Articles include: lumber shortage; disabilities and natural disasters; California wildfire season; Study: cut methane emissions quickly; flooding in Michigan; climate vote in Senate; Study: poor communities affected by climate change; low carbon fuel standard; money to modernize grid; Fukushima; Ford making electric vehicles; Study: sea level rise and budgets.
Month: April 2021
Report: Halting the Vast Release of Methane Is Critical for Climate, U.N. Says
New York Times: Halting the Vast Release of Methane Is Critical for Climate, U.N. Says. A major United Nations report will declare that slashing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, is far more vital than previously thought. [Report not yet released.]
A landmark United Nations report is expected to declare that reducing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, will need to play a far more vital role in warding off the worst effects of climate change.
The global methane assessment, compiled by an international team of scientists, reflects a growing recognition that the world needs to start reining in planet-warming emissions more rapidly, and that abating methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, will be critical in the short term.
The Daily Climate, April 27, 2021
Articles include: California drought; underreporting GHGs; weather station in the Andes; 26,000 snakes; tools: graphics and climate change; deforesting Brazil; EPA and California air standards; pandemic and snow melt in SE Asia.
The Daily Climate, April 26, 2021
Articles include: wood pellet loophole in Paris Accord; bike licensing and justice; hydrogen and the grid; California oil spillers and the law; jobs; US and China and Clean technology; electric trucks; Canada’s melting permafrost; Report: halting methane emissions.
Yale Climate Connection, April 27, 2021
Articles include: Report: All new cars and trucks in U.S. could be electric by 2035; How to prepare your coastal property for sea-level rise and weather extremes; Wildfires can contaminate outdoor marijuana crops; tool: Earth is getting a digital twin; How New York’s Javits Center slashed energy consumption by 26%.
Paraquat Exposure Alert: Paraquat Linked to Parkinson’s Disease—Agricultural Workers Could Be Entitled to Compensation
The National Law Review: Paraquat Exposure Alert: Paraquat Linked to Parkinson’s Disease—Agricultural Workers Could Be Entitled to Compensation.
Agricultural workers who were exposed to the herbicide paraquat and have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease may have a claim for financial compensation.
With lawsuits against paraquat manufacturers already filed in multiple states, attorneys are now investigating paraquat lawsuit cases at no charge.
A paraquat toxic exposure lawsuit may be your only chance to receive the compensation you need to cover the costs of treating Parkinson’s disease.
What You Need to Know About Paraquat and Parkinson’s Disease
Dozens of countries around the world have banned the use of paraquat, a weed killer so toxic that ingesting a single sip can be deadly, according to The New York Times.
In the United States, paraquat use isn’t just legal—it’s on the rise. The total amount of paraquat usage in the U.S. doubled between 2006 and 2016, the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project reported.
WV congressional delegation not on same page on legislation targeting PFAS
Charleston Gazette-Mail: WV congressional delegation not on same page on legislation targeting PFAS.
hey’re in our clothes, our food and our blood. We made them virtually indestructible, but there’s evidence that they can destroy us.
They’re per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), industrial chemicals whose extensive contamination and deleterious health effects have left a toxic legacy in West Virginia.
But West Virginia’s congressional delegation isn’t on the same page when it comes to recently reintroduced federal legislation designed to protect Americans from PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that don’t break down in the human body and the environment and can be found in food, household products and drinking water.
Reps. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Fred Upton, R-Mich., last week announced legislation that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a national drinking water standard for two of the most extensively found PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).
Report: As a hotter, drier climate grips the Colorado River, water risks grow across the Southwest
Arizona Central: As a hotter, drier climate grips the Colorado River, water risks grow across the Southwest. The water level of Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, has dropped more than 130 feet since the beginning of 2000, when the lake’s surface lapped at the spillway gates on Hoover Dam.
Twenty-one years later, with the Colorado River consistently yielding less water as the climate has grown warmer and drier, the reservoir near Las Vegas sits at just 39% of capacity. And it’s approaching the threshold of a shortage for the first time since it was filled in the 1930s.
The latest projections from the federal government show the reservoir will soon fall 7 more feet to cross the trigger point for a shortage in 2022, forcing the largest mandatory water cutbacks yet in Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.
Groups ask Virginia environmental officials to reopen Chickahominy Power permit
Virginia Mercury: Groups ask Virginia environmental officials to reopen Chickahominy Power permit.
Three groups are asking Virginia to reopen an air permit issued to Chickahominy Power in 2019 for a proposed natural gas plant in Charles City County, contending that the state’s analysis of the facility’s environmental justice impacts “contains many of the same defects” of a state air permit struck down by a federal court in January 2020.
“The similarities are just so shocking,” said Taylor Lilley, an attorney with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which penned the letter along with the Southern Environmental Law Center and Concerned Citizens of Charles City County. “It seems the process was just repeated. And that process was found to be faulty.”
Report: The US power grid is already halfway to carbon neutrality, and it’s saving lives
Popular Science: The US power grid is already halfway to carbon neutrality, and it’s saving lives. We’re seeing fewer pollution-related deaths a year. Renewable energy’s rapid growth is accelerating a national shift to a carbon-free electric power system.
So far 17 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have adopted laws or executive orders setting goals for reaching 100-percent clean electricity by 2050 or sooner. And 46 US utilities have pledged to go carbon-free. Now the Biden administration and some members of Congress are proposing to decarbonize the power sector by 2035.
While this much change in 15 years seems ambitious, our new report, “Halfway to Zero,” looks back at the past 15 and finds that power sector emissions are half of what they were projected to be.
We analyzed the “business as usual” projection in the 2005 Annual Energy Outlook published by the Energy Information Administration, the US government’s official agency for data collection and analysis. It projected that annual carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector would rise from 2,400 million to 3,000 million metric tons from 2005 to 2020.