Articles include: Greens: Divided on ‘clean’ energy? Or closer than they appear?; Check these pieces on the diseases of summer; Tropical Cyclone Tauktae is fifth-strongest cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea; What is a ‘just transition,’ and why do we need one?; California’s volunteer ‘Climate Action Corps’ helps fight climate change; Increases in extreme precipitation cost the U.S. $73 billion over three decades; Bladeless wind turbine generates electricity by vibrating with air movements; The moral imperative behind the ‘Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest’;
Renovations put Seattle hockey arena closer to its goal of zero carbon emissions.
Category: Health
Fracking causes a variety of health issues for pregnant women, children, seniors, and people living and working near any of the well sites, transmission lines, compressor stations, pipelines, and places where the gas is stored or burned.
Yale Climate Connection, May 14, 2021
Articles include: Silent calamity: The health impacts of wildfire smoke; White House adviser and environmental justice advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers; Climate change increases renters’ risks; Why are there so many Atlantic named storms? Five possible explanations; Heavier downpours strain septic systems in some rural areas; Devastating disease in dolphins linked to extreme downpours, researcher says; Santa Fe women built homemade air purifiers to help protect people from wildfire smoke; Hundreds of coastal airports at risk from flooding, sea-level rise, study finds; Historic Portsmouth Village under threat from hurricanes and rising seas.
Study: Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year
Washington Post: Air pollution from farms leads to 17,900 U.S. deaths per year, study finds. A first-of-its-kind study shows that lung-irritating particles from fertilizer, feed lots and manure cause thousands of premature deaths — even more than coal power plants. But using more sustainable farming practices and eating less meat could save lives.
Now, a first-of-its-kind study shows that air pollution from Duplin County farms is linked to roughly 98 premature deaths per year, 89 of which are linked to emissions directly caused by hogs. Those losses are among more than 17,000 annual deaths attributable to pollution from farms across the United States, according to research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Study: NYTimes Climate Fwd June 2, 2021
This Could Be the Start of a Rural Anti-Fracking Coalition
New Republic: This Could Be the Start of a Rural Anti-Fracking Coalition. Landowners who lease their land to gas companies aren’t always pleased with the results.
When I first met George Hagemeyer in 2013, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation was in the process of drilling six natural gas wells in his backyard. America is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend almost limitlessly beneath the surface, and George had leased his subsurface estate in the hopes of striking it rich in the fracking lottery. As a 150-foot-tall rig pounded segments of steel pipe into the earth, I asked George if he thought that anyone else should have any say over his decision to lease his mineral estate. The gas wells, after all, could degrade local air quality and harm his neighbors’ drinking water, and they were contributing to global warming. “Nope,” George responded. “It’s my land. I’ll do as I damn well please.”
George, like many other residents of Trout Run, Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian foothills, resides on a farm his father once owned. Locals with roads bearing their ancestors’ surnames can feel a sense of entitlement over their domain, and resentment toward government bureaucracies and environmentalists conspiring to regulate away their livelihoods and freedom to dispose of their land as they see fit. Leasing the land to the petroleum industry, in George’s view, is an affirmation of his sovereignty over his estate. It’s more than a little ironic that, a few years on from his decision to invite a petroleum company into his backyard, George’s complaints about the industry now echo those of Native American activists who’ve had pipelines foisted on them without so much as a by-your-leave.
DeSmogBlog, May 8, 2021
Articles include: Oregon Utility Using Greenwashing and ‘Renewable Natural Gas’ To Push Back on Potential Gas Bans; New Government Report Highlights Federal Failures to Oversee Offshore Drilling [report is here]; New Lawsuit Challenges ‘Fast-Track’ Permits Used for Oil and Gas Pipelines Nationwide; Over a Half-million Americans Live Near Oil Refineries With High Levels of a Cancer-causing Air Pollutant, Report Finds [report is here]; Ugandan Farmers Whose Land Will Soon Become a Crude Oil Pipeline Pathway Lose Years of Livelihood; Climate Disinformation Database: Energy4US
Studies: NY Times Climate FWD: May 5, 2021
Yale Climate Connections, April 30, 2021
Articles include: Major parties’ climate programs are miles apart; With seas rising, stalled research budgets must also rise; Cities’ notable efforts on climate change; Citrus farming and geothermal energy; Sea-level rise could submerge fiber optic cables, a key component of internet infrastructure; Air pollution from fossil fuels caused 8.7 million premature deaths in 2018, study finds [No study link]; Four electric cargo cycles deliver packages in Miami.
Study: Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color
Washington Post: Deadly air pollutant ‘disproportionately and systematically’ harms Americans of color, study finds. Black, Latino and Asian Americans face higher levels of exposure to fine particulate matter from traffic, construction and other sources.
Nearly every source of the nation’s most pervasive and deadly air pollutant disproportionately affects Americans of color, regardless of their state or income level, according to a study published Wednesday. The analysis of fine-particle matter, which includes soot, shows how decisions made decades ago about where to build highways and industrial plants continue to harm the health of Black, Latino and Asian Americans today.
The findings of researchers from five universities, published in the online journal Science Advances, provide the most detailed evidence to date of how Americans of color have not reaped the same benefits as White Americans, even though the country has made major strides in curbing pollution from cars, trucks, factories and other sources.
Study: Natural Gas Is Now More Deadly Than Coal in 19 States
Gizmodo: Natural Gas Is Now More Deadly Than Coal in 19 States. Unhealthy air pollution generally brings to mind coal-fired plants spewing black soot from a smokestack. But that image may quickly be becoming outdated. A study published on Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters found that using natural gas and biomass in sources like buildings and industrial boilers actually caused more deaths in 19 states as a result of air pollution than burning coal.