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
Category: Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is one of many environmental groups working hard to stop fracking in Virginia.
Study: Monsanto Court Shenanigans, DDT, food industry
Right to Know: Some of the articles include:
- Monsanto’s owner Bayer and the lawyer involved have denied the allegations. Read the details and see the court documents at U.S. Right to Know.
- Long lasting health impacts of DDT: A story from the reported in Sierra Magazine.
- How the food industry shapes the principles of science: See the new study in Globalization and Health and read our press release for details.
Don’t Cancel John Muir. But don’t excuse him either.
The Atlantic: Don’t Cancel John Muir. But don’t excuse him either.
On the morning of July 22, 2020, the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, posted a reflection on his organization’s 128-year history. “As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country,” he wrote, “we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.”
Brune’s reexamination began with John Muir—the inveterate hiker and activist who founded the Sierra Club and was famous for his eloquent tributes to the Sierra Nevada, many of which were first published in The Atlantic. Though Muir is a renowned figure in the conservation movement, Brune wrote, he made derogatory statements about Black and Indigenous people that drew on racist stereotypes. He maintained friendships with other prominent conservationists well known for their racist beliefs. These and other long-ago words and actions, Brune argued, not only continue to alienate potential Sierra Club supporters but sustain a “dangerous idea” within the organization: “that exploring, enjoying, and protecting the outdoors can be separated from human affairs.”
The General Assembly made progress on climate in 2021, but our work here is hardly done
Virginia Mercury: The General Assembly made progress on climate in 2021, but our work here is hardly done. By Ivy Main.
Before the start of the 2021 legislative session, I highlighted three areas where Virginia needed to make significant progress to support its climate agenda: transportation electrification, improving the energy efficiency of buildings and giving consumers greater access to renewable energy.
The General Assembly delivered on one-and-a-half out of three. If we add bonus points for smaller successes, maybe we can call it a total of two. The transportation category truly outperformed expectations, but building efficiency underperformed and renewable energy access didn’t perform at all.
In the transportation sector, the General Assembly passed the Clean Car Standards requiring manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles to Virginia dealers (HB1965); approved a statewide study of transit equity (HJ542); approved (but so far has not funded) an electric vehicle rebate program (HB1979); directed the SCC to report on ways to electrify transportation (HB2282); and established a school bus electrification fund (also empty for now)(HB2118).
North Anna quake safety questioned
The Central Virginian: North Anna quake safety questioned.
As Dominion Energy pushes to extend North Anna Power Station’s lifespan for another 20 years, critics are calling for a more thorough study of how the plant can withstand a future earthquake.
Beyond Nuclear, the Sierra Club and Alliance for a Progressive Virginia are seeking a formal hearing before an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel. They say that since a third reactor at North Anna would meet a new, higher standard for withstanding an earthquake, an upgrade may also be warranted for the two existing units.
North Anna Units 1 and 2 were licensed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1978 and 1980 for 40-year terms. In 2003, the agency granted 20-year extensions to 2038 and 2040. Dominion’s current request is to continue operating at least until 2058 and 2060.
It’s Time for the US to Carry Its Fair Share on Climate Change
The Sierra Club discusses It’s Time for the US to Carry Its Fair Share on Climate Change. Domestic emissions reductions aren’t enough—the US needs to help speed the climate transition in poor countries.
The term “climate injustice” is easy to understand. When the poor and vulnerable people of New Orleans or Nicaragua are abandoned to the ravages of a climate-fueled hurricane, we know something hideous has occurred. But climate justice is not just the absence of climate injustice. It also demands the presence of real and meaningful fairness, and an extremely ambitious climate mobilization that takes this fairness just as seriously as decarbonization itself. No mobilization that tries to skip this step can possibly succeed.
Check the science and you’ll see how very late it is. Stabilizing the climate would be extraordinarily difficult under the best of circumstances, which these are decidedly not. Add the imperative of mobilizing in a fair way and the challenge can seem overwhelming. Why is fairness so decisive? The simple answer is cooperation. Absent an overall sense of fairness, justice, and equity—and the cooperation required to achieve those ideals—we haven’t got a chance of avoiding climate chaos. Bringing down greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to keep global temperatures (more or less) in check is going to be the hardest thing we’ve ever done. We can only do it together.
