fit inside a lava tube.
Thanga and his colleagues have proposed sending miniature hopping and flying robots into the lunar lava tubes to collect samples of regolith, or loose rock and dirt. Then, researchers could examine those samples to learn about the layout, temperature, and makeup of the lava tubes, ultimately guiding design considerations for the base. ➡️Must-Read: Genetic Storage Why Scientists Stored DNA in the Wizard of Oz
“What we envision is taking one of the existing pits—just the opening into the lava tube—and installing an elevator shaft there,” Thanga says. From there, the elevator shafts would function as the entry and exit to the cryo preservation modules below the lunar surface. Robots or astronauts would be able to use the elevators to check in and check out samples in petri dishes, “much like a library.”
The plans also include room for a second elevator shaft that robots or astronauts could use to transport construction material below the surface. That way, they could expand the base from inside the lava tubes.
To send messages back to Earth, we’ll need a parabolic antenna at the surface of the base. It would likely operate on the Kₐ band, says Thanga, which is the most modern portion of the electromagnetic spectrum used for data transmission.
“That system could directly get in touch with Earth in its line of sight,” he says. “Out of line of sight would need a relay satellite, which is possible, but the infrastructure isn’t there at the moment.”
For power, the lunar ark will use a set of solar panels—much like a solar farm on Earth—to turn sunlight into electricity. But depending on where the base is set up, the surface of the moon could go through cycles of 12 days of daytime and 12 days of darkness, Thanga says.
His design calls for modular batteries that will attach to the cryo preservation modules to keep the lights on and maintain the right temperatures for the samples.
Lunar Cryogenics
Inside the lunar ark, robots will navigate through the facility above magnetic tracks. They’re responsible for retrieving cryogenically frozen samples and testing them in the analysis lab. Image courtesy of Arizona State University
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is a somewhat appropriate analog for the lunar ark. But storing 6.7 million gametes, spores, and seeds isn’t the same in space as it is on Earth; there are added challenges due to the microgravity on the moon and bitter cold temperatures.
To preserve the samples with cryopreservation techniques, human or robotic archivists must store the seeds at -292 degrees Fahrenheit, and the stem cells at -320 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s far cooler than the inside of the lava tubes, which usually remain stable at about -15 degrees Fahrenheit. ➡️Get the Facts: Doomsday Prep The Future of Farming Is Inside This Bomb Shelter Microsoft is Storing Source Code in an Arctic Cave The Doomsday Clock Creeps Close to Midnight
This means the cryogenic modules could jam or freeze together. To combat that risk, plus the relative lack of gravity, the facility could use a spinning apparatus—much like a cement truck—that uses centrifugal force to keep the modules in motion.
All the while, robots connected to a magnetic strip could remove the samples from their modules and transport them to an analysis lab, periodically checking to see if the seeds and sex cells are stable.
250 Launches, 30 Years, and 6.7 Million Species
This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
If this all sounds a bit far-fetched, Thanga says the lunar ark could actually be possible in the next 30 years, especially as private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin continue to drive down the cost of space launches.
With some back-of-the-envelope calculations, Thanga estimates it would take 250 rocket launches to carry 50 specimens each of the 6.7 million species his team wants to preserve on the lunar ark. To put that into context, it took 40 launches to build out the International Space Station.
And what happens when that devastating meteor inevitably strikes the Earth? Let’s just hope there’s someone left who knows how to get to the lunar ark and use those reproductive cells to create life.
Suez Crisis Posted March 25th 2021
Ten per cent of world shipping uses the Suez Canal. Oil prices have surged about six per cent today after ship, which is the size of the Empire State Building, ran aground.
Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority said it was trying to refloat the 1300ft long Taiwanese ship.
The authority a gale-force sandstorm, a common occurrence in the country’s Sinai desert at this time of year, blotted out light and limited the captain’s ability to see.
Five tug boats are currently working to try and drag the ship free.
Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, which is trying to free the ship, said it was too early to say how long the job might take.
The ship’s bow and stern had been lifted up against either side of the canal, he explained.
Is this the end of forests as we’ve known them? Posted March 22nd 2022
Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is taking a toll on the world’s forests – and radically changing the environment before our eyesby Alastair GeeSupported by
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About this contentWed 10 Mar 2021 08.00 GMT
Last modified on Thu 11 Mar 2021 13.51 GMT
Camille Stevens-Rumann never used to worry about seeing dead trees. As a wildland firefighter in the American west, she encountered untold numbers killed in blazes she helped to extinguish. She knew fires are integral to forests in this part of the world; they prune out smaller trees, giving room to the rest and even help the seeds of some species to germinate.
“We have largely operated under the assumption that forests are going to come back after fires,” Stevens-Rumann said.
But starting in about 2013, she noticed something unsettling. In certain places, the trees were not returning. For an analysis she led of sites across the Rocky Mountains, she found that almost one-third of places that had burned since 2000 had no trees regrowing whatsoever. Instead of tree seedlings, there were shrubs and flowers.
This shift – echoed across a warming world – is a distinct phenomenon from trees dying because of direct human intervention such as logging. These trees are dying without humans laying a hand on them, at least physically, and they are not resprouting. Forests cover 30% of the planet’s land surface, and yet, as humans heat the atmosphere, some locations where they would have grown now appear too dry or hot to support them.
Sequoias at Mariposa Grove of Yosemite, California. Sequoias are dying in remarkable numbers. Photograph: Natureworld/Alamy
In western North America, huge swaths of forested areas may become unsuitable for trees owing to climate change, say researchers. In the Rocky Mountains, estimates hold that by 2050, about 15% of the forests would not grow back if felled by fire because the climate would no longer suit them. In Alberta, Canada, about half of existing forests could vanish by 2100. In the south-western US, which is experiencing a “megadrought”, as much as 30% of forests are at risk of converting to shrubland or another kind of ecosystem.
“Now’s a good time to go visit national parks with big trees,” said Nate McDowell, an earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the lead author of a paper forecasting that in southwestern US forests more than half of conifers, the dominant type of trees, could be killed by 2050. “It’s like Glacier national park – now’s a good time to see a glacier before they’re gone.”
The change isn’t unique to the US and Canada. In the Amazon, some experts warn that a forest mortality tipping point is looming. The boreal forests of Siberia are under attack from higher temperatures. Temperate European forests thought to be less vulnerable to climate change are showing worrying symptoms.
Forest mortality researchers say while this does not mark the end of the forests, it may well be the end of many forests as we’ve known them.Iconic species such as giant sequoias and Joshua trees are succumbing in remarkable numbers. The landscapes of beloved wild places and national parks are, in turn, being transformed. And the changes being observed today – in which slow-growing trees that have survived for hundreds of years are dying in a drought or wildfire – cannot be undone in our lifetimes.
Fire-ravaged Joshua trees are seen on a scorched landscape after the Bobcat fire in September 2020 in Juniper Hills, California. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
“You realize in some ways how short our lives are in comparison to these ecosystems,” said Stevens-Rumann, a fire ecologist at Colorado State University. “I’m never going to see these landscapes again.”
The possibility of worldwide mass forest mortality linked to climate change was flagged in the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments in 1990. But today, many researchers are expressing particular concern about the tree mortality crisis building in California and other parts of the west.
Since 2010, 129m trees are estimated to have died in California’s national forests, as a result of a hotter climate, insects and other factors. Astonishingly, 48.9% of all trees in a comprehensive study of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range were killed.
The effects of a warming planet on trees were already obvious in summer 2016, as California was emerging from its driest four-year period since scientific record-keeping began. In August that year, I drove from San Francisco to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to visit Steven Ostoja, the director of the US agriculture department’s California Climate Hub. At his house on the rural outskirts of a community called Oakhurst, Ostoja led me into his yard.
A boardwalk in the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite damaged by a fallen ponderosa pine during the Mono wind event on 19 January. Photograph: AP
“I watched that tree die,” he said, gesturing toward a 40ft-tall ponderosa pine. We crunched across yellowed grass and leaves to examine it. The ponderosa was wizened and bleached by the elements. Up close, Ostoja was able to pull off a chunk of bark as easily as peeling a tangerine. He pointed out dozens of small holes along the bark made by burrowing beetles. Small, hard blobs of pitch, resembling honey, indicated where the tree had tried to push them out, but lacking water, it had not been able to produce enough.
Dehydration is not always the culprit when trees die in droughts. Droughts often create such hostile conditions that trees with decades or centuries of life ahead of them are suddenly vulnerable to insects or disease, or to wildfires that can rampage when the environment dries out.
The distant whine of a chainsaw taking down a dead tree served as a reminder of the extent of the problem. “That’s a sound you hear all the time,” Ostoja said. “You’ll hear it on a Monday, on a Tuesday, all day long.”
Ostoja had an unruffled scientific manner, but even so he was perturbed by the speed of the change he had witnessed. “It wasn’t within a career,” he said. “It was within three years.” He wondered aloud whether this was one of the most pronounced ecological shifts in the western US “in such a short period of time in the last 10,000 years”.
Burned trees are seen after the first winter storm of the season drops snow on the Bobcat fire scar in the Angeles national forest near Azusa, California, on 31 December 2020. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images
Researchers acknowledge that there is considerable ambiguity in their predictions about tree mortality. For one thing, it is unclear how many of the trees now dying essentially weren’t meant to be there in the first place. Western forests are denser than they were historically because of human influence: the practice of tamping out wildfires, beginning in the early 20th century, has interfered with a natural process in which blazes weed out younger trees and undergrowth.
Even so, the tree mortality problem spanning the western part of the continent is prompting a broad and looming sense of disquiet. Take New Mexico, which has just experienced one of its driest two-decade periods in 1,200 years. At Bandelier national monument, recent wildfires have left bare landscapes. “Why aren’t we getting pine regeneration?” the monument’s chief resource manager said to the Durango Herald in 2017. “We may have to redefine recovery, because we’re not sure some of these forest types will ever return.”
