Jul 13, 2024
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
One of the more pernicious forms of climate denial taking hold in recent years has come in the rampant spread of techno-optimism.
These are the folks who have admitted to themselves that climate change exists, as is the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, but to them, the potential destruction of organized life on Earth is less of a problem and more of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the capitalist cult leaders of Silicon Valley and their ilk, the challenges of the climate crisis offer us an incentive toward rapid and widespread technological revolution. And if they happen to make an ungodly amount of money in the process, then by God, that’s just the price they’ll have to pay.
To date, tech bros have advocated such technological innovations as carbon capture and storage, which is prohibitively expensive and simply doesn’t work, and geoengineering, which is wildly unpredictable and potentially destructive on an unthinkable scale, as panaceas for the climate crisis and the complex tangle of challenges it presents. Time and again we’re told not to worry about the flambeing of the planet, because “Miracle Technology” is here, or it will be in a few years, or decades, and when it does it will surely fix this entire mess. If it works. And in the meantime, we’re free to continue stripping the planet for parts as we’ve been doing, even as predictions for warming continue to grow more dire and surpass official IPCC estimates to a horrifying degree.
Silicon Valley’s latest silver bullet for the climate crisis, as well as its current obsession more broadly, is artificial intelligence. From A.I.-powered washing machines to the dangerous, potentially legally actionable A.I. gunk clogging up Google search results, this sometimes incredible, often unnecessary and increasingly threatening technology appears well on its way to taking over the world. There are some, however, who contend that it might just save the world instead.
Advocates in favor of using artificial intelligence to combat the climate crisis point to a number of beneficial applications for the technology, from mapping deforestation to predicting climate disasters, aiding reforesting projects and decarbonizing industries and even helping to clean up the oceans.
I frankly have no problem with any of these ideas. To the extent that I believe that the human race “needs” A.I. at all, these are exactly the sorts of projects I’d prefer to see it being used for. The problem, however, is the same one that plagues every bright and shiny new toy that rises like a Space Odyssey monolith out of Silicon Valley: Its creators vastly overpromising on what that technology can deliver and dismissing out of hand the myriad of potential drawbacks that come along with it.
As British theorist Stafford Beer famously put it, the purpose of a system is what it does. In other words, there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” If A.I. advocates want to claim that the technology they’re forcing us all to adopt will ultimately benefit humankind and the planet, then surely there must be some evidence that this is taking place.
As it stands, the tech industry’s insatiable gluttony for A.I. everything is gobbling up the world’s energy resources, “outstripping the available power supply in many parts of the world,” as one Bloomberg article puts it. Goldman Sachs has described this surge in demand as “the kind of electricity growth that hasn’t been seen in a generation.” The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity “needs” for A.I. and global data centers may double by the year 2026.
Fossil fuel companies are, of course, thrilled about this development. EQT Corporation CEO Toby Rice has out and out stated that the maligned climate bomb known as the Mountain Valley Pipeline will contribute directly to the skyrocketing use of A.I. Meanwhile, Energy Capital Partners founder Doug Kimmelman has referred to natural gas as “the only cost-efficient energy generation capable of providing the type of 24/7 reliable power required by the big technology companies to power the A.I. boom.”
What’s been described as a “golden age” for natural gas and the fossil fuel industry is quickly proving to be a death knell for the climate. It was recently revealed that Google, previously seen as a corporate leader in terms of its relatively ambitious climate commitments, has been falling short of its targets as it stumbles headlong into the A.I. race, with its energy use climbing up by 13% in 2023, rather than falling. So sure, they may be melting the polar ice caps and causing the earliest Category 5 hurricanes ever observed, but isn’t that a small price to pay for A.I.-enhanced Google search results instructing you to eat rocks and glue the cheese onto your pizza to make sure that it sticks?
At the end of the day, new technologies can and will play an important role in combating the climate crisis. But it’s crucial that we aren’t simply throwing money and resources at miracle cures that are worse than the disease. What’s the point of having the most precise A.I. measurements in the world when that same technology is rapidly escalating the very destruction it’s designed to measure?
At some point, we’re all going to have to wake up and realize that our endless appetite for consumption simply isn’t compatible with life on a finite planet. There’s more than enough on this blue marble we call home for us all to have what we need, but not enough for everyone, or even the very wealthy few of us, to have it all. And more often than not, that’s exactly the problem techno-optimists are trying to solve — not meeting humanity’s needs, but rather the capitalist urge to devour beyond all natural limits for as long as possible, before it all comes tumbling down around us. We need to resist the temptation of shiny toys and jingling keys that promise a utopia they can never deliver and focus on real, serious solutions to the crisis we now urgently face.
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Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: September 5, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Op-ed: Expanding oil and gas use not the answer
Aug 22, 2024
Eric Engle
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the presidents of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the West Virginia Oil & Gas Association and the Ohio Oil & Gas Association would claim that the industry they’re paid to promote and lobby on behalf of is the key to U.S. energy security and national security, and even that it reduces carbon emissions because its use emits less CO2 than coal. We can’t fault them for doing their jobs, but we can fault them for ignoring facts, painting over other facts and disparaging the name of environmental activists and others while they’re at it.
