Oct 22, 2022
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“The beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: ‘No, I didn’t build it myself, but it’s based on an idea of mine.’” — Charles Hard Townes
***
If you know any facts about beavers, it’s probably that the toothy rodents are known for being industrious. Most famously, they build dams. These giant structures made of sticks, stones, and mud can reach heights up to 10 feet and lengths averaging 20 feet. The biggest one ever found was in Alberta, Canada, and could be seen from space. As reported in 2010, it was a half- mile long.
As it turns out, these natural engineers may well be humans’ natural allies in efforts to confront climate change.
Beaver dams completely alter the landscape, flooding the surrounding area, and creating wetlands. It’s one reason beavers have often been considered pests that can cause serious damage when they build dams too close to homes or roads.
Scientists have understood beavers’ importance for decades. Studies are finding that beavers play a vital role in dampening the effects of the worsening climate crisis, especially in areas prone to fire, drought, and heat waves.
These web-footed, fat-tailed, amphibious rodents help countless other critters survive a heat wave. They not only drench certain landscapes in cold water but also help cool the air. They help make forests and grasslands less likely to burn.
It’s increasingly clear that these animals help safeguard ecosystems against the worst of climate change. Beavers are very much wildlife heroes in a warming world. We know that beavers build dams. But these structures are so much more than just a pile of sticks laid across a stream. They’re hydrological wonders.
Dams form ponds, widen rivers, and create wetlands, building all kinds of aquatic habitats that many other animals like birds and frogs rely on. Beavers are the ecosystem engineers of the animal world.
Because every ecosystem is unique, beavers can have different effects on the environment depending on where they are located.
More than just spreading water around, beavers’ dams also help cool it down. Dams can deepen streams, and deeper layers of water tend to be cooler. As streams run into these structures, they can start to carve into the river bed. So, there can be, for example, a six-foot-deep pool behind a three-foot-high beaver dam.
Dams also help force cold groundwater to the surface. Made of sticks, leaves, and mud, dams block water as it rushes downstream, forcing some of it to travel underground, where it mixes with chillier groundwater before resurfacing. Scientists tell us that is really important for a lot of temperature-sensitive species like salmon and trout.
The presence of beaver dams can also help chill the air. As all that water in a beaver habitat starts to evaporate, the adjacent air cools down. Turning water into vapor requires energy, and some of that energy comes from the heat in the air. It essentially functions like an AC system sitting out there in the landscape, keeping the air temperature, 10 or 15 degrees cooler, which, scientists point out, is a sizable difference.
Beaver damming also plays a significant role in protecting surrounding vegetation during wildfires. By helping replenish the groundwater that humans rely on, beavers’ dams also provide insurance against droughts.
We need smart, out-of-the-box ways to defend against the worst effects of climate change. Instead of just relying on human-made technologies and infrastructure, we can also restore species like beavers to the landscape, working with nature, instead of against it. We need to make our cities and towns much more resilient, not unlike a habitat filled with beaver dams.
Enlisting beavers in the effort could be one such way forward. They are, after all, the only other species anywhere nearly as capable as humans at transforming a landscape.
Beavers aren’t like other animals. In captivity they have to be groomed daily and nurtured or they fail to thrive. They have to have a constant person to care for them and lots of time spent with them. Kinda like Earth herself.
Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.
***
Linda Eve Seth, SLP, M.Ed. is a mother, grandmother, concerned citizen and member of MOVCA.
Last Updated: April 30, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Time to end unhealthy relationship with fossil fuels
Nov 5, 2022
George Banziger
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
I appreciate fossil fuels. They heated my various homes over the years, got me to my office every day during my work life, took me on several exciting vacations, and gave me a lot of petroleum-based products for my home. But it is time to end my friendship with fossil fuels and, I hope, for others too.
What is leading me to terminate this friendship is climate change. Oceans are rising, getting warmer, and more acidic; glaciers are receding; droughts and wildfires are becoming more serious; the atmosphere is getting warmer; and extreme weather is increasingly bringing us death and devastation. We can see the effects locally–the average temperature in West Virginia has risen to 55 degrees from 1950 to 2021. Fully 97% of scientists agree that human activity is the cause of these compelling observations about our climate.
One of the ways to bring this friendship with fossil fuels to an end is to eliminate or reduce government subsidies of these forms of energy.
Those who typically oppose government intervention in the free market have asserted that our federal government is supporting renewable sources of energy and that without such support the markets would not sustain these costs of investing in solar and wind sources. In her book, “Saving Us,” evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, describes the massive support that our government has provided and still provides to the fossil fuel industry.
