PARKERSBURG — Using less plastic is better for the envvironment and people’s health, according to a retired research chemist speaking at the July 20 meeting of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Randi Pokladnik, a retired research chemist who also has a doctorate in environmental studies, spoke as part of Climate Action’s Break Free From Plastic – Plastic-Free July campaign. Pokladnik’s talk included a description of the life cycle of plastic, starting with fracking for oil and natural gas and ending as trash, generating heat-trapping gases at every stage of the life cycle.
In Pokladnik’s view, using less plastic would lead to a healthier environment for humans.
She spoke about toxic additives to the “basic cookie recipe” for plastic used to create the properties of hardness, flexibility and moisture resistance in the end product. Bisphenol A and phthalates are found in can liners and artificial fragrances and may cause endocrine disruptions or cancer, Pokladnik said.
Persistent organic pollutants found in pesticides and flame retardants may cause neurological damage, the known carcinogens styrene and benzene are present in many food containers and the single-use disposable plastics discarded into the environment and exposed to sunlight degrade into methane and ethane that is released into the atmosphere, she said.
“In some situations, using plastic is the right choice,” Pokladnik said.
However, even in those circumstances, getting plastic recycled is a problem, according to Pokladnik. According to Earthday.org, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled (15% is collected for recycling but 40% of that is disposed of as residues). Pokladnik says we will never be able to recycle our way out of plastic pollution. Even “advanced” recycling ideas like pyrolysis or chemical recycling are not proven to be sustainable, since the processes consume more energy than they produce, the release from Climate Action said.
Instead, Podladnik recommends “turning off the faucet” by stopping production of plastics intended for single use.
“We’re addicted to convenience,” she said. “Some of us remember a world without those convenience plastics, and we got along just fine.”
Alternatives to single-use disposables like plastic water bottles, shopping bags, cups, straws, cutlery, take-away containers and food storage bags and wraps would be easy items for consumers to find, she said. Studies show that 40% of the plastics market could be eliminated today by getting rid of single-use, disposable plastics, Climate Action said.
At 7 p.m. Thursday, writer and researcher Callie Lyons will present “Plastics, PFAS, and You: Forever Chemicals in the MOV” in the social hall of the First Unitarian Univeralist Society of Marietta, 232 Third St., Marietta. The presentation also will be offered over Zoom, registration required. Register by email to “mailto:adesign4199@gmail.com”>adesign4199@gmail.com, with “Callie Lyons 7-27-23″ in the subject line and the Zoom link will be emailed.
Have you noticed hazy skies or the news about the Canadian wildfires, which are causing air quality concerns here in the Mid-Ohio Valley. Wildfires are intensifying and can be tied to 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers according to the recent publication “Quantifying the contribution of major carbon producers to increases in vapor pressure deficit and burned area in western U.S. and southwestern Canadian forests” (https://tinyurl.com/589vt2cb) The article focuses on the vapour-pressure deficit (VPD) or the amount of water the air is holding vs how much it could hold.
The VPD is a metric for understanding wildfires. Wildfires we may be thinking about may be hundreds of miles away, but these are impacting our lives and health by decreasing our air quality in Ohio and West Virginia and we’ve contributed to their intensity through fossil fuels.
Now wildfires happen nearby, it was only the end of 2022 when the Wayne National Forest’s 1,300 acres burned due to a wildfire. Understanding that wildfire intensity is a result of human behavior is important to understanding what steps we need to take to reduce our impact on the climate and our forests. Not only would reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere contributed by humans, but working to ensure we have clean water and combat invasive species. (More: https://tinyurl.com/2p9cwfds).
We are living in a time where we experience the effects of massive wildfires far and near, we should have tools to help with early detection and make informed decisions for our health. A starting point for our health is EPA AirNow (https://tinyurl.com/w4m3sfvm), but we can help improve the data with local sensors and identify point sources of air quality issues. Many of us may turn to our favorite weather station, website, or app to find out the air quality or the weather forecast. These are good for a rough idea, but with more local data it would change what kind of predictions, decisions, and models we can make.
Many primary monitoring stations may be miles away from your house or location of interest, which means we make the best prediction based on what we know and data. Often the sensors for the data to help make these predictions are based at airports, hospitals, and other sites with regulatory monitoring requirements. We rely on modeling and predictions based on math and statistical estimations to fill in the areas between monitoring stations along with known data about the environment (wind, sun, etc).
The site and app Weather Underground has been filling in their models with low cost sensors to get more local data readings. For instance with personal weather stations, rain, temp, humidity, wind speed and direction are some of the captured data points which can be more local and measured. More important to the current wildfire situation are the particulate sensors to understand the air quality for our breathing. With a rise in popularity of low cost sensors (very relative), PurpleAir sensors can be integrated with WUnderground.
There are only a few PurpleAir sensors in Washington and Wood County, none in Parkersburg and one in Marietta. PurpleAir sensors are not the only low cost air quality sensors out there, but they are the largest deployed globally, studied by the US EPA and contribute to EPA studies/services. The newer Flex model includes an ozone sensor as well as particulate counts. If you enjoy being outdoors, maybe consider sponsoring a low cost sensor for the community at your favorite outdoor location and help build the sensor network for the Mid-Ohio Valley. Detect smoke and fires, high pollution events, share data for better science models and analysis.
“To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.” — John Muir, naturalist
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Alaska is on the front lines of the climate crisis.
For many people climate change is still an abstract concept. They might experience hotter summers and strange weather patterns, but much of their lives are relatively unchanged. For others, like the Indigenous communities in northwestern Alaska, life is drastically different. The community’s traditional way of life and subsistence living is being threatened by rapidly melting sea ice coverage and a reduced hunting season.
Alaska is larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. It is vast, remote, and still largely wild, with a land area of more than half a million square miles, and the longest coastline of any state. It is home to an estimated 100,000 glaciers. Its natural features include mountains, tundra, glaciers, lakes, and seas. But as Alaska’s climate is changing, the effects are widespread and sometimes dangerous, even beyond the state’s own borders.
Over the past 60 years, Alaska has actually warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Average annual temperatures have increased by 3 degrees Fahrenheit and average winter temperatures by 6 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, Arctic sea-ice is shrinking, glaciers are retreating, the shores are eroding, and the permafrost that underlays much of the state is melting. Record-breaking temperatures, rapidly melting ice, and huge wildfires are all impacting this vast, wondrous state. This reality threatens the security of the state and the entire country.
Rising temperatures may provide some benefits in Alaska, such as a longer growing season for agricultural crops, increased tourism, and access to natural resources that are currently inaccessible due to ice cover, like offshore oil. However, climate change also has adverse effects on many ecosystems and species, and is creating new hardships for Native Alaskans.
Alaska is home to some of the largest glaciers and fastest loss of glacier ice on Earth. Thawing ice, more severe storms, and wildfires are already risking public health, food and water security, and even spirituality and cultural traditions tied to the land. High temperatures are melting snow covers and glaciers. Permafrost is thawing and collapsing. Sea ice is disappearing.
Permafrost is frozen ground that is located a few feet below the soil surface in extremely cold regions. Eighty percent of Alaska’s surface lies atop permafrost. Permafrost temperatures in Alaska are rising. Thaw is already occurring in interior and southern Alaska, and will likely continue. Uneven sinking of the ground in response to permafrost thaw is predicted to add as much as $6 billion to the costs of buildings, pipelines, roads, and other infrastructure over the next 20 years.
The distribution, quality, thickness, and timing of ice on the ocean, lakes, and rivers drive nearly every aspect of life on Alaska’s Arctic coasts, from boating to whaling and seal hunting to the safety of fishing and foraging.
Climate change creates the perfect conditions for extreme wildfire seasons. Warm weather is arriving sooner and sooner in Alaska, increasingly breaking heat records. Ice and snow are melting earlier in the season, too, leaving plant life to dry out and act as tinder for bigger, more destructive fires. Wildfires in Alaska are expected to get more frequent and severe, and the amount of land burned is expected to double by the middle of this century — and then triple by the end of it.
Compounding the problems caused by climate shifts, historical policies of land allotment have forced some Alaska Native communities into areas that are extremely vulnerable to climate change, such as low-lying coastal deltas at risk of storm surges and floods. The cumulative effects of inadequate infrastructure, loss of access to traditional foods, food insecurity, threat of community relocation, impacts to water quality and quantity . . . have challenged the adaptive capacity of many Alaska Natives, particularly in rural areas.
