Weekly Ingest Newsletter: Twelfth 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 Climate Crisis
The five largest fires in California history have occurred since 2003, a sign that climate change is making extreme wildfires more frequent. Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
Everything Is Unprecedented. Welcome To Your Hotter Earth
From NPR: Rebecca Hersher, Nathan Rott and Lauren Sommer
The upshot of climate change is that everyone alive is destined to experience unprecedented disasters. The most powerful hurricanes, the most intense wildfires, the most prolonged heat waves and the most frequent outbreaks of new diseases are all in our future. Records will be broken, again and again.
But the predicted destruction is still shocking when it unfolds at the same time.
This week, Americans are living through concurrent disasters. In California, more than 200,000 people were under evacuation orders because of wildfires, and millions are breathing smoky air. On the Gulf Coast, people weathered a tropical storm at the beginning of the week. Two days later, about half a million were ordered to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Laura. We're six months into a global pandemic, and the Earth is on track to have one of its hottest years on record.
Climate scientist Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii says if our collective future were a movie, this week would be the trailer.
"There is not a single ending that is good," he says. "There's not going to be a happy ending to this movie."
Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
How climate change feeds off itself and gets even worse
From Axios: Amy Harder
Climate change is like a snowball effect, except, well, hot.
Why it matters: Like a snowball begins small and grows larger by building upon itself, numerous feedback loops embedded in our atmosphere and society are exacerbating climate change.
Driving the news: Scientists are well acquainted with feedback loops, but the often wonky topic doesn’t break through into the mainstream despite its importance to how much the world warms and how much we respond to that warming.
As we soak up the last of these hot summer days, and extreme weather hits parts of the country, today seems a fitting time to break this down for those of us without a Ph.D.
Here are seven feedback loops in science and beyond.
Racism and Climate Change
Source: Milwaukee Indpendent
Fossil fuels and racism: How climate change continues to devastate Americans of color
From The Milwaukee Independent and The Guardian
We have turned a blind eye to a public health time bomb in already vulnerable communities.
“I Can’t Breathe” is echoing across the planet. Filled with anguish and pain, these haunting words are spotlighting the systemic racism that has infected unjust policing practices, putting black and brown communities in its crosshairs. As police take lives with chokeholds and asphyxiate others with knees on their necks, we are reminded that racism is literally killing our people and planet.
Communities of color have appealed for decades to politicians, policymakers and environmental organizations that they “can’t breathe,” only to be ignored. The simple fact is that Black, Brown, Indigenous and lower-wealth communities have disproportionately been the dumping grounds for our country’s deadliest toxic pollutants. We have instituted economic and environmental apartheid through redlining, restrictive covenants and unfair zoning practices.
These continuing actions have created sacrifice zones, filled with smelters, coal-fired power plants, incinerators, petrochemical facilities and a host of other polluters. Along with the deadly co-pollutants being pumped into the lungs of local residents every day, sacrifice zones become killing fields.
These are the areas of the unseen and unheard, where bodies are riddled with chronic medical conditions such as cancers, liver, kidney, heart and lung diseases, while also being the most medically underserved. These are also the areas where viruses with exotic names like COVID-19, West Nile and dengue come to feed.
Sparkle Veronica Taylor’s children, Apollo, left, and his brother Ax at the Gilpin Court complex where they live. Brian Palmer/NY Times
How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering
From The New York Times: Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich
RICHMOND, Va.— In the 1930s, federal officials redlined these neighborhoods in Richmond, Va., marking them as risky investments because residents were Black. Today, they are some of the hottest parts of town in the summer, with few trees and an abundance of heat-trapping pavement. White neighborhoods that weren’t redlined tend to be much cooler today — a pattern that repeats nationwide.
On a hot summer’s day, the neighborhood of Gilpin quickly becomes one of the most sweltering parts of Richmond.
There are few trees along the sidewalks to shield people from the sun’s relentless glare. More than 2,000 residents, mostly Black, live in low-income public housing that lacks central air conditioning. Many front yards are paved with concrete, which absorbs and traps heat. The ZIP code has among the highest rates of heat-related ambulance calls in the city.
There are places like Gilpin all across the United States. In cities like Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Portland and New York, neighborhoods that are poorer and have more residents of color can be 5 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit hotter in summer than wealthier, whiter parts of the same city.
And there’s growing evidence that this is no coincidence. In the 20th century, local and federal officials, usually white, enacted policies that reinforced racial segregation in cities and diverted investment away from minority neighborhoods in ways that created large disparities in the urban heat environment.
The consequences are being felt today.