The U.S. is second only to China in supporting these industries. These government supports come in the form of tax breaks and cash grants, such as subsidies for exploration. The cost of these direct subsidies amounts to $20 billion per year (20% for coal and 80% for oil and gas). The Environmental Energy Study Institute (2019) estimates that the total cost of fossil fuel subsidies is $5.3 trillion when negative externalities, such as carbon emissions, health costs, are considered. Direct subsidies include drilling-cost reductions, percentage depletion, credit for clean coal investment. Indirect costs include foreign tax credits, mass limited partnerships (to make energy companies exempt from corporate taxes), and domestic manufacturing deduction. The industry further profits from below-market value for extraction of oil and gas on public lands.
In addition, our government, through its military, invests millions of dollars in the protection of oil and gas resources in places like the Middle East and the Gulf states. We compromise our important values of human rights with the support of oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia.
The fossil-fuel industry tries to present natural gas as a vital bridge to help utilities make the transition from coal-fired power to cleaner sources of energy. What they say is that gas-fired power plants can back up wind- and solar-based power that run intermittently. But battery technology is advancing rapidly to fill that gap as is smart-grid technology to move electricity from where the sun shines and wind blows to where they don’t.
Continuing and expanding natural gas extraction, especially through hydraulic fracturing (i.e., fracking) in this region, means for places like Washington County, Ohio, more waste products. Washington County leads the state in the injection of toxic and radioactive brine waste. Many residents of the county have said about brine waste, “Enough is enough!” We don’t want to subsidize this industry disproportionately and unfairly.
Those concerned about climate change assert that plans for massive expansion of oil and gas resources, in this period of high prices, could essentially lock us into a world of high greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating climate change (methane from natural gas is 80 times as powerful in the near term as a greenhouse gas as CO2). If the industry were to implement these investments in fossil fuels, the climate impact, including methane leaks, would surpass that of all coal-fired power plants under construction or in pre-construction planning, according to a 2021 report by Global Energy Monitor.
With the assistance of these government subsidies, the U.S. energy companies are expanding gas production and transport capacity to reach global markets. The effect of these ventures will be to reduce the cost of natural gas in other markets but increase these costs in the U.S., contributing to high energy prices at home and to inflation.
We need to switch our federal priorities from gratuities to fossil-fuel companies to a carbon fee married to a dividend that goes directly to American taxpayers. By reducing these subsidies and introducing a carbon fee, we can limit our dependence on this fossil fuel and transfer to lower-cost clean energy alternatives like solar and wind power and adopt energy-efficiency practices. Such a strategy will improve the environment, our collective health, and our bank accounts.
***
George Banziger, Ph..D., was a faculty member at Marietta College and an academic dean at three other colleges. He is a member of the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta, Citizens Climate Lobby, and of the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action team.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Climate, war and existential threats
Oct 29, 2022
Aaron Dunbar
Jeffery Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, was recently a speaker at the Athens Democracy Forum in Athens, Greece. When comparing the primary forms of government among major world superpowers such as China and Russia, Sachs made a point to note that “You can be democratic at home and ruthlessly imperial abroad. The most violent country in the world since 1950 has been the United States.”
Here he was promptly cut off by the moderator, but was nonetheless greeted with applause from the audience.
I first became involved in climate activism for a very simple reason. The climate crisis was, without exaggeration, the single greatest existential threat being faced by humanity. It was the issue upon which all other issues hinged, ranging from racial justice and immigration, to healthcare and class inequality, and so much more. A stable society, essentially, is dependent on a stable environment.
And while I still absolutely believe all of this to be the case, it is now undeniable to me that the imminence of the climate crisis has, at least temporarily, been overshadowed by a danger far more immediate and destructive, which doesn’t seem to be attracting even a sliver of the attention of those professing to be the most dedicated to protecting our biosphere- namely, the threat of nuclear war.
Early this month, President Biden finally admitted (albeit to donors behind closed doors, rather than to the general public), that the world is now at its greatest risk for nuclear armageddon since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
One might hope that, given such a grim assessment, the U.S. might show some glimmer of an interest in seeking a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, rather than pumping an endless torrent of military aid into what U.S. officials have essentially admitted is a proxy war against Russia. An act which, it’s worth noting, Vladimir Putin has been quite emphatic about considering an act of provocation on our part.
Instead, the U.S. has now deployed the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to Europe for the first time since World War II, and is “fully prepared” to enter Ukraine and attack Russia, should the situation escalate.