Alaska is built for seasonal cold. Climate change is disruptive to its culture, modern housing, transportation in the vast roadless areas of the state, hunting and fishing, agriculture, and traditional food storage methods. The state’s extraordinary warmth of recent years brings stress, risk, and hardship to many…even beyond Alaska’s borders.
The hottest days on Earth dating back approximately 125,000 years have all occurred in the recent week between July 4 and July 10, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and instrument-based global temperature readings, tree rings analyses and ice core samples taken globally.
Data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc., as of June 30, and reported by Axios, shows that 3,063 wildfires have burned approximately 20 million acres across Canada. The 10-year average for Canadian wildfire seasons around this time is 2,452 fires burning 1.3 million acres. July tends to be the most active month and wildfire season doesn’t tend to abate until the fall. The U.S. choked on the smoke of these wildfires through much of June, including those of us here in West Virginia, and there may be more to come.
Sea water temperatures around the state of Florida right now are so high as to be off the scale of color contours on some weather maps, according to a piece in The Washington Post, with meteorologist and journalist Bob Henson calling the 92- to 96-degree temperatures of coastal waters in the Florida Keys “downright shocking.” This as hurricane season is fast approaching. Hurricanes and tropical storms are strongly fueled by high ocean temperatures. The intensity of this Atlantic hurricane season could be almost unfathomable in terms of the size, strength and number of recorded storms.
Vermont is enduring an ongoing and massive deluge of precipitation causing devastating flooding and untold damage. Vermont just does not see this much rainfall this quickly. We know a little about that in Central Appalachia, too. Eastern Kentucky recently suffered the same conditions. At least Vermont doesn’t have clearcut and flattened mountains and valleys, courtesy of the coal industry, and widespread poverty (also attributable, in part, to clinging to fossil fuels) to make it worse.
The states of Texas and Louisiana and parts of the American Southeast have been suffering under heat dome conditions that have been causing a stalled out system to boil these states for weeks. The Southwest is facing torturous heat conditions, even by the historical standards of a very hot, dry region. A similar heat dome baked the Pacific Northwest in recent years, driving temperatures far higher than any Oregonian, Washingtonian or Alaskan has ever been accustomed to experiencing. Heatwaves take a larger toll on health and life than any other climatic conditions I’ve discussed.
“This is the last slap upside the head we’re going to get when it might still matter,” longtime climate activist Bill McKibben told The New York Times. “It’s obviously a pivotal moment in the Earth’s climatic history. It also needs to be a pivotal moment in the Earth’s political history.”
Our entire congressional delegation in West Virginia are fossil fuel lapdogs, prostrating themselves before coal, oil, gas, plastics and petrochemical overlords, even as the stability of our shared atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere on our only home in the cosmos collapses.
While these fossil fuels and derivative companies rake in hundreds of billions of dollars annually in revenue from their activities, and billions more annually in government subsidies, our collective ability to safely and healthily inhabit our planet rapidly diminishes because of them. We have the technological means to reduce our carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gas (CO2e) emissions in keeping with scientifically agreed upon targets within the shrinking window of time we have left. What we still lack, even after decades of the accumulation of knowledge and understanding of these climate phenomena, is the political will.
It all starts with public policy. The Inflation Reduction Act was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t and isn’t enough. More has to be done to fully deploy all of the technology, financial and resource needs and habitual changes necessary to avoid catastrophe. We have the most dire and consequential of choices to make, and those choices cannot and must not be entrusted to myopic extremists hellbent on upholding a calamitous status quo (like virtually all of the Republican Party or Democrats who are anything like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.).
The crisis is here. The best time to act was 40 years ago, but the second-best time to act is now. If we won’t act for posterity to avoid being criminal ancestors, hopefully we will at least act to spare ourselves.
Eric Engle, of Parkersburg, is board president of Mid Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner (Photo Illustration/MetroCreative)
This month, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) is observing plastic-free July, a global event coordinated by the Plastic Free Foundation to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of single-use, “disposable” plastics, starting with committing to change our habits for the month of July. Single-use plastics are items like the water or pop bottles you get from a vending machine, plastic utensils, plates, drinking cups, shopping bags, yogurt or pudding cups, Styrofoam containers, candy wrappers, fruit and vegetable bags you pull off the roll at the grocery store, bread bags and other plastic food packaging.
MOVCA will have billboards at four locations, two in Parkersburg and two in Marietta, run TV and radio public service announcements, and I myself recently appeared on an interview with WTAP to serve as reminders of these July efforts. You can find a monthly calendar of events and ideas, including three presentations and two film showings on the issue of plastics pollution, on our website at movclimateaction.org. You can also visit plasticfreejuly.org to sign-up to take the global challenge along with millions of others (a link is on day one of our calendar).
Plastics are ubiquitous in our lives. They’re everywhere. But we focus on single-use plastics because these make up about 40% of the global plastics market and could be eliminated, with the right consumer choices and public policy incentives and mandates, relatively quickly. Recycling is pushed by industry and sycophantic politicians as a long-term or even permanent solution to global plastics contamination, but it simply isn’t. Plastics recycling is a worthwhile endeavor to try to limit the plastics going into landfills and entering our waterways and oceans for as long as possible, but it’s a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, at best.
There are seven types of plastic: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET); High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE); Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC); Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE); Polypropylene (PP); Polystyrene or Styrofoam (PS); and miscellaneous plastics that include polycarbonate, polylactide, acrylic, acrylonitrile butadiene, styrene, fiberglass and nylon. The only types of plastic that actually get recycled on any consistent basis are labeled as types 1, 2 and 5 in those now highly recognizable triangular arrow symbols–#1 is PETE or PET, #2 is HDPE and #5 is PP. The Marietta Recycling Center accepts #5 because there is a local business that makes use of it, but the Parkersburg Recycling Center does not. Parkersburg only accepts #1 and #2.
Even recyclable plastics can only be recycled once or twice, at most. Beyond that they go right into the waste stream recycling is said to avoid. Producing “virgin” or new plastics is cheaper than using recycled plastics the vast majority of the time (an issue public policy must address). Globally, only 9% of the plastics produced annually get recycled. Over 800 billion pounds of plastics are currently produced across the globe annually, and this production level is set to double or even triple by mid-century!
So, what’s the big deal? Why should we be so focused on this plastics pollution crisis? Why do we even refer to it as a crisis? Plastics take centuries or even millennia to break down. As they do, they don’t simply disappear, but become what are referred to as microplastic and nanoplastic particles. These particles have entered our water cycle (it literally rains plastics) and can be found virtually everywhere on our planet, from the most remote regions of the Artic and Antarctic to the bottom of the Mariana Trench over 36,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean’s depths.
To understand the dangers of the presence of these synthetic materials, I will quote extensively from a piece in The New Yorker by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, Elizabeth Kolbert:
“Plastics are made from the by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. In addition to their main ingredients, plastics may contain any number of additives. Many of these–for example, polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, which confer water resistance–are also suspected carcinogens [I interject here that the almost 70,000-person DuPont Health Study on C8, a PFOA in the PFAS family, definitively linked C8 exposure to six debilitating and deadly diseases]. Many of the others have never been adequately tested.”
Kolbert continues, “As plastics fall apart, the chemicals that went into their manufacture can leak out. These can combine to form new compounds, which may prove less dangerous than the originals–or more so.” Kolbert then discusses a study by American scientists who exposed CVS and Walmart shopping bags to the conditions they would encounter in our oceans and found that the CVS bags leached more than thirteen thousand compounds and the Walmart bags leached more than fifteen thousand!
Plastics and petrochemicals are a major focus of investment by the fossil fuels industry going forward as they lose revenue to renewables, EVs, sustainable agriculture and greater energy efficiency measures. We’ve each got to do our part to address this global crisis by eliminating single-use plastics and changing policies so that we can engineer safer and cleaner alternatives to the rest!
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Eric Engle is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
June 21, 2023 Zoom webinar: “Recording: PFAS Lunch and Learn” Speakers: Jeanna Dobson, Scientist; Dr. Alan Ducatman, Professor WVU; Delegate Evan Hansen, Downstream Strategies; Scott Mandirola, WV Dept. of Environmental Protection
“Looking at the White House Through Wildfire Smoke” This week, elected officials can see for themselves why they must get serious about climate Change.
PARKERSBURG — Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s campaign promoting alternatives to single-use, disposable plastics began Saturday.
“We’re inviting everyone to join us as we try to make July plastic-free this summer,” said Adeline Bailey, coordinator of the project.
