Weekly Ingest Newsletter: Seventh Edition
Each week I curate a newsletter for all my listeners that is comprised of articles that are of interest to the topics I talk about the podcast. This newsletter also brings national and international news about sustainability and climate change they may often get overlooked, forgotten about, or is unheard of to the community I serve.
Politics and Climate Policy
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in between television interviews on Feb. 14, 2015. Rep. Lewis was beaten by police on the bridge on "Bloody Sunday" 50 years ago on March 7, 1965, during an attempted march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
John Lewis And His Environmental Legacy
From Forbes: Marshall Shepherd
I awoke to the news that Congressman John Lewis died. He died at a time when people are actually complaining about “violation of freedoms” because experts recommend wearing face masks to protect their health. I cannot help but to juxtapose those complaints against a man who endured beatings and brutality for my right to simply live equally in this country. John Lewis stands firmly with some of the great Americans in history. However, I suspect many of you didn’t learn about him in a K-12 U.S. History class. Much of African-American history has been truncated or omitted in the history books. I was compelled to use this platform to honor Congressman Lewis. Lewis tirelessly fought, bled and sacrificed for civil rights, the downtrodden, and those without a voice. He also understood the importance of the environment and climate change. Herein, I reflect on that part of his legacy.
Yes, I know. John Lewis may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about the environment or climate change. However, his body of work shows that he understood the significance of environmental issues and climate change. On his Congressional website, he said, “Humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change and yet we flood our ecology with poisons and pollution.” The League of Conservation Voters documents his environmental voting record and gave him a lifetime score of 92%. Lewis has also been a long-time supporter of stronger funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and has advocated strengthening the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts.
Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, on 14 July. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
Joe Biden unveils aggressive $2tn climate and jobs plan
From The Guardian: Emily Holden
Proposal outlines $2tn for clean energy infrastructure and climate solutions, to be spent as quickly as possible in next four years
Joe Biden has unveiled a new, more aggressive climate and jobs plan which advisers say he would take to Congress “immediately”, if elected president.
The new proposal outlines $2tn for clean energy infrastructure and other climate solutions, to be spent as quickly as possible in the next four years, what would be the Democrat’s first term in office. Last year, he proposed $1.7tn in spending over 10 years.
“Addressing the economic crisis is going to be priority one for a President Biden,” a senior campaign official told reporters. “This will be the legislation he goes up to [Capitol Hill] immediately to get done. The reality is we will be facing a country that will be in dire need of these types of investments that are going to be made here.”
Two crises are converging: a devastated economy and high unemployment that could drag on for years as the nation struggles to gain control of the coronavirus pandemic, and a rapidly closing window to significantly cut heat-trapping emissions and lead on global climate action.
Soeren Stache—Picture Alliance/Getty Images
How a New Effort to Trace Emissions, Led by Al Gore, Could Reshape Climate Talks
From Time: Justin Worland
As countries entered the final months of talks ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015, China offered a big revelation: the country had burned substantially more coal than it had previously acknowledged in the preceding years.
Many diplomats took the voluntary acknowledgment as a sign of good faith. Nonetheless, the update underscored the broader challenges that climate change activists face when it comes to data collection. Historically, there’s been no way for third parties to directly gather data on the greenhouse gas emissions of both public and private entities, and so any concerted effort to reduce emissions has required trusting companies and governments to tell the truth about how much they’re polluting.
Now, a new coalition of nine climate and technology organizations calling themselves Climate Trace say they have used satellite data, artificial intelligence and other technology to track greenhouse-gas emissions from across the globe remotely. At the micro level, the platform allows users to track emissions down to the level of individual factories, ships and power plants. In aggregate, the platform will allow for a collective accounting of the how the world is doing in the effort to reduce emissions.
“We are creating, in a way, a massively distributed body cam for the planet,” says former Vice President Al Gore, who has helped lead the initiative. In other words, if a given country claims to have reduced, say power-plant emissions, other countries will soon be able to immediately tap into Climate Trace and get data to verify the claim.