A minuscule smattering of Democrats, who would falsely declare themselves to be the more anti-war party of America’s political system (in reality, no actual anti-war movement exists in America), did feebly sign onto a letter urging President Biden to pursue a diplomatic solution to the war.
Said letter was released this week, was met with an avalanche of criticism from the majority of the Democratic Party, and was then promptly retracted when progressives went scurrying back on the issue with their tails between their legs, as is so often their preferred tactic when pretending to take on the corrupt establishment.
It shouldn’t need to be reiterated at this point just how unfathomably, viciously destructive the use of a singular nuclear weapon would be. I shouldn’t have to paint a picture of the thousands upon thousands of instant deaths at the moment of impact, the horrific cancerous after effects, or the lands made uninhabitable by these instruments of sheer destruction. But apparently, those respectable types pursuing “U.S. interests” on our behalf seem to have forgotten these risks- or, more than likely, they simply do not care.
America’s participation in this war has never been about saving the lives of Ukrainians, despite politicians, media outlets, and the military industrial complex manufacturing the public’s consent by exploiting the genuine, humanitarian impulses of everyday people. Our warmongering military officials, all the way up to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have explicitly stated that their intention in being involved in Ukraine is simply to try and weaken Russia. Biden’s comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis behind closed doors make it abundantly clear that the risks of further pursuing this goal now vastly outweigh whatever supposed “benefits” our warlords might once have hoped to gain.
No human being who is concerned about the climate crisis should remain silent on this issue. Our unhinged military’s neverending bloodlust and these psychotic games of nuclear chicken are as great, if not greater threats than the heating of our planet due to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, these hegemonic shows of force are only likely to grow more intense and more dangerous as the planet warms, and geopolitical tensions are amplified. We must rise up against the lifelong conditioning and propaganda of American empire that have left us silent on matters of war and nuclear destruction, much as we’ve done against the onslaught of disinformation from the fossil fuel industry, if we are to leave this planet in a habitable state for future generations.
***
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Leave it to beavers
Oct 22, 2022
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“The beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: ‘No, I didn’t build it myself, but it’s based on an idea of mine.’” — Charles Hard Townes
***
If you know any facts about beavers, it’s probably that the toothy rodents are known for being industrious. Most famously, they build dams. These giant structures made of sticks, stones, and mud can reach heights up to 10 feet and lengths averaging 20 feet. The biggest one ever found was in Alberta, Canada, and could be seen from space. As reported in 2010, it was a half- mile long.
As it turns out, these natural engineers may well be humans’ natural allies in efforts to confront climate change.
Beaver dams completely alter the landscape, flooding the surrounding area, and creating wetlands. It’s one reason beavers have often been considered pests that can cause serious damage when they build dams too close to homes or roads.
Scientists have understood beavers’ importance for decades. Studies are finding that beavers play a vital role in dampening the effects of the worsening climate crisis, especially in areas prone to fire, drought, and heat waves.
These web-footed, fat-tailed, amphibious rodents help countless other critters survive a heat wave. They not only drench certain landscapes in cold water but also help cool the air. They help make forests and grasslands less likely to burn.
It’s increasingly clear that these animals help safeguard ecosystems against the worst of climate change. Beavers are very much wildlife heroes in a warming world. We know that beavers build dams. But these structures are so much more than just a pile of sticks laid across a stream. They’re hydrological wonders.
Dams form ponds, widen rivers, and create wetlands, building all kinds of aquatic habitats that many other animals like birds and frogs rely on. Beavers are the ecosystem engineers of the animal world.
Because every ecosystem is unique, beavers can have different effects on the environment depending on where they are located.
More than just spreading water around, beavers’ dams also help cool it down. Dams can deepen streams, and deeper layers of water tend to be cooler. As streams run into these structures, they can start to carve into the river bed. So, there can be, for example, a six-foot-deep pool behind a three-foot-high beaver dam.
Dams also help force cold groundwater to the surface. Made of sticks, leaves, and mud, dams block water as it rushes downstream, forcing some of it to travel underground, where it mixes with chillier groundwater before resurfacing. Scientists tell us that is really important for a lot of temperature-sensitive species like salmon and trout.
The presence of beaver dams can also help chill the air. As all that water in a beaver habitat starts to evaporate, the adjacent air cools down. Turning water into vapor requires energy, and some of that energy comes from the heat in the air. It essentially functions like an AC system sitting out there in the landscape, keeping the air temperature, 10 or 15 degrees cooler, which, scientists point out, is a sizable difference.
Beaver damming also plays a significant role in protecting surrounding vegetation during wildfires. By helping replenish the groundwater that humans rely on, beavers’ dams also provide insurance against droughts.