In a piece in last weekend’s edition of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel titled “To build or not to build… Are we even permitted?,” these industry representatives claimed that “The Marcellus and Utica Shale formations that lie below [the Appalachian region] are the most prolific in the nation and the resources are produced under the strictest environmental standards.” While “strictest environmental standards” is a questionable assertion at best, it also ignores the realities spelled out annually in the Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure (see: concernedhealthny.org).
This report by the Concerned Health Professionals of New York, a program of the Science & Environmental Health Network and Physicians for Social Responsibility, currently in its ninth edition, is a fully referenced, 637-page report clearly and unequivocally demonstrating the immense and ongoing environmental, climate and public health harms related to fracking and the oil and gas industry more broadly. While these industry PR personnel and lobbyists claim that attempts to ban fracking are “red herrings,” communities faced with the devastation laid out in the aforementioned compendium do not consider preventing or stopping it to be a misleading or distracting ruse.
What the authors describe as an “onslaught” caused by “a web of red tape and environmental activism in the courts” putting a stop to dangerous pipeline projects like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and delaying the in-service date for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was especially insulting to citizens of West Virginia and Virginia looking to protect their homes and health. Had the authors described these folks by name instead of simply as part of the “environmental movement,” their piece could have arguably been libelous.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a 303.5-mile, 42-inch in diameter pipeline built to transport approximately 2 billion cubic feet of methane (aka “natural”) gas per day at up to 1,480 pounds per square inch of pressure. Part of the pipeline already ruptured during a water pressure test in Virginia earlier this year. A rupture while in full operation could be utterly catastrophic. Methane is 86 times more efficient a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 20-year period (though it stays in the atmosphere a far shorter time) and explosions are frighteningly possible.
MVP crosses over 75 miles of slopes greater than 30% in gradation, which is unusually high for any pipeline, as it crosses our mountainous region. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection fined MVP a combined $569,000 in 2019 and 2021 for erosion and sedimentation issues along its path and those issues are still arising in weekly summary reports filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as recently as late July and early August.
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin III, I-W.Va., working with the Biden administration to circumvent judicial review by appropriate courts of jurisdiction and ignoring half-century old environmental law to bring MVP to fruition was the problem, not the citizens, courts and regulators with respect for the rule of law who worked to hold the entities behind MVP accountable. Beyond that, the suggestion that all of this pipelined shale gas would lower natural gas prices for U.S. consumers up and down the Eastern Seaboard is nonsense.
The reason the U.S. natural gas export ban was lifted by the Obama administration was the glut of fracked gas we were already producing over eight years ago. That’s the same reason we’re seeing industry trying to build out all these polluting liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, many in environmental justice communities consisting of mostly low-income folks and people of color. Let’s not pretend that exploiting the Marcellus and Utica shale plays is about domestic energy prices. Anecdotally speaking, my family and I still have a gas utility (working to change that) and certainly haven’t seen our bills reduced to date; have you?
The authors call for supporting legislation by Manchin and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on permitting reform to make energy infrastructure updates that would also help bring a large amount of renewable energy to grids sooner. The bill in question, though, is not the bill we need. We need permitting reform legislation focused only on renewable energy, energy storage and energy efficiency, not dangerous and polluting fossil fuels.
I’m not arguing that oil and gas magically disappear tomorrow, but calling for their expansion with climate change raging and the numerous threats they pose, while falsely claiming that they’re good for energy consumers, is disingenuous at best if not just propaganda. We deserve better.
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Eric Engle is a local environmental activist.
Posted: August 18, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Is climate change driving us crazy?
Aug 17, 2024
George Banziger
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
The mass deaths of coral reefs, the abrupt thawing of the permafrost, the collapse of Greenland Ice, the loss of the Amazon Forest, the shutdown of the Atlantic currents. These headlines can be daunting and anxiety-provoking. What can be more disturbing to our personal psyches are direct experiences with wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and floods, which are linked to human-caused climate change.
As a psychologist, I have a long-standing interest in the effects of external events on mental health. I started with dispelling the myth about the effects of astronomical events like phases of the moon (there is no evidence that lunar events affect mental stability), weather, such as seasonal changes (seasonal affective disorder during the winter months of limited sunlight), and economic indicators of mental health. Several years ago I was awarded grant funds for a research project on the relationship between economic factors and mental health in Appalachia, in which we found some lagged influence of economic indicators on intake at community mental health centers in the region.