Not far away, ecologist Craig Allen just marked his 40th year studying forests and landscapes in the Jemez mountains. When he arrived from the cooler climes of north-east Wisconsin, moist weather patterns made the region “a great place to be a tree in the south-west US”. That natural variability has now, thanks to climate change, flipped to megadrought conditions. By mid-century, Allen suspects, trees will barely cling to existence in the mountains of the south-west.
A series of photographs taken in 2011, 2013 and 2014 by researcher Craig Allen in the footprint of the Las Conchas fire, a 2011 ‘megafire’ in the eastern Jemez mountains. The images show little tree regrowth. Composite: Craig Allen
“I have to be a little careful about not sounding like some Cassandra saying the sky is falling and forests are going to die and burn – but I have seen what that looks like,” said Allen, who founded the US Geological Survey’s New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.
On a personal level, he added, “it’s actually disorienting to me to be out in the landscapes in some ways because they’re so different from how I first knew them. Now you see a vista literally for 100 miles – you see the next mountain range 100 miles away. And [previously] you couldn’t see more than 20 meters. The canopies are thin, the whole productivity and vigor of the system is suppressed.”
Around the globe, research has suggested that the tree mortality rate in some temperate and tropical forests has doubled or more in recent decades.
While in some places there will be wholesale tree die-offs as a result of climate change, in other places it will alter the very composition and feel of forests. They will not be what they were.
In the Amazon, climate change has lengthened the dry season and caused the rainfall to decline in parts. These shifts are reorganizing the forest: trees that prefer drier conditions are thriving, while those that prefer wetter conditions, and which make up the majority of tree species in Amazonia, are dying off in greater numbers, a study has found.
These changes demonstrate just how far-flung the impacts of climate change can be. The Amazon “is one of the most remote places on Earth”, said lead author Adriane Esquivel Muelbert, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham and researcher at the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research. “Humans are managing to change the environment even very far away from where they are living, or most of them are living.”
With the combined impacts of global heating and rampant logging, some researchers warn that large parts of the rainforest ecosystem could collapse and convert to savanna. “Today, we stand exactly in a moment of destiny,” two leading academics declared in a 2019 editorial. “The tipping point is here, it is now.”
An aerial view of deforestation in Nascentes da Serra do Cachimbo Biological Reserve in Brazil’s Amazon basin in August 2019. Photograph: João Laet/AFP/Getty Images
Cooler regions are not immune. Boreal forests ringing the northerly parts of the globe are in fact projected to experience the greatest warming of all. In central Siberia, conifers are already dying at greater rates and are expected to retreat upslope and to the north. One boreal forest researcher told Yale Environment 360 that “the boreal forest is breaking apart.” He added: “The question is what will replace it?”
Even forests thought more impervious to climatic shifts are proving not to be. In Austria, Germany and Switzerland, heat and low rainfall in 2018 caused mass mortality among species such as Norway spruce and European beech. The German government estimated that at least 2,450 square kilometers would need to be reforested.
“It was a really impressive period, the last two years, because so far I’d only known large-scale mortality events from the literature,” said Henrik Hartmann, co-author of a study on the die-off and an organizer of the International Tree Mortality Network. “And now it is actually here in a very temperate region where nobody would expect it.”
A great irony of this shift is that trees are dying just as we understand them better than ever. It has become clear that far from beinginert and silent, and little more than a backdrop for wildlife, trees are able to communicate with one another and even share resources.
Forests also absorb around one-quarter of all human carbon emissions annually, and increasingly there are worries that if forests die back they will switch from storing carbon to emitting it, because dead trees will release all the carbon they have accumulated. This helps explain why much-touted proposals toplant millions of trees to suck up carbon and ameliorate the climate crisis are encountering skepticism; they won’t work if conditions on Earth don’t allow for forests to reproduce and thrive.
An aerial view of a wildfire in the taiga in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, in north-west Siberia. The boreal forests of Siberia are under attack from higher temperatures. Photograph: Denis Bushkovsky/Tass
It is true that forests could find new footholds in places that were formerly too cold or otherwise unsuited to them. But trees can take centuries to reach maturity, and in terms of global heating, older, large trees store much more carbon than younger, smaller ones. Instead of focusing on new trees, researchers say, the best answer to the mortality crisis is to preserve the forests we already have – by cutting carbon emissions.
For Camille Stevens-Rumann, the fire ecologist studying tree mortality in the Rockies, watching these changes in places she has known for years – and where she has backpacked and rafted – has required an adjustment.
“As a person who loves trees and has spent my career so far looking predominantly at trees, it is a bit of a stark difference and a shift of mindset to think about these landscapes as not ‘treed’ for a longer period of time – or indefinitely,” she said.
Even so, she is able to find beauty in them, and in what humbler plants are able to make a comeback even if the pine and fir trees cannot. She is a realist. Life marches on.
“This is the beginning of a new ecological state.”
Reversing CO2 Emissions Posted March 21st 2021
The device that reverses CO2 emissionsShare using EmailShare on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on Linkedin(Image credit: Carbon Engineering)
By Frank Swain12th March 2021Cooling the planet by filtering excess carbon dioxide out of the air on an industrial scale would require a new, massive global industry – what would it need to work?T
The year is 2050. Walk out of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland, Texas, and drive north across the sun-baked scrub where a few remaining oil pumpjacks nod lazily in the heat, and then you’ll see it: a glittering palace rising out of the pancake-flat ground. The land here is mirrored: the choppy silver-blue waves of an immense solar array stretch out in all directions. In the distance, they lap at a colossal grey wall five storeys high and almost a kilometre long. Behind the wall, you glimpse the snaking pipes and gantries of a chemical plant.
As you get closer you see the wall is moving, shimmering – it is entirely made up of huge fans whirring in steel boxes. You think to yourself that it looks like a gigantic air conditioning unit, blown up to incredible proportions. In a sense, that’s exactly what this is. You’re looking at a direct air capture (DAC) plant, one of tens of thousands like it across the globe. Together, they’re trying to cool the planet by sucking carbon dioxide out of the air. This Texan landscape was made famous for the billions of barrels of oil pulled out of its depths during the 20th Century. Now the legacy of those fossil fuels – the CO2 in our air – is being pumped back into the emptied reservoirs.
If the world is to meet Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, sights like this may be necessary by mid-century.
We have a climate change problem and it’s caused by an excess of CO2. With direct air capture, you can remove any emission, anywhere, from any moment in time – Steve Oldham
But step back for a moment to 2021, to Squamish, British Columbia where, against a bucolic skyline of snowy mountains, the finishing touches are being put to a barn-sized device covered in blue tarpaulin. When it becomes operational in September, Carbon Engineering’s prototype direct air capture plant will begin scrubbing a tonne of CO2 from the air every year. It is a small start, and a somewhat larger plant in Texas is in the works, but this is the typical scale of a DAC plant today.
“We have a climate change problem and it’s caused by an excess of CO2,” says Carbon Engineering chief executive Steve Oldham. “With DAC, you can remove any emission, anywhere, from any moment in time. It’s very powerful tool to have.”
Most carbon capture focuses on cleaning emissions at the source: scrubbers and filters on smokestacks that prevent harmful gases reaching the atmosphere. But this is impractical for small, numerous point sources like the planet’s billion or so automobiles. Nor can it address the CO2 that is already in the air. That’s where direct air capture comes in.
The number of things that would have to happen without direct air capture are so stretching and multiple it’s highly unlikely we can meet the Paris Agreements without it – Ajay Gambhir
If the world wants to avoid catastrophic climate change, switching to a carbon neutral society is not enough. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100 will require technologies such as DAC for “large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal measures” – large-scale meaning many billions of tonnes, or gigatonnes, each year. Elon Musk recently pledged $100m (£72m) to develop carbon capture technologies, while companies such as Microsoft, United Airlines and ExxonMobil are making billion-dollar investments in the field.
“Current models suggest we’re going to need to remove 10 gigatonnes of CO2 per year by 2050, and by the end of the century that number needs to double to 20 gigatonnes per year,” says Jane Zelikova, a climate scientist at the University of Wyoming. Right now, “we’re removing virtually none. We’re having to scale from zero.”
Carbon Engineering’s pilot plant in British Columbia, is the “cookie cutter” model for much larger DAC plants (Credit: Carbon Engineering)
Carbon Engineering’s plant in Squamish is designed as a testbed for different technologies. But the firm is drawing up blueprints for a much larger plant in the oil fields of west Texas, which would fix 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually. “Once one is done, it’s a cookie cutter model, you simply build replicas of that plant,” says Oldham. Yet he admits the scale of the task ahead is dizzying. “We need to pull 800 gigatonnes out of the atmosphere. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Blue-sky thinking
The science of direct air capture is straightforward. There are several ways to do it, but the one that Carbon Engineering’s system uses fans to draw air containing 0.04% CO2 (today’s atmospheric levels) across a filter drenched in potassium hydroxide solution – a caustic chemical commonly known as potash, used in soapmaking and various other applications. The potash absorbs CO2 from the air, after which the liquid is piped to a second chamber and mixed with calcium hydroxide (builder’s lime). The lime seizes hold of the dissolved CO2, producing small flakes of limestone. These limestone flakes are sieved off and heated in a third chamber, called a calciner, until they decompose, giving off pure CO2, which is captured and stored. At each stage, the leftover chemical residues are recycled back in the process, forming a closed reaction that repeats endlessly with no waste materials.
We’re past the point where reducing emissions needed to take place. We’re locking in our reliance on DAC more and more – Jane Zelikova
With global carbon emissions continuing to rise, the climate target of 1.5C is looking less and less likely without interventions like this.
“The number of things that would have to happen without direct air capture are so stretching and multiple it’s highly unlikely we can meet the Paris Agreements without it,” says Ajay Gambhir, senior researcher at the Imperial College Grantham Institute for Climate Change and an author of a 2019 paper on the role of DAC in climate mitigation.
