Weekly Ingest Newsletter: Eleventh Edition
Each week I curate a newsletter for all my listeners that are 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.
The Climat Crisis
ILULISSAT, GREENLAND - In this aerial view melting ice forms a lake on free-floating ice jammed into the Ilulissat Icefjord during unseasonably warm weather on July 30, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland.
Greenland's ice sheet has melted to a point of no return, according to new study
From CNN: Max Claypool and Brandon Miller
Greenland's ice sheet has melted to a point of no return, and efforts to slow global warming will not stop it from disintegrating. That's according to a new study by researchers at Ohio State University.
"The ice sheet is now in this new dynamic state, where even if we went back to a climate that was more like what we had 20 or 30 years ago, we would still be pretty quickly losing mass," Ian Howat, co-author of the study and a professor at Ohio State University, said.
Greenland's ice sheet dumps more than 280 billion metric tons of melting ice into the ocean each year, making it the greatest single contributor to global sea level rise, according to Michalea King, the lead author of the study and researcher at Ohio State University.
The ice loss has been so massive in recent years, she said, that it has caused a measurable change in the gravitational field over Greenland.
Source: Forbes
Some Of The Warmest Water On Earth Is In The Path Of Laura And Marco - Why That’s Bad
From Forbes: Marshall Shepherd
Several weeks ago I wrote an article in Forbes warning that hurricane fuel (warm ocean waters) were going to be high octane this season. As we watch Hurricane Marco and soon-to-be Hurricane Laura approach the Gulf of Mexico, that cautionary writing takes on new meaning. Hurricanes derive their energy from ocean heat content, and some of the warmest sea surface temperatures on Earth right now are in the path of both storms.
As of the 5 pm National Hurricane Center advisory, Hurricane Marco is a category 1 storm headed to Louisiana. It is expected to make landfall Monday and drift westward along the Louisiana coastline. Hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been issued for relevant regions of the Gulf Coast. A few days later, Tropical Storm Laura, which is expected to become a hurricane at some point early in the week, will move into the Gulf of Mexico. I am concerned about the potential strengthening of Laura, and I will explain why later. The National Hurricane Center’s Sunday afternoon discussion said, “Although not explicitly shown, Laura could threaten the northwestern Gulf coast near major hurricane strength.” Major hurricanes are designated as category 3 or greater. If you live along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Mississippi, please be vigilant. Recovery from one storm is tough enough, but we are dealing with two (and a pandemic).
Husky dogs wade over sea ice during an expedition in north-western Greenland, where ice loss has been triggered by rising sea levels and atmospheric temperatures. Photograph: Steffen Olsen/Centre for Ocean and Ice at the/AFP/Getty Images
Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years
From The Observer: Robin McKie
‘Stunned’ scientists say there is little doubt global heating is to blame for the loss
A total of 28 trillion tonnes of ice have disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994. That is stunning conclusion of UK scientists who have analysed satellite surveys of the planet’s poles, mountains and glaciers to measure how much ice coverage lost because of global heating triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The scientists – based at Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London – describe the level of ice loss as “staggering” and warn that their analysis indicates that sea level rises, triggered by melting glaciers and ice sheets, could reach a metre by the end of the century.
“To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands,” said Professor Andy Shepherd, director of Leeds University’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.
Icebergs off the south-east coast of Greenland, a region that is exhibiting an accelerated rate of ice loss. Photograph: Andrew Bossi/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
The Observer view on the climate catastrophe facing Earth
From The Observer
Thirty years ago we were warned. Now is our last chance to listen
Thirty years ago this week, the population of Earth was given official notification that it faced a threat of unprecedented magnitude. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, spewed into the atmosphere from factories and vehicles burning fossil fuels, were pinpointed, definitively, as triggers of future climate change. Melting icecaps, rising sea levels and increasing numbers of extreme weather events would be the norm for the 21st century unless action were taken, warned the authors of the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The scientists had been charged by the IPCC, which had been set up two years earlier, with establishing whether climate change was a real prospect and, if it was, to look at the main drivers of that threat. They concluded, in a report released in August 1990, that the menace was real and that coal, gas and oil would be the principal causes of global heating. Unless controls were imposed on their consumption, temperature rises of 0.3C a decade would be occurring in the 21st century, bringing havoc in their wake.
Three decades later, it is clear that we have recklessly ignored that warning.Fossil fuels still supply 80% of the world’s energy, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise and global temperatures are still increasing. According to Met Office statistics, there was a 0.14C increase in global temperatures in the decade that followed publication of the first assessment report. This was then followed by a 0.2C increase in each of the following two decades. The world could easily heat by 3C by the end of the century at this rate, warn scientists.