We need smart, out-of-the-box ways to defend against the worst effects of climate change. Instead of just relying on human-made technologies and infrastructure, we can also restore species like beavers to the landscape, working with nature, instead of against it. We need to make our cities and towns much more resilient, not unlike a habitat filled with beaver dams.
Enlisting beavers in the effort could be one such way forward. They are, after all, the only other species anywhere nearly as capable as humans at transforming a landscape.
Beavers aren’t like other animals. In captivity they have to be groomed daily and nurtured or they fail to thrive. They have to have a constant person to care for them and lots of time spent with them. Kinda like Earth herself.
Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.
***
Linda Eve Seth, SLP, M.Ed. is a mother, grandmother, concerned citizen and member of MOVCA.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: How much are you willing to tolerate?
Oct 15, 2022
Vic Elam
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
I am not a regular contributor to this column but found myself needing to express my concerns after a nearby event came to my attention. On Sept. 8 a brine truck carrying what was reported as drilling brine with zinc salts crashed on or near Mountaineer Highway near New Martinsville spilling 1260 gallons into a yard and a creek that leads to Little Fishing Creek which, of course leads to the Ohio River. Given the number of miles these brine trucks seem to travel in our part of the world it seems inevitable that these types of incidents are going to happen periodically. My concerns stem from the nature of the contents of these trucks and seeming lack of concern for this material entering our environment.
You don’t have to look far to find that the average level of radiation in the brine carried by these trucks is about 10 times the environmental discharge limit and 236 times the drinking water limit established by the EPA. Then you consider all the other contaminants like zinc, cadmium, arsenic, lead, benzene, and hundreds of others, it seems to be a witches brew unfit for any level of human or environmental exposure.
If this was an oil spill, measures would have been immediately deployed to contain the spill and clean it up, not so for brine spills. Brine is heavier than water, so the damage that is occurring beneath the surface is not apparent to us. Petrochemical-related facilities are already permitted to discharge over 500,000 pounds of toxic pollutants into the Ohio River Basin within Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia annually, so these spills just add to the already contaminated waters that serve us as a source of recreation and millions as a source of drinking water.
DIVING DEEPER
The reason brine spills are not treated with the same level of concern as oil spills may stem from the fact that brine is not considered a hazardous material even though it easily meets the standards. In 1988, political will urged by the petroleum industry forced the USEPA to exempt many substances used or produced by the petroleum industry from regulatory oversight. Since brine is not considered a hazardous material, haul trucks don’t require placarding and clean-up efforts are of little concern.
I could go into great depths about the impact “brine” will have to bottom dwelling organisms that form the basis for the food web in streams but suffice to say it is devastating.
There is little doubt that spills resulting from transporting brine are not the only source of brine contamination in the Ohio Valley, and frankly these types of spills may pale in comparison to other sources. Fracking waste that finds its way through fissures and comes to the surface or contaminates water supply aquifers, surfaces through old unplugged wells, or spills from pipelines or other sources have been documented.
The Mid-Ohio Valley was blessed with plentiful, clean water and little by little we seem determined to squander this vital resource. Let us not be complacent until it is too late and lament as in the well-known expression “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” – or as my grandfather would say, “nary a drop to drink.”
Thanks to many fact sources especially fractracker.org.
***
Vic Elam is an avid outdoorsman and contributor to organizations that share his concern for our environment and the children who we borrow it from.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: We are burning our grandkids’ future
Oct 8, 2022
Randi Pokladnik
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing?” This question, posed by Sir David Attenborough, should be one we all ask ourselves every single day. It is certainly a question I would ask local, state and federal politicians. To deny the major role mankind plays in the climate crisis, especially after the massive destruction of two back-to-back hurricanes, seems ridiculous. But I am sure people in our country will do just that; deny.
We now know that a warming planet increases the chances of catastrophic weather events. Wildfires and droughts in the western states are more severe and hurricanes have also intensified as they pass over warmer oceans. The storms that hit Ohio this past June 14t were the worst I have ever seen. Over 480 acres of forests at the Mohican-Memorial State Forest were severely damaged.
Billions of dollars of damage have occurred and many lives have been lost in these storms and wildfires, but still politicians refuse to take aggressive action to address the crisis. People in our country remain apathetic when it comes to taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint.
There are many places in our lives where simple changes would make an impact on carbon emissions. People could car pool, purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles or buy electric vehicles, eat less meat, turn down thermostats in the winter and turn them up in the summer. We could recycle, compost food scraps, buy less stuff (especially plastic stuff), garden, support local agriculture, turn off lights, insulate our homes, and donate used clothes and appliances. These are just a few simple, painless steps we all could take to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Yet how many of these changes are people willing to take? We cannot even commit to the very simplest acts to help save the planet.