The IPCC does present some climate-stabilising models that don’t rely on direct air capture, but Gambhir says these are “extremely ambitious” in their assumptions about advances in energy efficiency and people’s willingness to change their behaviour.
“We’re past the point where reducing emissions needed to take place,” says Zelikova. “We’re locking in our reliance on DAC more and more.”
DAC is far from the only way carbon can be taken out of the atmosphere. Carbon can be removed naturally through land use changes such as restoring peatland, or most popularly, planting forests. But this is slow and would require huge tracts of valuable land – foresting an area the size of the United States, by some estimates, and driving up food prices five-fold in the process. And in the case of trees, the carbon removal effect is limited, as they will eventually die and release their stored carbon, unless they can be felled and burned in a closed system. (Read more about why planting trees doesn’t always help with climate change)
The scale of the challenge for carbon removal using technologies like DAC, rather than plants, is no less gargantuan. Gambhir’s paper calculates that simply keeping pace with global CO2 emissions – currently 36 gigatonnes per year – would mean building in the region of 30,000 large-scale DAC plants, more than three for every coal-fired power station operating in the world today. Each plant would cost up to $500m (£362m) to build – coming in at a cost of up to $15 trillion (£11tn). 
Climeworks’ facility near Zurich, Switzerland, sells the CO2 it captures to nearby vegetable growers for their greenhouses (Credit: Alamy)
Every one of those facilities would need to be stocked with solvent to absorb CO2. Supplying a fleet of DAC plants big enough to capture 10 gigatonnes of CO2 every year will require around four million tonnes of potassium hydroxide, the entire annual global supply of this chemical one and a half times over.
And once those thousands of DAC plants are built, they also need power to run. “If this was a global industry absorbing 10 gigatonnes of CO2 a year, you would be expending 100 exajoules, about a sixth of total global energy,” says Gambhir. Most of this energy is needed to heat the calciner to around 800C – too intense for electrical power alone, so each DAC plant would need a gas furnace, and a ready supply of gas.
Costing the planet
Estimates of how much it costs to capture a tonne of CO2 from the air vary widely, ranging from $100 to $1,000 (£72 to £720) per tonne. Oldham says that most figures are unduly pessimistic – he is confident that Climate Engineering can fix a tonne of carbon for as little as $94 (£68), especially once it becomes a widespread industrial process.
A bigger issue is figuring out where to send the bill. Incredibly, saving the world turns out to be a pretty hard sell, commercially speaking. Direct air capture does result in one valuable commodity, though: thousands of tonnes of compressed CO2. This can be combined with hydrogen to make synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel. That could then be sold or burned in the gas furnaces of the calciner (where the emissions would be captured and the cycle continue once again).
Surprisingly, one of the biggest customers for compressed CO2 is the fossil fuel industry.
As wells run dry, it’s not uncommon to squeeze the remaining oil out of the ground by pressuring the reservoir using steam or gas in a process called enhanced oil recovery. Carbon dioxide is a popular choice for this, and comes with additional benefit of locking that carbon underground, completing the final stage of carbon capture and storage. Occidental Petroleum, which has partnered with Carbon Engineering to build a full-scale DAC plant in Texas, uses 50 million tonnes of CO2 every year in enhanced oil recovery. Each tonne of CO2 used in this way is worth about $225 (£163) in tax credits alone.
It’s perhaps fitting that the CO2 in our air is eventually being returned underground to the oil fields from whence it came, although maybe ironic that the only way to finance this is in the pursuit of yet more oil. Occidental and others hope that by pumping CO2 into the ground, they can drastically reduce the carbon impact of that oil: a typical enhanced-recovery operation sequesters one tonne of CO2 for every 1.5 tonnes it ultimately releases in fresh oil. So while the process reduces the emissions associated with oil, it doesn’t balance the books.
Though there are other uses that may become more commercially viable. Another direct air capture company, Climeworks, has 14 smaller scale units in operation sequestering 900 tonnes of CO2 a year, which it sells to a greenhouse to enhance the growth of pickles. It’s now working on a longer-term solution: a plant under construction in Iceland will mix captured CO2 with water and pump it 500-600m (1,600-2,000ft) underground, where the gas will react with the surrounding basalt and turn to stone. To finance this, it offers businesses and citizens the ability to buy carbon offsets, starting at a mere €7 (£6) per month. Can the rest of the world be convinced to buy in?
Enhancing the growth of vegetables in greenhouses is one application for the CO2 captured from the air by DAC (Credit: Alamy)
“DAC is always going to cost money, and unless you’re paid to do it, there is no financial incentive,” says Chris Goodall, author of What We Need To Do Now: For A Zero Carbon Future. “Climeworks can sell credits to virtuous people, write contracts with Microsoft and Stripe to take a few hundred tonnes a year out of the atmosphere, but this needs to be scaled up a millionfold, and that requires someone to pay for it.
“There are subsidies for electric cars, cheap financing for solar plants, but you don’t see these for DAC,” says Oldham. “There is so much focus on emission reduction, but there isn’t the same degree of focus on the rest of the problem, the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere. The big impediment for DAC is that thinking isn’t in policy.”
Zelikova believes that DAC will follow a similar path to other climate technologies, and become more affordable. “We have well-developed cost curves showing how technology can go down in cost really quickly,” says Zelikova. “We surmounted similar hurdles with wind and solar. The biggest thing is to deploy them as much as possible. It’s important for government to support commercialisation – it has a role as a first customer, and a customer with very deep pockets.”
Goodall advocates for a global carbon tax, which would make it expensive to emit carbon unless offsets were purchased. But he recognises this is still a politically unpalatable option. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes, especially if the externalities of our high-energy lifestyles – increasing wildfires, droughts, floods, sea level rise – are seen as being shouldered by somebody else.
Zelikova adds we also need broader conversation in society about how much these efforts should cost. “There is an enormous cost in climate change, in induced or exacerbated natural disasters. We need to do away with idea that DAC should be cheap.”
Risk and reward
Even if we agree to build 30,000 industrial scale DAC plants, find the chemical materials to run them, and the money to pay for it all, we won’t be out of the woods yet. In fact, we might end up in a worse position than before, thanks to a phenomenon known as mitigation deterrence.
Facilities in Iceland are among those aiming to mineralise CO2, to lock it out of circulation in the atmosphere as a long-term solution (Credit: Sandra O Snaebjornsdottir)
“If you think DAC is going to be there in the medium- to long-term, you will not do as much near-term emissions reduction,” explains Gambhir. “If the scale-up goes wrong – if it turns out to be difficult to produce the sorbent, or that it degrades more quickly, if it’s trickier technologically, if turns out to be more expensive than expected, then in a sense by not acting quickly in the near-term, you’ve effectively locked yourself into a higher temperature pathway.”
Critics of DAC point out that much of its appeal lies in the promise of a hypothetical technology that allows us to continue living our carbon-rich lifestyles. Yet Oldham argues that for some hard-to-decarbonise industries, such as aviation, offsets that fund DAC might be the most viable option. “If it’s cheaper and easier to pull carbon out of air than to stop going up in the air, maybe that is what DAC plays in emission control.”
Gambhir argues that it’s not an “either-or” situation. “We need to rapidly reduce emissions in the near-term, but at same time, determinedly develop DAC to work out for sure if it’s going to be there for us in the future.” Zelikova agrees: “It’s a ‘yes, and’ situation,” she says. “DAC is a critical tool to balance out the carbon budget, so what we can’t eliminate today can be removed later.”
As Oldham seeks to scale up Carbon Engineering, the biggest fundamental factor is proving large scale DAC is “feasible, affordable and available”. If he’s successful, the future of our planet’s climate may once again be decided in the oil fields of Texas.
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Nothing to do with climate change
( sic ) March 19th 2021
Why it’s so cold: The science behind Britain’s big chill
By David Derbyshire Environment Editor Updated: 07:58, 7 January 2010
The Big Chill is being blamed on a change in the position of the jet stream – the current of air that moves from west to east.
In a normal British winter – when conditions are mild and soggy – the jet stream lies over northern Europe, at an altitude of between 35,000 to 50,000 feet.
During these grey winters, Britain’s prevailing winds come from the west and south west, and bring with them warm and moist air from the sub-tropical Atlantic.
A farmer and his tractor in Denshaw, near Oldham, struggle in the heavy snow
But since mid December, the weather patterns high in the atmosphere have changed.
The jet stream has shifted south hundreds of miles and is now positioned over North Africa.
The warm westerlies that usually keep away the snow are instead giving the Mediterranean an unusually mild winter.
What wind the UK has experienced has blasted in from the Arctic, orfrom across the cold land masses of Siberia and Eastern Europe.
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Helen Chivers, of the Met Office, said: ‘Because the jet stream isso far south, we have now got two areas of high pressure bringing coldweather to Britain.
‘One is over Greenland, and the other is over Russia. We are stuckin an area of low pressure between them and we are getting northerlywinds from the Arctic and northern Scandinavia.’
No one knows why the jet stream has shifted so far south. Somebelieve its location may be linked to the emerging El Nino weatherphenomena – where the surface temperatures of the Pacific periodicallyget warmer.
The Met Office said yesterday that the cold snap has nothing to dowith climate change – but is part of the normal ebb and flow of normallocal weather.
Comment These days we are told only to believe trusted sources. So this is just nomal, like rolling wars in the Middle East, rampant nuclear testing, massive BAME population growth with consequent pollution, disease, rising expectations, and elite greed with serious propaganda. R.J Cook
Taking the Heat out of Climate Change R.J Cook March 8th 2021
The following article is meant to make climate change seem inevitable. We mustn’t connect it in the first instance with massive Third World overpopulation and pollution . We are not supposed to call it the Third World, officially it is developing. It is developing , into a nightmare. Globalisation is bringing it to working peoples’s doorsteps in the west, hence the lockdown and speech control laws. The nothern hemisphere is this, ever more crowded and polluting, with language control driven by women in politics, so we can’t talk about it withouth causing offence.