The Flint Water Plant tower in Flint, Michigan. Photographer: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
INSIGHT: Changing the Climate for Environmental Racism
From Bloomberg Law: Kevin McKie
Environmental toxic exposure suffered in many minority neighborhoods is part of the systemic racism evident in society, and environmental justice belongs near the top of discussions to right those wrongs, writes Kevin McKie, an attorney at the Environmental Litigation Group P.C. Communities can take several steps, including passing legislation requiring industries to comply with stricter environmental regulations or pay additional fines, requiring that stringent environmental impact studies be performed before construction of new plants or the installation of toxic emission monitoring stations, and offering free medical monitoring.
The environment and racism are two prominent and important topics in our country today. Both have far-reaching impacts, but their inherent connection is frequently overlooked. The combined impact is so deeply rooted in everyday life that even advocates often miss the connection.
The historic environmental toxic exposure suffered in many minority neighborhoods is part of the systemic racism evident in several aspects of our society and environmental justice belongs near the top of discussions to right those wrongs.
Poor Communities Are Preferred Location for Industrial Sites
Corporations have long sought out impoverished communities as a preferred location to build industrial sites. This is often the path of least resistance for chemical manufacturers. These areas typically have cheap land and labor, weak or easily influenced environmental regulations, and local residents have little power over any of it. In some areas, the people enforcing the environmental regulations are the same as or closely tied to the companies emitting pollution. In the past, some companies even conducted their operations in namesake towns (e.g. Monsanto, Ill.), while downplaying the health effects and environmental impacts of historic pollution on the surrounding low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods. In addition, many of their workers live or lived in the residential areas around the plant.
Environmental racism is how particular communities, predominantly African-American ones, are disproportionately affected by environmental risk factors. This is seldom discussed but it is extensive and profoundly impactful. After decades of segregation, black communities were frequently relegated to less desirable geographical areas and were financially unable to leave. The lack of outside opportunities and the additional challenges faced when trying to get out and prosper in predominately white areas also provided a certain comfort and protection for many to stay. Even if there is awareness of a problem, these communities often lack the resources to change policy and fight back.
A dump in Nakuru, Kenya. A trade group is pushing United States trade negotiators to demand a reversal of the country’s strict limits on plastics. Credit: Khadija M. Farah for The New York Times
Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic.
From The New York Times: Hiroko Tabuchi, Michael Corkery, and Carlos Mureithi
Faced with plunging profits and a climate crisis that threatens fossil fuels, the industry is demanding a trade deal that weakens Kenya’s rules on plastics and on imports of American trash.
Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste.
The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa.
According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa’s biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics — including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit.
Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya’s borders. “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa through this trade agreement,” Ed Brzytwa, the director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council, wrote in an April 28 letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
The United States and Kenya are in the midst of trade negotiations and the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has made clear he is eager to strike a deal. But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by the petroleum companies has spread concern among environmental groups in Kenya and beyond that have been working to reduce both plastic use and waste.
Local Environmental News
The solar array is about a quarter of a mile in length, making it the largest single sloped solar array in the U.S. Kiley Koscinski / WESA
The largest solar array of its kind in the U.S. now sits atop a former Pittsburgh steel mill
From Pennsylvania State Impact: Kiley Koscinski of 90.5 WESA
A 133,000-square-foot solar array is now functional at Hazelwood Green’s Mill 19. It’s a project that marries the story of Pittsburgh’s past with its future: bridge workers applied 4,784 solar panels to the frame of a former steel mill now home to robotics nonprofits and one of the several autonomous vehicle developers which call the city home.
Tim Sippey, the site foreman, used to pick his father up from a late shift at Mill 19 when he was growing up.
“I remember what the inside of that mill looked like when I was a little kid,” he said. Sippey’s father worked at the former LTV Coke Works site for 32 years.
He said the memories came flooding back when arrived for his first day at the job site.
“There’s a certain smell to the mill,” he said. “Even when they were digging down there, the dirt still smelled that way.” Sippey said he wore his father’s hard hat to work when crews began fitting and clamping panels into place in September.
Philadelphia's downtown skyline is visible above the Eastwick tree line. (Eastwick Friends & Neighbors Coalition)
Philadelphia needs to invest in green space to combat climate change, support communities
From WHYY/Plan Philly: Katherine Gilmore Richardson and Lena Smith
The impacts of Tropical Storm Isaias were felt all across Philadelphia in early August.
The Schuylkill River saw one of the highest surges on record and residents of Eastwick and Manayunk who were forced to evacuate are still struggling to recover. Rivers, streams and creeks across the city burst with flooding and filled with debris, stormwater, and wastewater pollution from the city’s aging combined sewer system.
In the midst of multiple intersecting crises of a global pandemic, economic recession, structural racial inequality, and gun violence, Philadelphia is faced with another crisis: climate change. As City Council addresses our post-COVID-19 reality, the impacts of climate change and its disproportionate adverse effects on disadvantaged communities must be central.