The pervasive, unrelenting, and increasingly dangerous phenomena associated with climate change create new challenges for all individuals on the planet and for mental health professionals who have to deal with those impacted by these events. Negative responses to climate change include anxiety, helplessness, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal thoughts. The risks of such mental health problems are greatest for those directly impacted by climate-related disasters like floods, heat waves, and wildfires (67% of those affected by the Camp Fire of 2018 in California showed PTSD symptoms – The Commonwealth Fund, 2023). It is not surprising that those whose livelihoods are robbed by climate-change-related disasters like floods or hurricanes would experience mental health issues. But even those not directly impacted by disasters can suffer mental health problems when presented with information about the inexorable impacts of human-caused climate change. In a 2021 survey of 10,000 young people (aged 16-25), more than 45% of respondents, reported by The Commonwealth Fund, said that worrying about climate change negatively affected their eating, working, sleeping, or other aspects of their daily lives. The American Psychiatric Association has formulated a statement on climate change and mental health: “Climate change poses a significant and growing threat to public health in general and to mental health in particular … “
Mental health professionals are developing new approaches to treating those with psychological issues related to climate change. Traditional models of psychotherapy have not been shown to work with those experiencing anxiety and, more seriously, depression associated with climate change. In response to this challenge there is a new class of mental health professionals called climate-aware therapists; a directory of these professionals can be obtained online.
Rebecca Weston, a therapist and co-president of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, stated: “Unfortunately, the field of mental health tends to be so individualist and so focused on internal experience to the exclusion of and not in a relationship to the external world” (Yale Climate Connections, 2024).
What can one do in the face of these mental-health challenges presented by climate change apart from seeking assistance from an enlightened mental-health professional? The best antidote to the helplessness and fatalism that these stress-inducing events of climate change present is to exercise one’s personal agency. Evangelical climate scientist, Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, recommends five ways to establish personal agency in the face of human-induced climate change: 1) start a conversation about climate change; 2) join a climate action group; 3) consider where you keep your money (e.g. credit cards, retirement annuities); 4) spark ideas for change at work, school or place of worship; 5) hold politicians (city, county, state, federal) accountable for legislation affecting the climate (Linkedin, 2024).
Furthermore, a family or individual might choose to reduce its carbon footprint by raising the home thermostat in the summer and lowering it in the winter; or by acquiring a hybrid or electric vehicle; eschewing single-use plastics. There are local options right here in the Mid-Ohio Valley to implement Dr. Hayhoe’s second recommendation to establish personal agency; to wit, joining the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action group, the local chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, and the many other statewide groups in West Virginia and Ohio that are taking effective action to address climate change and avert the impending disasters described in the headlines that we see everyday.
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George Banziger, Ph.D., was a faculty member at Marietta College and an academic dean at three other colleges. He is a Group Leader of the Marietta Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, member of the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta, and of the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action team.
Last Updated: August 10, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Learn more about an alternative
Aug 10, 2024
Eric Engle
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
On Thursday, Aug. 15, from 6-7:30 p.m., at the Parkersburg & Wood County Public Library at 3100 Emerson Ave. in North Parkersburg, the West Virginia solar installation company Solar Holler will be hosting an in-person seminar on how to begin the process of obtaining a residential or commercial solar array.
The discussion at the seminar will center around the cost savings of going solar and what is involved in making solar a reality for your personal or commercial property. Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action is not a co-host of the event because we want to avoid any perceived favoritism of one solar installation company over another, but we are actively promoting the event to be of any assistance we can in helping Mid-Ohio Valley residents and commercial property owners harvest the sun.
Attendees can also follow up with Solar Holler and discuss the company’s purchase and leasing options after the seminar. It is the policy of the library not to allow presenters who sell goods or services to actively work on sales while utilizing library space, but outside of the time allotted at the library there will be plenty of opportunity for such discussions.
It has never been more important to embrace solar energy in West Virginia. Our utility rates just keep climbing because of our foolish reliance on continued coal use. West Virginia receives 91% of our electricity from coal-fired plants and we energy ratepayers are suffering high costs and low grid reliability during climate-related events like heatwaves, flooding, drought, severe storms and high winds, including a higher incidence of tornado activity, because of it.
AEP Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power customers, for instance, are facing a proposed rate increase of 17%, or an average of $28.72 a month. Included in such rate increases for both AEP and FirstEnergy (MonPower) customers are offsets for fuel costs (the costs of burning coal) and renovations to coal-fired plants to try to reduce their massive levels of pollution in accordance with important regulatory requirements. Solar arrays, on the other hand, last an average of 25-30 years or longer and many of their component parts can be recycled, with no fuel inputs or renovations needed.
Coal use leaves a legacy of toxicity and scarred landscapes. From acid mine drainage to dangerous slurry impoundments & coal ash ponds to mountaintop removal, valley fill, dangerous air pollution and massive greenhouse gas release, coal is a constant threat to our health and lived environments and to our ability to safely inhabit our only home in the cosmos. Then there are the dangers of coal mining, even with today’s technological advances, including the ever-present threat of black lung disease.
Solar, wind and water, plus storage, along with the potential of green hydrogen and possibly even advanced nuclear, represent a decarbonized and far cleaner and more affordable energy future. Hydrogen must be derived from an electrolysis process used to split water molecules and powered by renewable energies (the aforementioned green hydrogen) or potentially recovered from natural deposits (known as white hydrogen) to be effective as a decarbonization strategy for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation, international shipping and the making of steel and cement, or as an energy storage option. The ARCH2 project to deliver hydrogen derived from fracked methane gas with disproven carbon capture and storage or sequestration (blue hydrogen) is a pseudo-solution that should not come to fruition as planned.