The climate change deniers were the sensible ones back when I taught geopgraphy. I was a pariah for saying it was a problem in the 1980s. Nonsense. Plenty of room. You could stand every Chinese person on the tiny Isle of Wight, shoulder to shoulder, I was told, Food issues were going to be sorted by the likes of a new rice seed , IR35. What a joke. Disease flourishes in high density populated areas. Over breeding is good for the elite who want cheap labour, religious bigotry, lower class in fighting and ignorance which makes people easy to control.
In Lebanon, the price of a loaf of bread is 3000 Lebanese pounds. In Brazil, Covid 19 is out of control in a country of over 140 million , with 120 million in dire poverty and overcrowded conditions. Meanwhile , in Britain it is International ‘Woman’s Week’ , because here liberated women are the people who matter. The clarion call is for them to grab more power. White Working class men are their only obstacle. It is not the 1000 top British who have ‘known’ wealth of £750 billion who are the problem. Every lower class white is privileged.
Meanwhile, more people want more goods , more space and more food. It is impossible for this to carry on without more war, disease, famine and poverty. But the rich know all about smokescreens. More people equals more carbon dioxide by means of their breathing and less green space to recycle it back into oxygen. Farming now gets the blame. One could go on, What’s the point ? Only the experts, the elite and their police matter now. We of the underclass are the scapegoats, watching our children destroyed by rich parasites using media propaganda.
Atlantic currents seem to have started fading last century March 8th 2021
Another predicted impact of climate change may be here.
John Timmer – 2/27/2021, 2:10 PM
143 with 73 posters participating
The major currents in the Atlantic Ocean help control the climate by moving warm surface waters north and south from the equator, with colder deep water pushing back toward the equator from the poles. The presence of that warm surface water plays a key role in moderating the climate in the North Atlantic, giving places like the UK a far more moderate climate than its location—the equivalent of northern Ontario—would otherwise dictate.
But the temperature differences that drive that flow are expected to fade as our climate continues to warm. A bit over a decade ago, measurements of the currents seemed to be indicating that temperatures were dropping, suggesting that we might be seeing these predictions come to pass. But a few years later, it became clear that there was just too much year-to-year variation for us to tell.
Over time, however, researchers have figured out ways of getting indirect measures of the currents, using material that is influenced by the strengths of the water’s flow. These measures have now let us look back on the current’s behavior over the past several centuries. And the results confirm that the strength of the currents has dropped dramatically over the last century.
On the conveyor
The most famous of the currents at issue is probably the Gulf Stream, which runs up the east coast of the US and Canada, taking warm water from the tropics toward Europe. But the Gulf Stream is just one part of a far larger ocean conveyor system, which redistributes heat in all the major ocean basins outside of the Arctic. And while its reach is global, a lot of the force that drives the system develops in the polar regions. That’s where surface waters cool off, increase in density, sink to the ocean floor, and begin to flow south. It’s that process that helps draw warmer water north to replace what has sunk. Advertisement
It’s the density of the cold, salty water that is key to the whole process—and that’s where climate change can intervene to slow down or halt the water’s turnover. The Arctic is warming faster than any other area on Earth, which means that the surface waters are starting to take longer to cool off. The Arctic warming is also melting off a lot of the ice, both on land and in the floating ice sheets that have typically covered the Arctic Ocean. This process can form a layer of fresher water over the surface of the ocean nearby that, even after it cools, won’t be as dense as the salt water beneath it.
If this process has kicked in, we should be able to detect it by measuring the strength of the currents flowing north. But that has turned out to be less informative than we might want. While we have detected significant drops in some years, they were often countered by large rises in others. This internal variability in the system is so large that it would take decades for any trend to reach the point of statistical significance.
The alternative would be to extend our records back in time. But since we can’t retroactively place buoys in the North Atlantic early last century, researchers have to identify other ways of figuring out how strong the flow of water was before we had accurate measurements.
Current by proxy
The research community as a whole has identified a number of ways to figure out what was going on in the oceans in the past. Some are pretty direct. For example, stronger ocean currents can keep larger particles of sediment flowing in the water for longer. So examining the average particle size deposited in sediments on the ocean floor can tell us something about the currents that flowed past that site. Other measures are a bit less direct, like nitrogen isotope ratios in corals, which tell us something about the productivity of the ocean in that area. Advertisement
Overall, there are about a half-dozen different ways of understanding past ocean conditions used in the new study. Each has different levels of uncertainty, and many don’t provide an exact measure of conditions in a single year, instead giving a sense of what the average conditions were over a period of several decades.
Complicating matters further, the measures don’t all come from the same locations. Samples taken from deeper waters will capture the equator-directed cold water flow, while shallow sites will yield data on the warm waters flowing north. The Gulf Stream also breaks up into multiple individual currents in the North Atlantic so that some sites only capture a small part of the total picture.
Given all this, it’s not possible to build a complete picture of the Atlantic currents in the past. But with enough sites covered, it’s possible to get a sense of whether there have been any general changes at any point over the last 1,600 years based on the overlaps of the different records.
To identify any major transitions, a research team did change-point analysis, essentially searching for points in the history where the mean behavior before and after are significantly different. They found two change points that show up consistently in the data from multiple proxies. One occurred in the late 1800s, and the second happened around 1960, when the current period of warming really started to take off.
Of the 11 different records examined in the researchers’ work, 10 show that the current’s lowest strength has been within the past century. And that identification is statistically significant in nine of them. “Together, these data consistently show that the modern [current] slowdown is unprecedented in over a thousand years,” the paper’s authors conclude.
Obviously, we’d like to build up better records that more fully capture the dynamics of what has been going on and, if possible, give us more direct measures of the currents’ actual strengths. It’s also important to emphasize that this doesn’t necessarily portend a sudden, radical shift to a completely new climate. Europe might see a little less warming from ocean currents, but it’s also going to be seeing a lot more warming due to rising atmospheric temperatures. However, the drop in this current will have wide-reaching effects, both on the land surrounding the North Atlantic and the ecosystems within it. So getting more data should be a high priority.
Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change
February 18, 2021 8.20pm GMT
Introduction by R.J Cook March 3rd 2021
The nasty greedy all powerful elite blame and divide the masses with religion, race and gender politics while they go on wrecking, indulging and dream of an ultimate escape route to Mars. If they can’t get regime change in Russia and Chuna, they will do a ‘limited’ first nuke strike . They are that mad and have their luxury bunkers ready. R.J Cook
Authors
- Chris Fogwill Professor of Glaciology and Palaeoclimatology, Head of School Geography, Geology and the Environment and Director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Keele University
- Alan Hogg Professor, Director, Carbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato
- Chris Turney Professor of Earth Science and Climate Change, Director of the Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre, Director of Chronos 14Carbon-Cycle Facility, and UNSW Director of ARC Centre for Excellence in Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW
- Zoë Thomas Zoë Thomas is a Friend of The Conversation. ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW
Disclosure statement
Chris Fogwill receives funding from UKRI and the Australian Research Council. A huge thanks to Professor Alan Cooper, Honorary Researcher at the South Australian Museum, who co-led this study, Adjunct Professor Ken McCracken and Dr Jonathan Palmer at the University of New South Wales, Drew Lorrey at the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Dr Janet Willmshurst at Landcare Research and our co-authors on the published article.
Professor Alan Hogg works for University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. He is an Associate Investigator in a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden grant – MFP-NIW1803: Dr Andrew Lorrey, NIWA, Auckland, Principal Investigator.
Chris Turney receives funding fromthe Australian Research Council and is a scientific advisor to cleantech graphite company, CarbonScape (https://www.carbonscape.com).
Zoë Thomas receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
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University of Waikato provides funding as a member of The Conversation NZ.
University of Waikato and UNSW provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.
Keele University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
The Conversation UK receives funding from these organisations
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Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
The world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our new multidisciplinary study, published in Science.
This last major geomagnetic reversal triggered a series of dramatic events that have far-reaching consequences for our planet. They read like the plot of a horror movie: the ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows (auroras), Arctic air poured across North America, ice sheets and glaciers surged and weather patterns shifted violently.
During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.
The magnetic north pole – where a compass needle points to – does not have a permanent location. Instead, it usually wobbles around close to the geographic north pole – the point around which the Earth spins – over time due to movements within the Earth’s core.
Expertise is crucial. It’s why our articles are written by academics
For reasons still not entirely clear, magnetic pole movements can sometimes be more extreme than a wobble. One of the most dramatic of these pole migrations took place some 42,000 years ago and is known as the Laschamps Excursion – named after the village where it was discovered in the French Massif Central.
The Laschamps Excursion has been recognised around the world, including most recently in Tasmania, Australia. But up until now, it has not been clear whether such magnetic changes had any impacts on climate and life on the planet. Our new work draws together multiple lines of evidence that strongly suggest the effects were indeed global and far-reaching.
Ancient trees
To investigate what happened, we analysed ancient New Zealand kauri trees that had been preserved in peat bogs and other sediments for more than 40,000 years. Using the annual growth rings in the kauri trees, we have been able to create a detailed timescale of how Earth’s atmosphere changed over this time. The trees revealed a prolonged spike in atmospheric radiocarbon levels caused by the collapse of Earth’s magnetic field as the poles switched, providing a way of precisely linking widely geographically dispersed records.
“The kauri trees are like the Rosetta Stone, helping us tie together records of environmental change in caves, ice cores, and peat bogs around the world,” says professor Alan Cooper, who co-lead this research project.
Using the newly-created timescale, we were able to show that tropical Pacific rain belts and the Southern Ocean westerly winds abruptly shifted at the same time, bringing arid conditions to places like Australia at the same time as a range of megafauna, including giant kangaroos and giant wombats went extinct. Further north, the vast Laurentide Ice Sheet rapidly grew across the eastern US and Canada, while in Europe the Neanderthals spiralled into extinction.
Climate modelling
Working with a computer programme that simulated the global interactions between chemistry and the climate, we investigated the impact of a weaker magnetic field and changes in the Sun’s strength. Importantly, during the magnetic switch, the strength of the magnetic field plummeted to less than 6% of what it is today. A compass back then would struggle to even find north.
