Aug 6, 2022
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Unfettered climate chaos has ravaged the globe throughout July, as it is almost certainly guaranteed to do with increasing magnitude for the remainder of our days.
Heatwaves across the U.S. have placed over 100,000,000 under extreme heat warnings, with over a dozen raging wildfires resulting in potential blackouts. The U.K. recently hit its highest recorded temperature, with over 40 homes in London being destroyed by fires. Roads in China are buckling, droughts rage across Somalia, Malawi, Mexico, and Italy, and the Rio Grande ran dry for the first time in 40 years. Intensive flooding has led to the tragic loss of 37 lives in Kentucky.
Some scientists believe we’re facing down a “climate endgame,” in which human extinction may become inevitable.
It is against that backdrop U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently made the statement humanity faces the risk of “collective suicide.”
I am not comfortably familiar with Guterres to comment on his actions as they relate to climate change. I have found he often speaks powerful and uncomfortable truths about the crisis at hand — though strong words are only that, and actions and policies are other things entirely. I wish neither to holistically endorse nor condemn him.
However, I do believe there is much to be discussed regarding the commonly held, though deeply flawed notion of the climate crisis as any kind of “collective suicide.”
A “suicide,” entails the taking of one’s own life by one’s own hand. “Genocide” might be a more apt term for the mass destruction of human life at the hands of the elite.
The likely swallowing of the island nation of Tuvalu by rising seas, for instance, can hardly be said to be the handiwork of its inhabitants. The tiny Pacific island was responsible for about 0.86 tons of CO2 emissions per capita in 2019, or a total of around 30 kt in greenhouse gas emissions. Contrast this with, say, the United States, whose per capita CO2 emissions sit around 13.68 tons, or around 6,001,209.96 kt in greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. is far and away the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing around 20% of such emissions since 1850. We are inarguably and disproportionately responsible for the crisis at hand; while in far too many cases, the nations most at risk from the threat of a desecrated planet are also least culpable.
Which is not to say every person living within our country contributes equally to this global suffering. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% of humanity that infests this world today emits more than double the poorest half of our entire species.
Taylor Swift recently made headlines when it was reported her private jet was responsible for more than 8,293 metric tons of CO2 emissions since January of this year. To put this into perspective, the Swiss company building the world’s largest carbon direct air capture facility, Climeworks, is equipped to capture around two years’ worth of Swift’s annual emissions within about a year’s time. The world’s best climate capture technology is capable of reducing the emissions of around two ultra-wealthy American celebrities in one year.
It’s fashionable among the elite psychopaths who run the world to bandy about the term “trickle-down economics,” to bamboozle their slave laborers and indentured servants into believing the gold with which they line their owners’ pockets might slowly come falling back down to enrich them.
I would suggest just as the poor of this world remain sheltered from the fruits of their labors by the grotesque excesses of the elites, these same elites now shelter themselves from the literal storm of the climate crisis using the shattered bodies of the masses as a shield.
As the biosphere collapses around us, smarmy tech billionaires are launching themselves into space to avoid facing the hell on Earth they’ve created. A growing number of deranged companies are manufacturing “luxury doomsday shelters” underground for the ultrawealthy who’ve spent decades fighting against action on climate, and being lucratively rewarded for their heinous deceptions. And Faustian Senators, bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, are puttering off in their yachts, assured in the knowledge they’ll never face a day of reckoning.
We are truly living in the age of the trickle-up apocalypse. Only by rising up, and uniting against those who would use and abuse us as their human shield, can we have a hope of maintaining this crumbling ball of dust and fire we once assuredly called our home.
***
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Divorce your lawn
Aug 13, 2022
Randi Pokladnik
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
This year Californians had to do something that many of us would have a hard time doing … they had to let their lawns die. The drought in that state became so dire that many communities were on water rationing. There were fines levied against those who were caught giving their lawns a drink. Some folks were optimistic and said the lawns were turning golden in the Golden State.
What would happen if that scenario ever occurred in our area? I know many people in Ohio have huge lawns, in some cases over five acres. I often wonder why they do this. Do they play football in that area? Do they have a solar array? Do they have a reason for mowing, watering, and in some cases fertilizing and spreading herbicides on acres of turf grasses?
I have on occasion asked this question and the only answer I get is this: It looks nice.
Some researchers have investigated this paradigm and believe the longing for wide expansive lawns dates back to the time when man roamed the savannas. In an effort to mimic this style of ecosystem, we plant and care for enormous lawns.