A calendar of activities and events designed for the Mid-Ohio Valley can be viewed online at https://main.movclimateaction.org/plastic-free-july/. It includes two free in-person screenings of films about plastic pollution, three local expert speakers on plastics’ harms to personal well-being as well as to the planet and a hands-on workshop on repurposing items for more sustainable uses.
In addition, the calendar offers links to articles and videos about ways people can refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle disposable plastics in their homes and workplaces and why eliminating single-use plastic is an important step in the fight against the climate crisis.
“We’re also sponsoring a contest,” Bailey said. “We’re planning to develop a guide to MOV businesses and restaurants that use and encourage sustainable practices in their day-to-day operations, and we realized that we couldn’t gather the information on our own. That’s why we’re calling on local folks to help us investigate by conducting a short survey about single-use plastics as they shop or dine and send us the results. All registered participants will receive a reward for their efforts. The survey questions have been assigned point values, and each of the three top point-earners will win a prize package featuring alternatives to disposable plastics.”
More information about the whens and wheres of all the campaign events can be found on the MOVCA website (http://main.movclimateaction.org), and frequent updates and announcements will be posted on MOVCA’s Facebook page.
“Look for MOVCA’s Break Free From Plastic billboards that are ‘large-size’ reminders to eliminate single-use plastics,” Bailey said. “A grant from the Mountain Watershed Association Direct Support Fund in support of our anti-plastic campaign helped make them possible.”
I recently participated in a national conversations project — Local Voices for a Fair Workforce Transition — that seeks to better understand the life experiences of those in communities most reliant on fossil fuel jobs. 1.7 million people in the United States work in fossil fuel sectors including oil, gas, and coal operations. With the local economy shifts to focus on renewable energy, significant numbers of existing jobs will be threatened or radically transformed during the transition.
The Deloitte Corporation provides services globally to CEOs and Boards of Directors of many of the world’s largest companies. Deloitte is studying how to best advise those running companies large and small about how to navigate the climate crisis. They understand that the only way to learn about the problem is to hear from those at the local level most directly affected by the change.
The MOV was part of a project in five states – Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and WV. We held 10 conversations, which will be available to the public through an online portal as part of the Local Voices Network. It was a breath of fresh air to have a respected corporation that spans the globe want to know about our Appalachian hopes and fears for this “green transition.”
One conversation that was a highlight for me was with five Parkersburg High School students. Their views were a window into the mindset of Generation Z , “zoomers” born between 1996 and 2012.
Those with deep family roots in the industry described tensions among the generations in their families, some who could remember 50 years ago when there were many mining jobs . For those whose families were not part of the history of the industry, the issue was more clear cut: coal is not sustainable we know more about the devastating effects on the environment, and we have to change.
Having coal in your family didn’t necessarily set the students up to think like their parents or grandparents. They referred to the story of Homer Hickham and the movie October Sky, made out of his book, Rocket Boys. When Russia put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in orbit on Oct 4, 1957, youth in WV like people across the country, stayed up late to see the satellite cross the night sky. The movie, October Sky, portrayed how distressed the whole town became over a group of boys experimenting with building and shooting off rockets. The boys desperately wanted to be part of the space race and the opportunities for learning and careers, but their ambitions were seen as a threat, upending the familiar patterns of sons following their fathers into the mines.
The PHS students saw a similar connection to why they thought differently from their parents. “I think the reason we are so much more aware is because we have access to the internet and resources to learn more. It provides us with more knowledge than our parents could have had at our age.”
The group agreed that “our generation is a lot more open to newer ideas, even if our grandparents or parents have different views. We can go back and forth with each other about what we think through social media. Even if our parents don’t agree, it allows us to understand things more than they could in past generations. So we can really look at everything and see what we actually think based on all evidence.”
“Through Social media we can look at places all around the world and see how its affecting them there. We see the consequences more and realize that we do need to change.”
“We’re still growing up, so we still have minds that can change. Just as our parents and grandparents grew up knowing that coal and gas and oil kept society moving, our generation has realized the maybe coal isn’t’ the best idea anymore We need to switch for future generations.” “People should be more open-minded about changing.”
When asked where they thought we’d be in ten years, students thought there were lots of opportunities to use wind and water power here but they were skeptical that much would change. They were looking ahead 20 years, when their generation could get into power to change things. In a survey done by Deloitte two years ago, climate change and environmental issues were a major concern for 76% of young people born between 1996 and 2012 with 43% being afraid it is too late to repair the damage done to the environment.
Despite this, the students were hopeful. “I’m glad there are people that are willing to listen to us. We have different opinions than those of the West Virginia government. I don’t feel our opinions are being represented enough in our government.
What did the students want people to know about west Virginia? “Although it’s a small state that is typically very conservative, we do have different viewpoints. We have people who want to support climate change, a lot of young people.”
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Jean Ambrose is trying not to be a criminal ancestor.
While the Mid-Ohio Valley was spared the worst of the smoke plume from the recent Canadian wildfires, there is no doubt that we felt the effects, or that a different wind pattern could have left our valley with genuinely devastating levels of smoke pollution. As it was, New York City on one day had the world’s dirtiest air, and on several days our area experienced levels of particulate pollution labeled “unhealthy” for some or, for a few hours, all of our population. Unfortunately, this situation is likely to recur; as I write this on June 17, 432 fires are burning in Canada, ten of them new today, with 208 burning out of control.
2023 is looking like the worst wildfire season in Canada’s history. ABC News reported on June 7 that more than 8.7 million acres of Canada had burned, 2.5 million acres more than in an entire average fire season and larger than the state of Vermont. Ten days later, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre was reporting more than 2600 fires to date, with over 14 million acres burned, more than twice the land area of Ireland. So–what is causing these widespread disasters?
The fires that caused our most recent local air pollution were in eastern Canada, not typically a place prone to wildfire. But 2023 has been a dry year, with nearly half the country experiencing moderate to severe drought. May temperatures in Nova Scotia were twenty-plus degrees above normal, a lack of rainfall aggravating existing drought conditions. Extended droughts can kill some plants outright and in all cases can dry out the undergrowth and the dead branches that are fuel for wildfires. Scientists agree that climate change is the likely cause of both these increased temperatures and, in many places around the world, worsening droughts.
There is no question that wildfires have occurred throughout time and that humans are too often careless with flame. However, there is also no question that today’s massive fires are aggravated by climate change. The temperature increase of the last few decades has resulted in more lightning activity and lightning strikes, a common cause of fire. These higher temperatures cause more rapid evaporation of water, drying out the soil and pulling water from plant tissues. Dry plant matter burns quickly, allowing fires to spread rapidly. Unfortunately, recent years have also brought more high-intensity fires, which do not just clear out the undergrowth but are often damaging to the forests themselves. Massive numbers of animal deaths result. And of course, all that burning plant matter releases massive quantities of greenhouse gases, contributing to the climate change that makes such fires more likely, and compromised air quality a growing problem.
Wildfire smoke sends tiny particulates, known as PM 2.5, over great distances. These particulates are not just wood smoke, which is bad enough for lungs, but the remnants of anything else in the fire’s path–burned building materials, chemicals in the plastics from burned cars, and industrial toxins. The small size allows these particles to penetrate deeply into the lungs, causing not only asthma and COPD but sometimes heart disease and lung cancer. Recent studies indicate a link between long-term PM 2.5 exposure and dementia. Longer wildfire seasons put more people at risk, with health agencies around the world issuing air quality alerts during fire season.
Climate change endangers human health. For now, we can only try to protect ourselves from smoke, but we can work to reduce the danger for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.
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Rebecca Phillips is retired from the faculty of WVU Parkersburg and is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action and the Fort Street Pollinator Habitat coordinating committee.
This letter to the editor was originally published in The Bargain Hunter on June 22, 2023.
By Randi Pokladnik
As of May 30, oil and gas companies can “nominate” land parcels within citizen-owned state parks and forests to obtain fracking leases. Parcel leases need approval from the four-member Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, a group that lacks any scientific expertise.
Currently, 10 parcels have been “nominated” to be fracked. They include almost the entirety (302 acres) of Valley Run Wildlife Area in Carroll County, a 66-acre parcel in Zepernick Wildlife Area in Columbiana County, 281 parcels that total over 9,000 acres in Salt Fork State Park and the entirety of Wolf Run State Park (approximately 2,000 acres) in Noble County.
Thousands of peer-reviewed studies show fracking activities cause water and air pollution, release climate-changing methane gases, increase dangerous traffic accidents, require millions of gallons of fresh water, create millions of gallons of toxic-produced water, and contribute to a plethora of human illnesses including endocrine disruption and cancer.