With essentially no magnetic field, our planet totally lost its very effective shield against cosmic radiation, and many more of these very penetrating particles from space could access the top of the atmosphere. On top of this, the Sun experienced several “grand solar minima” throughout this period, during which the overall solar activity was generally much lower but also more unstable, sending out numerous massive solar flares that allowed more powerful ionising cosmic rays to reach Earth.
Our models showed that this combination of factors had an amplifying effect. The high energy cosmic rays from the galaxy and also enormous bursts of cosmic rays from solar flares were able to penetrate the upper atmosphere, charging the particles in the air and causing chemical changes that drove the loss of stratospheric ozone.
The modelled chemistry-climate simulations are consistent with the environmental shifts observed in many natural climate and environmental change archives. These conditions would have also extended the dazzling light shows of the aurora across the world – at times, nights would have been as bright as daytime. We suggest the dramatic changes and unprecedented high UV levels caused early humans to seek shelter in caves, explaining the apparent sudden flowering of cave art across the world 42,000 years ago.
It must have seemed like the end of days.
The Adams Event
Because of the coincidence of seemingly random cosmic events and the extreme environmental changes found around the world 42,000 years ago, we have called this period the “Adams Event” – a tribute to the great science fiction writer Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and identified “42” as the answer to life, the universe and everything. Douglas Adams really was onto something big, and the remaining mystery is how he knew?
Ice Road Posted March 2nd 2021
Will Covid 19 Lockdown Cause Population Decline ? February 24th 2021
Professor of Historical Geography, University of Portsmouth
The purpose of a city is to allow people to live and work close together, so social distancing has the potential to threaten cities’ very existence.
A recent report by audit and consultancy firm PwC predicts that the impact of COVID-19 will lead London to see its first population decline in decades. Is this set to be a blip, quickly reversed – or a turning point which will mark the start of long-term population decline in the city?
Steady population change is normally easy to forecast by projecting forward existing trends, but identifying turning points is much harder. However, we can gain insight by looking at past turning points in London’s population.
The graph shows that from 1850 the population of Greater London grew steadily, before declining between 1951 and 1988. This was then followed by new expansion.
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By 1900, inner London was almost completely built up, and improved public transport let people live further from work, so expansion moved outward. The population decline in the city after 1950 was the product of government policy. The green belt limited London’s sprawl, and bombed inner city areas were rebuilt at lower densities. Inner city residents moved to new and expanded towns built beyond the green belt.
This table shows the impact of these policies. Together with colleagues, I used detailed statistics from every census between 1951 and 2011 to estimate the populations of each local government ward, as defined in 2011. We then grouped the wards into rings by their distance from the centre of London, and calculated rates of change for each decade. The ring with fastest growth is shown in green, and the most rapid decline (or slowest growth) in blue.
In all decades from 1951 to 1991, the innermost ring, within five miles of Nelson’s Column, shrank fastest. The band between 15 and 20 miles out roughly corresponds to the green belt, and in the 1950s the next ring out, containing the original new towns, grew fastest. After this, the fastest growth took place far outside any definition of Greater London, but was still based on workers commuting into London or otherwise serving London’s economy.
The second turning point is emphatic: from 1991, the innermost ring went directly from decline to being the fastest growing part of the city. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, 1980s dock closures and manufacturing decline freed up large areas for new housing, often apartment complexes clustered around transport links.
Secondly, the deregulation of London’s financial markets in 1986 – known as the “Big Bang” – boosted London’s financial services, while pre-internet computer networks allowed London to dominate financial markets globally. This resulted in longer working hours, discouraging long commutes from outside the city.
More broadly, increased population density in inner London was a result of the rise of the “creative city”. Cultural industries are hard to identify in employment statistics, but London is clearly a dominant world city not just in finance but in sectors such as fashion and video production.
These sectors do not need large or specialised factories, but do need easy interaction between many small firms, and a flexible, often freelance workforce – so they gravitated not to science parks but to old workshops in central districts like Soho and Shoreditch.
The impact of lockdown
The immediate consequences of the pandemic are clear: after a year confined to their homes, city dwellers are looking for more space. Upmarket estate agent Knight Frank has described 2020 as “dominated by the escape to the country trend”. A particularly high proportion of London’s workers normally sit at computer screens, allowing for a rapid shift to home working. If any London residents have second homes in the country – something that does not show up in existing census data – they may have been spending more time there.
These trends are real, and maybe permanent. However, the counter-argument is that once social distancing ends, the gravitational pull of the city will reassert itself. Inner London’s post-1990 resurgence was driven by creative sectors that now appear well suited to home working, so we need to understand what more they need from a location than a computer and a network connection.
London’s gravitational pull is partly lifestyle. A young and educated workforce prefers nightclubs and theatres to large gardens, so long as they are not closed. The ease of international travel from London – before quarantine – is also a draw. But for businesses, too, the higher costs of operating from a city are accompanied by real economic benefits.
Creativity is far harder in isolation: many of us are learning that we can write, compose or even perform from home, but this is not always enjoyable or inspiring. Sustaining creative industries needs cities. In financial services, traders can beat the financial markets only if they know something the other guy does not, so need access to to less formal information circuits – to gossip.
The networks that led to London’s dominance of financial services from the early 1990s promoted a division of labour around the globe, with routine back office work moving from towns like Worthing to locations such as India. However, the dealmakers, and elite workforces in many other globalised sectors, did not disperse – despite inner London’s higher costs.
As long as the pandemic is brought to an end, then, it is unlikely to lead to a turning point in London’s population. While the internet allows for remote working, the past 30 years has shown that the value of working in close proximity with others can outweigh this benefit.
Bill Gates: ‘Carbon neutrality in a decade is a fairytale. Why peddle fantasies?’ Posted February 23rd 2021
After putting $100m into Covid research, the billionaire is taking on the climate crisis. And first he has some bones to pick with his fellow campaigners…
Bill Gates: ‘The Green New Deal is a fairytale. Why peddle fantasies?’
Bill Gates appears via video conference – Microsoft Teams, not Zoom, obviously – from his office in Seattle, a large space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Washington. It’s a gloomy day outside and Gates is, somewhat eccentrically, positioned a long way from the camera, behind a large, kidney-shaped desk; his communications manager sits off to one side. If one had to stage, for the purposes of symbolism, a tableau of a man for whom a distance of 3,000 miles between callers still constitutes too intimate a setting, it might be this. “As a way to start,” says Gates’ aide, “would it be helpful for Bill to make a couple of comments about why he wrote his new book?” It is helpful, and I’m not ungrateful, but this is not how interviews typically commence.
There is an urge towards deference, when speaking to Gates, which attends few other people of commensurate fame. Celebrity is one thing, but wealth – true, former-richest-man-in-the-world wealth – is something else entirely; one has a sense of being granted an audience with the Great Man, a fact made more surreal by his famously muted persona.
The 65-year-old has the lofty, mildly longsuffering air of a man accustomed to being the smartest guy in the room, leavened by wry amusement and interrupted, on the evidence of past interviews, by the occasional peevish outburst – most memorably in 2014, when Jeremy Paxman questioned him about Microsoft’s alleged tax avoidance. (“I think that’s about as incorrect a characterisation of anything I’ve ever heard,” he said, practically squirming in his seat with annoyance.)
Gates loves private jets; he calls them his ‘guilty pleasure’. He loves hamburgers and eating grapes year-round
Unlike the Elon Musks or Larry Ellisons of this world, however, Gates is perceived to be sensible, uxorious, modest, vowing not to ruin his children with boundless inheritance or to waste energy trying to send things to Mars. In the late 1990s, the US government brought an antitrust suit against Microsoft, accusing it of maintaining a monopoly in the PC market; a final settlement in 2001 overturned an earlier order for the company to be broken up. Since then, Gates has enjoyed a reputation as the Good Billionaire, dispensing a fortune through his foundation and overshadowing what his detractors would say is his biggest shortcoming: his unquestioning belief in progress as a function of capitalist growth.
Extracted from The Guardian Emma Brockes
Ugly Truth February 18th 2021
Climate change: US needs to brace itself for more deadly storms, experts say; Power outages linger for millions as another icy storm looms
They are brainwashed from an early age not to see the biiger picture or develop dangerous individuality. The ruling elite and toadying lackey police have to be able to profile, predict and control the masses. Ultimately , this little global clique are incompetent because they are preoccupied with their power, pleasure , privilege and underlying wealth.
R.J Cook
Deadly weather will be battering the United States more often and America needs to get better at dealing with it, experts said as Texas and other states battled winter storms that blew past the worst-case planning of utilities and governments, leaving millions to shiver.
The storms fit a pattern of worsening extremes under climate change and demonstrated anew that local, state and federal officials have failed to do enough to prepare for more dangerous weather, Matthew Daly and Ellen Knickmeyer report.
The crisis sounded an alarm for power systems throughout the country to plan for severe conditions even beyond historical trends. Experts say a lot needs to be done to prepare better for the future storms sure to come.
The Storm & Fallout: Millions of Americans endured another frigid day without electricity or heat after the deadly winter storm. The situation put pressure on utility crews to restore power before another blast of snow and ice sowed more chaos. Nearly 3.4 million customers around the U.S. were still without electricity, and some also had no water service, Paul J. Weber in Austin and Jill Bleed in Little Rock report.
Texas officials ordered 7 million people to boil tap water before drinking it following days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes. That’s a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state. The latest storm was certain to complicate recovery efforts, especially in states unaccustomed to such weather.
VIDEO: Thousands still without power, water in Texas.
VIDEO: 3,500 cold-stunned sea turtles rescued in Texas.
EXPLAINER: Why the power grid failed in Texas and beyond.
What Canada can learn from Germany’s mass, unplanned migration Posted February 14th 2021
Five years ago, more than a million refugees arrived in Germany. Today, many are working full-time. Here are the lessons Canada can learn from what went right—and wrong—in Germany.