Michael Pollan, the author of the “Botany of Desire” wrote that our zeal for the perfect lawn is a throwback to19th Century England when only the very rich had luxurious lawns surrounding their magnificent estate.
I think some of our love of lawns has to do with the introduction of the motorized lawn mower. My dad had the old fashion reel mower when we were kids. Of course, we didn’t have a huge lawn; only about one eighth of an acre. Dad could get those blades spinning quick enough to finish mowing in under an hour. He never liked mowing and he didn’t agonize over uneven blades of grass.
With a riding mower, cutting the grass becomes a sporting event with riding mowers blazing paths across the terrain. People (mainly men) discuss models and makes and mowers can price out in the small car range. It takes much less labor and is usually quicker. However, I’d like to see the statistics on how many old fashioned mowers were involved in deadly accidents or maimed their user.
There are other disadvantages to cultivating that huge lawn. Estimates say that in the United States, we spend $40 billion a year taking care of 21 million acres of grass. Americans spend “more than three billion hours a year mowing lawns.”
The carbon footprint of a lawn mower is pretty significant and some can emit as much pollution as eleven cars. Another major issue with a nonnative lawn is the use of pesticides and herbicides used to cultivate that green carpet. Years ago, one of my college professors shocked the class when he asked us; which crop in the USA uses the most water, fertilizer and pesticides? We all said corn but the answer was grass.
Maybe we should investigate other less expensive and more ecological uses for that land. Native grasses and wildflowers are increasingly gaining in popularity. We can plant ground cover or shrubs that provide habitat for birds and other animals. We can simply leave the space grow in its own way and let nature take over.
If you opt to divorce your huge lawn, you might not have that manicured golf course setting but the advantages are many. You’ll save money, you don’t have to spend hours each weekend stuck on that mower, you will not release as much carbon dioxide, you won’t have to buy as much gas, you might reduce mower injuries, and if you stop using lawn chemicals you’ll be contributing to a healthier environment. All those fertilizers and pesticides people use to get that lush green lawn are in part contributing to carbon emissions, water pollution or eutrophication (nutrient enrichment) and the increase of algae blooms in bodies of water.
So, maybe this fall, you and the lawn can have a discussion. Isn’t it time to move on? Serve the divorce papers and start a new relationship with a better, more eco, and smaller lawn next spring.
***
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: Trickle-up apocalypse
Aug 6, 2022
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Unfettered climate chaos has ravaged the globe throughout July, as it is almost certainly guaranteed to do with increasing magnitude for the remainder of our days.
Heatwaves across the U.S. have placed over 100,000,000 under extreme heat warnings, with over a dozen raging wildfires resulting in potential blackouts. The U.K. recently hit its highest recorded temperature, with over 40 homes in London being destroyed by fires. Roads in China are buckling, droughts rage across Somalia, Malawi, Mexico, and Italy, and the Rio Grande ran dry for the first time in 40 years. Intensive flooding has led to the tragic loss of 37 lives in Kentucky.
Some scientists believe we’re facing down a “climate endgame,” in which human extinction may become inevitable.
It is against that backdrop U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently made the statement humanity faces the risk of “collective suicide.”
I am not comfortably familiar with Guterres to comment on his actions as they relate to climate change. I have found he often speaks powerful and uncomfortable truths about the crisis at hand — though strong words are only that, and actions and policies are other things entirely. I wish neither to holistically endorse nor condemn him.
However, I do believe there is much to be discussed regarding the commonly held, though deeply flawed notion of the climate crisis as any kind of “collective suicide.”
A “suicide,” entails the taking of one’s own life by one’s own hand. “Genocide” might be a more apt term for the mass destruction of human life at the hands of the elite.
The likely swallowing of the island nation of Tuvalu by rising seas, for instance, can hardly be said to be the handiwork of its inhabitants. The tiny Pacific island was responsible for about 0.86 tons of CO2 emissions per capita in 2019, or a total of around 30 kt in greenhouse gas emissions. Contrast this with, say, the United States, whose per capita CO2 emissions sit around 13.68 tons, or around 6,001,209.96 kt in greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. is far and away the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing around 20% of such emissions since 1850. We are inarguably and disproportionately responsible for the crisis at hand; while in far too many cases, the nations most at risk from the threat of a desecrated planet are also least culpable.
Which is not to say every person living within our country contributes equally to this global suffering. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% of humanity that infests this world today emits more than double the poorest half of our entire species.
