Climate Corner: An appeal to our better angels

Sep 20, 2025

Griffin Bradley

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Since the beginning of time, humans have had an inherent connection to the nature that surrounds them. Even modern humans hold innate primal instincts that connect us to the Earth in one way or another. Whether it be a child’s intuition to play with rocks and dirt or throw sticks like spears without instruction or a person’s joy in a hike through the woods, we are hardwired to connect with our world. And in just as many ways, we are bound to protect it.

Much the same, modern humans have found a connection to faith to guide their lives in a way they deem moral and wholesome. According to 2023-24 Pew Research Center data, roughly 64% of adults in both West Virginia and Ohio identified as Christians, with the bulk of the remaining 36% identifying as unaffiliated and a small sampling coming from other religions (mainly Judaism and Islam).

Looking through the Bible’s scripture we see that there are direct references to our connection to nature and, by extension, Man’s duty to protect it. From the very beginning, God commanded that Man was a steward of the Earth, whose duty it was to “work it and take care of it,” (Genesis 2:15). Our quest for stewardship is guided by the idea that the Earth is God’s creation, and thus belongs to God. It is our job to protect God’s creation from the perils of environmental degradation and destruction by our own hand (Psalm 24:1).

Christianity isn’t the only global religion that sees the necessity for environmental stewardship built into its ethos.

The Torah, Judaism’s holy text, emphasizes l’vadah ul’shamrah, “to till and to tend,” as a core tenet of stewardship to the Earth. In the Talmud, Jews expand on the idea of generational stewardship, in part saying, “I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise, I am planting for my children,” (Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b).

In Islam, stewardship is seen in a similar vein as Christianity and Judaism, but with added clarity around nature’s inherent connections to the signs of God and balance in the world. Of the Quran’s six core principles relating to environmental stewardship, two of them are particularly striking to me. Tawhid (Oneness of God) and Ayat (Signs of God) provide a concise viewpoint of humanity’s connection to nature, highlighting our existence as a single piece of a larger galaxy of God’s creation while also seeing each individual piece as its own sign of the divine.

I find it to be no coincidence that the three most prominent religions in our area all maintain a central tenet of nature’s innate connections to God and how humans must grapple with the existential threats that it – and by extension, we – face in this modern world.

During his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln pleaded with Americans to appeal to the “better angels of our nature.” Little did he know that a few short years after this appeal to faith, America would be torn apart by its own sin, exposing the underbelly of a nation in the grips of a philosophical war from within. While this speech was not about the environment or nature at its core, I believe there is a broader context that we can draw from this idea of our “better angels.” The idea that Americans, and humanity more broadly, must come together to face the realities of our world head-on.

The rapidly evolving changes we are seeing in our environment will impact generations beyond ours if we do not take targeted, intentional actions today. I’m no theologian, but I believe it is our duty to do best by the Earth and our fellow Man. If you don’t believe me, ask God.

***

Griffin Bradley is a lifelong Wood County resident, graduate of West Virginia University, and a contributing author for Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

What will the day after tomorrow look like?

Sep 13, 2025

Rebecca Phillips

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner

 

Some of us no doubt remember the 2004 disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s currents led to an ice-covered Northern Hemisphere in a matter of days. Great special effects but, as the filmmakers admitted, questionable science. Fortunately, a new ice age cannot be created in two or three weeks. Unfortunately, scientists have noted a serious problem with our planet’s circulatory system, one that could lead to disastrous if less immediately dramatic effects in our children’s lifetimes.

Last October, 44 oceanographers from 15 countries published an open letter warning of the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridonial Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. For those whose last earth science class was a long time ago, AMOC is the “conveyor belt” of ocean currents that sends warm water from the tropics northward and gives northern Europe a much milder climate and longer growing season than it would otherwise have. As the warmer, saltier southern water passes further north into the Arctic, it cools and sinks, returning south as colder deep water that will in time rise to the surface and continue the cycle.

AMOC does not only moderate temperatures; the ocean currents carry nutrients and oxygen as well. The transfer of surface water to lower levels oxygenates the deep ocean and allows life to flourish there. Crucially, AMOC has also allowed the Atlantic to function as a carbon sink, with warm surface water absorbing atmospheric CO2 and sequestering it on the ocean floor once the cold water descends.

What concerns the ocean scientists is that AMOC is slowing. 2023 and 2024 saw the highest ocean temperatures ever recorded, with accompanying land-based heat waves in many parts of the globe. Melting glaciers and sea ice are sending freshwater into the North Atlantic, decreasing its salinity and density and disrupting the sinking process necessary for the current to flow. As less water is exchanged and less carbon goes to the ocean floor, the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon is diminished, resulting in more atmospheric CO2 and a feedback loop that is likely to slow the current even more. A study published on August 28 in Environmental Research Letters concludes that a collapse is no longer a low-likelihood event, with the tipping point likely to be reached sometime in the next few decades if global temperatures continue to rise.