Ignoring the scientific studies, Ohio politicians would rather generate money for the state by relinquishing our precious wildlife, forests and streams to an industry that is the main contributor to climate change.
Fracking requires land for well pads, access roads, storage areas for water, chemicals, sand, wastewater, compressor stations and collector pipelines. Forest fragmentation results in an increase in predation and invasive species as well as a loss of species, especially neotropical migrant birds, which prefer a continuous forest canopy.
Noise from fracking interferes with communication of species like bats and birds. Light pollution from flaring affects migratory birds and nocturnal animals. Open wastewater ponds become death traps for water birds, turtles, frogs, muskrats and other animals. Brine spills from frack pads enter the environment and can kill birds, plants and soil microbes.
Ohio’s public lands have played a major role in the lives of many of Ohio’s citizens and out-of-state visitors. The state parks and forests are our playgrounds, our places of solace, our outdoor learning labs, and they belong to us. We must speak up for the wildlife and the forests; they cannot defend themselves against the heinous industrial development that will soon be invading our public lands and their homes.
Comments to the commission on the nominated parcels can be submitted until July 20. Information is on the webpage, www.saveohioparks.org. Write your comments about why you think a parcel (include parcel number) should not be fracked and send the email to Commission.Clerk@oglmc.ohio.gov.
The wildlife at Salt Fork State Park, Zepernick Wildlife Area, Valley Run Wildlife Area and Wolf Run are counting on you to comment by July 20.
You also can show support for Salt Fork by attending a rally there at pavilion one on July 1.
Dr. Randi Pokladnik was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. She worked as a research chemist for National Steel Corporation for 12 years and taught secondary and post-secondary science and math classes for more than 20 years. Her research includes an analysis of organic farming regulations and environmental issues impacting the Appalachian region of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. She lives near Tappan Lake in an eco- log home that she and her husband built in 2001. Her hobbies include running, gardening, sewing and doing fun things with her granddaughters.
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Last Updated: August 5, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action examines health impact of plastics
Jul 25, 2023
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
PARKERSBURG — Using less plastic is better for the envvironment and people’s health, according to a retired research chemist speaking at the July 20 meeting of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Randi Pokladnik, a retired research chemist who also has a doctorate in environmental studies, spoke as part of Climate Action’s Break Free From Plastic – Plastic-Free July campaign. Pokladnik’s talk included a description of the life cycle of plastic, starting with fracking for oil and natural gas and ending as trash, generating heat-trapping gases at every stage of the life cycle.
In Pokladnik’s view, using less plastic would lead to a healthier environment for humans.
She spoke about toxic additives to the “basic cookie recipe” for plastic used to create the properties of hardness, flexibility and moisture resistance in the end product. Bisphenol A and phthalates are found in can liners and artificial fragrances and may cause endocrine disruptions or cancer, Pokladnik said.
Persistent organic pollutants found in pesticides and flame retardants may cause neurological damage, the known carcinogens styrene and benzene are present in many food containers and the single-use disposable plastics discarded into the environment and exposed to sunlight degrade into methane and ethane that is released into the atmosphere, she said.
“In some situations, using plastic is the right choice,” Pokladnik said.
However, even in those circumstances, getting plastic recycled is a problem, according to Pokladnik. According to Earthday.org, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled (15% is collected for recycling but 40% of that is disposed of as residues). Pokladnik says we will never be able to recycle our way out of plastic pollution. Even “advanced” recycling ideas like pyrolysis or chemical recycling are not proven to be sustainable, since the processes consume more energy than they produce, the release from Climate Action said.
Instead, Podladnik recommends “turning off the faucet” by stopping production of plastics intended for single use.
“We’re addicted to convenience,” she said. “Some of us remember a world without those convenience plastics, and we got along just fine.”
Alternatives to single-use disposables like plastic water bottles, shopping bags, cups, straws, cutlery, take-away containers and food storage bags and wraps would be easy items for consumers to find, she said. Studies show that 40% of the plastics market could be eliminated today by getting rid of single-use, disposable plastics, Climate Action said.
At 7 p.m. Thursday, writer and researcher Callie Lyons will present “Plastics, PFAS, and You: Forever Chemicals in the MOV” in the social hall of the First Unitarian Univeralist Society of Marietta, 232 Third St., Marietta. The presentation also will be offered over Zoom, registration required. Register by email to “mailto:adesign4199@gmail.com”>adesign4199@gmail.com, with “Callie Lyons 7-27-23″ in the subject line and the Zoom link will be emailed.
Last Updated: July 23, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Wildfires and air quality monitoring
Jul 22, 2023
Jonathan Brier
climatecorner@brierjon.com
Have you noticed hazy skies or the news about the Canadian wildfires, which are causing air quality concerns here in the Mid-Ohio Valley. Wildfires are intensifying and can be tied to 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers according to the recent publication “Quantifying the contribution of major carbon producers to increases in vapor pressure deficit and burned area in western U.S. and southwestern Canadian forests” (https://tinyurl.com/589vt2cb) The article focuses on the vapour-pressure deficit (VPD) or the amount of water the air is holding vs how much it could hold.
The VPD is a metric for understanding wildfires. Wildfires we may be thinking about may be hundreds of miles away, but these are impacting our lives and health by decreasing our air quality in Ohio and West Virginia and we’ve contributed to their intensity through fossil fuels.
Now wildfires happen nearby, it was only the end of 2022 when the Wayne National Forest’s 1,300 acres burned due to a wildfire. Understanding that wildfire intensity is a result of human behavior is important to understanding what steps we need to take to reduce our impact on the climate and our forests. Not only would reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere contributed by humans, but working to ensure we have clean water and combat invasive species. (More: https://tinyurl.com/2p9cwfds).
We are living in a time where we experience the effects of massive wildfires far and near, we should have tools to help with early detection and make informed decisions for our health. A starting point for our health is EPA AirNow (https://tinyurl.com/w4m3sfvm), but we can help improve the data with local sensors and identify point sources of air quality issues. Many of us may turn to our favorite weather station, website, or app to find out the air quality or the weather forecast. These are good for a rough idea, but with more local data it would change what kind of predictions, decisions, and models we can make.
Many primary monitoring stations may be miles away from your house or location of interest, which means we make the best prediction based on what we know and data. Often the sensors for the data to help make these predictions are based at airports, hospitals, and other sites with regulatory monitoring requirements. We rely on modeling and predictions based on math and statistical estimations to fill in the areas between monitoring stations along with known data about the environment (wind, sun, etc).
The site and app Weather Underground has been filling in their models with low cost sensors to get more local data readings. For instance with personal weather stations, rain, temp, humidity, wind speed and direction are some of the captured data points which can be more local and measured. More important to the current wildfire situation are the particulate sensors to understand the air quality for our breathing. With a rise in popularity of low cost sensors (very relative), PurpleAir sensors can be integrated with WUnderground.
There are only a few PurpleAir sensors in Washington and Wood County, none in Parkersburg and one in Marietta. PurpleAir sensors are not the only low cost air quality sensors out there, but they are the largest deployed globally, studied by the US EPA and contribute to EPA studies/services. The newer Flex model includes an ozone sensor as well as particulate counts. If you enjoy being outdoors, maybe consider sponsoring a low cost sensor for the community at your favorite outdoor location and help build the sensor network for the Mid-Ohio Valley. Detect smoke and fires, high pollution events, share data for better science models and analysis.
Last Updated: July 20, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Baked Alaska?
Jul 15, 2023
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.” — John Muir, naturalist
***
Alaska is on the front lines of the climate crisis.
For many people climate change is still an abstract concept. They might experience hotter summers and strange weather patterns, but much of their lives are relatively unchanged. For others, like the Indigenous communities in northwestern Alaska, life is drastically different. The community’s traditional way of life and subsistence living is being threatened by rapidly melting sea ice coverage and a reduced hunting season.
Alaska is larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. It is vast, remote, and still largely wild, with a land area of more than half a million square miles, and the longest coastline of any state. It is home to an estimated 100,000 glaciers. Its natural features include mountains, tundra, glaciers, lakes, and seas. But as Alaska’s climate is changing, the effects are widespread and sometimes dangerous, even beyond the state’s own borders.
Over the past 60 years, Alaska has actually warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Average annual temperatures have increased by 3 degrees Fahrenheit and average winter temperatures by 6 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, Arctic sea-ice is shrinking, glaciers are retreating, the shores are eroding, and the permafrost that underlays much of the state is melting. Record-breaking temperatures, rapidly melting ice, and huge wildfires are all impacting this vast, wondrous state. This reality threatens the security of the state and the entire country.