What if your home were destroyed like so many homes have been destroyed by the recent hurricanes: Fiona and Ian? What if everything you loved and cared about were gone? What if there was no food, no water, no shelter, no job, no future? Sounds pretty drastic but sadly, by ignoring the climate crisis and refusing to do anything to curtail the worst effects, we are creating climate refugees all over the planet. Will our grandchildren become climate refugees?
Scientists are desperately trying to shock the world into action. “As time runs out for the planet to avert a future of climate chaos, scientists around the world are throwing down the gauntlet. Climate change science has been settled for decades, yet policymakers have yet to take sweeping action, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb to record highs.”
As a climate scientist I echo the fears expressed by my colleagues. The fossil fuel industry continues to manipulate laws and policies to continue the destruction of our only home while they increase their profits. We don’t have time to debate; we don’t have time for false solutions like carbon capture, or blue hydrogen; and we don’t have time to slowly transition away from carbon-based fuels. We are out of time.
It is painful for me to admit, as both a scientist and a grandparent, that I am no longer hopeful or optimistic. A recent poll published in Harper’s Magazine October issue stated, “just 1 percent of voters in a New York Times/Siena College poll named climate as the most important issue facing the country.”
Scientists are now putting their lives on the line as they engage in peaceful civil disobedience, hunger strikes, the bodily obstruction of investment banks enabling new fossil fuel exploration, and the pasting of scientific papers to government buildings.
Like the scientists around the world, we too should be throwing down the gauntlet. We should be in the streets demanding action because without a livable planet, nothing else really matters. How can we justify apathy and inaction? What will we tell our grandkids? We watched while their world burned.
***
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.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Plug in, Mid-Ohio Valley
Oct 1, 2022
Giulia Mannarino
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the transportation sector is the #1 source of carbon pollution in the United States. At 29% in 2021, transportation now generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, every car company has production plans for electric vehicles (EVs). And most are on the path to a fully electric future. Last year, Chair and CEO of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, announced that the company would stop making gas powered vehicles by 2035. Even Exxon Mobile publicly agreed electric vehicles are the future. In June, in an interview with CNBC’s David Farber, the oil giant’s CEO, Darrin Woods, predicted that by 2040 every new passenger car sold in the world will be electric. EV technology has advanced rapidly and an expansion of the market is definitely anticipated, including many more affordable models.
For the first time since 2019, the North American International Auto Show, the largest in North America, was held in September. President Biden attended opening day and used the opportunity to announce the approval of the first $900 million dollars in U.S. funding to build EV charging stations in 35 states, part of the $1 trillion dollar infrastructure law approved last November. Congress and Biden have pledged tens of billions of dollars in loans, manufacturing and consumer tax credits and grants to speed the transition from internal combustion vehicles to cleaner EVs. The Big Three automakers, General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler, showed off new EVs while the president highlighted the automakers’ EV push, including billions of dollars in investments.
Individuals interested in EVs have the opportunity to attend a local event being held this weekend. Sunday, Oct. 2, the final day of National Drive Electric Week (NDEW). The “Southeast Ohio NDEW Ride and Drive” will be held that day from 1-4 p.m. at Civitan Park, 1500 Blennerhassett Ave., Belpre. Drive Electric Southeast Ohio and the West Virginia Electric Auto Association, groups made up of EV owners and enthusiasts, will be welcoming attendees to this event. The latest makes and models of several electric vehicles will be on site and attendees will have the chance to take them for a drive as well as talk to EV owners and leaders in the clean transportation industry about driving electric. There will be speakers throughout the day and even a raffle. The event is free and open to the public. Signs and banners will be hung up to help you find them.
This shift to transportation’s electrification is critical to addressing the climate crisis but it should have come much sooner! Investigations done by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), as well as other organizations, have uncovered hundreds of pages of historic documents with striking parallels between the automakers and oil companies. CIEL’s research demonstrates that two of America’s biggest automakers, General Motors and Ford, as well as one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. were aware of climate risks years earlier than suspected. The documents reveal that for decades, these companies failed to act on the knowledge that their products were heating the planet. At the same time, these industries were donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that created public doubt about the scientific consensus on global warming.