So what does a collapse mean? AMOC has slowed and even collapsed in the past; the last collapse led to what is colloquially known as the Ice Age, which found everything north of what is now Cleveland covered in ice for many thousands of years. Fortunately, this scenario is unlikely, given the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the overall warmth of the ocean. Instead, the probable outcome will be greater weather extremes.

Europe in particular is likely to experience much colder winters, with temperatures 10 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit lower than recent averages, along with more intense summer heat waves and longer periods of drought. The same pattern would probably occur over much of North America as well, though not to the same degree. Growing seasons on both continents would be shorter, decreasing the human food supply. Tropical areas would likely see temperature increases and a change in rain patterns; one concern is that droughts in what are now rainforest areas could cause the collapse of those ecosystems, earth’s primary terrestrial carbon sink and home to much of its biodiversity. The loss of ocean species and fisheries is likely, and sea levels are predicted to rise as much as eighteen inches, with the Atlantic coast of the southern United States being particularly impacted.

This is not a desirable outcome, but it is one that we might be able to avoid. Stefan Rahmstorf, director of the earth system analysis program at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and organizer of the October open letter, believes that we have not yet passed the tipping point for total AMOC collapse. In his view, reducing carbon emissions enough to hold the earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of the Paris Climate Accords, would minimize the threat to the ocean currents that control so many of the systems we depend on. The day after tomorrow need not be a disaster, but we have to act to create that future.

***

Rebecca Phillips is an emeritus professor at WVU Parkersburg and a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Climate Corner: How much is enough?

Sep 6, 2025

Bev Reed

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Washington County takes in the second most amount of fracking waste fluid by county in the state. There are 17 Class Il fracking wastewater injection wells in the county — four of them within three miles of the city of Marietta and multiple aquifers that provide drinking water to over 30,000 people. Over 400 million gallons of oil and gas waste has been injected between 2023 and 2024. Our records request for total volumes pre-2023 has not yet been provided by ODNR.

There have recently been three wells proposed in addition to the existing wells, two Class Il wells and a Class I well, by DeepRock Disposal Solutions, LLC. The Ohio EPA permits and regulates Class I wells, while the Ohio Department of Natural Resources regulates Class Il wells.

DeepRock is already permitted to inject over 600,000 gallons of waste a day into its other four wells in the area. Class Il injection wells take in waste fluids from the oil and gas extraction process. The liquid contains radioactive material, harmful chemicals, high salt content and heavy metals.

The American Growers # 4 Class II well was recently permitted earlier this year by ODNR under the old, outdated rules which are not as protective of communities. The Stephan 1 injection well was public-noticed in the newspaper in late July. Under the old rules, the company does not have to do anything other than print a notice in the newspaper for one week. No notification to the local leaders or residents is required under the old rules. The comment period ended on Aug. 8. The ODNR approved that permit to drill this week.

DeepRock Disposal Solutions has applied to the Ohio EPA to drill a Class I industrial liquid waste injection well located at 39.394095, -81.488028, Marietta, Ohio. The Ohio EPA is holding a public meeting on the well on Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. at Marietta High School. If all permits are approved, there will be 21 injection wells in Washington County.

The two big issues at play here are: 1) The state is permitting additional injection wells in this geologically vulnerable area, without addressing the concerns of suspected current brine waste migration. 2) The ODNR is permitting these injection wells under old, outdated rules and regulations since the company applied in 2021, which aren’t as protective as the new rules codified in 2022. Also, there have been seven injection wells that have migrated brine out of intended injection zones in southeast Ohio. Six of them have been shut down. This is more than enough reason for ODNR to investigate the suspected issues at hand before permitting new wells.

Polluters want to make access to clean water a left versus right issue. They know that they can use that rhetoric to destabilize community consensus around protecting ground water resources and ultimately delay regulatory action that might impact their bottom line, profits. The fact is that like most years, in 2024, 99.99% of all oil and gas waste in the state was injected underground in Republican stronghold counties (approximately 30,107,697 barrels worth of toxic and radioactive oil gas waste). The vast majority of those counties are predominantly rural, Appalachian and working class. In Marietta, folks are concerned over threats to their water resources. Local small producing, family owned and operated conventional oil businesses are worried that their access to the market is being taken from them by much larger and politically better connected energy waste corporations.

The reality is that this is not a fight between the left and the right. For Appalachian Ohioans, this is just the most recent battle in a two century long war against a spectrum of corporations and government entities that have long sought to exploit the region — first through the underpriced extraction of its natural resources, and now through the redevelopment of the region as a waste land — The Ohio River Valley’s dumping grounds.