Taylor Swift recently made headlines when it was reported her private jet was responsible for more than 8,293 metric tons of CO2 emissions since January of this year. To put this into perspective, the Swiss company building the world’s largest carbon direct air capture facility, Climeworks, is equipped to capture around two years’ worth of Swift’s annual emissions within about a year’s time. The world’s best climate capture technology is capable of reducing the emissions of around two ultra-wealthy American celebrities in one year.
It’s fashionable among the elite psychopaths who run the world to bandy about the term “trickle-down economics,” to bamboozle their slave laborers and indentured servants into believing the gold with which they line their owners’ pockets might slowly come falling back down to enrich them.
I would suggest just as the poor of this world remain sheltered from the fruits of their labors by the grotesque excesses of the elites, these same elites now shelter themselves from the literal storm of the climate crisis using the shattered bodies of the masses as a shield.
As the biosphere collapses around us, smarmy tech billionaires are launching themselves into space to avoid facing the hell on Earth they’ve created. A growing number of deranged companies are manufacturing “luxury doomsday shelters” underground for the ultrawealthy who’ve spent decades fighting against action on climate, and being lucratively rewarded for their heinous deceptions. And Faustian Senators, bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, are puttering off in their yachts, assured in the knowledge they’ll never face a day of reckoning.
We are truly living in the age of the trickle-up apocalypse. Only by rising up, and uniting against those who would use and abuse us as their human shield, can we have a hope of maintaining this crumbling ball of dust and fire we once assuredly called our home.
***
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Failed promises of the natural gas industry
Jul 30, 2022
George Banziger
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Residents of the Mid-Ohio Valley have been presented with several myths about the benefits of the natural gas industry. These myths have resulted in unfulfilled promises that have left the Valley and greater Appalachia in a chronic state of economic stagnation and population decline. First there was the promise of a natural gas boom in 2008. Then there was the idea of the hydrogen storage hub, followed by the “petrochemical renaissance,” with the promise of a major cracker plant (to convert natural gas to raw material of plastics), and finally the plan for hydrogen-based energy and carbon capture and sequestration.
The false promise of a boom in the Ohio River Valley was brought to light in a February 2021 report by the Ohio River Valley Institute. The authors examined 22 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia (dubbed “Frackalachia” in this report) that produce natural gas. The myth propagated by advocates for the natural gas industry promised unprecedented growth from 2008 to 2019. While gross domestic product in the U.S. grew substantially during this period, in Frackalachia the local economy declined or stagnated–there was a 6% decline in jobs and an 8% decline in population.
The idea of a storage hub has similarly gone unrealized, and the plan for a major cracker plant in the region is still pinned on the false hopes that a government-owned company in Thailand would fund this operation.
More recently, we have heard about plans to develop hydrogen as a “clean” source of energy along with the idea of carbon capture and sequestration. The major means of production for this energy source is blue hydrogen, which is made from methane or natural gas. That means there will be no reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. A more promising source of hydrogen is green hydrogen, made from water using electrolysis, but at this point only about 2% of hydrogen is made from water.
Another myth promulgated by supporters of fossil fuels is that carbon capture and sequestration will significantly reduce carbon in the environment. The plan is to compress carbon from all major sources and ship this compressed carbon through a massive system of pipelines. This system of pipelines and the infrastructure to capture and compress carbon are tremendously expensive, adding billions of dollars, which could be saved merely by transitioning directly to renewable sources of energy.
While natural gas production grew from 4% in 2008 to 35% from 2008 to 2019, job growth in the region was 8% below the national average, according to a 2021 study (“Destined to Fail”) by the Ohio River Valley Institute. Dollars associated with this growth of production did not enter the local economy. This is confirmed anecdotally by the observation of out-of-state license plates at natural gas sites. Furthermore, residents of the region have to cope with emissions from the natural gas industry that have spoiled air and water and accounted for increased risks of health problems like cancer and respiratory illnesses.
Residents of Washington County are well aware of the costs of the natural gas industry as they have experienced the huge growth of injection wells (for brine waste from the fracking of natural gas)–8 million barrels in 2019 — with the attendant risks of air and water pollution and health problems.
In an online publication, “Route Fifty” (2022), Amanda Woodrum of the ReImagine Appalachia movement has written that fossil fuels have increased the nation’s prosperity while absentee corporations have extracted profits and exploited resources of the region, leaving the region in poverty, lands damaged, and workers and neighbors with chronic illnesses.