There is potential for nuclear power with smaller reactors that are easier and cheaper to build and waste solutions like dry cask storage, though I’m not sure nuclear is going to be a timely solution or the most cost effective. Meltdowns are exceedingly rare and the waste very carefully managed, but I can certainly appreciate reluctance to adopt nuclear as part of a clean energy future unless and until absolutely necessary. We must have nuclear contingency plans in place and be prepared regardless.
The costs of solar have plummeted and have nowhere to go but down. Affordability and accessibility are increasing daily for people of all income levels and living arrangements, including renters whose landlords are investing. Grid changes take time and carefully structured public policy frameworks that so far Congress and state legislatures and local governments largely have not managed to get in place or have faced backlash over due to mis-and-disinformation campaigns.
We can still move forward, though, with what exists right now, today, on our homes and properties, relying less on increasingly antiquated grids. If you live in the greater Mid-Ohio Valley, including in Ohio, please come out to the library in Wood County and learn more on Aug. 15.
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Eric Engle is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action
Last Updated: August 3, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: A crash course on plant hardiness zones
Aug 3, 2024
Danesha Seth Carley
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Many people are familiar with the term “growing zone” as it is often included on plant labels that help gardeners decide which plants might thrive in their home gardens. A plant tag may say “Zones 3-6,” which means the plant can grow anywhere in the indicated zones. Zones are identified based on the average annual extreme minimum winter temperature displayed in 10-degree F zones ranging from zone 1 (coldest) to zone 13 (warmest). Each zone is further broken into “a” and “b,” with the “b” section being the warmer of the two sections. Every 12 years the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issues a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM). PHZMs serve as general guides for growing perennial plants, and are based on the average lowest temperatures, not the lowest ever experienced in that area. The first U.S. hardiness zone map was published in 1927 with 8 hardiness zones.
There have been several versions of this map since then, including an expansion from 8 to 13 zones. The most recent PHZM was just released in May 2024 and is based on 30-year average cold temperature data through 2020 (which has changed quite a bit since the late 1920s). The most recent map differs from the original in more ways than simply the number of zones.
If you don’t follow planting recommendation shifts closely, let me catch you up. When I was born in the mid-1970s, the PHZ for my hometown in the Mid-Ohio Valley was 5. Then when the map was updated in 2012, our zone shifted to 6a. Now, in 2024, my hometown sits firmly in hardiness zone 6b. On the surface, this change doesn’t seem terribly significant, but it does represent a 10-degree F change from 2012 to 2024, and an increase of over 15-20-degree F across 47 years. More than the average lowest temperature has changed. The MOV is getting fewer hard freezes, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms, record high temperatures, and long, hot dry spells – are becoming more common.
A Word of Encouragement for Plant Lovers
While these fluctuations in weather and bloom times are undeniably due to a shift in climate, not all climate change events need be approached with fear and loathing.
For example, have you ever seen banana plants in West Virginia? I know, it sounds crazy since bananas are typically grown in places such as Hawaii and Florida; locations with hardiness zones of 9-13. Some varieties can grow in the 8a and 7b zones. I have had success growing a robust banana colony in my yard in Raleigh, N.C. (previously PHZ 7b, now PHZ 8a). In fact, I see them all over the upper south. Online experts say that banana “trees” (Note: bananas are not really a type of tree, believe it or not, it is the world’s largest herb) can grow just fine in USDA plant hardiness zones 7a/7b. But, thanks to a shifting climate, gardeners with a fondness for plants that aren’t “supposed” to grow well in their zone may have the opportunity to grow a special plant in a “shoulder zone.” A zone 7 plant may survive in zone 6 when carefully protected over the winter.
A great example of this is that banana plant from my yard. My dad fell in love with that banana plant and despite my warning that they were not likely to survive in West Virginia, he dug up a small shoot and took it back to plant in his yard in Ritchie County. The PHZ map tells us that it likely gets too cold for my dad’s banana plant in zone 6, but he has painstakingly cared for it by carefully cutting back the foliage in the autumn and heavily mulching the remaining material to protect it over the winter. His zone 7b banana is still doing great, and although it does not produce fruit, it is a tall, lush, eye-catching plant.
PHZMs are an important guide for those gardeners who are averse to losing their more sensitive plants. Passionate and careful gardeners can usually squeeze out an extra zone in either direction for certain very special plants. With the new PHZM, you can now think about planting crepe myrtles in your yard in the Mid-Ohio Valley, or if you’re lucky, maybe even try your hand at growing your very own banana non-tree.
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Dr. Danesha Seth Carley is a West Virginia native and professor at North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, department of horticulture.
Posted: July 27, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Not the end of the world
Jul 27, 2024
Rebecca Phillips
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
There is a lot of bad news out there; we’ve all heard it. So it was a surprise to read “Not the End of the World,” a recent book by Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data. Without ignoring all the very real work needing to be done, she details ways in which we humans are getting it right.