Recently, the city of Marietta has woken up to these issues. They submitted lengthy comments on the ONR on one of the proposed injection wells. Those comments can be found on the city’s website. Local water authorities in the area have also passed resolutions of objection.

Washington County residents have had enough and are declaring NO MORE INJECTION WASTE NEAR MARIETTA, OHIO!

***

Bev Reed is a community organizer and advocate for the Buckeye Environmental Network.

 

Climate Corner: Hijacking the plastics treaty

Aug 30, 2025

Randi Pokladnik

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner

On Aug. 15, the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee of the United Nations ended without a legally binding treaty on plastics pollution. With more than 2,600 participants, including 1,400 member delegates from 183 countries, the session was declared a failure. One of the major issues was, “should a treaty impose caps on new plastic production or should it focus instead on waste management, reuse, and improved design?”

The conglomerate of oil-producing nations refused to adhere to legally binding rules and were adamant in stating that they would not agree to curtailing new plastic production. They were also against disclosing hazardous chemicals used in production or phasing these chemicals out. Many nations argued that the treaty needs to address the full life cycle of plastics; from production to waste disposal.

Over 16,000 compounds used in plastics have their origins in the petrochemical industry. Many of these are carcinogenic or endocrine disruptors and have never been tested for toxicity. They include pesticides, phthalates, bisphenols, and styrene. According to the August 2025 report “Plastics Poison the Workplace,” exposure to plasticizers can occur at a recycling facility, at a waste to energy plant, and even at an office where workers are exposed through contact with carpeting, synthetic fibers, electronics, and office furniture.

Some of the plasticizers, colorants, flame retardants, UV stabilizers, and metals added to plastic formulations are compounds included on the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) list. This list was a result of the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty to regulate the worst of the worst toxic compounds. The USA signed the treaty in 2001 but never ratified it. Without full disclosure of the chemical compounds used in plastics, the ability to select an appropriate disposal technique becomes problematic. For example, brominated flame retardants and fluorinated water repellents can contain the persistent carcinogenic compounds known as PFAS.

PFAS are compounds manufactured from polyfluoroalkyl substances. They were made famous by the movie “Dark Waters,” which exposed the contamination of communities around Parkersburg and Marietta where DuPont was manufacturing the precursor to PFAS (C-8).

These compounds are widely used in everything from rain coats and food wrappers to cosmetics and school uniforms. The industries that use PFAS are adamant about not banning its use or even disclosing its role in polymer mixtures. The Trump administration recently rolled back Biden era rules that tried to limit the amount of six widely used PFAS compounds.

While there are many applications where plastics are necessary, there are also many current uses of plastics that are not crucial to our lives. I grew up in the late 50s and still remember a world without seeing plastics everywhere. Why have plastics become so ubiquitous? First, the plastic industry’s PR campaigns have us convinced we cannot live without the convenience of plastics. Every day we throw away 356,000 tons of single-use plastics globally. The fast food cups, forks, and plates that make life convenient also create microplastics. When a plastic cup enters the environment, it is exposed to UV light and oxygen. Over time it becomes brittle, and as a result breaks up into tiny pieces known as microplastics. Microplastics can enter our bodies via ingestion and inhalation and can build up in most of our organs. Researchers have detected them in lungs, liver, heart, brain, and reproductive organ tissue.

Another reason the production of plastics keeps increasing is to offset declining demand for oil and gas in the energy sector. Plastics have become the new darling of the industry. This is evidenced by the build out of the petrochemical facilities in the Ohio River Valley, including Shell’s plastic cracker plant in Monaca, Pa.

In addition to health effects, plastic production is a major driver of climate change. The industry releases as much carbon dioxide as 600 coal-fired power plants. “Researchers found that more than 75% of the greenhouse gases generated by plastics are emitted in the steps before plastics compounds are assembled.” The emissions start at the well-pad where a gas mixture is obtained via fracking Marcellus or Utica shale. Ethane gas is separated from the mixture and becomes the building block for polyethylene plastic. During the process, emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, are released via pipeline leaks and flaring at the well pad.

The nations who produce petrochemicals and fossil fuels are trying to convince us that better recycling programs and “advanced chemical recycling” can help us get out of this plastic mess. Our recycling rate has not improved in the last 30 years, and has dropped from 9% to about 6% for plastics. Mechanical recycling is expensive and generates microplastics during the process, which involves shredding recycled materials. Economically speaking, virgin plastics are just cheaper to make than recycling plastics.

Additionally, advanced chemical recycling or pyrolysis fails to create the promised “new plastics.” The process involves heating waste plastics in an oxygen-free setting with the hopes of breaking large polymers into smaller monomers, which might be converted to a new plastic. What happens in reality is that more hazardous wastes are generated in the form of a toxic fuel. “A 2023 study by scientists from the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) found that when pyrolysis is used to process plastic waste, only 0.1% to 6% of this plastic waste can become new plastic.” Alterra, an Akron-based pyrolysis plant, was one of three pyrolysis facilities that generated more than 2 million pounds of hazardous wastes in less than four years.