What is needed for the Ohio Valley to prosper in the 21st Century, Woodrum goes on to explain, is a plan to: modernize the electrical grid, expand universal high-quality broadband, grow clean and efficient manufacturing, build a sustainable transportation system, repair lands damaged by the exploitative fossil-fuel industries, restore wetlands, and promote regenerative agricultural practices. These kinds of investments are based on labor-intensive practices not the capital-intensive methods of the past.
***
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 Mid-Ohio Valley Interfaith, and 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
On climate, making Manchin irrelevant is the only path
WVGazettemail
July 26, 2022
Eric Engle
The world is being scorched. Europe is suffering under massive heatwaves, as is the U.S, and China. Wildfires, droughts, collapsing glaciers and devastating floods are becoming ubiquitous globally. The U.S’s fastest growing cities like Scottsdale, Arizona and Fort Worth,Texas, are on a fast track to becoming
uninhabitable, with more and more days of unbearable temperatures and shrinking water supplies.The urban heat island effect, where sprawling concrete urban centers with very little tree cover heat up to deadly temperatures much faster than surrounding areas, is exacerbating this.
In places like the British Isles, where temperatures have soared earlier this month to all-time, triple-digit records, homes are built to retain heat, not block or vent it. Air-conditioning is almost unheard of. In the history of human habitation of such places there’s been no need for synthetic cooling.We’re seeing more of this in recent years, with places like the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and parts of Canada, as well as Siberia, subject to the same heatwaves and wildfires of the American South and Southwest.
These recent summers aren’t the hottest summers of our lives; they’re the coolest summers of the rest of our lives. As heat indexes (the combination of heat and humidity) rise, humans cannot withstand exposure to them. There is a measure called the WetBulb Globe Temperature that gauges heat stress in direct sunlight. It takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed,sun angle and cloud cover (solar radiation).WetBulb temperatures are on the rise globally and are already frequently deadly in places like India and Pakistan.
Hurricane season is right around the corner.Warmer ocean surface temperatures fuel hurricanes, and warmer air holds more moisture, which is fuel for massive precipitation events. The U.S. Atlantic and Gulf states have been battered in recent years by some of the worst hurricanes, tropical storms and precipitation events in recorded history and this trend is not letting up. The worst impact of climate change, other than extreme
heat, here in West Virginia will be precipitation and flooding. We’ve already seen how ill-equipped we are to face this.
Meanwhile, Congress is failing to act. Why? Unanimous opposition from Republicans on the one hand and enabling of their obstruction and delay on the other. The chief enabler, of course, is Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Stellar reporting recently by the Gazette-Mail’s Mike Tony detailed exactly why Manchin has been a
roadblock to climate action, but the reasons for Manchin’s obstinance can be summed up quickly: he’s the Senate’s leading recipient of oil and gas industry largesse and he’s a coal baron who makes over $500,000 a year through his coal brokerage, Enersystems, selling waste coal to the Grant Town Power Plant.
Members of Congress can get away with this kind of conflict of interest through slight of hand. Manchin has put his Enersystems holdings in a blind trust and says that is sufficient, which at this point it legally is, but his son runs the brokerage. How “blind’ can the goings-on really be? Please. Laws need changed to forbid this kind of thing but good luck finding a Congress to change them. Manchin has no business being chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, but it seems that all Senate Democrat leadership and the president know how to do is kiss up to him. Congressional Democrats by and large have no idea how to play hardball, even in the midst of a climate crisis.
Electoral politics is more often than not a fairly ineffective way of solving problems. Elections only matter if there are mass movements to demand that these people, once elected, actually try to solve any real problems and improve lives using public policy. But those movements exist. The movement to address the climate crisis, part of a larger web of movements that cannot be siloed, is stronger than ever. My fervent hope is that enough Democrats like Tim Ryan of Ohio, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Charles Booker of Kentucky can be elected to make Manchin irrelevant in the next Congress, while maintaining climate-friendly majorities in the House. It’s the only way we’re going to get the federal policy solutions we need to mitigate the damage, avert worse catastrophe, and help salvage a habitable planet.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Just itching to address climate change
Jul 16, 2022
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
“Late at night while you’re sleeping, poison ivy comes a-creeping…” — Lieber and Stoller 1959
***
Unless you are as old as I am, you might not recognize the song remnant sung by “The Coasters;” but you will recognize that few things can spoil a day outdoors faster than poison ivy. The plant, which presents as a three-leafed vine, can prompt a rash as a reaction to urushiol, an irritating oil in its leaves.
