Month: November 2020

Study: E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance

The New York Times discusses how E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance.

President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to complete one of its last regulatory priorities, aiming to obstruct the creation of air- and water-pollution controls far into the future, when a senior career scientist moved to hobble it.

Thomas Sinks directed the E.P.A.’s science advisory office and later managed the agency’s rules and data around research that involved people. Before his retirement in September, he decided to issue a blistering official opinion that the pending rule — which would require the agency to ignore or downgrade any medical research that does not expose its raw data — will compromise American public health.

E.P.A. career employees this month also quietly emailed out the results of a new study concluding that the owners of half a million diesel pickup trucks had illegally removed their emissions control technology, leading to huge increases in air pollution. And some senior E.P.A. staff members have engaged in back-channel conversations with the president-elect’s transition team as they waited for Mr. Trump to formally approve the official start of the presidential transition, two agency employees acknowledged.

Report: Pollinator-Friendly Solar Could be a Win-Win for Climate and Landowners, but Greenwashing is a Worry

Inside Climate News discusses Pollinator-Friendly Solar Could be a Win-Win for Climate and Landowners, but Greenwashing is a Worry. Solar developers are planting native flowers and grasses near—or even in between—solar panels, addressing the twin problems of pollinator decline and climate change.

Between a colorful array of wildflowers and the harmonious buzz of bees and butterflies circling overhead, the aesthetics alone of so called pollinator-friendly solar farms may intrigue developers—making for easy marketing.

But proponents say the incentives for incorporating native grasses and wildflowers throughout a solar plant extend far beyond flashy advertising.

Research published by Yale’s Center for Business and the Environment has found that pollinator-friendly solar can boost crop yields, increase the recharging of groundwater, reduce soil erosion and provide long-term cost savings in operations and maintenance. The research also found that by creating a cooler microclimate, perennial vegetation can increase the efficiency of solar panels, upping their energy output.

“I saw this as a potential way to smooth the path forward for increased solar development,” said Katie Siegner, an associate with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Electricity practice who co-authored the Yale report, referring to the advantages the authors described.

In Georgia, 16 Superfund Sites Are Threatened by Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change

Inside Climate News discusses In Georgia, 16 Superfund Sites Are Threatened by Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change. With climate a major issue in two Senate runoff elections, the state’s voters need look no further than coastal Brunswick for potential risks.

From a distance, the inland marsh a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Brunswick, Georgia, looks like a broad, green mat broken by silvery threads of meandering rivers and creeks.  There’s cordgrass four feet tall, and sea daisies that add a splash of starburst color.

The marsh is home to shrimp, blue crab and sea trout, and it’s the nesting site of Great Egrets. Bottlenose dolphins inhabit the nearby Turtle/Brunswick River Estuary in Glynn County.

But looks can be deceiving.

Beneath the bucolic green expanse, the water and sediment contain toxic mercury and PCBs from the now closed LCP Chemical plant, which produced chlorine gas, hydrogen gas, hydrochloric acid and other caustic chemicals from 1955 to 1994, at what has since been declared a Superfund hazardous waste site, managed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows

The Guardian discusses how More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows. UN warns about consequences of not conserving water and tackling climate crisis.

Water shortages are now affecting more than 3 billion people around the world, as the amount of fresh water available for each person has plunged by a fifth over two decades, data has shown.

About 1.5 billion people are suffering severe water scarcity or even drought, as a combination of climate breakdown, rising demand and poor management has made agriculture increasingly difficult across swathes of the globe.

The UN warned on Thursday that billions of people would face hunger and widespread chronic food shortages as a result of failures to conserve water resources, and to tackle the climate crisis.

Qu Dongyu, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said: “We must take very seriously both water scarcity (the imbalance between supply and demand for freshwater resources) and water shortages (reflected in inadequate rainfall patterns) for they are now the reality we all live with … Water shortages and scarcity in agriculture must be addressed immediately and boldly.”

All Nonessential PFAS Should Be Phased Out, Scientists Advise

Bloomberg Law discusses All Nonessential PFAS Should Be Phased Out, Scientists Advise.

A huge group of chemicals found in everything from food packaging to medical devices is so troublesome that only essential uses should be allowed, a group of U.S. and European scientists said Tuesday.

Segments within virtually all of the chemicals—called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS—resist breakdown by sunlight, weather, and microbes, nine scientists wrote in an article published Tuesday in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts.