Rising temperatures may provide some benefits in Alaska, such as a longer growing season for agricultural crops, increased tourism, and access to natural resources that are currently inaccessible due to ice cover, like offshore oil. However, climate change also has adverse effects on many ecosystems and species, and is creating new hardships for Native Alaskans.
Alaska is home to some of the largest glaciers and fastest loss of glacier ice on Earth. Thawing ice, more severe storms, and wildfires are already risking public health, food and water security, and even spirituality and cultural traditions tied to the land. High temperatures are melting snow covers and glaciers. Permafrost is thawing and collapsing. Sea ice is disappearing.
Permafrost is frozen ground that is located a few feet below the soil surface in extremely cold regions. Eighty percent of Alaska’s surface lies atop permafrost. Permafrost temperatures in Alaska are rising. Thaw is already occurring in interior and southern Alaska, and will likely continue. Uneven sinking of the ground in response to permafrost thaw is predicted to add as much as $6 billion to the costs of buildings, pipelines, roads, and other infrastructure over the next 20 years.
The distribution, quality, thickness, and timing of ice on the ocean, lakes, and rivers drive nearly every aspect of life on Alaska’s Arctic coasts, from boating to whaling and seal hunting to the safety of fishing and foraging.
Climate change creates the perfect conditions for extreme wildfire seasons. Warm weather is arriving sooner and sooner in Alaska, increasingly breaking heat records. Ice and snow are melting earlier in the season, too, leaving plant life to dry out and act as tinder for bigger, more destructive fires. Wildfires in Alaska are expected to get more frequent and severe, and the amount of land burned is expected to double by the middle of this century — and then triple by the end of it.
Compounding the problems caused by climate shifts, historical policies of land allotment have forced some Alaska Native communities into areas that are extremely vulnerable to climate change, such as low-lying coastal deltas at risk of storm surges and floods. The cumulative effects of inadequate infrastructure, loss of access to traditional foods, food insecurity, threat of community relocation, impacts to water quality and quantity . . . have challenged the adaptive capacity of many Alaska Natives, particularly in rural areas.
Alaska is built for seasonal cold. Climate change is disruptive to its culture, modern housing, transportation in the vast roadless areas of the state, hunting and fishing, agriculture, and traditional food storage methods. The state’s extraordinary warmth of recent years brings stress, risk, and hardship to many…even beyond Alaska’s borders.
Baked Alaska – It’s what’s for dessert.
Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.
Last Updated: August 5, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Now is the second-best time to act on climate (Opinion)
By Eric Engle
Jul 13, 2023
Charleston Gazette-Mail
The hottest days on Earth dating back approximately 125,000 years have all occurred in the recent week between July 4 and July 10, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and instrument-based global temperature readings, tree rings analyses and ice core samples taken globally.
Data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc., as of June 30, and reported by Axios, shows that 3,063 wildfires have burned approximately 20 million acres across Canada. The 10-year average for Canadian wildfire seasons around this time is 2,452 fires burning 1.3 million acres. July tends to be the most active month and wildfire season doesn’t tend to abate until the fall. The U.S. choked on the smoke of these wildfires through much of June, including those of us here in West Virginia, and there may be more to come.
Sea water temperatures around the state of Florida right now are so high as to be off the scale of color contours on some weather maps, according to a piece in The Washington Post, with meteorologist and journalist Bob Henson calling the 92- to 96-degree temperatures of coastal waters in the Florida Keys “downright shocking.” This as hurricane season is fast approaching. Hurricanes and tropical storms are strongly fueled by high ocean temperatures. The intensity of this Atlantic hurricane season could be almost unfathomable in terms of the size, strength and number of recorded storms.
Vermont is enduring an ongoing and massive deluge of precipitation causing devastating flooding and untold damage. Vermont just does not see this much rainfall this quickly. We know a little about that in Central Appalachia, too. Eastern Kentucky recently suffered the same conditions. At least Vermont doesn’t have clearcut and flattened mountains and valleys, courtesy of the coal industry, and widespread poverty (also attributable, in part, to clinging to fossil fuels) to make it worse.
The states of Texas and Louisiana and parts of the American Southeast have been suffering under heat dome conditions that have been causing a stalled out system to boil these states for weeks. The Southwest is facing torturous heat conditions, even by the historical standards of a very hot, dry region. A similar heat dome baked the Pacific Northwest in recent years, driving temperatures far higher than any Oregonian, Washingtonian or Alaskan has ever been accustomed to experiencing. Heatwaves take a larger toll on health and life than any other climatic conditions I’ve discussed.
“This is the last slap upside the head we’re going to get when it might still matter,” longtime climate activist Bill McKibben told The New York Times. “It’s obviously a pivotal moment in the Earth’s climatic history. It also needs to be a pivotal moment in the Earth’s political history.”
Our entire congressional delegation in West Virginia are fossil fuel lapdogs, prostrating themselves before coal, oil, gas, plastics and petrochemical overlords, even as the stability of our shared atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere on our only home in the cosmos collapses.
While these fossil fuels and derivative companies rake in hundreds of billions of dollars annually in revenue from their activities, and billions more annually in government subsidies, our collective ability to safely and healthily inhabit our planet rapidly diminishes because of them. We have the technological means to reduce our carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gas (CO2e) emissions in keeping with scientifically agreed upon targets within the shrinking window of time we have left. What we still lack, even after decades of the accumulation of knowledge and understanding of these climate phenomena, is the political will.
It all starts with public policy. The Inflation Reduction Act was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t and isn’t enough. More has to be done to fully deploy all of the technology, financial and resource needs and habitual changes necessary to avoid catastrophe. We have the most dire and consequential of choices to make, and those choices cannot and must not be entrusted to myopic extremists hellbent on upholding a calamitous status quo (like virtually all of the Republican Party or Democrats who are anything like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.).
The crisis is here. The best time to act was 40 years ago, but the second-best time to act is now. If we won’t act for posterity to avoid being criminal ancestors, hopefully we will at least act to spare ourselves.
Eric Engle, of Parkersburg, is board president of Mid Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: July 20, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Eliminate single-use plastics, starting now
Jul 8, 2023
Eric Engle
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner (Photo Illustration/MetroCreative)
This month, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) is observing plastic-free July, a global event coordinated by the Plastic Free Foundation to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of single-use, “disposable” plastics, starting with committing to change our habits for the month of July. Single-use plastics are items like the water or pop bottles you get from a vending machine, plastic utensils, plates, drinking cups, shopping bags, yogurt or pudding cups, Styrofoam containers, candy wrappers, fruit and vegetable bags you pull off the roll at the grocery store, bread bags and other plastic food packaging.
MOVCA will have billboards at four locations, two in Parkersburg and two in Marietta, run TV and radio public service announcements, and I myself recently appeared on an interview with WTAP to serve as reminders of these July efforts. You can find a monthly calendar of events and ideas, including three presentations and two film showings on the issue of plastics pollution, on our website at movclimateaction.org. You can also visit plasticfreejuly.org to sign-up to take the global challenge along with millions of others (a link is on day one of our calendar).
Plastics are ubiquitous in our lives. They’re everywhere. But we focus on single-use plastics because these make up about 40% of the global plastics market and could be eliminated, with the right consumer choices and public policy incentives and mandates, relatively quickly. Recycling is pushed by industry and sycophantic politicians as a long-term or even permanent solution to global plastics contamination, but it simply isn’t. Plastics recycling is a worthwhile endeavor to try to limit the plastics going into landfills and entering our waterways and oceans for as long as possible, but it’s a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, at best.
There are seven types of plastic: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET); High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE); Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC); Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE); Polypropylene (PP); Polystyrene or Styrofoam (PS); and miscellaneous plastics that include polycarbonate, polylactide, acrylic, acrylonitrile butadiene, styrene, fiberglass and nylon. The only types of plastic that actually get recycled on any consistent basis are labeled as types 1, 2 and 5 in those now highly recognizable triangular arrow symbols–#1 is PETE or PET, #2 is HDPE and #5 is PP. The Marietta Recycling Center accepts #5 because there is a local business that makes use of it, but the Parkersburg Recycling Center does not. Parkersburg only accepts #1 and #2.
Even recyclable plastics can only be recycled once or twice, at most. Beyond that they go right into the waste stream recycling is said to avoid. Producing “virgin” or new plastics is cheaper than using recycled plastics the vast majority of the time (an issue public policy must address). Globally, only 9% of the plastics produced annually get recycled. Over 800 billion pounds of plastics are currently produced across the globe annually, and this production level is set to double or even triple by mid-century!