It turns out climate change may not just be making the planet hotter: it seems to be worsening poison ivy, too. Current research suggests that poison ivy may be growing faster and larger due to rising heat and elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and the situation is likely to get worse.
Studies done over the past 15+ years suggest that rising CO2 levels are helping every hiker’s least favorite plant grow faster, bigger, and itchier. As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to increase, so does more irritating and pervasive poison ivy (and poison oak). Increasing temperatures, along with rising CO2 levels, are causing poison ivy plants to grow larger and stronger. This results in the plants growing bigger leaves; pie-plate sized leaves are now common
The plant is also benefiting from warmer soils. One experiment from Harvard University demonstrated an increase of 9∂F in soil temperature resulted in poison ivy growing 149% faster. The growth rate of the poison ivy plant has doubled in the last 50 years.
“The chances of encountering poison ivy and coming down with a rash are greater than they used to be,” according to the online site, WebMD.
Additionally, the oil itself that causes poison ivy rash is getting more powerful, according to scientists. Plants raised in a high-CO2 environment produced a more allergenic form of urushiol, the substance that causes rashes in most people exposed to the plant. A generation of supercharged poison ivy should be concerning for humans who react to the plant, which is most (85%) of us. But it’s also likely to impact nearby flora and fauna. Since not all plants respond to CO2 like poison ivy does, it’s possible that growing vines could cause an imbalance in natural ecosystems, choking out more benign plants. Poison ivy is choking trees and filling the border edges of woodlands.
Next to crop failure, deadly heat waves, sea level rise … more poison ivy may seem like a relatively trivial effect of climate change. But for those of us who love to hike, the future may involve a lot more anti-itch lotion than we’d prefer.
What you need to know before you head out to the woods, or the backyard:
It’s been a hot summer locally in the Mid-Ohio Valley. It’s hard to imagine wanting to hike in long pants. But if you live somewhere poison ivy is rampant, you might not have a choice. If you’re into hiking, try to wear long pants and long sleeves rather than shorts and t-shirts and definitely wear socks.
Be sure to learn to identify poison ivy. In addition to having three leaves, it can also appear as a scruffy vine on trees. If a plant you think might be poison ivy has thorns or clusters of five leaves, it’s probably something else.
The offending substance, urushiol, is found in the sap. Burning poison ivy plants can release urushiol particles into the air. The urushiol found in the sap of the poison ivy plant binds to skin cells when it comes into contact. Touching the sap of the plant as well as touching something on which urushiol is present, such as garden tools or a pet who has run through the leaves, can cause the allergic reaction. Shower within a half-hour of contact and you’ll be generally OK. But once it is absorbed, there is not much you can do.
If you normally pack one bottle of anti-itch cream for a camping trip, from now on, consider taking two.
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
EPA ruling far from ‘pro-life’
Letters to the editor
Jul 9, 2022
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
On June 24, America’s far right Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision establishing the constitutionality of abortion in the United States.
But what I want to talk about is a second ruling made just under a week later. June 30, this same court ruled to limit the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by the energy sector. To quote NASA scientist and environmental activist Peter Kalmus, this decision “effectively shut[s] down the last best avenue for climate action by the US,” with “ramifications [that] could last thousands of years,” and will lead to “the deaths of millions.”
To put our present climate trajectory in perspective, it was announced last year that the world was on track to hit 2.7 degrees Celsius of human-made warming this century if current trends continue. While Chief Justice John Roberts scornfully dismissed climate change as “the crisis of the day” in the Court’s disastrous opinion, we’ve so far only reached 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming as of 2021 and have already experienced catastrophic events. Things are only going to get worse.
Around 5 million human deaths per year have already been attributed to anthropogenic changes in temperature, with estimates tying some 83 million cumulative deaths to warming by the end of the century. This is to say nothing of the estimated 1-2 billion refugees likely to be displaced by sea level rise or the inevitable wars and geopolitical chaos that will ensue. Nor does it include the nonhuman toll, namely the ongoing sixth mass extinction of Earth’s biodiversity, with species dying out at a rate of 100 to 1000 times the natural background rate and roughly a million species of plants and animals projected to die out within the coming decades.
To quote Noam Chomsky, “I don’t know what word in the English language — I can’t find one — that applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly overstuffed pockets. The word evil doesn’t begin to approach it.”