By Sadiya Ansari February 2, 2021 
Shmayess (right) left Syria for Görlitz, Germany, in 2015; his wife, Ammar, joined him a year later and the couple recently opened a restaurant (Photograph by Sadiya Ansari)
When Sami Shmayess was visiting his parents in his hometown of Latakia, Syria, in 2008, he met a German family who were on a year-long trip in their van. Long stretches of beach on the Mediterranean coast made the port city a popular holiday destination, and it was on a walk by the water where Shmayess’s parents spotted the Germans and invited them over for dinner and a hot shower. Shmayess quickly became friends with them. Eight years later, it was their turn to invite Shmayess to stay with them in Görlitz, a small city in the eastern part of Germany. But the circumstances of his travel were quite different—and likely permanent.
In 2015, as the civil war in Syria stretched into its fifth year, Shmayess decided to leave. “I had to give up everything and start over,” he tells me on a fall afternoon, sitting in the restaurant he and his wife had opened in Görlitz’s city centre just over a week earlier. Now 38, Shmayess is soft-spoken with bright brown eyes behind square glasses, maintaining calm in his voice even as he describes the most difficult decision he will likely make in his life.
“I didn’t want to spend the next [few] years fleeing from one place to another,” says Shmayess. That’s why he chose Germany—Chancellor Angela Merkel had just opened the borders, it was booming economically and his skills as an IT specialist were in high demand. He began learning German five days after arriving, found a job in his field within six months, and after a year, brought his wife, Etab Ammar, over.
READ: Why race and immigration are a gathering storm in Canadian politics
Germany’s economy and sustained support from civil society are just two of the factors that helped the country manage the arrival of over one million asylum seekers between 2014 and 2016, the largest number the country has seen since the end of the Second World War. Ramping up its capacity to process asylum claims and increasing access to language and integration courses were also important to Germany’s success. Some Germans had especially high hopes that newcomers would counteract the country’s low birth rate, which, similar to Canada’s, poses the dual threat of labour shortages and an inability to fund growing social security costs. In 2015, Dieter Zetsche, then-head of Daimler, went as far as to propose that refugees may be “Germany’s next economic miracle.”
But not everyone in Germany was optimistic about mass migration. Many warned that the influx would create a crisis in the form of dependence on welfare and long-term poverty as migrants got stuck in precarious jobs.
The federal Institute for Employment Research (IAB) examined the claim that the migration would “overstrain” the capacity of both the German economy and society. “The empirical evidence has—contrary to the expectations—given no indications that the influx of refugees in 2015 led to a ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany,” reads the 2020 study, published in the journal Soziale Welt. Looking at a detailed survey of a representative group of refugees who arrived between 2013 and 2016, the authors found that the demographic profile—69 per cent were under 35—was “likely to facilitate, rather than hinder, labour market integration.”
A separate report by the IAB based on the same survey of refugees found that within five years of arriving, half of asylum seekers were employed, and by the end of 2018, 23 per cent had enrolled in education or training opportunities and 57 per cent were working in skilled professions. This is remarkable, considering that in 2017, Aydan Özoğuz, Germany’s commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, predicted up to three-quarters of refugees would still be unemployed in five years. It’s also impressive given not only the barriers immigrants face, but also that this was a high-needs population that didn’t plan or prepare for such a move—only one per cent of those surveyed who arrived between 2013 and 2016 spoke German.
The perception that “too much” immigration will strain a country’s ability to absorb migrants is certainly not unique to Germany. Canada is seen as managing this concern through its focus on economic migration. Part of why the Canadian system is lauded internationally is that it primarily targets economic migrants, who are hand-picked based on a points system that assesses applicants according to their language abilities, education level and work experience.
The underlying assumption of the points system is that it eases the transition into Canada, and particularly into the labour market. And yet, Canada has an underemployment problem. A 2020 report from Public Policy Forum, for instance, notes that immigrants are overrepresented in lower-paying jobs, such as those in accommodation and food services “where the average pay is $383 per week compared to $976 per week across all industries.” Unrecognized foreign credentials, devalued work experience and individual discrimination all contribute to this.
But what about those who arrive under different circumstances, who are admitted based on what they need, rather than how they might benefit a country’s GDP? Refugees are a small proportion of those that Canada takes in, and the economic integration of this group is understudied. Germany—which also carefully targets economic migrants (2015’s open border policy was an aberration)—offers a window into what can happen when a wealthy Western country undergoes a mass migration without assessing the migrants’ potential for the labour market.
The last decade has shown that the number of people migrating is growing. Globally, there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced at the end of 2019. War, famine and persecution are among the reasons behind this movement. More than 13 million have fled their homes in Syria since 2011. And climate change will certainly be a factor—it could force 143 million from their home countries in South Asia, Latin America and Africa by 2050, according to a 2018 World Bank report.
In a world where migration, especially unplanned movement, is on the rise, what lessons can countries like Canada draw from what went well—and what didn’t—in the German case?
***
Görlitz sits on Germany’s border with Poland, the Neisse river separating the two countries. It’s home to 55,000, with cobblestone streets, centuries-old churches and charming heritage buildings—4,000 of them—the result of being one of the few cities that wasn’t blown apart in the Second World War. If it sounds quintessentially European, it’s because Hollywood has imprinted this image in North Americans’ minds; films like The Reader, Inglourious Basterds and The Grand Budapest Hotel were all shot here. It has advantages over a big city in appealing to young families looking for a place to settle down: less congestion, better and cheaper housing options and more green space. But the city has challenges, too: the loss of a quarter of its population since reunification, a high unemployment rate and one of the country’s highest rates of support for anti-immigrant political party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Despite the city’s high unemployment rate, there is still a need to attract workers. In the early ’90s, industry collapsed in eastern Germany as a result of the fall of the socialist regime. “Everyone was oriented westwards,” says Eva Wittig, head of marketing at a city-owned organization. Mass migration out of the east continues, she adds, with parents and grandparents still encouraging young people to leave, leading to a hollowing out of the labour market.
Malek Alnajem is exactly the kind of person the city wants to attract, arriving in Görlitz at age 34 from Homs, Syria, with his wife, eight-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. But unlike Shmayess, Alnajem didn’t choose this city. Since the 1970s, the federal government has had a system called Königsteiner Schlüssel, which assigns asylum seekers to each state in proportion to their populations, and the states further assign asylum seekers to regions and municipalities. Görlitz received 1,200 asylum seekers in 2015 as a result. While Canada has a similar system of assigning government-assisted refugees, it’s far less stringent.
Alnajem was nervous when he was assigned to Görlitz because he heard it was home to “many Nazis” as part of the former East Germany, which historically had a dearth of in-bound migration. What has kept him there is a training program with the local Red Cross to become certified as a child care worker and educator.
In Syria, Alnajem worked as a gym teacher for 14 years, but in Germany his diploma wasn’t recognized. He was advised by a career counsellor that he would have to go back to school for eight years in order to earn equivalent qualifications. Alnajem’s counsellor tapped a personal connection to help him secure a spot in the Red Cross program, which guarantees him a small income; now, he’s set to finish in 2023. Three days a week he works at a daycare centre with school-aged children, and the other two days he attends classes.
The dual vocational program is one of 330 in the country. The system pays trainees—908 euros a month on average—and combines in-class experience in a publicly funded institution with apprenticeships. Training typically takes two to 3½ years. Unlike in Canada, where professions are regulated at the provincial level, these programs are standardized across the country, providing national recognition.
Alnajem’s eventual qualification as a child care worker lands him in one of the most in-demand careers in Germany. But he would much rather be teaching at school. “I’m doing [this] out of necessity,” says Alnajem.
Etab Ammar also trained as a teacher in Syria, but she hasn’t been able to qualify as one in Germany. “Although it is the same [profession], it is very different here,” she says. “I had a hope to continue, but not anymore.” A tough pregnancy and the birth of her son Andreas in 2017 meant Ammar wasn’t able to keep up with the requisite language and integration courses to retrain as a teacher in Germany.
Unfortunately, Ammar’s experience is common among women who arrive in Germany as mothers to preschool children. An IAB study found that, compared to men, women “enter their first job in German significantly more slowly.” There is a lag in language acquisition, which then turns into a lag in finding work, one notable enough that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the IAB have both flagged it as a structural issue that needs to be addressed.
Similar to Canada, Germany’s poor recognition of foreign credentials is known to create major obstacles for people like Alnajem and Ammar. “The research shows occupational recognition is very important for labour market success—it increases the probability of job entry, and increases wages significantly,” says Yuliya Kosyakova, a senior researcher specializing in migration at the IAB. Germany has invested to rectify this problem, resulting in a growing number of qualifications being recognized in the last few years, especially in medical fields.
But there remains the problem of experience not being recognized. This is evident in occupations that are part of Germany’s dual vocational system, particularly where formal certification is required for jobs like housekeeper, tailor or gardener. This system “barely exists” anywhere else, says Kosyakova, which means it’s hard to prove equivalent credentials.
Ultimately, the system “makes it really difficult to enter many jobs,” says Kosyakova. As a new immigrant, and especially as a refugee, spending two to three years forgoing a full-time income after doing months of language classes is a tough choice to make. For many, this situation is a barrier to applying their skills in the German labour market.
One of the challenges both for migrants and governments in evolving economies is matching labour market needs to qualifications. That’s what one federally funded pilot project in Nuremberg aimed to do—provide focused, individual help to mid-career refugees to find positions matching their skills and experience. The project, called Enter, ran from the beginning of 2016 to the end of 2018, working with 50 refugees and 10 companies and eventually placing 31 people in jobs. Project managers first sat with refugees to understand their experience, education and hopes for the future. Then they helped in many ways, including calling up potential employers to help the refugee learn what the job would be like and introducing the candidate to the employer.