There is only one way to get us out of this plastic mess; stop using single-use plastics and avoid buying plastic-based clothing. The companies that produce plastics are not about to solve a problem that hurts their bottom line. It is up to us, the consumers, to take on the plastics industry and “just say NO.”

***

Randi Pokladnik, Ph.D., of Uhrichsville, is a retired research chemist who volunteers with Mid Ohio Valley Climate Action. She has a doctorate degree in environmental studies and is certified in hazardous materials regulations.

Climate Corner No more time to waste

Aug 23, 2025

Eric Engle

 

At a recent meeting I attended with a representative from Congressman Riley Moore’s office at the Resiliency Center in Parkersburg, another meeting attendee referred to the anthropogenic (human-caused) global climate crisis as, to paraphrase, a hoax or a farce. I was floored that someone who seemed otherwise competent, rational and data-driven could hold such a willfully ignorant view.

There is more evidence for human-driven global climate change than for the scientific theory of gravity. The greenhouse effect has been well-understood since at least the 18th Century. As I’ve shared in the pages of the News and Sentinel before, Dr. James Lawrence Powell, MIT-trained Geophysicist twice appointed to the National Science Board by Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr., completed a literature review of peer-reviewed, published scientific literature in 2019-2020 and published his findings in the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society. Powell found 100% consensus that human-driven climate change is absolutely occurring amongst 11,602 published scientific articles on “climate change” and “global warming.”

Recent reporting from the American Meteorological Society shows that every single one of the 58 glaciers the society tracks globally lost mass in 2024. Recent melting of the Mendenhall Glacier forced evacuations in Juneau, Alaska, as the Mendenhall River swelled to record levels. Enormous swaths of continental Europe and Canada are experiencing wildfires following record heat extremes. Record-breaking sea surface temperatures enabled Hurricane Erin to go from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane at a historic rate. As I write, the storm is set to cause dangerous surf and rip currents along Carolina and other beaches but fortunately is not projected to hit the U.S. East Coast head on.

We can no longer afford the kind of head-in-the-sand thinking that says all this is just part of normal climactic cycles or is attributable to solar activity or that excess CO2 and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions building up in the atmosphere and oceans are a net positive for life on earth. Unfortunately for us all, this nonsense is what’s coming out of the second Trump administration, costing us invaluable time to address this ongoing crisis.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has recently released an analysis showing that from January 20th to June 30th of this year, the second Trump administration carried out 402 attacks on science–instances where science has been sidelined or threatened in the federal government. To quote from a piece in the Charleston Gazette-Mail by Mike Tony, “The Union of Concerned Scientists pointed to Trump administration moves to remove experts from federal agency leadership, halt government data collection and cut scientists out of government decision-making.”

With all of the mass precipitation events we’ve seen devastate West Virginia and Kentucky in recent years, you would think there would be a heightened awareness about and desire to understand cause and effect. Our atmosphere holds 7% more moisture for every 1-degree centigrade of warming. With the Arctic and Antarctic warming about 3x faster than the rest of the globe, changes in jet streams making them wavier with more extreme rises and troughs lead to more extreme temperatures (e.g. tropical heat in summer or polar vortexes in winter) reaching mid-latitudes and contribute to stalled out systems of precipitation that can drop feet of rain on small geographic areas in extremely short periods. When those rain extremes hit Central Appalachia, our extraction industry-scarred landscapes atop and between our hollers and hills can and do become conduits of death.

If you visit Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s very popular Facebook group page, you can use a search tool to sort through posts dating back 10 years offering a wide range of incredibly important information and analysis. We’re also revamping our website (movclimateaction.org) to become, in part, a hub of climate, environmental and public health resources from the local to the global. We have the technology and knowledge to mitigate the global climate crisis and adapt to what’s locked in; what we lack is the sustained political will.

Very popular yard signs that we’ve deployed for years say on one side “Climate Voter: Make America Green Again” and on the other “Protect What’s Ours: Be A Climate Voter.” We’d love for you to put a sign out as we approach another election year! More important than simply putting the sign out, though, is following its guidance. We hope you and yours will be climate voters in 2026 and beyond. There’s no more time for denial or delay.

***

Eric Engle is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Climate Corner:’The Last American’

Aug 16, 2025

Aaron Dunbar

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

“To the American who is more than satisfied with himself and his country this volume is affectionately dedicated.”