And now, for the same sociopathic criminals willing to plunge the world into the fires of a literal hell (notable among them, the Dishonorable Amy Coney Barrett, whose father worked as an attorney for Shell Oil for twenty-nine years), to go around labeling themselves as “pro-life?” Laughable beyond the point of parody.
We have an indisputable responsibility to slash emissions in order to prevent the collapse of global civilization and the untold levels of death and human misery that will result. And yet now, as it’s done for decades by this point, the bloodthirsty American right has decided to favor the short term profits of the fossil fuel industry over human survival itself.
However you personally view the issue of abortion, there is no honest way that the character of the American right can be so thoroughly misconstrued as anything remotely resembling protectors of life on this planet.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Few options after unforgivable ruling
Jul 9, 2022
Eric Engle
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Six unelected authoritarian despots on the U.S. Supreme Court have decided in the case West Virginia v. EPA that the federal administrative body tasked with protection of public health and the environment was exceeding its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants under a regulation that no longer exists.
To quote Oliver Milman, writing for The Guardian, “Not only was this case about a regulation that does not exist, that never took effect, and which would have imposed obligations on the energy sector that it would have met regardless. It also involves two legal doctrines that are not mentioned in the constitution, and that most scholars agree have no basis in any federal statute.”
To quote constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, “…by ruling on the case at all, the court usurps power constitutionally entrusted to the government’s politically accountable branches. Article 3 of the constitution limits federal courts to deciding concrete ‘cases and controversies’ about the rights of individual parties. Yet this ‘case’ involves neither a concrete dispute nor the specific rights of any of the challengers. Instead, it’s akin to an exam question about the options theoretically available to a federal agency to address a grave problem. In answering that hypothetical question, the court will have arrogated to itself an unprecedented, open-ended power to reshape the nation’s social and economic landscape — far in excess of its legitimate authority, as the foundational case Marbury v. Madison put it, to ‘declare what the law is.’”
The regulation that was challenged in this case was the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The Supreme Court stayed the plan in 2016 while the Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit decided on its legality. The D.C. Circuit stayed its judgment until the Biden administration could formulate a new rule. A more recent Trump administration “plan” (plan really isn’t the word for it) was tossed out in the lower courts and the Biden administration has been set to craft another plan for coal-fired power plant emissions. This nonsensical decision has preempted that. And the ramifications of the decision are far-reaching.
This decision is part of an over half-a-century endeavor to dismantle the federal administrative state altogether. These justices are and have been very much a part of that longstanding “conservative” scheme (I don’t understand why the word “conservative” is still used to describe them, what are they conserving?) and this is at least one culmination of this ongoing effort. To quote once more from Milman, “But the ruling could also have sweeping consequences for the federal government’s ability to set standards and regulate in other areas, such as clean air and water, consumer protections, banking, workplace safety and public health. It may prove a landmark moment in conservative [there’s that word again] ambitions to dismantle the ‘regulatory state,’ stripping away protections from Americans across a wide range of areas.”
So, Congress has got to act, right? One would certainly hope, but it’s not likely. The Constitution provides for two senators per state regardless of population size and our senior senator in West Virginia, Sen. Joe Manchin III, has been holding up crucial climate policy. Why? Because he’s a coal baron. He makes over $500,000 a year from selling waste coal (aka gob) to an 80Mw facility the grid doesn’t need that burns this coal at a cost of $121 million to MonPower ratepayers just between 2016-2021. Any policy that hastens the move to renewable energies threatens his cash cow.
Minority tyranny in the United States is a direct threat to the ability of humankind to continue to safely inhabit this planet. Full stop. The makeup of the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, the gerrymandering of U.S. House districts, and the illegitimate Supreme Court are not only anti-democratic, but a threat to our only home in the cosmos. Five of the six justices who decided West Virginia v. EPA were appointed by presidents who didn’t win the nationwide popular vote and confirmed by senators who represented tens of millions fewer Americans than those senators who opposed them.
There are options. The court could be expanded to 13 justices instead of 9 to match the number of appellate circuit courts in the country now. There’s historical precedent for expanding the court. Justices like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch could be impeached for lying under oath over Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings. The filibuster could be altered or abolished, and crucial public policy passed to address the climate crisis and codify Roe, just for starters. Unfortunately, Democrats lack the intestinal fortitude. Posterity will never, and should never, forgive us.