A firetruck drives along a closed Interstate 80 as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires continue to spread in Fairfield, California, on Wednesday. Josh Edeson/Getty Images
All the Ways the Pandemic Makes the Wildfire Crisis Worse
From Slate: Rebecca Onion
California is sitting at a particularly hellish nexus.
About 350,000 acres in Northern and central California have burned as of Thursday, in the state’s latest round of wildfires. The lightning from that weird thunderstorm on Sunday caused 367 of the fires, officials say. All of the active fires have been difficult to get under control because of record high temperatures, low humidity, and high winds. The heat has also caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of residents.
Interviewed by the MIT Technology Review on Thursday, climate scientists concurred: The heat wave and the lightning strikes can absolutely be attributed to global warming, meaning that the severity of these wildfires is a function of climate change. Sitting in front of his RV in a Walmart parking lot Wednesday, Vacaville rancher Taylor Craig told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, “I’m a climate refugee.”
We are living through multiple crises at once. Remember way back in May, when we all realized the coronavirus was not going to be under control any time soon, and we wondered how an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic might hamper the emergency response to any othernatural disasters we might experience? It’s happening now, in California.
The sun set on a lonely cactus in Death Valley in Southern California.Credit...J. Jurado/National Park Service
Death Valley Just Recorded the Hottest Temperature on Earth
From The New York Times: Concepción de León and John Schwartz
Scientists still have to validate the reading of 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, the equivalent of 54 degrees Celsius.
In the popular imagination, Death Valley in Southern California is the hottest place on earth. At 3:41 p.m. on Sunday, it lived up to that reputation when the temperature at the aptly named Furnace Creek reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the NOAA Weather Prediction center.
If that reading — the equivalent of 54 degrees Celsius — is verified by climate scientists, a process that could take months, it would be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on earth.
Death Valley is no stranger to heat. Sitting 282 feet below sea level in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California near the Nevada border, it is the lowest, driest and hottest location in the United States. It is sparsely populated, with just 576 residents, according to the most recent census.
Brandi Stewart, the spokeswoman for Death Valley National Park, said that the valley is so hot because of the configuration of its lower-than-sea-level basin and surrounding mountains. The superheated air gets trapped in a pocket and just circulates. “It’s like stepping into a convection oven every day in July and August,” she said.
Climate Justice and Policy
NOAH BERGER / AP
How Can We Plan for the Future in California?
From The Atlantic: Leah C. Stokes
The state’s heat waves, blackouts, and fires—amid a pandemic—offer a warning of our fossil-fuel future.
When I moved to California five years ago, I planted a tree in my yard. It was a Red Baron peach, chosen for its showy, bright-pink blossoms and its ability to grow fruit with few cool nights. For the past nine centuries, Southern California has been perfect for this tree, with mild winters and mild summers.
I planted the Red Baron for the climate we once had. That climate is no more. My neighborhood has already warmed by more than 2 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial period—twice the global average. In my short time as a Californian, I’ve seen a years-long drought. I’ve evacuated my home as a wildfire closed in. I’ve lived through unprecedented heat waves.
Trees, like all living beings, need time and stability to grow. But these essentials are no longer available. And it’s not just my backyard trees that are threatened under a changing climate. Many people have been grieving from the news that we may have lost some of the most majestic coastal redwoods to these latest fires. These giants have stood for more than a thousand years.
For my generation, and the ones coming up behind us, the simple act of planting trees now requires a leap of faith. I worry about how long they will last before they are taken by drought or fire. And if we can’t plan for our trees’ future, how are we supposed to plan for our children’s?
A mural of Greta Thunberg by artist Jody Thomas in Bristol. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
Another two years lost to climate inaction, says Greta Thunberg
From The Guardian: Greta Thunberg
Two years on from her first school strike, activist attacks ‘ignorance and unawareness’
Two years on from Greta Thunberg’s first solo school strike for the climate, she says the world has wasted the time by failing to take the necessary action on the crisis.
Thunberg’s strike inspired a global movement, and on Thursday she and other leading school strikers will meet Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European council. They will demand a halt to all fossil fuel investments and subsidies and the establishment of annual, binding carbon budgets based on the best science.
“Looking back [over two years], a lot has happened. Many millions have taken to the streets … and on 28 November 2019, the European parliament declared a climate and environmental emergency,” Thunberg said in an article for the Guardian with fellow strikers Luisa Neubauer, Anuna de Wever and Adélaïde Charlier.
Demonstrators gather after marching at the Louisiana Capitol to protest the shooting of Alton Sterling on July 9, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. MARK WALLHEISER / GETTY IMAGES
Environmental Justice Does Not Transcend Racial Justice
From Earthjustice: Abigail Dillen
This Juneteenth, we are asking — and beginning to answer — what we can contribute to the transformative Black Lives Matter movement.