Source: Unknown
Rediscovering The Inchcape Rock: A Climate Change Lesson For The Age Of Trump
From The Pittsburgh Current: Larry J. Schweiger
English poet Robert Southey wrote about a 14th-century Abbot of Aberbrothok who mounted a bell on Inchcape Rock-a treacherous sandstone reef eleven miles off the east coast of Scotland to warn mariners during severe weather. As the story goes, a notorious pirate Ralph the Rover vandalized the bell and dumped it into the sea on his way to plunder merchant’s vessels. On his journey back, a severe storm struck Ralph the Rover’s ship. Without warning, the ship laden with booty struck the reef and sank. Southey writes of the Rover’s final moments:
“But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.”
For generations, “The Inchcape Rock” was taught as a cautionary tale to dissuade those who might destroy critical warning bells. Long forgotten, Southey’s poem has renewed relevance with Trump, who is the modern-day equivalent of Ralph the Rover.
Trump has destroyed warning bells at the CDC, EPA, Justice, Education, Energy, State and at the National Security Agencies by appointing special interest lobbyists and ideologues who are subverting the agencies’ purposes. He has fired inspector generals, forced out some of our best public servants, and Trump even dumps his appointees who refuse to play his corrupt game.
Jae-in said the government would invest £16bn ($20.3bn) to set up smart grids across the country to manage electricity use more efficiently ( Getty )
South Korea to spend $95bn on ‘green projects’ to boost economy after coronavirus
From The Independent: Hyonhee Shin
Move expected to create 1.9 million jobs through 2025, says president
South Korea’s government launched a plan on Tuesday to spend 114.1 trillion won (£75.5bn) on a “Green New Deal” to create jobs and help its economy recover from the impact of the coronavirus, Moon Jae-in said on Tuesday.
The plan would move Asia’s fourth-largest economy away from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and promote environmentally friendly industries powered by digital technologies, including electric and hydrogen cars, smart grids and telemedicine.
The new projects are expected to create some 1.9 million jobs through 2025, Mr Jae-in said in a speech.
Sustainable and Community Development
How the mass planting of trees could transform our cities and tackle air pollution
From NBC News: Anmar Frangoul
Hubs of culture, politics and finance, the cities many of us call home can, at times, be hard to live in.
The challenges of an urban environment often include overcrowding, a high cost of living and air pollution. The latter is a serious issue that can affect us all: according to the World Health Organization, it’s estimated that air pollution kills 7 million people each year, with 9 out of 10 people breathing air which contains “high levels of pollutants.”
One solution to help tackle the problem of air pollution could be increasing the number of trees and green spaces within urban areas, according to experts. As well as being aesthetically pleasing – the sight of branches covered in blossom can lift even the gloomiest of moods — trees can offer a range of benefits.
What if we could have the future we actually want? Photo by Tom Werner/Getty Images
The Sustainable Future Town of Your Imagination
From Yes! Magazine: Rob Hopkins
A walk into the future, in a British city where housing is sustainable, energy is locally owned, food is abundant, and the work week is just three days long.
I wake, well rested, in the straw-bale-walled apartment my family and I call home. Built 15 years ago as part of a sustainable-construction initiative throughout our city, the three-story-high apartment complex costs virtually nothing to heat, its basement hosts composting units for all the building’s toilets, and the solar panels on the roof generate all our electricity needs. I wake my kids, get them dressed and fed and accompany them to school—a walk that takes us through shared gardens with a diversity of food crops, including young ruby chard whose deep red leaves radiate like stained glass caught in the brilliant sun of this late spring morning. The streets are quiet, due to sparse motorized traffic, and they are lined with fruit and nut trees in early blossom. The air smells of spring. Each bus stop we pass is surrounded by a garden on three sides, part of the Edible Bus Stop network that now includes most bus stops across the United Kingdom. Anyone can graze while they wait for the bus.
Vermont Is First State To Ban Throwing Food Scraps Into The Trash
From The Huffington Post: Curtis M. Wong
Its new law requires residents and businesses to compost, aiming to save both landfill space and money.
Vermont set a precedent in waste conservation this month when it became the first U.S. state to ban food scraps in trash.
The legislation, which took effect July 1, prohibits residents, restaurants, supermarkets and other businesses from disposing of food scraps ― such as peels, rinds, seeds eggshells, coffee grinds and meal leftovers ― into trash cans or other containers used for refuse.
“If it was once part of something alive, like a plant or animal, it does not belong in the landfill,” officials say on the state’s website.
Yard debris like leaves and cut grass are also included in the ban.