So, what’s the big deal? Why should we be so focused on this plastics pollution crisis? Why do we even refer to it as a crisis? Plastics take centuries or even millennia to break down. As they do, they don’t simply disappear, but become what are referred to as microplastic and nanoplastic particles. These particles have entered our water cycle (it literally rains plastics) and can be found virtually everywhere on our planet, from the most remote regions of the Artic and Antarctic to the bottom of the Mariana Trench over 36,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean’s depths.
To understand the dangers of the presence of these synthetic materials, I will quote extensively from a piece in The New Yorker by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, Elizabeth Kolbert:
“Plastics are made from the by-products of oil and gas refining; many of the chemicals involved, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are carcinogens. In addition to their main ingredients, plastics may contain any number of additives. Many of these–for example, polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, which confer water resistance–are also suspected carcinogens [I interject here that the almost 70,000-person DuPont Health Study on C8, a PFOA in the PFAS family, definitively linked C8 exposure to six debilitating and deadly diseases]. Many of the others have never been adequately tested.”
Kolbert continues, “As plastics fall apart, the chemicals that went into their manufacture can leak out. These can combine to form new compounds, which may prove less dangerous than the originals–or more so.” Kolbert then discusses a study by American scientists who exposed CVS and Walmart shopping bags to the conditions they would encounter in our oceans and found that the CVS bags leached more than thirteen thousand compounds and the Walmart bags leached more than fifteen thousand!
Plastics and petrochemicals are a major focus of investment by the fossil fuels industry going forward as they lose revenue to renewables, EVs, sustainable agriculture and greater energy efficiency measures. We’ve each got to do our part to address this global crisis by eliminating single-use plastics and changing policies so that we can engineer safer and cleaner alternatives to the rest!
***
Eric Engle is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: July 7, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Suggested Readings for July 2023
MOVCA Selected Media Postings June 2023
(and a few articles omitted from May’s report)
compiled by Cindy Taylor
Appearing online in The Marietta Times:
June 15, 2023 Local News article by Brett Dunlap
“Muskingum Island to have nine orphaned oil and gas well sites closed off and capped”
Appearing online in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel:
June 6, 2023 Business article by Steven Allen Adams
“Commercial energy consumers weigh in on possible Pleasants Power sale.” West Virginia PSC denies petition to reconsider earlier order.
https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/business/2023/06/commercial-energy-consumers-weigh-in-on-possible-pleasants-power-sale/
June 3, 2023 Community News Staff Report
“Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action recognizes Wood County teacher”
https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/community-news/2023/06/mid-ohio-valley-climate-action-recognizes-wood-county-teacher/
May 18, 2023 Business Article by Evan Bevins, Staff Reporter
“Lingering Concerns. West Virginia announces levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in public water supplies” Several in area exceed proposed EPA guidelines”
https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/business/2023/05/lingering-concerns-west-virginia-announces-levels-of-forever-chemicals-in-public-water-supplies/
Appearing on-line on WTAP:
June 19, 2023 Feature by Chase Campbell Text and video
“Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge receives funding for orphan oil well clean-up”
https://www.wtap.com/2023/06/19/ohio-river-islands-national-wildlife-refuge-receives-funding-orphan-oil-well-clean-up/
June 6, 2023 Feature by Kheron Alston
“Wood County Technical Students install first WV charger on WVU-P campus”
https://www.wtap.com/2023/06/06/wood-county-technical-students-install-first-ev-charger-wvu-p-campus/
Search for EV charging stations: https://evstationslocal.com
Available on the Charleston Gazette-Mail
See Articles by Mike Tony, Environment and Energy Reporter: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/users/profile/mike%20tony/
June 29, 2023 Article by Mike Tony
“FERC authorizes remaining Mountain Valley Pipeline construction as environmental groups fight back in court”
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/ferc-authorizes-remaining-mountain-valley-pipeline-construction-as-environmental-groups-fight-back-in-court/article_1feb7b1e-f9a0-501b-aeaf-a05f1feace4c.html
June 24, 2023 Article by Mike Tony
“Economic need for Mountain Valley Pipeline questioned”
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/economic-need-for-mountain-valley-pipeline-questioned/article_bff0f5ae-a064-5bd4-b4e8-ac416e54cc3f.html
Available on Ohio Capital Journal:
June 29, 2023 Article by Nick Evans
“Environmental experts warn fracking on state lands in Ohio is dangerous, economically dubious”
Appearing online in Southeast OHIO:
May 29, 2023 Article by Liz Partsch,
“The Price of Plastic” (Dr. Randi Pokladnik is quoted)
Available on Save Ohio Parks – No fracking on public lands: https://saveohioparks.org
June 30, 2023 Article by Cathy Cowan Becker (includes links to presentations)
“Experts on Risks, Effects of Fracking Speak to State Commission”
June 24, 2023 Article by Mary Huck
“Fracking in Ohio State Parks and On Public Lands Endangers Us All”
Available on Sierra Club Ohio:
May 30, 2023 Local News and Information
“Fracking Ohio Public Lands Update and Taking Action”
https://www.sierraclub.org/ohio/blog/2023/05/fracking-ohio-public-lands-update-and-taking-action
Available on-line on WV Rivers https://wvrivers.org :
June 21, 2023 Zoom webinar: “Recording: PFAS Lunch and Learn” Speakers: Jeanna Dobson, Scientist; Dr. Alan Ducatman, Professor WVU; Delegate Evan Hansen, Downstream Strategies; Scott Mandirola, WV Dept. of Environmental Protection
Appearing on-line on Ohio River Valley Institute https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org
June 20, 2023 Petrochemicals & Plastics Report by Eric de Place and Julia Stone
“Updated: A Cautionary Tale of Petrochemicals from Pennsylvania”
https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/updated-a-cautionary-tale-of-petrochemicals-from-pennsylvania/
June 9, 2023 Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Article by Sean O’Leary
“Hint: To do it really, stupidly, you need HYDROGEN!”
https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/hint-to-do-it-really-stupidly-you-need-hydrogen/
Appearing on-line on ReImagine Appalachia: https://reimagineappalachia.org/events/
June 22, 2023 Webinar description, link to recording and resources
“Make it in Appalachia Listen & Learn: Appalachia’s Competitive Edge in Carbon-Friendly Freight Transportation”
June 22, 2023 Article by Dana Kuhnline about New Research and takeaways after webinar
“New Research: Electrification of Public Transportation Paper Released”
June 20, 2023 Webinar description, link to recording and resources
“Electrification of Public Transportation Paper Release”
June 1, 2023 Article by Annie Regan Includes a description of the Summit, links to recordings and resources
“Debriefing Our Community Benefits Summit” (Jean Ambrose, MOVCA, was panel speaker on May 25th)
May 30, 2023 Event moderated by Jessica Arriens, Senior Program Manager, Climate & Energy of the NWF
Description, links to recordings of Presentations and resources . Links for taking Action.