“That was very good, actually, because we found out whether there are companies that are not really open-minded for foreign employees,” said Marion Bradl, who designed and ran the project. She sees the pilot as a success, and says one thing is clear: “The more support and contact the refugees had to German society, the more successful their integration.”
***
Sitting outside a shisha café on a warm autumn evening, Ramadan Alzaher tells me about settling in Berlin, arriving from Syria via Turkey. He came in 2015 at age 23, alone. But he had a bit of a network in the city—a friend’s address to hand to a taxi driver after making the long journey by boat and train, and another friend to share an apartment. He was even able to train for a new career as a lifeguard with five other refugees who also spoke Arabic.
Berlin is seen as a haven for immigrants. As an extremely diverse city of 3.6 million, it often offers a built-in community and the chance to speak your language and eat familiar food while trying to adjust to a new culture. And yet, research on the benefits of immigrants having an ethnic network is mixed. Kosyakova and Klarita Gërxhani at the IAB examined labour market outcomes for those arriving in Germany between 2009 and 2013, and found that if a migrant used their network to find work, it helped them land a job faster (though having a network alone was not enough). At the same time, it didn’t improve the quality of jobs held by respondents, which was measured by hourly wage.
Diversifying the network you rely on can help. And one way to do that is through “integration mentors,” says Michael Haas-Busch from Caritas Berlin, a national social service organization of the Catholic Church.
Integration mentors are both paid and voluntary, and provide the kind of one-on-one assistance that social service agencies can’t: accompanying people to appointments with various authorities, helping them apply for school and connecting them to jobs. “Through these people, refugees have access to society—they get to know people, they have a network, they can get support for housing,” says Haas-Busch, who coordinates volunteers for this kind of work among 20 or so parishes in Berlin.
Alzaher in Berlin; after getting a job offer, he waited two months for his approval to work (Gordon Welters)
There’s some evidence in Canada that having access to a network boosts integration prospects. Privately sponsored refugees were found to do better than government-assisted refugees in terms of income over time in a 2019 Statistics Canada study looking at refugee labour-market integration from 1980 to 2009. “Privately sponsored refugees have a closer relationship with their Canadian sponsors immediately after entry,” write Garnett Picot, Yan Zhang and Feng Hou. “This may assist in job searches, training and language acquisition and provide them with an earnings advantage.”
In 2019, the Canadian government released a report examining the integration of the 25,000 Syrian refugees who arrived between November 2015 and March 2016. It found that in 2016, 40 per cent of the privately sponsored refugees were working, compared to 15 per cent of government-assisted refugees. But it’s hard to make direct comparisons between these groups since they have different profiles, says Fariborz Birjandian, CEO of Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, noting that privately sponsored refugees tend to be better educated.
The Berlin-based German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) launched a study to examine the impact of a mentorship between a refugee and a German. They partnered with a non-profit organization called Start With a Friend (SWaF) that pairs refugees with locals who commit to meeting for two to three hours a week for at least six months. The researchers randomized invitations to refugees who had arrived between 2014 and 2016 and then compared the results to a control group.
After one year, there were two encouraging findings: first, the program improved refugees’ German by the equivalent of an additional year; and second, refugees who had mentors were more socially active—more likely to join a sports team or go to the movies, for instance, than those who didn’t. Magdalena Krieger, a researcher at DIW, notes that while it appears one year isn’t enough to see results on labour market outcomes, these findings are significant indicators of integration. “The programs really do have an impact on refugees’ lives,” says Krieger. “Also, the mentors report that they find the relationship enriching. Many say ‘this [person] has become my friend,’ which I find very beautiful.”
***
Nuremberg mirrors Görlitz in its quaint beauty. The city was rebuilt after the war in its signature red sandstone, and despite its small-town feel, has about 10 times the population of Görlitz. It has a high proportion of foreign-born residents, is home to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) field office in Germany and sits in the state of Bavaria, which has one of the country’s strongest economies. But the state is facing a projected skilled-worker shortage as large as Nuremberg—542,000 people—by 2030.
Rebaz Rizgar left Iraq with his uncle when he was 16, but ended up in Nuremberg alone. His uncle went on to England while Rizgar stayed in Germany, where he believed there would be a better opportunity to be educated. The 21-year-old is Kurdish from Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a territory that has been disputed for decades and was further destabilized by an ISIS takeover in 2014.
Rizgar is one of 50,000 unaccompanied minors who arrived in Germany between 2015 and 2016. The paradox of unaccompanied minors is that their age makes them more likely to take advantage of educational opportunities than older migrants, but their lack of family support makes them incredibly vulnerable.
Organizations across Germany help connect youth like Rizgar with guardians, and one in Nuremberg facilitated a meeting between him and Heike Wieland, a 58-year-old mediation expert living in the city with her husband and daughter, who is about Rizgar’s age. Even with a massive language barrier, Wieland could immediately tell how bright he was. After an initial meeting, Wieland and her husband had Rizgar over during the holidays for dinner and a sleigh ride. As she got to know him better and saw his living situation, Wieland decided to ask him to live with her family. “We were more or less complete strangers,” says Wieland. “[But] in my heart, I felt more or less like a mother.”
Rizgar (left) with Wieland at home; ‘They’re also my family. They’ve accepted me,’ he says. (Sonja Och)
Rizgar wasn’t looking for a second family; he just wanted to get out of his shared apartment. So he agreed. Both Rizgar and Wieland describe the beginning of the arrangement as “difficult.” Wieland would spend an hour with him every evening doing his schoolwork. Rizgar laughs at the awkwardness he felt at the breakfast table on account of his teenage appetite. It’s been three years since he moved in, and he no longer worries about how much he eats. “They’re also my family. They’ve accepted me. I am very happy to have lived with them,” he says. “They helped me a lot, also in my professional life.”
After language courses, Rizgar completed a bridging program for youth aged 16 to 21. He’s now completing a vocational training course in electrical engineering and metal construction, and has done practicums with Siemens and the energy company N-ERGIE. Wieland helped with his applications, knowing how particular German employers are about the format of cover letters and CVs. The end of his training program is in sight now. In July, Rizgar will complete the program and expects to stay on with N-ERGIE.
***
Kerstin Althaus works with asylum seekers who are in refugee housing in Nuremberg. The first thing she is often asked is how to find work, which sets her off on “detective work” to find out what she can about their experience, qualifications, hopes and, of course, their status.
When asked what would make it easier for them to find employment, she was unequivocal: “The first thing that ought to change is that in general everyone [should] receive permission to work—if refugees were allowed to work from the beginning, it would eliminate many problems.”
Insecure residence status is a major barrier to being able to work. And it’s all too common among refugees in Germany. Eighty per cent of those granted protection status—which amounts to permission to remain in the country—by the end of 2019 nevertheless faced a time limit. There are a dizzying number of different statuses held by refugees in Germany, and most of them leave people in some kind of economic limbo.
Perhaps the biggest advantage Shmayess had over Alnajem, Alzaher and Rizgar was that he received asylum status almost immediately, granting him permission to work.
While waiting for asylum status to be approved, asylum seekers can’t work for the first three months. Upon receiving a job offer, they require approval to work from an immigration office, or Ausländerbehörde. Alzaher waited two months for that approval after receiving an offer of employment. Those like Alnajem, who are given subsidiary protection status and not asylum, have a renewable residence permit, initially for one year only. The proportion of applications receiving this status rose from one per cent in 2015 to 35 per cent in 2016. “It is very difficult for foreigners who only have subsidiary protection to find a job, because employers want them to stay here as long as possible,” says Joachim Trauboth, a retiree who works with refugees in Görlitz.
And if you make an asylum claim and are from what’s considered a safe country, you can’t work legally at all.
Shmayess’s job gave him more than economic security. It provided another layer of belonging, it gave him more contact with Germans, it helped him learn about the country’s working culture and, most importantly, it cemented his identity in Germany.
He thinks his story isn’t typical in part because of the unwavering support he received from his friends. But in a sense, his story is typical for those who have been able to secure a job and build a life in Germany. Because even when you are armed with motivation and an education, trying to solve bureaucratic puzzles, acquire a new language and crack foreign cultural codes all require help.
The German case of mass unplanned migration confirmed what research already showed—a strong economy, language and integration courses, and classic settlement counselling help newcomers find education or work opportunities. These factors are already taken into account by most immigrant-receiving countries, including Canada. What happened in Germany also confirmed what is known to not work well in many countries—lack of recognition of qualifications and experience, a gender gap in labour market participation and uncertainty in residence status acting as a barrier to entering the labour market.
But the standout lesson from Germany is seeing “two-way” integration in action. The swell of support from German civil society—a survey in 2016 showed 30 per cent reported providing donations, while 10 per cent said they personally helped refugees—is evidence of how well a two-way process can work. While there was similar support when the majority of Syrian refugees arrived in Canada between 2015 and 2016, the country simply has not seen migration at this scale. Canada took in 40,000 Syrian refugees; Germany took five times that number in November 2015 alone. And in recent history, no other country has opened its borders the way Germany did.
In 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel famously said, “I’ll put it simply: Germany is a strong country . . . We can do this.”
And five years on, it appears Germany has.
Travel and translation costs for this story were supported by the IJP/ICFJ through the Richard Holbrooke Grant as part of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship.
This article appears in print in the February 2021 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline, “The open border effect.” Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.
Related There’s been no flood of Americans heading north. Well, not U.S. citizens at least. Why the b-word—bankruptcy—popped up in the Newfoundland election campaign COVID-19 in Canada: How our battle against the second wave is going 338Canada: Even Quebec’s heavy pandemic measures haven’t dented Legault’s lead How much of a ‘vaccine hole’ is Canada currently in?Powered by CanadaEditor’s PicksGermanyimmigrationrefugees
Mark Carney Warns of Global Disaster Posted February 6th 2021
The world is heading for mortality rates equivalent to the Covid crisis every year by mid-century unless action is taken, according to Mark Carney.
The former central banker said the investment needed to avert millions of deaths was double current rates.
But with governments ploughing billions into keeping economies afloat, a question mark hangs over whether the recovery will be green enough.