So reads the opening dedication to J.A. Mitchell’s 1889 novel “The Last American.” An early example of post-apocalyptic literature, this brief tale describes a crew of explorers in the year 2951, who happen upon the ancient ruins of a devastated America. Of particular note is how the book describes the downfall of our once powerful nation:

“Climatic changes, the like of which no other land ever experienced, began at that period, and finished in less than ten years a work made easy by nervous natures and rapid lives. The temperature would skip in a single day from burning heat to winter’s cold. No constitution could withstand it, and this vast continent became once more an empty wilderness.”

Bear in mind that this prophecy came at a time when climate science was still in its infancy, with Svante Arrhenius, a relative of Greta Thunberg, only describing industrial civilization’s contribution to the greenhouse effect seven years following the book’s publication.

Nor is the book especially charitable to the self-destructive architects of the nation’s undoing, describing Americans as a “shallow, nervous, extravagant people,” as well as ​​a “sharp, restless, quick-witted, greedy race, given body and soul to the gathering of riches. Their chiefest passion was to buy and sell.”

I must sorrowfully admit that I’ve come to share this perspective over the past several years. My personal political awakening, for all intents and purposes, largely began with the political rise of Donald Trump one long, miserable decade ago around 2015.

It was as clear then as it is today that Trump was a cold-blooded fascist who had zero place anywhere in America’s halls of power. It horrified me to see his naked racism, rampant abuse of women, and insatiable thirst for violence so warmly embraced by so much of the general populace.

“This is not normal,” I kept telling myself as I watched this brazen demagogue ascend to power. Eventually, though, I came to the awful realization that I was mistaken – that rather than some anomaly, Trumpism is the inevitable culmination of every worst impulse displayed by our society. Furthermore, I realized that many of those professing to be horrified by Trump’s actions were, instead, merely opposed to his lack of decorum, and were only too happy to overlook policies and actions that were indistinguishable from Trump’s own when carried out by their preferred candidates or members of their own party, so long as it was being done in a more “decent” and presentable fashion.

My coming of age as a climate activist has followed a largely similar course. My initial response to the catastrophic heating of our planet was to (correctly) assign blame to rightwing extremists and climate deniers for deliberately hindering efforts to combat the problem. And yet again, the further I delved into the issue, the more I came to realize that the looming climate apocalypse was a wholly bipartisan affair.

The acolytes of neoliberalism who at least give lip service to the crisis at hand offer little more than wholly inadequate, piecemeal solutions as a means of greenwashing what is, in reality, a colossal and systemic catastrophe. Insofar as they may appear polar opposites, the average climate-denying Republican and “trust the science” Democrat share common priorities of individual material comfort, Western global hegemony, and preservation of the status quo above all other concerns.

Finally I arrive at the ongoing holocaust being carried out in Gaza. Never in my life did I anticipate witnessing the American-backed horrors that have haunted my every waking thought for the past two years — or at least, not until the global collapse of the biosphere inevitably makes such atrocities an everyday occurrence.

As author Antony Loewenstein writes in his excellent book “The Palestine Laboratory:”

“Israel’s Palestine Laboratory thrives on global disruption and violence. The worsening climate crisis will benefit Israel’s defense sector in a future where nation states do not respond with active measures to reduce the impacts of surging temperatures, but instead ghetto-ize themselves Israel style. What this means in practice is higher walls and tighter borders, greater surveillance of refugees, facial recognition, drones, smart fences, and biometric databases.”

Ecological economics professor and IPCC Assessment Report author Julia Steinberger warned similarly back in October 2023: “Gaza is a blueprint for all of us this century. This is what the first real signal of this new century looks like, out in the open, clear for all to see.”

There’s a common thread of imperialist racism and violent capitalist gluttony that pervades these issues, but there are two unique features that stand out to me above all else.

First there’s the complete lack of guardrails, the total absence of a safety net in place to prevent the unthinkable. The complete fascist takeover of America should be wholly inconceivable to us, as should the reality of so thoroughly polluting the planet that much of it becomes uninhabitable. It should not be possible, in the 21st Century, that 2 million people should face the prospect of total annihilation at the genocidal hands of a settler colonialist state. Time and again we find ourselves desperately looking to the mechanisms we’re meant to believe will protect us, be it international law or the U.S. Constitution, only to realize we’ve been entirely abandoned to our own devices.

What stands out secondly is our society’s total unwillingness to engage in what should be a natural response to these realities. America’s ubiquitous apathy, the complete indifference we show to the eradication of human life in our names, and perhaps even the total collapse of our own society, simply boggles the imagination.

As the Twitter user UMO once memorably wrote, “Americans are the least rebellious people on earth who also like to congratulate themselves on being rebellious more than anyone. “I’m a renegade! My favorite people are the cops and my boss!””