At the most basic level, people are living longer than even a hundred years ago. Fewer children are dying. Fewer women die in childbirth. Regular bouts of famine are no longer the norm, as they were for much of human history. United Nations data show that extreme poverty is being reduced around the world. Alleviation of so much human suffering is good.
In earlier times, such poverty reduction came at an environmental cost. Agriculture brought deforestation. Industry brought pollution of air and water, problems that are with us still. Yet the air in most human-inhabited places is cleaner today than it has been for centuries.
How can this be? The answer is simple: cleaner fuels. Our species’ first fuel was wood, which releases more CO2 and particulates than any other substance used for heating and cooking. The adoption of coal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reduced deforestation, but descriptions of cities in those days generally include details about poor air quality. London, for instance, was called “the big smoke,” and the five-day Great Smog of 1952 is believed to have killed more than 10,000 people outright, with many more sickened. Difficult as it may be for some to believe, even the most polluted cities today have cleaner air than Louis XIV’s Paris or Victoria’s London.
It is not just smog that has decreased: Per-capita CO2 emissions have declined as well. Humanity’s total emissions have been rising (except for the pandemic reduction when fewer of us were driving), but per-capita carbon emissions peaked in 2012. As Ritchie notes, she, a city dweller with a climate-controlled home and all the electronic devices common today, whose work requires her to spend lots of time online with the data held in energy-guzzling data centers around the world, emits half the carbon her grandparents did at her age. Half. And she is not an anomaly. The same is true of a majority of the world’s people.
Why have the per capita emissions declined? Again, the adoption of clean fuels. In developing countries, the Clean Cooking Alliance has helped millions of households transition from cooking with wood or charcoal–dirty fuels responsible not only for massive carbon emissions but for respiratory illness and early death–to the use of cleaner, modern stoves. In the developed world, electricity generation is transitioning from coal to cleaner alternatives, among them solar, wind, hydro, and (arguably) nuclear energy, all of which have lower emissions of CO2, particulates, and a variety of noxious substances than coal does. In this century, the percentage of electricity derived from coal burning has declined from 55% to 20% in the U.S., in Denmark from 90 to 10%, and in the U.K. from 66% to 2%.
Not only are these alternative fuels cleaner-burning, they are now less expensive than either coal or natural gas when the total cost is considered. By 2019, electricity generation from onshore wind or solar photovoltaic was less than half the cost of coal plant generation or two-thirds the cost of natural gas. Clean technologies are now economic winners.
The good news, then: we are not doomed. Scaling up the adoption of our cleanest technologies will not drive societies into poverty. It will reduce our emission of CO2 and particulates, help to stabilize our climate, and improve human health at the same time. As the subtitle of Ritchie’s book states, we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet.
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Rebecca Phillips is a retired English professor, pollinator gardener, and member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: July 20, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: The Great Filter and the coming election
Jul 20, 2024
Jean Ambrose
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
As a writer for Climate Corner, I am always excited to share news of the progress being made around the globe to develop renewable energy sources.
In the United States, the investments being made in modernizing our infrastructure, especially our electricity production, will be coming on line in this decade. It’s a race to see if humanity can find the will to change our habits and flatten the curve of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.
As we all know, there is a political race taking place right now as well and we are not hearing much about the implications for our planet that this election holds. Our political structure is the focus of a no holds barred backlash by the fossil fuel industry to make sure their investments have value for as long as possible. This is short-term thinking at its worst, to encourage the industries that are polluting our only home to stay in the driver’s seat. “Drill baby, drill!” sums up a political platform that just this week unapologetically intends to make the climate crisis worse.
As a reminder of what is at stake here, the 2023 Interconnected Disaster Risks report published by the United Nations examines six immediate and increasing risks across the world:
* the accelerating extinctions of species (and the decline of ones essential for our own lives, such as bees, leading to ecosystem collapse);
* the depletion of groundwater aquifers. (Groundwater is ancient stored water that is not being replaced;)
* the retreat of mountain glaciers, the source of much fresh water to the world’s ecosystems
* unbearable heat — the growing number of places facing temperatures too hot for humans to live;
* the rise in uninsurability as insurance companies abandon writing policies in areas prone to flooding and fires, leaving people with no economic safety net after catastrophic losses; and
* the growing amount of space debris. (A map of the debris field around our planet shows that we have trashed the space around us to the point that the debris threatens our navigation and communications systems.)
This report spotlights how the interconnectedness of these threats makes them more complicated to address, and will take our best minds and most courageous hearts. In fact, when asked about the consequences of the coming election, climate scientist Michael Mann responded that it could be “game over.”
Mann’s two-word analysis of the climate crisis connects to the Fermi Paradox, raised by Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi in 1950 that — despite decades of searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence – there had been no evidence of interplanetary species. With the unfathomable number of stars and planets in the universe, our advanced telescopes should have picked up technology signatures sprinkled across the stars. But there have been no signals, no voices from other worlds, when according to the numbers, the universe should be bursting with them. That’s the paradox.