The answer lies in smarter investment, Mr Carney said.
‘We cannot retreat’
Mr Carney, who was the Bank of England governor up until last year, and the head of the Bank of Canada before that, is now the United Nations envoy for climate action and finance.
Just Look Posted February 4th 2021
Just look at what’s happening in Western Australia this week, one person working at a quarantine centre tested positive for covid, so the entire south west of the state, with an area much larger than Great Britain, with a population of 2,000,000 are forced into hard lockdown, (house arrest) with only four reasons to leave the house, shopping for essentials (only large chain stores allowed to open), medical appointments, 1 hour of exercise in your immediate area only, providing care for a disabled/elderly relative. Masks are mandatory every where outside your front door, with very few exemptions, (under 12 yo, or swimming, the government want the privilege of water boarding us), non compliance is $1,000 fine. Temperatures are around 37C that’s around 100F.
So you can imagine how comfy that is walking around the streets with a mask on. All pubs, cafe’s and small shops closed, everyone is working from home that can. All kids playgrounds have been sealed off and closed, at this time of year with the intense sunlight every day the temperature of most play equipment can leave you with first degree burns, I doubt there are many viruses that would last more than a few seconds in that environment. In four days and tens of thousands of tests not a single extra case. On top of that, mandatory registration (track and trace) was introduced this week, applying to all shops, venues, churches, brothels, etc, actually everywhere outside of a private house. With a $50,000 /12 months jail for non compliance.
This tyrannical masterpiece doesn’t even mention covid in its name it’s just the SafeWA app, so it’s obviously intended to be a permanent way of life now for West Aussies, and don’t think the excuse of not having a smart phone will get you out of it, there is a pen and log book at every entrance. I wonder how hard it is to get residency in Tanzania. SF Global Correspondent for RCONB/Planet Eaters
Locusts; or A Tale of Monstrous Foolishness
Catte Black
One day in a land far away and a time long gone a Priest came to where the Many were tending their crops and livestock and said…
“There are locusts coming and we must prepare!”
“But locusts come every year and all the years gone by”, the Many replied, “It is always so, why must we prepare?”
“These are not the locusts of all the years gone by,” the Priest said, “these are new and terrible locusts that I call by a New Name. We must prepare.”
“What do these new and terrible locusts with the New Name do?” the Many asked in great fear.
“Why,” said the Priest, “they consume a portion of our crops and then move on.”
The Many trembled in dread.
“But this is what locusts always do”, one man of the Many said, “why must we prepare this year when we never have before?”
The Priest regarded the one man of the Many.
“Did you not hear me?” he said. “These are not the old locusts of years gone by, these are new and terrible locusts and they have a New Name. We MUST PREPARE.”
“But what do the new and terrible locusts with the New Name do that is worse than the old locusts of years gone by?” the one man said.
“Why, are you a fool?” the priest cried. “Did I not tell you they consume our crops and then move on. We MUST PREPARE!”
“Yes, we must prepare!” cried the many in unison, though they did not know what this required.
“I do not understand”, the one man of the Many persisted, “do these new and terrible locusts look different from the old locusts of years gone by?”
“I have not said that,” the Priest replied.
“Do they consume more of our crops than did the old locusts of years gone by?”
“I have made no such claim,” the Priest replied.
“Then if the new and terrible locusts do not look different from the old locusts of years gone by and do not consume any more of our crops than the old locusts of years gone by, how are they new and terrible?”
At this the Priest grew wrathful with a priestly wrath.
“Who are you little man to put others at risk with these questions? Have I not told you these are new and terrible locusts and HAVE A NEW NAME?”
And the Many turned to the one man and said “Yes, fool, do not put others at risk with these questions. The Priest has told you – the new and terrible locusts HAVE A NEW NAME! Be silent in your foolishness and let the Priest tell us how we should prepare.”
And then they turned as one to the Priest and knelt before him and begged: “Oh wise one, tell us how we must prepare against the new and terrible locusts.”
So the Priest stood before them and said…
“I have spoken with great minds and with the gods, and they have told me the only way to prepare against the new and terrible locusts is to wear these hats of Monstrous Foolishness…”
…and he held a hat aloft of such exceeding monstrous foolishness that the Many were dismayed…
“Oh great one, how will the wearing of these hats of Monstrous Foolishness save us from the new and terrible locusts?” they cried.
“The great minds and the gods have studied the question and that is sufficient”, the Priest replied. “All those who have care for others will wear these hats and together we will save ourselves from the new and terrible locusts.”
The Many looked at one another and saw the wisdom of the Priest’s words, and willingly placed the hats of Monstrous Foolishness upon their heads and went back to tending their crops and their livestock, happy that they had been saved.
~ * ~
The next day the Priest came back to where the Many were tending their crops and livestock and wearing their hats of Monstrous Foolishness and said…
“Alas, I have spoken further with great minds and with the gods and they tell me the wearing of the hats of Monstrous Foolishness is not enough to save us from the new and terrible locusts. More is needed”.
The Many turned to the Priest in great alarm and cried, “oh wise one, tell us what we must do! to save us from the new and terrible locusts”
“It is this”, the Priest said, “to save us from the new and terrible locusts you must burn your crops to the ground before they can be eaten!”
“Thank you oh wise one!” the Many cried.
“Wait”, the one man of the Many said, “how will burning our crops to the ground before they can be eaten save them from the new and terrible locusts?”
“Foolish one,” the Priest answered, ” do you not understand the new and terrible locusts will pass us by if our crops are all gone?”
“But”, said the man, “you said to me that the new and terrible locusts will eat no more than the old locusts of years gone by.”
“That is true”, said the Priest.
“So, if we let the new and terrible locusts eat their fill and move on we will still have most of our crops as in years gone by, but if we burn them to the ground we will have none”.
The Priest sighed and the Many sighed also, following his example.
“Do you care nothing for those whose crops will be eaten if we do nothing?” the Priest asked in indignation.
“Do you care NOTHING for the crops that will be eaten?” echoed the Many, in great indignation for the callousness of the man.
And they went into their fields and burned all their crops to the ground so that a portion would not be eaten by the new and terrible locusts.
“But what will we do for bread,” asked the man, “now all our crops are burned to the ground?”
The Many looked troubled at this, for truly that question had not occurred to them. They turned to the Priest for answer.
“Sacrifices must be made, in times of need”, the Priest said.
“Yes”, the Many agreed, finding he spoke the very words they had in their own minds, “sacrifices must be made – and at least we are now safe from the new and terrible locusts!”
“I see the Priest has not burned HIS crops to the ground,” said the one man of the Many, “why is this?”
The Many turned to him at this and said “be silent, fool, enough of your nonsense, the Priest has spoken with great minds and with the gods and he knows best how to save us from the new and terrible locusts. All praise to our Priest and his wisdom.”
~ * ~
Next day the Priest came back to where the people were wearing their hats of Monstrous Foolishness standing in their burned fields and tending their livestock and said…
“Alas, I have spoken further with the gods and great minds and they tell me wearing the hats of Monstrous Foolishness and burning the crops to the ground is not enough to save us from the new and terrible locusts! We must also slaughter all our livestock and let their blood water the earth”.
“How will slaughtering livestock and letting their blood water the earth save us from locusts?” the one man of the Many asked.
The Many were indeed somewhat troubled by this new question and they turned to the Priest for answer.
“Do you not hear me say these are new and terrible locusts?”, the Priest said in his kindly voice. “Do you not understand that new ways must be found to save us from them?”
The Many looked relieved at this and found, once again, the Priest had spoken the very thoughts in their own minds. And so they willingly slaughtered their livestock and let the blood water the earth and rejoiced that they were now finally saved from the new and terrible locusts.
~ * ~
The Priest came a fourth time to where the people were sitting in their burned fields newly watered with the blood of their livestock, wearing their hats of Monstrous Foolishness, and he saw some were dead or dying.
“Alas,”, he said, “because of the incursions of the new and terrible locusts, we now have no bread and no meat and no milk, and even the wearing of the hats of Monstrous Foolishness, the burning of the crops and the slaying of the livestock has not been enough to save us, for see how many are dying.”
At this there was great fear and despair among the Many.
“Oh woe,” they cried, “truly these new and terrible locusts are a deadly scourge for look how many people are now dying despite all that we have done!”
And they turned to the Priest and begged “tell us oh wise one what must be done to save us from the new and terrible locusts that are killing us despite all we have done!”
“Truly”, said the Priest in great sadness, “this land is so scorched and devoured by the new and terrible locusts that nothing remains to be done but to leave our old lives behind and begin again in a new state of equity. You must come to my compound where I will protect you. I have a little food in my own storehouses, which you may have a portion of if you work for the common good by cleaning my house and tending my crops and livestock”.
“Thank you oh wise one!” the Many cried, and prepared to follow the Priest to the safety of his compound.
“Wait”, cried the one man of the Many, “it was not the new and terrible locusts that took away our food, it was us at your command, and now you want to make us your slaves?”
The Priest shook his head in pity, and the Many followed his example.
“What must be done with such persistent ignorance?” he demanded.
“Terrible persistent ignorance”, agreed the Many in unison.
And the Priest said:
“Do you not understand, that if we had NOT worn the hats of Monstrous Foolishness and burned down our crops and killed our livestock the new and terrible locusts would have made things far, far worse than they are now?”
“How?” asked the one man of the Many.
The priest chuckled and the Many followed his example.
“Why, simple fool, because the new and terrible locusts are new and terrible and have a NEW NAME!”
“A new name!” the Many echoed looking in disbelief at the one man who did not understand what this meant.
And then they turned and filed into the Priest’s compound in their hats of Monstrous Foolishness, to work for the common good by tending the Priest’s crops and livestock and cleaning the Priest’s house and singing songs of hope for their new beginning that the Priest’s scribes had written for them to sing.
Meanwhile, the one man left alone in the barren and bloody fields set out alone to find another path and sing his own songs.
~ * ~