Trump EPA removes tool states use to protect farmworkers, environment

Investigate Midwest discusses Trump EPA removes tool states use to protect farmworkers, environment.

The Trump Administration took a step on Friday to severely weaken state regulation of pesticides, taking away a tool that state regulatory officials say helps protect farmworkers and the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced it would no longer allow state pesticide regulators to use special local needs (SLN) labels under Section 24(c) of the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the nation’s top law regulating pesticides, to restrict how pesticides are sprayed.

For decades, states have used these labels to restrict how pesticides are sprayed in order to meet local conditions, including to limit spraying of pesticides to certain times of year or weather conditions or adding training requirements.

Study: When Autumn Leaves Begin to Fall: As the Climate Warms, Leaves on Some Trees are Dying Earlier

Inside Climate News discusses When Autumn Leaves Begin to Fall: As the Climate Warms, Leaves on Some Trees are Dying Earlier. The finding counters scientists’ previous assumptions and indicates a reduction in the amount of carbon deciduous forests can remove from the atmosphere.

When the last shimmering autumn leaves drift to the ground, it doesn’t just mark a seasonal change. It’s also a turning point in the global carbon cycle, as forests and other plants start to emit carbon dioxide instead of soaking it up.

New research shows that, as the planet warms, deciduous trees in temperate European forests are losing their leaves earlier, and that could reduce the amount of CO2 forests will remove from the atmosphere in the decades ahead.

“Against previous expectations, leaves are likely to fall earlier in the autumn,” said Constantin Zohner, a climate biologist with the Crowther Lab at ETH Zürich who was a co-author of the new study on leaf senescence, published in the journal Science on Thursday.

MINNESOTA TELLS PIPELINE COMPANY NOT TO RUN “COUNTERINSURGENCY” AGAINST PROTESTERS

The Intercept discusses MINNESOTA TELLS PIPELINE COMPANY NOT TO RUN “COUNTERINSURGENCY” AGAINST PROTESTERS. The state approved Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline plans with a warning — but opponents are still expecting a crackdown.

THE PIPELINE COMPANY Enbridge is poised to begin construction of its controversial Line 3 in northern Minnesota at the end of the month, after state agencies green-lit key permits in mid-November and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers followed with its own approval this week. The plan has the potential to draw together thousands of temporary workers from across the U.S. and trigger a mass protest movement in a state that currently has one of the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the nation.

Project opponents are anticipating severe police and private security responses to protests, despite an attempt by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to formally bar Enbridge from “engaging in counterinsurgency tactics or misinformation campaigns designed to interfere with the public’s legal exercise of constitutional rights.” The language, part of a series of preconditions put forth by the Public Utilities Commission in advance of the project’s approval, is a direct response to concerns that Enbridge Line 3 opponents will see a security crackdown as sweeping as the one near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016, during protests against the Dakota Access pipeline.

Environmental groups fight proposed Eastern Shore pipeline

The Washington Post discusses how Environmental groups fight proposed Eastern Shore pipeline.

As a natural gas pipeline proposed for Maryland’s Eastern Shore continues to move through the state’s regulatory approval process, environmental activists promised to continue their fight to stop a line they say would encourage more fracking and harm communities.

The energy firm Chesapeake Utilities Co. wants to extend a natural gas pipeline from Delaware through Wicomico County and into Somerset County.

The $34 million project would add seven miles of new gas pipeline in those counties. The project received a key approval last week when the state Department of the Environment signed off on its tidal wetlands licenses.

Scientists urge federal government to ramp up conservation efforts in eastern Arctic

CBC discusses why Scientists urge federal government to ramp up conservation efforts in eastern Arctic. Scientists say the collapse of the Milne Ice Shelf highlights the needs for more conservation in the area.

A team of Canadian scientists is urging the federal government to step up its conservation efforts in the eastern Arctic to try and save some of the last remaining year-round sea ice and the undiscovered organisms that live within it.

In a new article, Witnessing Ice Habitat Collapse in the Canadian Arctic, released Thursday in the journal Science, Carleton University geologist Derek Mueller and biologist Warwick Vincent of Laval University highlight the July 2020 collapse of the Milne Ice Shelf, the last known intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic.

Over a two day period, the 4,000 year-old Milne Shelf broke apart, sending 43 per cent of its mass adrift into the Arctic Ocean as smaller ice islands.

The Milne Shelf is located within the Tuvaijuittuq marine protected area, which, perhaps ironically, translates to “the place where the ice never melts” in Inuktitut. It’s home to the oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.