Indeed, at a time when our need for resistance to these systems of mass death and oppression is at its greatest, what passes for “rebels” in our society are bigots rolling coal in their oversized pickup trucks, proudly waving Confederate flags beneath a smog-filled sky. This brand of “rebelliousness” being sold to us is nothing more than a sad Halloween costume, while the dominant cultural attitude remains one of apathy and subservience to a system that is quite literally burning our planet to the ground, murdering us and our children with our full and informed consent.

In its closing pages, set fittingly within the centuries-old ruins of the U.S. Capitol Building, “The Last American” notes that “it would be impossible to imagine a more pathetic mixture of glory and decay, of wealth and poverty, of civilization and barbarity.”

With every day that passes in the dying U.S. empire, Miller’s century old novel comes to seem less and less like some outlandish science fiction satire, and increasingly like a faithful portrait of the grim but wholly preventable fate to which we’ve so pitifully resigned ourselves.

***

Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Climate Corner: Educating for the earth – youth programs can build a greener future

Aug 9, 2025

Jean Ambrose

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

Humans like to imagine ourselves at the top of the pyramid when thinking about our place in the universe. But we often forget that we are just one part of the complex biological processes that govern all life on Earth. Politics, social media, misinformation, and willful ignorance don’t change this fact–but they can confuse us about what’s really happening and mislead us about our future.

Right now, the removal or destruction of decades of scientific data from public access is obscuring our understanding of the world. This is particularly dangerous when it comes to issues like climate change, weather patterns, and the life cycles of foundational species such as pollen producers, plankton, and krill–organisms that form the base of food chains and ecosystems. For example, in 2023, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) faced political pressure to scale back reporting on ocean temperature anomalies and krill population declines. Likewise, in Texas and Florida, educational guidelines have removed or downplayed climate science in textbooks and curricula. Even the USDA’s pollen monitoring network was defunded, making allergy forecasting less reliable.

This erasure contributes to the illusion that if we simply stop measuring change, change itself will stop–that the world will remain comfortable and manageable, especially for those of us living in wealthy nations. But the planet doesn’t work that way. The consequences of climate disruption are real, and ignoring them puts future generations at risk.

This makes it even more urgent to educate our children about how the climate crisis affects the broader ecological systems that sustain us. We are part of a living web that includes animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and archaea (the oxygen-free organisms living in places like our guts). Remember when science textbooks taught that everything was divided into “animal, vegetable, or mineral?” That’s long outdated. Our current understanding includes five or six biological kingdoms, and the growing interest in probiotics reflects our expanding awareness of the ecosystems inside and around us.

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) has long recognized the need for youth to become climate-literate and civically engaged. For several years, we’ve run a program called Climate Ambassadors to support high school students in designing and completing projects that benefit their local environment. These students have planted trees and gardens, installed bat boxes, founded environmental clubs, and more.

However, we discovered that many students lacked experience in planning and carrying out community-based projects. Schools often treat the community primarily as a source of funding, rather than fostering mutually beneficial partnerships where students can apply their learning to real-world issues. So where do young people gain the skills to collaborate, lead, and take meaningful action?

In response, MOVCA is restructuring the Climate Ambassadors program to focus on partnerships with youth-serving organizations that already provide mentorship and structure. Beginning in January 2026, mini-grants of up to $1,000 will be available to organizations like Scouts, 4-H, and church youth groups. These grants can support existing environmental projects, help launch new initiatives, or connect students to ongoing community efforts:

* PurpleAir Monitoring

Students can help install air quality monitors at homes and public spaces, analyze air quality data, and educate the public about what it means for health and policy.

Contact: Eric Engle – 304-488-4384

* Restoration Ecology

Engage in native ecosystem restoration, remove invasive species, and support habitat for endangered plants and animals. Work sites include Broughton’s Nature Park, the Ohio River Islands, and Mountwood Park.

Contact: Mark Krivchenia – 224-545-1604

* Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge

Activities include forest restoration, mussel propagation, and tree planting–direct work that supports biodiversity and ecological resilience.

Contact: Vic Elam – 620-203-8514

Project leaders are available to provide educational programming about the science behind each effort, helping young people connect fieldwork to real-world science and see the tangible results of their actions.

To apply for a mini-grant or view a list of project ideas, visit movyouthca.com. The deadline for applications is Sept. 15.

Let’s ensure the next generation understands that the health of the planet is tied to their own future–and give them the tools to make a difference.