On June 19, 1865 — two and a half years after President Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation — the announcement of freedom came to enslaved people in Texas. Here we are, 155 years later, witnessing the relentless state-sanctioned killings of Black people. As an organization that finds power in the law, we know our country has broken the promise of the Thirteenth Amendment. “Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking,” as Nina Simone said over 50 years ago.
This Juneteenth, Earthjustice is taking a holiday to celebrate Black lives and reckon with the broken promise of equality that shapes the lives of Black people in this country, inescapably, every day.
At this time of transformative potential in our history, we are called to ask not whether this time will be different but how, together, we can make it different.
This question goes to the very heart of our work at Earthjustice. Every day we have the privilege of representing and working in partnership with leaders fighting for environmental justice in their communities. We know that in addition to that fight, Black communities are also grappling with the compounding injustices of racist policing and courts, mass incarceration of Black people, disinvestment in education, housing, health care, access to capital, and the other building blocks of health, safety, and prosperity. Environmental racism is one feature of the systemic racism that drives shockingly disparate rates of death and disease for Black people, while making climate change a current, not future, catastrophe.
A community garden in York as it looked shortly after it was created in September 2019. The garden is intended to benefit both nature and the surrounding neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Lettice Brown
Nature Groups Address Environmental Justice in Pennsylvania
From The Allegheny Front: Donna McDermott
An environmental justice expert says conservation groups in Pennsylvania must go deeper to reach out to Black people. Statements of solidarity isn’t enough.
Lettice Brown partnered with the Audubon Society’s Pennsylvania chapter to plant a garden at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Parkway Boulevard in York. It’s designed to benefit birds, pollinators, and, ideally, the people who live nearby — like a woman who took a detour through the garden one day.
“She actually took the path through because she wanted to see everything that was there,” Brown said, sitting next to the garden on a recent July day. “And she was just so amazed that she came down to ask questions and learn about the garden.
“That’s exactly what we want lots of people to come out and learn about these things that they can take to their own homes.”
Exxon Mobil Refinery in Baton Rouge, LA, seen from the top of the Louisiana State Capitol, March 5, 2017. WClarke / Wikimedia
A Plan to Nationalize Fossil-Fuel Companies
From Jacobin Magazine: Peter Gowan
Market-based solutions can't attack climate change. Let's try nationalization.
All progressives recognize that climate change is a grave threatthat is already causing devastating damage around the world. There is less agreement about what policy options could seriously mitigate its effects.
One strong option: nationalizing fossil-fuel companies. While hardly discussed in the US, this ambitious approach is being proposed by the Labour Party in the UK and is already in place in Norway. It would work just as well in the US.
Free-market solutions and incentives are incapable of spurring the economic transition needed, on a quick enough timescale, to avoid environmental disaster. The use of workers in the fossil-fuel industry as a cynical bargaining chip by the owners of those firms represents a massive political obstacle to a real energy transition, as does the valuation of these firms based off an expectation by investors that much or all of their underground assets will be developed — which, if we are to avoid climate catastrophe, will not be.
What we should do instead is have the state buy a controlling stake in all major fossil fuel firms.
This could be quite costly — writers from The Democracy Collaborative recently estimated “the price tag to purchase outright the top 25 largest US-based publicly traded oil and gas companies, along with most of the remaining publicly traded coal companies” at $1.15 trillion. But there are ways to minimize this cost while still obtaining all of the benefits.
This July 8, 2013 file photo provided by Surete du Quebec via the Canadian Press, shows wrecked oil tankers and debris from a runaway train in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada. Surete du Quebec/The Canadian Press/AP
New Trump Rule Could Create ‘Bomb Trains,’ Environmentalists Say
From Rolling Stone: Tessa Stuart
The administration has a ‘wildly unsafe’ plan to transport liquified natural gas on railroads, with tanks carrying enough explosive power to level a city, according to a new lawsuit
A new Trump administration rule relaxing guidelines that govern the transport of liquefied natural gas could create “bomb trains” with enough explosive power to level whole cities, environmental groups say. A coalition of organizations led by the nonprofit Earthjustice has sued the administration, challenging the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on Monday.
Separately, 14 states and the District of Columbia are also suing the Trump administration to review the rule and declare it unlawful. The National Transportation Safety Board and the National Association of State Fire Marshals oppose it as well.
Under the new rule, trains would be allowed to transport up to 30,000 gallons of liquified natural gas (LNG) per tank, significantly more than has ever been allowed in the U.S., and there will be no restrictions on the number of LNG tanker cars in a particular train, nor on the routes these trains may travel, so they will be free to pass through dense population centers.