“Farm Bill Policy Roundtable”
May 16, 2023 Article by Rike Rothenstein, Research Assoc. for ReImagine Appalachia
“Spotlight: Ohio’s Appalachian Community Grant Program – A Blueprint for Appalachia”
Appearing on-line on WV Public Broadcasting or WOUB (PBS) or WVXU:
June 28, 2023 Energy and Environment article by Curtis Tate
“West Virginia Among Top 3 States to Add Clean Energy Jobs In 2022”
Available from Solar Holler
New June 2020 from Solar Holler – Solar Leasing
Available on Environmental Health Project:
June 12, 2023 Resource Directory by Environmental Health Project (EHP)
“Making the Most of Where to Turn: A Resource Directory”
https://www.environmentalhealthproject.org/post/making-the-most-of-where-to-turn-a-resource-directory
RELEVANT TO OUR REGION
Available on The New Yorker:
June 8, 2023 Op-Ed by Bill McKibben
“Looking at the White House Through Wildfire Smoke” This week, elected officials can see for themselves why they must get serious about climate Change.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/looking-at-the-white-house-through-wildfire-smoke
Available on Politico:
June 25, 2023 Energy Article by Benjamin Storrow
“West Virginia bets on hydrogen in gamble to save coal plant”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/25/west-virginia-hydrogen-coal-plant-00102047
Available on EarthJustice: (missing from May report)
May 4, 2023
“Toxic Coal Ash in West Virginia: Addressing Coal Plants’ Hazardous Legacy”
https://earthjustice.org/feature/coal-ash-states/west-virginia
Available from Center for Biological Diversity: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org
June 1, 2023 Press Release
“Debt Ceiling Deal Stains Biden’s Legacy on Climate, Environmental Justice. Legislation Gives Away Mountain Valley Pipeline, Environmental Law Rollbacks”
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/debt-ceiling-deal-stains-bidens-legacy-on-climate-environmental-justice-2023-06-01/
Available on E&E News CLIMATEWIRE:
June 23, 2023 Article by Benjamin Storrow
“West Virginia bets on hydrogen in gamble to save coal plant”
Available on Common Dreams:
June 29, 2023 Article by Jessica Corbett
“360+ Groups Asked Biden to End Oil and Gas on Public Lands by 2035. His Answer? No.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-oil-gas-public-lands-2035
June 29, 2023 Article by Jake Johnson
“ ‘We Need to Declare a Climate Emergency’: Deadly Heat and Toxic Smoke Envelop the US”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/heat-smoke-climate-emergency
June 28, 2023 Article by Jessica Corbett
“FERC OKs Completion of ‘Reckless’ Mountain Valley Pipeline”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ferc-mountain-valley-pipeline-construction
Available on The Guardian:
June 28, 2023 Extreme weather article by Associated Press
“Global heating making extreme rain and catastrophic flooding more likely”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/28/global-heating-extreme-rain-flooding-more-likely
June 23, 2023 Climate Crisis article by Dharna Noor
“Senate examines role of ‘dark money’ in delaying climate action”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/21/senate-budget-committee-dark-money-climate-action
June 22, 2023 Environment article by Jonathan Watts
“Ecological tipping points could occur much sooner than expected, study finds”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/22/ecological-tipping-points-could-occur-much-sooner-than-expected-study-finds
June 15, 2023 Article by Mario Ariza for Floodlight
“Power companies quietly pushed $215m into US politics via dark money groups”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/us-power-companies-political-lobbying-donations-nonprofit
June 15, 2023 Climate crisis article by Oliver Milman
“Fears of hottest year on record as global temperatures spike”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/15/record-temperatures-global-heating
June 1, 2023 PFAS Article by Tom Perkins
“Plastic containers still distributed across the US are a potential health disaster”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/01/pfas-lawsuit-epa-plastic-containers-health-danger
MORE EDUCATIONAL ARTICLES, PERSPECTIVES , RESEARCH and RESOURCES
Available on Inside Climate News:
June 27, 2023 Justice article by Victoria St. Martin
“ ‘Profit Over the Public’s Health’: Study Details Efforts by Makers of Forever Chemicals to Hide Their Harms”
June 24, 2023 Article by Jake Bolster
“Are Legally Acceptable Levels of Pollution Harming Children’s Brain” (New Study)
June 23, 2023 Article by Keaton Peters
“Carbon Credit Market Seizes On a New Opportunity: Plugging Oil and Gas Wells”
May 26, 2023 Article by Bob Berwyn
“James Hansen Warns of a Short-Term Climate Shock Bringing 2 Degrees of Warming by 2050”
Available on United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
Undated June 1, 2023
“Summary of Inflation Reduction Act provisions related to renewable energy”
https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/summary-inflation-reduction-act-provisions-related-renewable-energy
Available on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Dept of Commerce:
June 5, 2023 Updates by NOAA
“Broken record: Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels jump again”
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/broken-record-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-levels-jump-again
Available on SciTechDaily:
June 18, 2023 Feature by University of LEEDS
“An Unprecedented Rate of Global Warming- Greenhouse Gas Emissions at “An All-Time High” “
Check out: Climate Change Tracker : https://climatechangetracker.org/igcc
Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) : https://www.igcc.earth
Available from Our Children’s Trust. Youth v. Gov.:
June 2023 Press Release by Our Children’s Trust. Links to info, view trail Live, videos, actions, etc.
“Historic Climate Trail: Held v. State of Montana June 12-23, 2023”
https://www.youthvgov.org/held-v-montana/#press
Available on BlueGreen Alliance:
June 9, 2023 Article about new REPORT by researchers at Dartmouth and Princeton funded by the BlueGreen Alliance.
“The New Math for Wind and Solar Manufacturing Supports Good Jobs and U.S. Manufacturing”
Report: Effects of Renewable Energy Provisions on the Inflation Reduction Act on Technology Costs, Materials Demand, and Labor
Available from Beyond Pesticides:
June 5, 2023 Article and call to Action- letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Dept. of Interior.
“Take Action: With Butterfly Decline Mounting, EPA Allows Continued Pesicide [sic] Use that Causes Threat”
Available from Third Act:
June 12, 2023 Article by Cathy Buckley
“Public Utility Commissions 101: A Force to be Reckoned With”
Available from Yale Climate Connections:
June 29, 2023 Article by Neha Pathak
“How climate change harms children’s health”
June 28, 2023 Weather Extremes Article by Dana Nuccitelli
“Global warming is disrupting humanity’s ‘Goldilocks zone’ on Earth”
June 26, 2023 Article by Karin Kirk
“The six big surprises in the Montana youth climate trial”
June 21, 2023 Article by Sarah Wesseler
“Gas stoves are even worse for our health than previously known, new study finds”
June 19, 2023 Climate Explained article by Jesse Nichols, Grist
“Should we pull carbon out of the air with trees, or machines?”
June 8, 2023 Transportation article by Sarah Wesseler
“Electric vehicles alone can’t solve transportation’s climate problems”
Last Updated: August 5, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Group kicks off month-long ‘Break Free from Plastic’ campaign
The Marietta Times
Jul 3, 2023
PARKERSBURG — Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s campaign promoting alternatives to single-use, disposable plastics began Saturday.
“We’re inviting everyone to join us as we try to make July plastic-free this summer,” said Adeline Bailey, coordinator of the project.
A calendar of activities and events designed for the Mid-Ohio Valley can be viewed online at https://main.movclimateaction.org/plastic-free-july/. It includes two free in-person screenings of films about plastic pollution, three local expert speakers on plastics’ harms to personal well-being as well as to the planet and a hands-on workshop on repurposing items for more sustainable uses.
In addition, the calendar offers links to articles and videos about ways people can refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle disposable plastics in their homes and workplaces and why eliminating single-use plastic is an important step in the fight against the climate crisis.
“We’re also sponsoring a contest,” Bailey said. “We’re planning to develop a guide to MOV businesses and restaurants that use and encourage sustainable practices in their day-to-day operations, and we realized that we couldn’t gather the information on our own. That’s why we’re calling on local folks to help us investigate by conducting a short survey about single-use plastics as they shop or dine and send us the results. All registered participants will receive a reward for their efforts. The survey questions have been assigned point values, and each of the three top point-earners will win a prize package featuring alternatives to disposable plastics.”
More information about the whens and wheres of all the campaign events can be found on the MOVCA website (http://main.movclimateaction.org), and frequent updates and announcements will be posted on MOVCA’s Facebook page.
“Look for MOVCA’s Break Free From Plastic billboards that are ‘large-size’ reminders to eliminate single-use plastics,” Bailey said. “A grant from the Mountain Watershed Association Direct Support Fund in support of our anti-plastic campaign helped make them possible.”
Last Updated: July 2, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Generation Z speaks out
Jul 1, 2023
Jean Ambrose
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
I recently participated in a national conversations project — Local Voices for a Fair Workforce Transition — that seeks to better understand the life experiences of those in communities most reliant on fossil fuel jobs. 1.7 million people in the United States work in fossil fuel sectors including oil, gas, and coal operations. With the local economy shifts to focus on renewable energy, significant numbers of existing jobs will be threatened or radically transformed during the transition.
The Deloitte Corporation provides services globally to CEOs and Boards of Directors of many of the world’s largest companies. Deloitte is studying how to best advise those running companies large and small about how to navigate the climate crisis. They understand that the only way to learn about the problem is to hear from those at the local level most directly affected by the change.
The MOV was part of a project in five states – Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and WV. We held 10 conversations, which will be available to the public through an online portal as part of the Local Voices Network. It was a breath of fresh air to have a respected corporation that spans the globe want to know about our Appalachian hopes and fears for this “green transition.”
One conversation that was a highlight for me was with five Parkersburg High School students. Their views were a window into the mindset of Generation Z , “zoomers” born between 1996 and 2012.
Those with deep family roots in the industry described tensions among the generations in their families, some who could remember 50 years ago when there were many mining jobs . For those whose families were not part of the history of the industry, the issue was more clear cut: coal is not sustainable we know more about the devastating effects on the environment, and we have to change.