The law requires Vermonters to collect their food scraps in a separate container. At that point, they have three options: compost the scraps on their own property, take them to a drop-off facility or hire an outside company for at-home pickup.
Climate Change and Public Health
Source: Unknown
Babies born near natural gas flaring are 50 percent more likely to be premature: Study
From Environmental Health News: Kristina Marusic
Researchers link air pollution from burning off excess natural gas to preterm births for babies, with the most pronounced impacts among Hispanic families.
Living near fracking operations that frequently engage in flaring—the process of burning off excess natural gas—makes expectant parents 50 percent more likely to have a preterm birth, according to a new study.
A birth is considered preterm when a baby arrives before 37 weeks (about eight and a half months) of pregnancy. Preterm births can result in underdeveloped lungs, difficulty regulating body temperature, poor feeding, and slow weight gain in babies.
Fracking, another name for hydraulic fracturing, is a process of extracting oil and gas from the Earth by drilling deep wells and injecting liquid at high pressure. While many studies have established links between living near fracking wells and numerous health effects, including preterm births, this is the first study to specifically investigate the health impacts of flaring.
Some Singapore health care staff have been working in stifling heat. NG TENG FONG GENERAL HOSPITAL
Climate change: Summers could become 'too hot for humans'
From The BBC: David Shukman
Millions of people around the world could be exposed to dangerous levels of heat stress - a dangerous condition which can cause organs to shut down.
Many live in developing countries, and do jobs that expose them to potentially life threatening conditions.These include being out in the open on farms and building sites or indoors in factories and hospitals.Global warming will increase the chances of summer conditions that may be "too hot for humans" to work in.When we caught up with Dr Jimmy Lee, his goggles were steamed up and there was sweat trickling off his neck.An emergency medic, he's labouring in the stifling heat of tropical Singapore to care for patients with Covid-19. There's no air conditioning - a deliberate choice, to prevent the virus being blown around - and he notices that he and his colleagues become "more irritable, more short with each other".
A woman walks along an empty street on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo. Charlie Riedel/AP
That ‘life after coronavirus’ is a recipe for mass shooters, climate disaster. We can do better.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Will Bunch
It’s bad enough that this baby boomer will never see the world of flying cars he was promised over a bowl of Fruit Loops and The Jetsons on Saturday mornings. But now here we are in 2020, and the best minds of our generation have seen the near-future of American life after the coronavirus or, unbelievably, still coping with it — and it turns out that it’s Connecticut.
Sprawling suburbs filled with former urban dwellers who’ve traded their crowded trendy bistros and Broadway shows for green lawns and Netflix. Daily commutes that exist of walking down a hallway for a morning of Zoom meetings or the oxymoron that is called ‘online learning,' punctuated by the occasionally five-mile drive to the parking lot of the closest supermarket. If you squint into the distance, you might see the gleaming, empty office towers of America’s hollowed-out cities.
Sunrise over a power station in Adelaide, Australia, in 2019. City skies across the world have been clearer during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s unlikely to last. Trent Parke—Magnum Photos
2020 Is Our Last, Best Chance to Save the Planet
From Time: Justin Worland
From our vantage point today, 2020 looks like the year when an unknown virus spun out of control, killed hundreds of thousands and altered the way we live day to day. In the future, we may look back at 2020 as the year we decided to keep driving off the climate cliff–or to take the last exit. Taking the threat seriously would mean using the opportunity presented by this crisis to spend on solar panels and wind farms, push companies being bailed out to cut emissions and foster greener forms of transport in cities. If we instead choose to fund new coal-fired power plants and oil wells and thoughtlessly fire up factories to urge growth, we will lock in a pathway toward climate catastrophe. There’s a divide about which way to go.
In early April, as COVID-19 spread across the U.S. and doctors urgently warned that New York City might soon run out of ventilators and hospital beds, President Donald Trump gathered CEOs from some of the country’s biggest oil and gas companies for a closed-door meeting in the White House Cabinet Room. The industry faced its biggest disruption in decades, and Trump wanted to help the companies secure their place at the center of the 21st century American economy.
Everything was on the table, from a tariff on imports to the U.S. government itself purchasing excess oil. “We’ll work this out, and we’ll get our energy business back,” Trump told the CEOs. “I’m with you 1,000%.” A few days later, he announced he had brokered a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to cut oil production and rescue the industry.