A theory called the Great Filter seeks to answer the question. It was first proposed by astronomer Robin Hanson that intelligent interstellar life forms must clear basic hurdles to become a truly advanced space faring civilization. He hypothesized nine steps, with humanity at step eight, where we are developing the technology needed for space exploration. Given the age of the universe, there should be a few species to have colonized their solar system or even galaxy. If the whole universe has been silent so far, is there a step that just can’t be cleared? Or are we on track to be the first civilization to emigrate beyond our planet? Is ever increasing exploration of the galaxy our future? Or does our inability to overcome our differences or our greed to capture our planet’s resources for ourselves alone doom us to be the end of the line? Time is running out quickly. The decision is humanity’s to make.
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Jean Ambrose talks to her 5-year-old granddaughter Adena about taking care of the Earth.
Posted: July 13, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: A.I. – artificial innovation
Jul 13, 2024
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
One of the more pernicious forms of climate denial taking hold in recent years has come in the rampant spread of techno-optimism.
These are the folks who have admitted to themselves that climate change exists, as is the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, but to them, the potential destruction of organized life on Earth is less of a problem and more of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the capitalist cult leaders of Silicon Valley and their ilk, the challenges of the climate crisis offer us an incentive toward rapid and widespread technological revolution. And if they happen to make an ungodly amount of money in the process, then by God, that’s just the price they’ll have to pay.
To date, tech bros have advocated such technological innovations as carbon capture and storage, which is prohibitively expensive and simply doesn’t work, and geoengineering, which is wildly unpredictable and potentially destructive on an unthinkable scale, as panaceas for the climate crisis and the complex tangle of challenges it presents. Time and again we’re told not to worry about the flambeing of the planet, because “Miracle Technology” is here, or it will be in a few years, or decades, and when it does it will surely fix this entire mess. If it works. And in the meantime, we’re free to continue stripping the planet for parts as we’ve been doing, even as predictions for warming continue to grow more dire and surpass official IPCC estimates to a horrifying degree.
Silicon Valley’s latest silver bullet for the climate crisis, as well as its current obsession more broadly, is artificial intelligence. From A.I.-powered washing machines to the dangerous, potentially legally actionable A.I. gunk clogging up Google search results, this sometimes incredible, often unnecessary and increasingly threatening technology appears well on its way to taking over the world. There are some, however, who contend that it might just save the world instead.
Advocates in favor of using artificial intelligence to combat the climate crisis point to a number of beneficial applications for the technology, from mapping deforestation to predicting climate disasters, aiding reforesting projects and decarbonizing industries and even helping to clean up the oceans.
I frankly have no problem with any of these ideas. To the extent that I believe that the human race “needs” A.I. at all, these are exactly the sorts of projects I’d prefer to see it being used for. The problem, however, is the same one that plagues every bright and shiny new toy that rises like a Space Odyssey monolith out of Silicon Valley: Its creators vastly overpromising on what that technology can deliver and dismissing out of hand the myriad of potential drawbacks that come along with it.
As British theorist Stafford Beer famously put it, the purpose of a system is what it does. In other words, there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” If A.I. advocates want to claim that the technology they’re forcing us all to adopt will ultimately benefit humankind and the planet, then surely there must be some evidence that this is taking place.
As it stands, the tech industry’s insatiable gluttony for A.I. everything is gobbling up the world’s energy resources, “outstripping the available power supply in many parts of the world,” as one Bloomberg article puts it. Goldman Sachs has described this surge in demand as “the kind of electricity growth that hasn’t been seen in a generation.” The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity “needs” for A.I. and global data centers may double by the year 2026.
Fossil fuel companies are, of course, thrilled about this development. EQT Corporation CEO Toby Rice has out and out stated that the maligned climate bomb known as the Mountain Valley Pipeline will contribute directly to the skyrocketing use of A.I. Meanwhile, Energy Capital Partners founder Doug Kimmelman has referred to natural gas as “the only cost-efficient energy generation capable of providing the type of 24/7 reliable power required by the big technology companies to power the A.I. boom.”
What’s been described as a “golden age” for natural gas and the fossil fuel industry is quickly proving to be a death knell for the climate. It was recently revealed that Google, previously seen as a corporate leader in terms of its relatively ambitious climate commitments, has been falling short of its targets as it stumbles headlong into the A.I. race, with its energy use climbing up by 13% in 2023, rather than falling. So sure, they may be melting the polar ice caps and causing the earliest Category 5 hurricanes ever observed, but isn’t that a small price to pay for A.I.-enhanced Google search results instructing you to eat rocks and glue the cheese onto your pizza to make sure that it sticks?
At the end of the day, new technologies can and will play an important role in combating the climate crisis. But it’s crucial that we aren’t simply throwing money and resources at miracle cures that are worse than the disease. What’s the point of having the most precise A.I. measurements in the world when that same technology is rapidly escalating the very destruction it’s designed to measure?