***
Eric Engle is chairman of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: An eco-friendly Fourth of July
Jul 2, 2022
Giulia Mannarino
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
With picnics, parades and fireworks, July Fourth celebrations are often a highlight of the summer. But these celebrations and the activities associated with them can be less than ideal for the planet. There are changes you can make to have a July Fourth gathering that is as environmentally friendly as possible. Several organizations concerned about the environment, such as the Sierra Club and Green Citizen, offer suggestions online for a more eco-friendly celebration.
One of the most obvious and perhaps easiest suggestions made is to eliminate single-use plastics. If you are not able to provide reusable cutlery and dishware for your guests, ask them to bring their own. If reusable is not an option, purchase biodegradable or compostable products made from renewable sources. Also, ditch the paper napkins and opt for cloth napkins which can be washed and used for years. In order to minimize food waste, ask guests to bring reuseable containers to take any left-over food home and be sure to compost all food scraps. For drinks purchase larger size jugs to share and pour into glasses instead of individual, smaller bottles. Of course, have a recycling bin handy and recycle everything you possibly can.
While there is no way to grill without pollution, use greener alternatives. Natural gas and propane create one half the CO2 per hour of charcoal. Grill as green as possible by adding more vegetarian items to the menu. If meat is a must, chicken is the most sustainable out of all different types of meat, followed by turkey and pork, according to a study conducted by the Environmental Working Group.
If you purchase decorations, save them to use again next year rather than tossing them. An alternative is to use decorations you already have such as white Christmas lights. Or forego the decorations and ask guests to dress in red, white and blue. Food, including apples, berries and coconut, can also be part of the decor. And if you must travel to a celebration, car pool or use public transportation to limit the environmental impact of your travel.
According to PBS, on July 4, 1777 the first anniversary of Independence Day, Philadelphia celebrated the holiday by setting off fireworks. Fireworks became a staple of the July 4th tradition, with more and more U.S. cities setting them off every year. Although people are aware that fireworks are dangerous and most everyone knows of someone who ended up in an emergency room while using fireworks; few people are aware of the environmental impact fireworks cause.
According to Tree Hugger, fireworks in the U.S. emit 60,340 metric tons of CO2 every year. It was also noted that is a little more than what 12,000 gas-powered cars emit in a year. The most obvious result of a fireworks show is a lot of air pollution in a very short amount of time. But more than adding fine particulate matter to the air, when fireworks go off, the metal salts and explosions undergo a chemical reaction that releases not only smoke but gases into the air, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen. These are all greenhouse gases responsible for global warming that is causing climate change. According to a study published in 2015 by Atmospheric Environment, a science journal, as a national average, from 315 different testing sites, July 4th fireworks introduce 42% more pollutants into the air than are found on a normal day.
Unfortunately, there is no completely planet-friendly way to enjoy fireworks. So-called eco-friendly alternatives have been developed and although these fireworks do emit 15-65% less particulate matter than traditional fireworks, according to American Chemical Society researchers, they still significantly deteriorate air quality. If your Independence Day celebration just wouldn’t be the same without fireworks, the best option is to eliminate at-home fireworks and ride share to attend a local fireworks show. In addition to having no packaging waste, it helps reduce your own environmental impact by not adding additional pollutants into the air.
Please make your July 4th gatherings as environmentally friendly as possible. It will be better for the atmosphere and the earth as well as a safer option for your family and it will help ensure we can continue to celebrate this day for many future generations.
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Giulia Mannarino, of Belleville, is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action
Last Updated: April 28, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District anything but a conservancy
Jun 25, 2022
Randi Pokladnik
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District includes parts or the entirety of 27 Ohio counties. All of these counties have seen some impact from oil and gas development. However, the counties of Carroll, Harrison, Belmont, Noble, and Guernsey have been significantly impacted.
Citizens living near oil and gas activities have expressed concerns about drilling operations which include: the chemicals/additives used to drill/frack, the radionuclides brought up to the surface in produced water, increased radon gas levels in homes, drilling in ecologically sensitive areas, contamination from spills, leaks, blowouts, and deliberate releases, and subsurface migration of contaminants among aquifers.
Yet, a recent announcement stated that the MWCD signed a lease agreement with Encino Energy to frack 7,300 acres of property at Tappan Lake in Harrison County. The MWCD has a long history with oil and gas extraction, leasing thousands of acres for Utica shale drilling and selling water from MWCD lakes to be used by drillers for fracking. It was once stated that the MWCD is the “number 1 beneficiary of drilling in Ohio.”