***

Jean Ambrose is a founding member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Climate Corner: Here comes the sun

Aug 2, 2025

Giulia Mannarino

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

It’s exciting that one of the world’s largest solar microgrid and storage projects is currently under construction and located in West (by God) Virginia! The “Canary Solar Grid” project in Jackson County, just outside of Ravenswood, will help power a titanium manufacturing facility. A solar microgrid is an innovative, popular energy technology that’s giving businesses and communities access to cleaner and more reliable power. Energy generated by the solar array can be stored in a battery storage system for use during times when the sun doesn’t shine. This project is notable as one of the first where a large industrial plant is directly powered by a solar-plus-storage microgrid. It’s also supporting and strengthening domestic renewable energy initiatives and supply chains; 100% of the solar panels are sourced and manufactured in Ohio, and 100% of the steel used is made in the U.S. The project is a collaborative effort between BHE Renewables and Precision Castparts Corp.(PCC), specifically their Titanium Metals Corporation facility (TIMET). The companies are part of the Berkshire Hathaway diverse portfolio of businesses.

For 50 years, the 2,000 acre site was home to Century Aluminum. Their giant smelter was idled in 2009 and permanently closed in 2015. Since then the site has been an empty expanse along the Ohio River. Now PCC has started construction on the facility that will melt titanium while BHE Renewables is installing arrays of solar panels and large battery systems, which will form the microgrid that connects to the titanium facility. Demand for titanium products is rising in the U.S., driven largely by the aerospace and defense industries. As a metal, titanium is twice as strong as aluminum and weighs nearly half as much as steel, while still having a similar strength. It is durable, highly corrosion-resistant and used in industrial applications such as airplane wings and military armor as well as high-end consumer products like golf clubs and iPhones. Many people have titanium fused into their bodies, in the form of joint replacements, dental implants, and pacemakers. Transforming titanium minerals into a sturdy metal requires enormous amounts of electricity. The solar-plus-battery system will provide the reliable power supply the melting furnaces require at a cost that compares to traditional power sources.

The cost of building the solar microgrid system is eligible for investment tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law in August of 2022. The IRA provisions included clean energy production initiatives that addressed the crisis of global warming by helping the U.S. reach critical climate emissions goals of the Paris Agreement. BHE Renewables is constructing the microgrid in phases that match TIMET’s energy needs as it develops and operates its facility. Initially, the melting plant is expected to need around 18 megawatts of power to operate before ramping up to its full capacity by the end of 2027. The first phase began operations in May 2025 when the first solar microgrid panels were installed at the Ravenswood Business Park. Each phase contains part of the solar array and part of the battery system. PCC will have their TIMET facility use the solar energy to produce titanium products, creating the start of an industrial hub. It’s designed to serve 70% of TIMET’s expected energy demand. When fully built, the BHE Renewables project will include a 106 MW solar array and a battery energy storage system with a capacity of 50 MW, or 260.5 megawatt-hours. The project is expected to be a model for future industrial facilities seeking to utilize renewable energy.

Another company based in Michigan, ONE (Our Next Energy), will also be building a new factory on the site. ONE debuted a new utility scale battery storage system in February 2023 and will make the batteries the BHE Renewables facility will need right on site. And the company will continue to manufacture their utility scale battery storage system to market to other interested businesses. The batteries deploy lithium iron phosphate technology, a lower-cost chemistry that’s catching on for stationary storage. This project may be the first to show that a microgrid can meet an industrial customer’s demands as well as create economic revitalization through manufacturing without polluting the environment. With all of West Virginia’s members of Congress racing backwards towards the fossil Fool industry, my hope is more solar projects will materialize in our state’s future.

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Giulia Mannarino of Belleville, is a grandmother concerned about her two granddaughters’ futures and a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action

Climate Corner: Climate change and children’s health

Jul 26, 2025

Linda Eve Seth

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is. — Greta Thunberg, Swedish activist

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Children are uniquely vulnerable to climate change.

In many parts of the world, people are facing multiple climate-related events such as severe drought, flooding, air pollution and water shortages … leaving children especially vulnerable to malnutrition and disease. Almost every child on earth is exposed to at least one of these climate and environmental hazards. Without action, the impacts will continue to grow.

Children are often more vulnerable than the general population to the health impacts of climate change because their bodies are developing physically, which can make them more vulnerable to climate-related hazards like heat and poor air quality. They also breathe at a faster rate, which increases their exposure to dangerous air pollutants. And children tend to spend more time outdoors than adults, increasing their exposure to heat and cold, rain and snow, outdoor allergens, and insect bites.

Climate change has the potential to increase outdoor air pollutants, including dust from droughts, wildfire smoke, and ground-level ozone, which are associated with increases in asthma and other respiratory conditions in children. Climate change also increases pollen levels and prolongs the allergy season. In extreme heat, children are more prone to heat stroke that can cause organ and brain damage.

As the climate continues to change, extreme heat events are expected to last longer and become more frequent and intense. Increases in average and extreme temperatures are expected to lead to more heat illnesses and deaths among vulnerable groups including children.

Young athletes are at particular risk of heat stroke and other heat illnesses. Approximately 9,000 U.S. high school athletes are treated for heat-related illnesses each year. Children who live in homes without air conditioning are especially at risk. Young children and infants are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses and death, as their bodies are less able to adapt to heat.