The Philadelphia Water Department is currently implementing the city’s Green City, Clean Waters plan to reduce the amount of overflow events such as the one after Isaias. The plan relies on an innovative nature-based approach known as “green stormwater infrastructure,” like the rain gardens and tree trenches popping up across the city, including in Strawberry Mansion. While Green City, Clean Waters is not a flood mitigation plan, GSI can play an important role in helping us build a climate-resilient city.
Source: Grid Magazine
From the mountains of trash piled high in the city, there emerges a superhero for our time
From Grid: Ogbonna Hagins
Origin Story
Some people call me a "scrapper.” Some people call me a "garbage picker.” I call myself “Philly Green Man, Environmental Superhero.”
It’s hard to say exactly where it began. I had what people would consider a respectable job, teaching architecture for nine years with some of the greatest students in Dobbins High School history. But even then I would regularly pick up an interesting piece that I would see in someone’s garbage and bring it home. I pretty much decorated my entire home with these almost-thrown-away gems.
Ogbonna Hagins is an independent recycler living in Philadelphia who collects unwanted usable footwear. Check out Philly Green Man on Facebook and Instagram.
Crews worked on Monday Jan. 21 to stabilize a new sinkhole that opened up at Lisa Drive, a suburban development in West Whiteland Township, Chester County where Sunoco operates its Mariner East pipelines. Jon Hurdle / StateImpact Pennsylvania
Sunoco asks Environmental Hearing Board to block new DEP shutdown of troubled Chester County drilling site
From Pennsylvania State Impact: Jon Hurdle
Company says prolonged pause at West Whiteland will harm public interest
Update, Aug. 26: Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr. temporarily granted Sunoco’s request that work be allowed to continue at the Shoen Road site, pending a hearing scheduled for Sept. 1. Labuskes said he may reconsider his order if “at any point Sunoco’s drilling results in new or increased environmental harm or presents issues of health and safety.”
Reported originally:
Sunoco filed a legal challenge against Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection on Monday, calling on the Environmental Hearing Board to overturn the DEP’s recent shutdown of a construction site for the controversial Mariner East pipeline project.
The company argued that the DEP was “improper” and “arbitrary” in issuing an Aug. 20 order that shut down operations of a drilling site in Chester County’s West Whiteland Township, an area where fragile limestone geology has caused repeated technical problems for the pipeline.
Sunoco said it would be irreparably harmed if it is forced to continue the shutdown, which DEP said was prompted by a “turbid groundwater discharge” at a horizontal directional drilling site at Shoen Road and Route 100 that officials have shut down twice before over the last three years because of the project’s impact on residential water wells.
Energy and Politics
The silhouettes of wind turbines at sunset on property used by EDP Renewables North America LLC’s Lost Lakes Wind Farm in Milford, Iowa, on Sept. 15, 2016. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tilting at windmills: The FBI chased imagined eco-activist enemies, documents reveal
From The Intercept: Alleen Brown
FEDERAL AND STATE law enforcement officers gathered in the Midwest in February 2019 to practice their responses to a fictional threat: wind farm sabotage. They divided into four teams and pretended to be the bad guys, environmental saboteurs targeting the large grids of turbines that turn the wind into electric power. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Omaha, Nebraska, field office and the Iowa Division of Intelligence and Fusion Center had organized the “red hat” exercise, meant to provide insight into the minds of environmental activist adversaries that didn’t exist.
Each team developed an attack plan. One proposed ramming wind turbine infrastructure with a vehicle. Another sought to plant explosives on electrical transformers. And — although U.S. environmental saboteurs tend to not use guns — two of the teams suggested using firearms to attack electrical substations from a distance. The fact that cops themselves planned the attacks may have created a “bias toward the use of firearms,” the FBI later acknowledged in a pair of reports on the exercise obtained by The Intercept. However, the federal agents also concluded that “Environmental Extremists Likely Would Use Firearms To Circumvent Perceived Electrical Infrastructure Site Security Measures.”
The exercise was not conducted due to any imminent threat — a carefully noted fact included in the December 2019 and March 2020 reports. “Neither FBI Omaha nor the Iowa DOI/FC has intelligence suggesting environmental extremists intend to attack wind farms in Iowa,” both reports repeatedly state.
Biden: "I am not banning fracking"
From CNN: Kate Sullivan
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Monday he would not ban fracking in the United States if he were elected president, refuting repeated false claims by President Donald Trump about his stance on the issue.
"I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again: I am not banning fracking. No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me," Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh.
Fracking has been a key election issue, particularly in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has a long history with the fossil fuel industry. Some former Democratic presidential candidates, like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, had called for a nationwide ban on fracking because of environmental concerns.