According to Carroll Muffett, CIEL’s president and CEO, “CIEL’s findings add to the growing body of evidence that the oil industry worked to actively undermine public confidence in climate science and in the need for climate action even as its own knowledge of climate risks was growing.” Muffett’s description of automakers is essentially the same. He stated that the industry was “deeply and actively engaged,” since the 1960s, in understanding how their cars affected the climate. “We also know that … the auto industry was involved in efforts to undermine climate science and stop progress to address climate change,” Muffett said.
It’s sad this behavior seems to be standard operating procedure for many international corporations. Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the increasingly understood negative impacts to the planet and human health, thank goodness the future of transportation is FINALLY electric. We can only hope it’s better late than never for the sake of future generations.
***
Giulia Mannarino, of Belleville, is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Proposed plant a dangerous distraction
Sep 24, 2022
Eric Engle
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
The company Competitive Power Ventures Inc. has announced plans to build a combined-cycle natural gas power plant in West Virginia, an 1,800-megawatt facility representing a $3 billion investment that could potentially be built in Doddridge County (this is not certain). The facility would use carbon capture and storage technology made possible by expansion of what are referred to as 45Q tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. This facility, and carbon capture and storage (or carbon capture, utilization and storage, as it is often referred to) more broadly, are terrible ideas.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is dangerous, unproven at anywhere near scale, and massively expensive, even with taxpayer subsidization. The “utilization” part is often deliberately left out when describing these processes because it’s an environmental nonstarter. Captured CO2 has, more often than not, been used to extract more oil through a process called advanced oil recovery. What’s the use of capturing these emissions if you’re just going to turn around and use them to recover more emissions-producing fossil fuels? Profit motive is the only rational driver in that scenario. As far as actual emissions reductions, a mitigation report released in April 2022 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that, by 2030, CCUS could cut only half the CO2 emissions that could be cut by solar, wind, and efficiency, and CCUS is far more expensive.
When I say that CCUS is dangerous, I mean it’s dangerous to public health and safety. The site carboncapturefacts.org, sponsored by the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), breaks down the numerous ways CCUS is a threat to the lives, safety and health of communities in its path. CO2, for example, is an asphyxiant and toxicant. In high quantities (such as what would occur in a leak from a CO2 pipeline or storage site), it depletes oxygen in the surrounding environment. Inhalation of high concentrations causes a lowering of the pH of blood and tissues (acidosis) causing acute effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular, and central nervous systems.
CCUS also requires a tremendous amount of water. To quote from SEHN, “A CO2 capture system requires additional water for cooling and make-up, increasing the water requirements for power plants. Estimates in the technical literature show that, with the addition of a full-scale post-combustion capture system, the increase in water consumption per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electrical output can be as high as 90%.” Quoting from the site carboncapturefacts.org, “In 2021, more than 300 U.S. research scientists, including many of the nation’s top climatologists and public health professionals, submitted a letter to President Biden calling CCS [or CCUS] a ‘delay tactic’ and a ‘dangerous distraction.’”
All this danger, all this inefficacy, and it’s not even a good economic investment! Sean O’Leary, senior researcher for the organization Ohio River Valley Institute, recently told E&E News the following:
“Once it is completed, the proposed plant will inflict higher taxes and higher utility bills while still contributing to pollution and the loss of jobs and population that has accompanied natural gas development in Appalachia. In short, if the objective is to decarbonize our energy sector at the lowest possible cost, with the greatest reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and with the greatest amount of job creation, the development of renewable resources would do a much better job of all three.”
O’Leary mentioned in a Twitter post that, “CCS adds $38/MWh to the cost of generating electricity with gas. In 2021, the wholesale price of energy in PJM [PJM is the wholesale electricity market that includes West Virginia] was only $39.86, so electricity from this plant will be at least 2X as costly as the average. Renewable resources would be cheaper and eliminate emissions entirely.”
We are building electric vehicle batteries, electric car chargers, electric school buses, and even electric pontoon boats in West Virginia. Berkshire Hathaway is investing $500 million in Jackson County for a renewable energy microgrid-powered production facility to produce aeronautic titanium. Let’s not lose sight of that progress in favor of combined-cycle gas, which cannot compete with renewables on a levelized-costs basis, especially with added CCUS. Let’s stay focused on a clean, safe, efficient, renewable and sustainable future for West Virginia as an energy state.