At some point, we’re all going to have to wake up and realize that our endless appetite for consumption simply isn’t compatible with life on a finite planet. There’s more than enough on this blue marble we call home for us all to have what we need, but not enough for everyone, or even the very wealthy few of us, to have it all. And more often than not, that’s exactly the problem techno-optimists are trying to solve — not meeting humanity’s needs, but rather the capitalist urge to devour beyond all natural limits for as long as possible, before it all comes tumbling down around us. We need to resist the temptation of shiny toys and jingling keys that promise a utopia they can never deliver and focus on real, serious solutions to the crisis we now urgently face.
***
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: July 6, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Navigating ‘Dark Waters’
Jul 6, 2024
Callie Lyons
lyons.callie@gmail.com
The movie “Dark Waters,” which is available now on Netflix, does an exceptional job of communicating the complex scientific concepts involved with C8 or PFOA contamination in the valley. If this movie is your first encounter with the history of the industrial solvent used to make Teflon and many other consumer applications at DuPont Washington Works since the 1950s, there are some things you may want to know as a Mid-Ohio Valley resident and local water consumer.
The film focuses on the class action lawsuit filed in Wood County, which kick-started global awareness and understanding of the family of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. As a result of the settlement agreement, class members are entitled to ongoing privileges — like water filtration and medical monitoring. The first step is to establish whether or not you are a member of the class.
CLASS CRITERIA
If you participated in the C8 Health Project, you are a member of the class. If you lived or worked in one of six local water districts for at least one year prior to 2004, you are a member of the class. Eligible water systems include: Lubeck and Mason County, W.Va., and Belpre, Little Hocking, Tuppers Plains-Chester, and Pomeroy, Ohio.
IS YOUR WATER FILTERED?
Water filtration was one of the first benefits to come out of the class action settlement. Treatment facilities were constructed in each of the designated communities and use granular activated carbon to filter the water and significantly reduce PFAS exposure. If you live in one of those communities today, you are already benefiting from the settlement agreement.
This is important because industry has not stopped using the Ohio River as a dumping ground for their toxic PFAS waste. On the contrary, they continue to exceed the limits of their discharge permits frequently.
MEDICAL MONITORING
The settlement agreement also provides for medical monitoring for class members. Simply put, that means class members can sign up, schedule an appointment with a doctor and have a battery of labs performed at no cost to them to screen for the exposure-related health conditions identified by the C8 Science Panel. The independent panel of epidemiologists studied the data collected in the health project and determined that exposure is linked to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, pre-eclampsia and high cholesterol. Class members are entitled to monitoring — or screening for those conditions. In addition to screening for the related conditions, this program also involves a medical test to determine how much C8 is in your body.
The medical monitoring program for pregnant women is of great importance due to the life-threatening nature of pre-eclampsia — or pregnancy-induced high blood pressure — and the need for constant monitoring.
While medical monitoring is an ongoing benefit for class members, historically participation has been rather low — likely due to lack of awareness. Class members can register for this free program online at http://www.c-8medicalmonitoringprogram.com/.
BEYOND MONITORING
If you are a class member who is diagnosed with one of the exposure-related conditions, you may pursue a personal injury claim. People who find themselves in this situation have two years from the date of diagnosis to pursue a claim. Contact an attorney for advice.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
If you want to find out more about what contaminants are impacting your water supplies, the Environmental Working Group provides a nationwide database searchable by zip code at https://www.ewg.org/tapwater.
If you have questions about C8 in the Mid-Ohio Valley, I encourage you to reach out for more information. Contact one of the fine folks from Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action through the website https://main.movclimateaction.org, or email me directly at lyons.callie@gmail.com.
Knowledge is power. And, while this is a frightening topic, thanks to the Tennant family and the lawyers who took on their cause, people who live in the Mid-Ohio Valley have some advantages. Thanks to the class action, there are already some remedies in place. Find out what you need to know to stay healthy and protect your family.
***
Callie Lyons is a journalist, researcher and author who works for FITSNews. Her 2007 book “Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C8,” was the first to cover forever chemicals and their impact on communities — a story later told in the movie “Dark Waters.” Her investigative work has been featured in media outlets, publications, and documentaries all over the world. Lyons also appears in “Citizen Sleuth” — a 2023 documentary exploring the genre of true crime.
Posted: June 29, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: A climate hero
Jun 29, 2024
Giulia Mannarino
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
William Earnest McKibben is an American environmentalist, journalist and author who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. In 1989, at the age of 28, Bill McKibben wrote “The End of Nature,” the first book written for a general audience about climate change. This book has been translated into 24 languages and McKibben has gone on to write twenty more books. He also is a regular contributor to periodicals from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone. McKibben has been an educator for a quarter century at Middlebury College, in west central Vermont, and is now Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies. He has won honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel. He also has been awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize.