Heavy rainfall has been linked to occurrences of gastrointestinal illnesses in U.S. children. Runoff from more frequent and intense rains, flooding, and coastal storms can introduce more pollutants and disease-carrying organisms into bodies of water where children swim and play or that communities use as drinking water supplies

Because children spend a lot of time outdoors, they are vulnerable to insect and tick bites that can cause illnesses like West Nile virus and Lyme disease. Climate change is expanding the habitat ranges and length of time when insects and ticks are common.

And all this is just a sliver of the immediate health concerns for children that come with climate change. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that climate change has become a health emergency, and children are especially vulnerable because they metabolize their air intake more quickly while still in critical stages of development. Their concerns include dermatologic, respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases. They breathe more air, eat more food, and drink more water relative to their body size, making them more susceptible to pollution, heat, and disease.

Our younger citizens may also experience mental health impacts from major storms, fires, and other extreme events that are expected to increase because of a changing climate. Anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, phobias, and post-traumatic stress may affect children who go through a natural disaster or extreme weather event. Children’s ability to cope with these events depends on many factors, including their living situation and support systems.

Climate change has impacts on health worldwide; nearly every child around the globe is at risk from at least one climate hazard. Given the frequent co-occurrence of various extreme weather episodes, their interactions and cumulative environmental impacts are an additional growing concern. All children are at risk, but children of color and those from low-income households are more at risk of the health effects of climate change and air pollution, due to poor health-care access and food insecurity.

And as the crisis worsens, our children face growing threats: less access to clean water and healthy food, more illness, and more extreme weather disasters. Since 2022, extreme weather has forced over 400 million students worldwide out of school. Even when classrooms stay open, disasters disrupt learning, displace families, and put children at risk. Climate change is already reshaping childhood.

If you stay silent and passive in this climate fight your life might be easier, but your children’s lives won’t be.

Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.

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Linda Eve Seth SLP, M Ed., is a mother, grandmother, concerned citizen and member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

Climate Corner: The urgent case for reviving the Ohio River Basin

Jul 19, 2025

Charlise Robinson

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

The Ohio River Basin covers a vast region that encompasses portions of 14 states and homelands of over 40 federally recognized Tribal Nations. The waters of the basin supply drinking water to more than 30 million people in the states. The Ohio River and the many local streams, creeks, lakes and wetlands are the foundation of the region’s economy and culture. Yet, this vast region is currently under siege, as it faces continuous challenges and threats such as aging infrastructure, extreme flooding, sewage contamination, and legacy toxic pollution. We can still hope for our region if we work toward manageable solutions that protect drinking water, public health, jobs and quality of life.

A newly released draft report, “Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities, Healthy Economies,” offers a bold, scientifically grounded vision to restore and protect this national treasure. The document, a collaboration led by the Ohio River Basin Alliance, National Wildlife Federation and the University of Louisville’s Envirome Institute, outlines the challenges and provides a roadmap for recovery. But more importantly, it issues a clear call for immediate, coordinated and federally supported action.

The report identifies nine core challenges plaguing the region: crumbling water infrastructure, persistent toxic pollution, widespread runoff, mining legacies, altered hydrology, habitat loss, invasive species and extreme weather events. More than 69% of assessed stream miles and 64% of assessed lake acres fail to meet state water quality standards. In short, the system is breaking down, and it’s hitting the most vulnerable communities the hardest.

Yet, the solutions are within reach. The restoration plan draws inspiration from successful restoration models like the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay initiatives. The Ohio River Basin region must have increased federal investment. There is a need for robust monitoring and research, while providing the necessary technical assistance to inform future actions. If there is holistic regional coordination across states and Tribal Nations, this will ensure communities of all sizes and income levels can benefit from the restoration efforts in the Ohio River Basin.

This is not just about the environment; it’s about equity, public health and economic prosperity. The plan emphasizes restoring rivers while revitalizing communities. Investments in clean water infrastructure and workforce development can yield thousands of jobs and unlock billions in economic growth. Simultaneously, prioritizing nature-based solutions and green infrastructure will strengthen climate resilience.

The Ohio River Basin may not yet enjoy the national attention that other iconic water bodies command, but it should. The region’s ecological, cultural and economic value is undeniable, and its health is inseparable from that of its people.

Public input on the draft is solicited. The Ohio River Basin restoration report and the ability to submit a public comment can be found at ohioriverbasinalliance.org. Citizens, local leaders and policymakers must engage now, while there is still time to shape a shared vision for clean water, healthy communities and sustainable prosperity. The future of the Ohio River Basin depends on us. To the communities in the Mid-Ohio Valley and beyond, let’s seize this opportunity together!

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Charlise Robinson is Ohio River coordinator, WV Rivers.