Weekly Ingest Newsletter: Tenth 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.
Mental Health, Faith, and Climate Change
Sunset at Crown Beach in Alameda. Jenee Darden/ KALW
The Future Of Climate Change And Our Mental Health
From KALW: Jenee Darden
"The climate crisis really is a health crisis."
As climate change intensifies, what toll will it take on our mental health in the future? Dr. Robin Cooper is a psychiatrist and co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. She gives us a projection of what’s possible to come.
Photo by Carmen Harris
The Ecology of Perception
From Emergence Magazine’s Podcast
An Interview with David Abram
In this interview, cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram discusses the animism, power, and potency of the living world. In our current moment of ecological and societal instability he calls on us to remember our inherent participation in the collective, embodied flesh of the Earth.
“Climate change is the simple consequence of forgetting the holiness of this mysterium in which we’re bodily immersed.”
Five Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent Alarm
From Inside Climate News: James Brugges
The encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ motivated many people to take action on global warming, but governments, the pope said, have lagged far behind.
When Pope Francis issued his landmark teaching document on climate change in 2015, his words went straight to the heart of Susan Varlamoff.
Varlamoff, 70, a biologist, read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in the 1960s and speaks proudly of a Catholic faith that embraces science and calls on church members to take care of the earth. Her sister, she said, died from cancer as a child, and she wondered whether her father's liberal use of pesticides in their suburban yard might have been the cause.
She asked Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who was then the leader of 1.2 million Catholics in Atlanta and across much of Georgia, whether she could write a review for the archdiocese of the Pope's "Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home," the first encyclical to be dedicated to the environment.
Instead, he asked for an action plan.
Fossil Fuels, Politics, and Climate Change
BP announced it would halt oil and gas exploration in new countries, slash oil and gas production by 40 percent and boost capital spending on low-carbon energy tenfold. (Caroline Spiezio/AP)
BP built its business on oil and gas. Now climate change is taking it apart.
From The Washington Post: Steven Mufson
Oil giant aims for 40 percent output cut and tenfold increase in spending on low-carbon energy
With climate change bearing down on the planet and the novel coronavirus upending the fossil fuel business, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies on Tuesday mapped out how it plans to navigate the next decade by radically cutting back on its oil and gas business.
The London-based BP said that it will transform itself by halting oil and gas exploration in new countries, slashing oil and gas production by 40 percent, lowering carbon emissions by about a third, and boosting capital spending on low-carbon energy tenfold to $5 billion a year.
“This makes the BP the first supermajor to spell out, in detail, what the energy transition will actually entail, in practical terms,” said Pavel Molchanov, senior energy analyst for the investment firm Raymond James.
While BP announced earlier this year its broad strategy shift to comply with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord, Tuesday’s earnings report specifically laid out for investors how much — and how soon — this would change the company. BP had in February — before the pandemic hit — vowed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the new details show major impacts on its business by 2030.
Pa. produces a lot of greenhouse gases, but its Republican-led legislature isn’t acting on climate change — even as scientists say the clock is ticking
From State Impact Pennsylvania: Rachel McDevitt
Overall, most Pennsylvanians want lawmakers to do more, but the issue remains deeply partisan
Heavy rain pounded parts of Pennsylvania over the summer of 2018. Some flash floods turned deadly. Many took a toll on property, roads and bridges.
Water rushed through Chanceford Township, York County so fast, pavement floated up and away like pieces of paper, said Township Supervisor David Warner.
One man ran out to get pizza and returned to find his house destroyed.“Luckily nobody died,” Warner said. Two years later, Warner said, six bridges are still closed, causing a headache for ambulance crews and farmers moving equipment.
As devastating as the floods were, the damage was concentrated and didn’t rise to the level of a federal emergency disaster. Chanceford Township and others across the state had to rely on Small Business Administration loans and their own resources to handle the cleanup.
Scientists say climate change can’t be blamed for a single weather event. But Pennsylvania’s Climate Action Plan says in the coming decades, the state is expected to experience higher temperatures, changes in precipitation, and more frequent extreme events — like flash floods — because of climate change.
Trade Group Floats ‘Model’ Bill To Shield Oil Industry from Climate Lawsuits
From The Climate Docket: Karen Savage
A model bill written by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), ostensibly in response to the COVID-19 crisis, could have big implications for climate liability litigation.
The group, whose membership includes several oil majors as well as trade associations, lobbying groups and PR firms associated with the fossil fuel industry, produced the model legislation for state governments. It doesn’t specifically mention the ongoing pandemic, but it limits civil liability for corporations and their employees after a declared disaster or public emergency, provided the company “complied with or made a good faith effort” to comply with federal, state or local regulations.
As currently written, the model Liability Protection for Employers in a Declared Disaster or Public Emergency Act would not apply retroactively, but if passed by state legislators, could prohibit the filing of future climate-related litigation in municipalities that declare climate emergencies.