Gordon Maupin, the president of the MWCD board of directors, said this recent lease agreement reflects “our desire to renew and increase our focus on improving the watershed and water quality and protecting our resource by requiring enhanced environmental protections.” Those “enhanced environmental protections” Maupin speaks of are superficial at best and include walls to block noise and visuals, some water testing and erosion protection.
It is impossible to protect land, air and water from the pollution of fracking since this industry is basically exempt from all major federal environmental laws and regulations such as: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to Know Act.
Workers and nearby residents can be exposed to air contaminants like nitrogen oxides, benzene, ozone, toluene, methane, and fine particulate matter during the fracking process. Run-off of toxic compounds from the well pads can enter Tappan Lake, the drinking water source for Cadiz, Ohio. Should the lake become impaired, where will Cadiz get its water supply?
The U.S. EPA and Department of Energy said that an average of seven million gallons of water and over 70,000 gallons of chemicals are used for each well fracked. Over 80% of these compounds have never been reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Many of those reviewed are known carcinogens and hormone blockers.
Accidents happen. The XTO Energy well blowout in Belmont County in February 2018 spewed out 120 tons of methane an hour for twenty days. Methane is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.
You cannot be a good steward of the land and ignore all the externalities visited on the landscape from fracking. I live on Tappan Lake and have seen the effects of fracking in the county. Pipelines crisscross the forested hills, fracking trucks congest the rural roadways, water is being withdrawn from local creeks, and even the night skies are obliterated by fracking flares.
The recent storms across the country and especially in Ohio are more proof that the climate is changing and severe weather will soon be the new norm. Still, politicians and the oil and gas industry continue to cling to the very fuel that is driving this climate crisis.
How can the MWCD justify financing improvements by allowing the fossil fuel industry to destroy the very landscape they (MWCD) are supposedly conserving? The definition of conservancy is: a body concerned with the preservation of nature, specific species or natural resources. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is anything but a conservancy.
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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: Climate change urgency that creates jobs
Jun 11, 2022
George Banziger
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Many thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin for his efforts at bipartisan solutions on climate legislation. Up to this point these efforts have not been successful, yet the importance of addressing climate change is still compelling. The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates considerable urgency for the need to deal with the effects of climate change. Residents of West Virginia are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and abnormally high rainfall events, given the topography of the state. The expense of dealing with emergencies created by these catastrophic weather events is considerable; after-the-fact resources to deal with extreme destructive events would be better spent on programs and industries to prevent them.
The transition to green energy in West Virginia need not be a sacrifice but can, on the contrary, be constructive to the economy of the state and of the region. New jobs can be created through manufacturing of products for renewable energy like solar panels and wind turbines, plugging orphaned oil and gas wells, solar panel installation, and wind turbine technicians. The latter two occupations are, in fact, among the top five fastest growing jobs according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Creative juices are flowing in Appalachia about how to move the economy in this region from the exploitative, extractive industries around fossil fuels to more sustainable activities and products. There is the idea of “eco brick,” which look like the conventional clay brick but can be complemented with used plastic or with fly ash (the byproduct of the coal industry). There is “mass timber,” a sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, which can be used to construct buildings as tall as 12 floors; mass timber is made from solid wood panels nailed or glued together; they are fire resistant, strong, sustainable, and cost efficient. There is industrial hemp, an alternative to plastic, which can be grown on damaged lands. And there are many options for industry around waste recovery, such as using recycled glass to make insulation. The science of battery technology is growing rapidly, and large batteries are in great demand for the rapidly expanding production of electric vehicles.
All of these ideas can be developed in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia with locally owned businesses and with the help of federal stimulus programs that are currently available.
There are two “i” words that have entered our vocabulary as a result of recent events: invasion and inflation. The unprovoked and devastating invasion of Ukraine by Russia is an important ingredient of the rising prices of oil and gasoline at the pump. Gasoline prices and other energy costs are driving a serious episode of inflation and causing misery and anxiety for many American families.
The volatility of energy prices and the boom-bust cycles that fossil-fuels create for our economy are unsustainable in the long run. A green economy, which relies on American-based sustainable energy is the best long-term solution for the economic health of Appalachia.
As Senator Manchin and other political leaders become re-engaged with the Reconciliation legislation that will come before Congress, we urge them to respond to the urgency that the science of climate change requires and to support creative ideas for economic development and job creation which a greener economy can deliver.
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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 Mid-Ohio Valley Interfaith, and 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.
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