Having coal in your family didn’t necessarily set the students up to think like their parents or grandparents. They referred to the story of Homer Hickham and the movie October Sky, made out of his book, Rocket Boys. When Russia put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in orbit on Oct 4, 1957, youth in WV like people across the country, stayed up late to see the satellite cross the night sky. The movie, October Sky, portrayed how distressed the whole town became over a group of boys experimenting with building and shooting off rockets. The boys desperately wanted to be part of the space race and the opportunities for learning and careers, but their ambitions were seen as a threat, upending the familiar patterns of sons following their fathers into the mines.
The PHS students saw a similar connection to why they thought differently from their parents. “I think the reason we are so much more aware is because we have access to the internet and resources to learn more. It provides us with more knowledge than our parents could have had at our age.”
The group agreed that “our generation is a lot more open to newer ideas, even if our grandparents or parents have different views. We can go back and forth with each other about what we think through social media. Even if our parents don’t agree, it allows us to understand things more than they could in past generations. So we can really look at everything and see what we actually think based on all evidence.”
“Through Social media we can look at places all around the world and see how its affecting them there. We see the consequences more and realize that we do need to change.”
“We’re still growing up, so we still have minds that can change. Just as our parents and grandparents grew up knowing that coal and gas and oil kept society moving, our generation has realized the maybe coal isn’t’ the best idea anymore We need to switch for future generations.” “People should be more open-minded about changing.”
When asked where they thought we’d be in ten years, students thought there were lots of opportunities to use wind and water power here but they were skeptical that much would change. They were looking ahead 20 years, when their generation could get into power to change things. In a survey done by Deloitte two years ago, climate change and environmental issues were a major concern for 76% of young people born between 1996 and 2012 with 43% being afraid it is too late to repair the damage done to the environment.
Despite this, the students were hopeful. “I’m glad there are people that are willing to listen to us. We have different opinions than those of the West Virginia government. I don’t feel our opinions are being represented enough in our government.
What did the students want people to know about west Virginia? “Although it’s a small state that is typically very conservative, we do have different viewpoints. We have people who want to support climate change, a lot of young people.”
***
Jean Ambrose is trying not to be a criminal ancestor.
Last Updated: June 24, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Wildfires smoke – not just a nuisance
Jun 24, 2023
Rebecca Phillips
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
While the Mid-Ohio Valley was spared the worst of the smoke plume from the recent Canadian wildfires, there is no doubt that we felt the effects, or that a different wind pattern could have left our valley with genuinely devastating levels of smoke pollution. As it was, New York City on one day had the world’s dirtiest air, and on several days our area experienced levels of particulate pollution labeled “unhealthy” for some or, for a few hours, all of our population. Unfortunately, this situation is likely to recur; as I write this on June 17, 432 fires are burning in Canada, ten of them new today, with 208 burning out of control.
2023 is looking like the worst wildfire season in Canada’s history. ABC News reported on June 7 that more than 8.7 million acres of Canada had burned, 2.5 million acres more than in an entire average fire season and larger than the state of Vermont. Ten days later, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre was reporting more than 2600 fires to date, with over 14 million acres burned, more than twice the land area of Ireland. So–what is causing these widespread disasters?
The fires that caused our most recent local air pollution were in eastern Canada, not typically a place prone to wildfire. But 2023 has been a dry year, with nearly half the country experiencing moderate to severe drought. May temperatures in Nova Scotia were twenty-plus degrees above normal, a lack of rainfall aggravating existing drought conditions. Extended droughts can kill some plants outright and in all cases can dry out the undergrowth and the dead branches that are fuel for wildfires. Scientists agree that climate change is the likely cause of both these increased temperatures and, in many places around the world, worsening droughts.
There is no question that wildfires have occurred throughout time and that humans are too often careless with flame. However, there is also no question that today’s massive fires are aggravated by climate change. The temperature increase of the last few decades has resulted in more lightning activity and lightning strikes, a common cause of fire. These higher temperatures cause more rapid evaporation of water, drying out the soil and pulling water from plant tissues. Dry plant matter burns quickly, allowing fires to spread rapidly. Unfortunately, recent years have also brought more high-intensity fires, which do not just clear out the undergrowth but are often damaging to the forests themselves. Massive numbers of animal deaths result. And of course, all that burning plant matter releases massive quantities of greenhouse gases, contributing to the climate change that makes such fires more likely, and compromised air quality a growing problem.
Wildfire smoke sends tiny particulates, known as PM 2.5, over great distances. These particulates are not just wood smoke, which is bad enough for lungs, but the remnants of anything else in the fire’s path–burned building materials, chemicals in the plastics from burned cars, and industrial toxins. The small size allows these particles to penetrate deeply into the lungs, causing not only asthma and COPD but sometimes heart disease and lung cancer. Recent studies indicate a link between long-term PM 2.5 exposure and dementia. Longer wildfire seasons put more people at risk, with health agencies around the world issuing air quality alerts during fire season.
Climate change endangers human health. For now, we can only try to protect ourselves from smoke, but we can work to reduce the danger for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.
***
Rebecca Phillips is retired from the faculty of WVU Parkersburg and is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action and the Fort Street Pollinator Habitat coordinating committee.
Last Updated: July 5, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Don’t frack Ohio’s parks
This letter to the editor was originally published in The Bargain Hunter on June 22, 2023.
By Randi Pokladnik
As of May 30, oil and gas companies can “nominate” land parcels within citizen-owned state parks and forests to obtain fracking leases. Parcel leases need approval from the four-member Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, a group that lacks any scientific expertise.
Currently, 10 parcels have been “nominated” to be fracked. They include almost the entirety (302 acres) of Valley Run Wildlife Area in Carroll County, a 66-acre parcel in Zepernick Wildlife Area in Columbiana County, 281 parcels that total over 9,000 acres in Salt Fork State Park and the entirety of Wolf Run State Park (approximately 2,000 acres) in Noble County.
Thousands of peer-reviewed studies show fracking activities cause water and air pollution, release climate-changing methane gases, increase dangerous traffic accidents, require millions of gallons of fresh water, create millions of gallons of toxic-produced water, and contribute to a plethora of human illnesses including endocrine disruption and cancer.
Ignoring the scientific studies, Ohio politicians would rather generate money for the state by relinquishing our precious wildlife, forests and streams to an industry that is the main contributor to climate change.
Fracking requires land for well pads, access roads, storage areas for water, chemicals, sand, wastewater, compressor stations and collector pipelines. Forest fragmentation results in an increase in predation and invasive species as well as a loss of species, especially neotropical migrant birds, which prefer a continuous forest canopy.
Noise from fracking interferes with communication of species like bats and birds. Light pollution from flaring affects migratory birds and nocturnal animals. Open wastewater ponds become death traps for water birds, turtles, frogs, muskrats and other animals. Brine spills from frack pads enter the environment and can kill birds, plants and soil microbes.
In addition, studies show stream water quality, sediment and dissolved oxygen are affected when water is withdrawn in significant quantities. The closer well pads, roads and pipelines are built to streams, the higher the risk of water quality degradation, both in the stream itself and downstream.
Ohio’s public lands have played a major role in the lives of many of Ohio’s citizens and out-of-state visitors. The state parks and forests are our playgrounds, our places of solace, our outdoor learning labs, and they belong to us. We must speak up for the wildlife and the forests; they cannot defend themselves against the heinous industrial development that will soon be invading our public lands and their homes.
Comments to the commission on the nominated parcels can be submitted until July 20. Information is on the webpage, www.saveohioparks.org. Write your comments about why you think a parcel (include parcel number) should not be fracked and send the email to Commission.Clerk@oglmc.ohio.gov.
The wildlife at Salt Fork State Park, Zepernick Wildlife Area, Valley Run Wildlife Area and Wolf Run are counting on you to comment by July 20.
You also can show support for Salt Fork by attending a rally there at pavilion one on July 1.
Visit Facebook at www.facebook.com/saveohioparks, Twitter at www.twitter.com/SaveOhioParks and Instagram at www.instagram.com/save_ohio_parks/.
Dr. Randi Pokladnik was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. She worked as a research chemist for National Steel Corporation for 12 years and taught secondary and post-secondary science and math classes for more than 20 years. Her research includes an analysis of organic farming regulations and environmental issues impacting the Appalachian region of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. She lives near Tappan Lake in an eco- log home that she and her husband built in 2001. Her hobbies include running, gardening, sewing and doing fun things with her granddaughters.
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