At least 98 U.S. municipalities have declared climate emergencies, including several that have already filed climate liability lawsuits against fossil fuel companies attempting to hold them accountable for their role in climate change.
A wind farm in Adrian, TX on April 2, 2019. Paul Harris—Getty Images
It's Time for American Leaders to Wake Up to the Threat of Climate Change for the Good of the Planet and Business
From Time: John R. Kasich, Kasich was the governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019.
The coronavirus pandemic has worn out its welcome on Earth. Just try and find someone who’s not sick and tired of working from the basement, wearing a mask, bumping elbows in greeting or simply living with the worry of themselves or their family getting sick. And these inconveniences pale in comparison to the pain many have suffered from sickness or the loss of loved ones.
If we could have seen the pandemic coming and had the power to prevent it, of course, we would have. If we had that power but sat on our hands as millions became sick and died, that inaction would be unforgivable.
There is another problem that we know is coming, that we have the power to address, and yet which we continually do too little—or often nothing—to tackle. I’m talking about climate change.
Left unchecked, the impact of climate change will only further alter our world as we know it—reshaping our coastlines and the cities that sit on them, accelerating species extinction, devastating agriculture and causing famine, ravaging our economy and impacting everyone’s health.
Climate Crisis
Glaciers in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan, in the High Mountain Asia region. Image credit: Université Grenoble Alpes/IRD/Patrick Wagnon.
Stunning forecast: a century of ice loss for nearly 100,000 glaciers
From NASA’s Sky Level News: Pat Brennan, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The ice in one of the world’s highest concentrations of non-polar glaciers could see significant melting before the end of the century, potentially affecting sea levels around the globe, according to a new computer model from the NASA Sea Level Science Team.
The region, known as High Mountain Asia, could see ice loss run from 29 to 67 percent, depending on the level of greenhouse gas emissions over the period modeled.
According to the study, water flow in monsoon-fed river basins, driven largely by melting glaciers, could hit its peak by 2050 – potentially reducing runoff beyond that time and forcing changes in how water is consumed, or forcing communities to find other water sources. Understanding the coming changes in such flows is critical to proper planning for hydropower, irrigation, and water supplies.
Eureka Sound on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic is seen in a NASA Operation IceBridge survey picture taken March 25, 2014. Picture taken March 25, 2014. REUTERS/NASA/Michael Studinger/Handout/File Photo
Canada's last fully intact Arctic ice shelf collapses
From Reuters: Moira Warburton
The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday.
The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.
“Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up,” the Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter when it announced the loss on Sunday.
“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.
The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometers.
This week’s Apple Fire in California is relatively small by recent standards — but that’s in part because climate change has significantly worsened wildfires in recent years.
Hurricane, Fire, Covid-19: Disasters Expose the Hard Reality of Climate Change
From The New York Times: Christopher Flavelle and Henry Fountain
Twin emergencies on two coasts this week — Hurricane Isaias and the Apple Fire — offer a preview of life in a warming world and the steady danger of overlapping disasters.
A low-grade hurricane that is slowly scraping along the East Coast. A wildfire in California that has led to evacuation orders for 8,000 people. And in both places, as well as everywhere between, a pandemic that keeps worsening.
The daily morning briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, usually a dry document full of acronyms and statistics, has begun to resemble the setup for a disaster movie. But rather than a freak occurrence, experts say that the pair of hazards bracketing the country this week offers a preview of life under climate change: a relentless grind of overlapping disasters, major or minor.
The coronavirus pandemic has further exposed flaws in the nation’s defenses, including weak construction standards in vulnerable areas, underfunded government agencies, and racial and income disparities that put some communities at greater risk. Experts argue that the country must fundamentally rethink how it prepares for similar disasters as the effects of global warming accelerate.
Agriculture and the Black Dispora
Leah Penniman owns and operates Soul Fire Farm in Albany, N.Y. Soul Fire Farm
Returning to our roots: Black Americans are redefining relationship to the land with gardening, farming
From USA Today: Anika Reed
Black people across America are reconnecting to their roots – literally.
Though large numbers of Black people have historically been excluded from land ownership, an emerging group of Black Americans are turning to gardening, farming and agriculture as a means of empowerment, self sufficiency and tapping into their ancestral ties to the soil.
My grandfather was one of those Black people with deep roots to the land. During a Father's Day FaceTime call with my dad, I discovered my paternal grandfather was a master at agriculture, skills he learned from his grandfather. I listened as my dad recounted how his father would tend to the soil in their backyard in Bakersfield, California, making do with the small plot of land at their modest family home.
My grandfather Lloyd Reed was a World War II veteran and a fire captain among the first to integrate his fire department in Bakersfield. He would use the almanac as a guide to growing green beans, peas, okra, tomatoes, watermelon, bell peppers, corn and other foods.