In 2008, McKibben was one of the founders, alongside a group of seven students, of 350.org and he recently retired as its leader. This was the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement. It has since organized thousands of climate action protests on every continent, even Antarctica. The 42 minute documentary “Do The Math” can still be viewed on the 350.org website. This classic video details the movement to change the terrifying math of climate change and keep levels of atmospheric toxic discharges of CO2 below known safe levels. Countless scientists, climate experts, and government officials agree that 350 ppm (parts per million) is the “safe” level of carbon dioxide. “PPM” is a way of measuring the ratio of carbon dioxide molecules to all of the other molecules in the atmosphere. Currently, recent daily average readings for atmospheric CO2 are now 423.52ppm. The increases are attributed to human use of fossil fuel including coal, oil and gas. Natural gas releases methane, an even hotter and longer lasting global warming greenhouse gas than CO2. McKibben has also played a leading role in 350.org spearheading the opposition and resistance to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL. More recent 350.org videos emphasize the need to end the fossil fuel era and promote a just transition as well as payment for climate damages by Big Oil industries responsible. Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) has been associated with 350.org since its founding in 2015 and our local group is listed on their website as part of Get Involved link.
McKibben stepped down as board chair of 350.org in 2015 and left the board and his volunteer role as senior advisor in 2020, accepting emeritus status. The global news magazine, Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers. Now a senior citizen, Bill McKibben, has helped launch the fast growing fossil fuel divestment movement, known, with an intentional explanation point, as Th!rd Act. The third act of life refers to the stage of life after retirement, typically starting in one’s 60s or 70s. Presently, this group is made up of the baby boomers who, coincidentally, were influenced by the era of the 1960s and 1970s. Our growing up years constitute the first act, our second act includes our middle years focusing on career and family, and our third act is ours to choose. It is when people have more freedom and time to pursue their passions and interests without the constraints of work and career. It can be a time for reflection, self-discovery, and reinvention. We have an opportunity to create a better quality of life, leave a legacy or pursue our life-long dreams. Th!rd Act organizes people of all ages but especially 60+ for actions on climate and justice issues. This group, generally has the most assets and also is the fastest growing part of the population today. fossil fuel divestment campaign has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. Th!rd Actors are encouraged to withdraw funds held in banks that contribute to fossil fuel industries and invest in smaller banks or credit unions that use their funds sustainably by helping promote housing and community development. Th!rd Act has organized, by geographic locations, into volunteer run Working Groups. The W.G.s organize meetings, engage in local/national activities, maintain web pages and communicate with local volunteers. Third Act Ohio, based out of Athens County, is the closest active group and welcomes new members, of any age, Ohioan or not.
***
Giulia Mannarino of Belleville, is a grandmother concerned about her two granddaughters’ futures and a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: June 22, 2024 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Finding reliable climate information on YouTube
Jun 22, 2024
Jonathan Brier
climatecorner@brierjon.com
YouTube and other media have reliable information, but finding it relies on critical thinking and reviewing who presented and what bias might they have or incentives to mislead, the same way books and other publications should be scrutinized. You might think a librarian would steer readers away from user-generated content, but some of those content creators are certified and verifiable experts with a pattern of disclosure of sources (instead of self proclaimed and “trust me” attitudes).
This week in the MOV and broader region was brutal with a 90+F heat dome. I thought while spending time indoors next week or in the next heat wave readers might explore some media which can be both entertaining and reliable information on climate and ways to take steps to reduce energy use at home and work. I’m including both a specific video to watch from each YouTube Channel, but encourage you to explore their other content.
My top 10 channels on climate and energy:
https://youtu.be/DSQ0i4b-5ug
https://youtu.be/eMd6obMwtOk
https://youtu.be/7p0HdzZsdII
https://youtu.be/YT0zTRD7N2s
https://youtu.be/AxM0w-D_35A
https://youtu.be/7G4ipM2qjfw
https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw
(full disclosure: I own shares in HASI)
https://youtu.be/h31oOXCXFyk
https://youtu.be/X440BHdy35g
Bonus video: Rethinking the way we think of electric peak power. A startup in Texas called Base Power, installs batteries to give back power at peak times to time-shift low power cost availability. Growth in renewables can make them reliable and able to be dispatched when power is needed. https://youtu.be/hk8UPpzTV84
I hope you take a moment and watch these videos and listen to what they cover about a variety of climate issues. Think about what you want for the future of the Mid-Ohio Valley. I would like to see more renewable energy being installed to diversify our tax base and energy supply.
From my experience working with local trades, we need training to bring installations and construction into line with best practices for energy efficiency. We need building codes that will save building occupants energy and costs in the long term, not just cheap and easy to construct, but affordable over time.
What skills do you see the MOV needing developed and which are strong and ready to support new business opportunities? Ask elected officials when we will have a regional climate resiliency plan for economic development and risk management?
I would like to invite you to visit the MOVCA tent this weekend at the Multicultural Festival in City Park, Parkersburg. Introduce yourself, talk about what you learned from a video or share what you would like to learn/do about climate and the Mid-Ohio Valley.
***
Jonathan Brier is a Marietta resident, information scientist, data librarian, and an Eagle Scout. He is a member of the Association of Computing Machinery, American Association for the Advancement of Science, OpenStreetMap US, Mid-Ohio Valley
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