***
Eric Engle is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Cleaning up from the past
Sep 17, 2022
George Banziger
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner
One of the most daunting tasks confronting those areas that comprise the Appalachian region is the repair of damage caused by the unfettered extraction of oil and gas that took place since 1860. Abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells are an environmental and safety hazard that leach pollutants into the air and water including methane, which is many times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. These wells, many of which were drilled before modern regulatory regimens, contaminate ground water, threaten agriculture, reduce property values and can cause dangerous explosions. A stark example of the danger of these wells was the Veto Lake blowout that occurred in western Washington County in August 2021. Although the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has not come up with a final report on this event, many assume that the large effluent of raw petroleum was the result of disturbance of an orphaned oil well by excessive injection of brine waste in western Washington County.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 746,000 abandoned and orphaned oil & gas wells in the U.S., and that the cost of closing these wells is between $78 billion and $280 billion. The Ohio River Valley Institute (Boettner, 2021) has reviewed the situation of these wells in four states of the Ohio River Valley–Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. These four states account for over one-third of abandoned wells in the U.S. The cost of plugging each well varies considerably–from $6,500 to $87,500. At the rate at which these wells were plugged since 2018 it would take 895 years to complete the job!
But some help is on the way to begin to address this challenging task. An important part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act passed by Congress last fall is the Federal Orphaned Well Program. This program provides $94.7 billion over nine years, 91% of which goes to the states. Much of these funds, in the form of performance grants, are directed to the four states in the Ohio River Valley and are intended to lower unemployment and improve the economic conditions of distressed areas like West Virginia and Appalachian Ohio. It is estimated that 15,151 jobs could be created over 20 years to carry out this important work of plugging orphaned wells. The ORVI study reports that $216 million from these federal funds will go to West Virginia and $334 million to Ohio. The agencies responsible for these funds are: the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management) and in West Virginia the Department of Environmental Protection (Office of Oil and Gas).
On Sept.9, 2022, the Marietta Times reported that Keith Faber, the State Auditor of Ohio, was in Marietta the day before to describe the state plans for plugging abandoned oil and gas wells. He indicated that state funds are available through ODNR for financial services to local governments and that the goals of the state program for plugging abandoned wells are to: improve the inventory, increase the number of wells put to bid, and explore the use of contractors and public/private partnerships to address the problem. He also made the rather startling admission that ODNR has never met its expenditure requirement for these funds. His statements should be a call to arms for local entrepreneurs and public entities with an interest in addressing this serious environmental problem and in job creation.
President Bill Ruud of Marietta College has mentioned the College’s plans to expand its Department of Petroleum Engineering and Geology into an Energy Center. As he seeks input into the scope this new Center, he is well advised to include projects to address the problem of abandoned oil and gas wells as among the tasks of this program. There are research, pressing environmental and employment issues associated with abandoned oil and gas wells, and grant funds available to carry out these tasks.
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George Banziger, Ph..D., was a faculty member at Marietta College and an academic dean at three other colleges. Now retired, he is a volunteer for the Harvest of Hope. He is a member of the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta, Citizens Climate Lobby, and of the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action team.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Easy to ignore big picture
Sep 10, 2022
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
A man opens a newspaper and reads the headline: “Climate endgame: Risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored.’”
He reads a paragraph into the story before folding the paper and skipping to the next article below the fold.
“Scientists Say It’s ‘Fatally Foolish’ To Not Study Catastrophic Climate Outcomes,” it begins.
He unfolds the paper and scans the headlines, before turning each page in disgust.
“Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’”
“Revealed: How climate breakdown is supercharging toll of extreme weather”
“Climate impacts have worsened vast range of human diseases”
“The Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the whole planet, study finds”
“U.S. Sets Record for High Overnight Temperatures in July, Giving Little Relief to Hot Days”
“Climate Crisis Is Killing Off Key Insects and Spreading Insect-Borne Diseases”
“Antarctica’s Ice Shelves Could be Melting Faster than We Thought”
At last the man can’t stand it. He snaps the paper shut and wads it into a pile in his lap, eventually tossing it into the garbage.
He steps onto his front porch into the dreary grayness of a new day. He reads his front porch thermometer, then straightens up with a triumphant smile on his face. The temperature has gone down nearly 20 degrees overnight, and the day is unseasonably cold.
“Ha!” he exclaims. “Where’s you’re global warming now, liberals?!”
The scenario I’ve described is obviously a composite, but every headline is real, as is the man and his reaction to them.
A study in “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes” has found humans are often more inclined to rely on anecdotal, non-scientific/fact-based evidence, particularly in situations involving stressful and/or highly emotional circumstances.
It makes sense, to a degree, that we might be designed to process information this way. Throughout the majority of our existence, we’ve had no particular reason or incentive to take the entire world or any scientific body of evidence into consideration. Until the last few hundred years or so, we really haven’t had the ability to consider how our actions might impact someone living on the other side of the world, or how events around the globe might have a deep and unexpected impact on our own lives.