Soul Fire Farm assistant program manager Kiani Conley-Wilson, Left, and Z Estime build a garden bed for a community member as part of the Soul Fire in the City project. Courtesy of Soul Fire Farm
Why a new generation of Black farmers is getting into the business
From CNN: Danielle Wiener-Bronner
Visitors to the Soul Fire Farm Facebook page on Friday afternoons will find a virtual farming lesson in session.
For the past several weeks, Leah Penniman, co-director and farm manager at Soul Fire in Rensselaer County, New York, has been speaking to fellow Black farmers about their work and offering tips to viewers as part of a weekly "Ask A Sista Farmer" event.
During a recent Friday session with Jacqueline Abena Smith, a city gardener, questions poured in through the comments section. "My jalapeño plant has yet to give me peppers," one person wrote. "What might I be doing wrong?" Another asked about the best way to develop good soil in a city garden, another about how to start a micro-floral farm. Many thanked Penniman and her guest, heartily, for their help.
There were only 45,500 Black farmers — roughly 1.3% of all US farmers — in the United States in 2017 according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture. A century ago that figure was much, much higher. In 1920, the USDA counted 925,708 Black farmers, amounting to about 14% of all farmers at the time. Over the years, Black farmers have been driven off their land and faced discrimination from the Department of Agriculture.
Climate Change and It’s Roots in Colonialism and Racism
'Green' colonialism is ruining Indigenous lives in Norway
From Aljazeera: Eva Maria Fjellheim & Florian Carl
Norway continues to allow the construction of wind farms on Saami land, which threatens their herding livelihoods.
In April this year, wind energy company Eolus Vind broke ground for the Oyfjellet wind plant, a new wind power project in Saepmie, the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Saami people, which stretch across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. This led to a conflict between the Norwegian authorities, project developers and the Saami reindeer herding community Jillen Njaarke, which reveals the numerous reckless practices behind Europe's "green" energy transition.
The German owners of the Oyfjellet wind project, Aquila Capital, have already made a lucrative deal to supply the power produced by the wind plant to the nearby aluminium smelter by Alcoa. On the project's website, the developers claim to "promote growth, green industry and green employment through long-term investment in renewable energy".
Considering the effect of their actions on the Jillen Njaarke, their mission statement is not only misleading, but is also covering up the fact that the project is disrupting the sustainable way of living of the Saami community, which protects their land.
A person pleads with police officers in Mandan, North Dakota, to consider water for the health of their children and future generations. Photo by John Willis for MNI Wiconi/ Water is Life
Police Violence Meets Spiritual Resistance in the Struggle Over DAPL
From Yes! Magazine: Harold C. Frazier and John Willis
An appeals court overruled the shutdown of DAPL, pending a full environmental review. The fight against a pipeline that provoked unprecedented resistance continues.
Six years after Energy Transfer Partners began the project, its Dakota Access Pipeline for Bakken shale oil remains a fundamental affront to environmental safety and tribal sovereignty. A federal judge recently ordered a shutdown of DAPL while its permit is reconsidered, thanks to the legal challenge of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This week, an appeals court reversed that order. The pipeline remains in operation—for now.
The contest over DAPL came to the world’s attention in the autumn of 2016, when Native people and their allies created an encampment community of resistance at the path of the pipeline in North Dakota. Mni Wiconi/Water is Life: Honoring the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and Everywhere in the Ongoing Struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty is a collection of essays, interviews, art, and photos that memorialize the unprecedented phenomenon created at Standing Rock.
Getty Images
Want to Be an Environmentalist? Start With Antiracism
From Glamour Magazine: Wanjiku Gatheru
“The same throwaway culture that disposes our planet disposes of people too—especially people of color.”
At face value, the issue with plastic seems simple. Every year millions of tons of plastic debris pollute the oceans and endanger wildlife. A quick Google search on the problem will reveal thousands of heartbreaking images of turtles, whales, and other wildlife succumbing to plastic terror. Thankfully, as environmental issues have made their way into the public consciousness, so has advocacy surrounding the plastic epidemic.
This month celebrated Plastic-Free July, a global movement that envisions a world free of plastic. If your timeline looked anything like mine, this translated into feeds awash with useful tips to transition to a plastic-free, zero-waste lifestyle. It’s crucial help, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The issue with plastic is far greater than a marine debris problem. The truth is the same throwaway culture that disposes our planet disposes of people too—especially people of color.
We don’t have a plastic crisis. We have an environmental justice problem. According to Robert Bullard, the father of the environmental justice movement himself, environmental justice is the principle that all people are entitled to equal environmental protection regardless of race, color, or national origin. It states that all people deserve the right to live, work, and play in a clean environment. When it comes to plastic, this standard goes unmet.