Lawsuit Filed Against Trump Administration For Relaxing Limits On Coal Plant Pollution
Wisconsin Public Radio discusses a Lawsuit Filed Against Trump Administration For Relaxing Limits On Coal Plant Pollution. Environmental Groups Say US EPA Weakened Obama-Era Regulations.
Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its rule that weakens Obama-era requirements to reduce pollution from wastewater of coal-fired power plants.
The waste from burning coal contains heavy metals that can contaminate surrounding waterways and pose a threat to public health.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relaxed requirements of a 2015 rule issued by the Obama administration in August that could have implications for two Wisconsin coal plants. The changes give utilities more time to reduce pollution and allow them to use cheaper pollution control technologies.
The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, comes just a day before the presidential election. Thom Cmar, an Earthjustice attorney representing those groups, said the challenge would’ve been filed regardless of politics.
Report: Minnesota groups highlight financial and environmental risks of natural gas
Energy News US discusses Minnesota groups highlight financial and environmental risks of natural gas.
A coalition of 10 environmental groups is trying to change the perception that natural gas is cheap or clean.
With a billion-dollar gas-fired power plant proposal on the horizon, a new campaign in Minnesota is attempting to shift public opinion on the fuel by highlighting its ties to fracking and potential financial risks.
The strategy: challenge the perception that gas is cheap or clean. Or natural.
Once embraced by utilities and environmentalists as a cleaner-burning and less-expensive alternative to coal, natural gas transformed the nation’s electricity system over the last decade and a half, replacing more than 100 coal plants and smoothing the path for a surge of new wind and solar capacity.
Tritsch pointed to recent research by the Rocky Mountain Institute that suggests building solar, wind and storage would cost less than new natural gas plants. Grid reliability would not suffer, either, the report concludes. If proposed gas plants were all built in the next five years they would “be uneconomic to continue operating in 2035, well ahead of the ends of their planned economic lifetime,” the institute’s report said.
A recent report from a Minnesota researcher working with the two organizations calculated that investing in clean energy instead of the two fossil gas plants could save ratepayers $600 million over the next 30 years, Tritsch said.
Report: A VISION FOR CLIMATE LEADERSHIP IN WASHINGTON, DC
The Sierra Club issued a report titled: A VISION FOR CLIMATE LEADERSHIP IN WASHINGTON, DC. Seizing the Economic, Climate, and Public Health Benefits of Electrifying WMATA’s Transit Bus Fleet.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operates the sixth-largest bus fleet in the United States, providing service to residents in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, with more than 130 million passenger trips per year. By the fall of 2019, there were 528 fully electric buses in service in the US — a 29 percent increase from 2018. WMATA currently has one electric bus and a plan to test up to 14 more starting in 2021.
Report: Is renewable natural gas a serious alternative to ‘electrify everything’?
Grist discusses whether renewable natural gas is a serious alternative to ‘electrify everything’.
While wind and solar power and electric vehicles tend to dominate the conversation around preventing catastrophic climate change, electricity and transportation aren’t the whole picture. The world also needs to act quickly to reduce emissions from other sources, like the fuels burned in buildings for heating, hot water, and cooking. In colder climates where people rely on fossil fuel heating to survive frigid winters, the carbon footprint of those systems is especially large.
There are two ways to decarbonize buildings. One is to replace all the appliances that run on natural gas or other fossil fuels with electric appliances — no small task in many existing buildings. The other is to replace the fossil fuels delivered to buildings to power those appliances with “renewable” fuels.
There’s ongoing disagreement about which of these options should prevail, or whether there’s room for both. Gas utilities, eager to remain in business, assert that renewable natural gas (RNG) has a future in buildings. A new report out on Wednesday by Earthjustice and the Sierra Club criticizes the industry’s aggressive marketing of RNG for buildings, arguing that it’s too expensive, there’s not enough of it, and it does not solve the health and safety risks of pipelines carrying methane or burning gas indoors.