We’ve gotten through life by reacting to what was happening in our immediate surroundings, without having to take the abstract behemoth of a wider world into consideration. It isn’t surprising, then, that we in our isolated little pockets of existence should struggle to comprehend the hydra-like tangle of global complexities that is the anthropogenic climate crisis.
A few weeks ago I happened across a letter to the editor in another newspaper, which essentially made the argument: “If sea levels are really rising like the climate people all say, then how come when I watch Wheel of Fortune they give away all these prize getaway packages to beautiful islands, when they should all be under water by now?”
The question is so absurd I’m not going to bother with addressing it, but I feel it perfectly encapsulates the idea I’ve been describing. This person may be completely unaffected by the 99% of scientific papers agreeing about the dangers of the anthropogenic climate crisis, but this small window into the wider world, which has likely been beamed into their home every weekday evening since the 1980s, is enough to nullify the threat of one of the greatest crises ever faced by humanity. They simply trust what they know.
It isn’t hard to understand why an average person might feel an unseasonably cold day in their neighborhood is evidence against global warming. Or why they feel deadly famines in a part of the world they’ve never heard of have nothing to do with them. Or why, as in a case like Kentucky’s deadly summer flooding, even those climate catastrophes which directly harm us and our immediate neighbors don’t necessarily correlate with global warming.
At the end of the day, we’re simply better at understanding things that are close to home. The mind-bending complexity of the climate crisis, coupled with the well documented, decades-long efforts of the fossil fuel industry to obfuscate the truth and spread misinformation, can make it seem easier to shut it out of our minds and deny there’s a threat.
But it IS a threat that grows larger and closer to our doorstep each day. For far too many, the threat has already arrived. And it is critical we begin to challenge how we think about the world around us, and learn how to engage directly with the facts of the climate crisis, however difficult or inconvenient. Only then can we take the steps needed to overcome the many challenges ahead and have some hope of surviving this crisis, together.
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Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Climate change impacts the health of children
Sep 3, 2022
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“If you don’t act against climate change, then no matter how much money you leave for your children, it’ll not even cover their healthcare bills, due to living in an unhealthy planet.” — Abhijit Naskar, neuroscientist/poet/author
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In many parts of the world, people are facing multiple climate-related impacts such as severe drought and flooding, air pollution and water scarcity, leaving their children vulnerable to malnutrition and disease. Horror stories of children trapped in hot cars make headlines, but air pollution and impacts from a changing climate are also impactful and more constant, year-round threats. Children are at higher risk for health changes due to these impacts for a range of reasons, including the way their bodies metabolize toxins, need more air on a per pound basis, and regulate temperature differently than adults.
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, increasing their exposure to dangerous air pollutants.
Climate change has the potential to increase outdoor air pollutants, such as dust from droughts, wildfire smoke, and ground-level ozone, which are associated with increases in asthma and other respiratory conditions in children. Climate change can also increase pollen and prolong the allergy season.
Extreme heat events are expected to last longer and become more frequent and intense as the climate changes. Heat illnesses can occur when a person is exposed to high temperatures and their body cannot cool down. Increases in average and extreme temperatures are expected to lead to more heat illnesses and deaths among vulnerable groups, including children. Heat can affect children who spend time outdoors playing and exercising.
Young athletes are at particular risk of heat stroke and heat illnesses. Approximately 9,000 U.S. high school athletes are treated for heat illnesses each year. Children who live in homes without air conditioning are also 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. Other water-related diseases, as well as eye and ear infections can create serious health concerns for kids.
Because children spend a lot of time outdoors, they are vulnerable to increasingly powerful poison ivy, as well as 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. Warmer temperatures associated with climate change can also increase mosquito development and biting rates, while increased rainfall can create breeding sites for mosquitoes.
Children can experience mental health impacts from major storms, fires, and other extreme events that are expected to increase with a changing climate. They also can suffer from other changes, such as having to move due to climate threats.
There is a range of personal and family changes people can make. For example, parents that use electric cars for their family can decrease the likelihood of their child getting asthma by 30%. If a family can reduce eating meat just by one day a week, that can help protect the planet and improve the health of their children. Also, buying a filter for your home can reduce indoor air pollution. Using electric appliances instead of gas can improve the air that your family breathes by 50%.
All across the planet, people are facing multiple climate-related impacts 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. As the climate continues to change, the impacts will continue to grow also. This is a crisis that threatens children’s health, nutrition, education, development, survival, and future.
Until next time. Be kind to your Mother Earth.
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Linda Seth, SLP, M.Ed. is a mother, grandmother, retired educator, concerned citizen and member of MOVCA.
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