Sep 5, 2020 in Herald-Star by RANDI POKLADNIK
Most Ohioans who have lived in the state for more than 50 years have noticed that our weather is definitely changing. We have warmer winters overall, hotter summers, less snow and less rain, and in general when we do get rain events, they tend to be accompanied with extreme winds.
This summer is no exception. Since May, my county, Harrison, has had 24 days in the upper 80s and 19 days above 90 degrees. There are several portions of the state that have witnessed weeks without any significant rainfall.
May was the warmest May ever recorded globally. Also “freakishly” high temperatures were seen in the arctic, especially the Russian Arctic region in Siberia. On May 22, the town of Khatanga, located well north of the Arctic Circle, recorded a temperature of 78 degrees, some 46 degrees above normal. On Aug. 19, Death Valley’s temperature soared to 130 degrees, which broke U.S. records as well as global records as the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet.
Greenland has lost a catastrophic amount of freshwater due to glacier melt. A study using NASA satellites showed in one month it lost the same amount of ice that it normally loses in a year. The net ice loss in 2019 was more than 530 billion metric tons. To put that in context, that’s as if seven Olympic-sized swimming pools were dumped into the ocean every second of the year.
The storms, Laura and Marcos, are the earliest “L” and “M” storms ever to be named in August. The Atlantic record for earliest “L” storm is Luis on Aug. 29, 1995.” Sadly, as temperatures increase, we use more electricity to power our air conditioners and increase the emissions of climate changing gases.
Given that Ohio is experiencing firsthand the effects of a changing climate, you would think state leaders would be trying to incorporate as many energy-saving measures and renewable energy projects as possible into its energy mix. That is not the case.
I took part in two virtual testimony events held by the Ohio Power Siting Board in August. One was to receive comments for a proposed gas-powered electricity plant on the campus of Ohio State University. The other was for a proposed project called the Emerson Creek Wind Farm Project.
The gas power plant in Columbus is a $290 million project that would be located on the western side of the campus. It would provide 105.5 megawatts of combined heat and power exclusively to the university. It will be a major emitter of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. It will use fracked gas from our region, continuing the pollution that Southeast Ohio communities face every day from fracking, pipelines, compressor stations and other fracking infrastructure.
It will do nothing to alleviate the fugitive emissions of methane gas, a very potent greenhouse gas. The 2018 well blowout by XTO in Belmont County resulted in 20 straight days of 132 tons of methane being spewed into the air, a release so great it was picked up by a methane-monitoring satellite.
The other project, the Emerson Creek Wind Project, would straddle the counties of Huron and Erie and be located south of Sandusky. Its 70 turbines would provide 300 megawatts of electricity and power 88,000 homes. It would take advantage of existing power lines and roads and, as a result, little infrastructure would be needed aside from the half acre footprint for the turbine and access road.
The project will provide $51.3 million in landowner payments at a time when Ohio citizens are feeling the economic pain from the COVID-19 pandemic. The project also would help schools with a $54 million payment and the county and townships would benefit with a $27 million payment. There would be the creation of 150 construction jobs as well as 15 operation and maintenance jobs.
Wind power development in Ohio has been blunted by unreasonable restrictive legislation including the current set-back rules for wind turbines passed in 2014. These are the most restrictive in the nation. According to the Ohio Environmental Council, “the impact of this change was an effective moratorium on any new wind farm, because since 2014, the Ohio Power Siting Board has not approved any new wind farm projects.”
The power siting board has hampered Project Icebreaker Wind. This project, which would be the first offshore wind facility in the Great Lakes, would see the construction of a 20.7 megawatt demonstration wind farm with six turbines.
The project received all of the appropriate permits and conducted the environmental impact studies. However, in May, the OPSB added a “last-minute permitting condition” that would require the blades be turned off every night for eight months out of the year. This was supposedly to protect birds; however, an ornithologist who prepared the draft environmental impact said “this was the lowest-risk project” he ever worked on.
This restrictive legislation is preventing job creation in Ohio, preventing Ohio citizens from earning income from leasing their property for wind turbine development and does nothing to combat climate change. It is estimated that Ohio has lost $4 billion in economic opportunities because of the legislation.
A recent report in Energy News Network said Illinois has added the third most new wind capacity and is the sixth state to surpass 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity. Indiana ranks 12th nationwide with 2,317 megawatts.
Ohio only has 738 megawatts of installed wind capacity, yet the state is the largest manufacturer of components for the wind industry.
Even though advances in wind technology have made it one of the cheapest sources of electricity, Ohio remains in the past, clinging to energy sources that are dirty and unsustainable and passing crippling legislation like the infamous HB 6 that will significantly weaken the state’s renewable energy standards.
We need a future that adopts clean, green renewable energy with wind power as part of our energy mix.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Help economy AND climate recover
Parkersburg News & Sentinel Letter to the Editor Nov 14, 2020
by Aaron Dunbar
It’s safe to say that a lot of interesting things happened on Nov. 3. But chief among them to me was a segment during Fox News’ election night coverage, during which hosts examined a voter analysis of average Americans’ opinions on a range of various issues.
Now, bear in mind, this is Fox News being discussed. Not CNN or MSNBC.
According to Fox News’ analysis, a combined 70 percent of Americans either somewhat or strongly favor increasing our government’s spending on renewable energy.
Just think about that for a moment. This is the same network that once featured Laura Ingraham trying to drink a steak stuffed with incandescent lightbulbs through a plastic straw in order to “trigger” liberals (to be honest most of us were far more baffled than triggered.)
So how do you explain such an unexpected development?
As a member of the nonpartisan organization Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action, I’ve spent the past year working with a great group of folks to reach out and engage with members of our community. Chief among our efforts has been to distribute campaign yard signs to voters throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley, not endorsing any particular candidate or party, but simply encouraging people to vote for candidates who prioritize climate change and a shift toward renewable energy.
I’ll never forget the moment when, toward the end of our first public event since the start of the pandemic, a gentleman came up to where we were assembled, and asked for one of our yard signs.
“I’m a Republican,” he said, “but I agree we really need to start doing something about this.”
I happen to believe that certain modes of political thought are more equipped to tackle the existential threat of climate change than others. But at the end of the day, this is an issue that affects all of us, whether left, right, or center. And average Americans realize that fact, no matter how loudly an extremely vocal minority may try to insist otherwise.
That’s why Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action supports bold action on climate such as the THRIVE Agenda, a powerful framework for economic recovery that will create new jobs and opportunities for working Americans, as well as offering up bipartisan solutions to lead us toward a brighter, cleaner future.
Climate change is a universal issue, and it’s time to begin uniting around solutions that work for all of us.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
A fact-based conversation about fracking
Local columns in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Oct 31, 2020 Randi Pokladnik
Let’s have a fact-based conversation about fracking rather than attempt to “greenwash” the industry and completely ignore the externalities as Greg Kozera’s Oct. 17 op-ed did in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.
Fracking has been around since the Civil War in 1865. Horizontal high-pressure hydraulic fracturing aka fracking, became popular in the 1990s. It employs fracking along with the drilling of long lateral wells to extract oil and gas.
Economics was the main driving force behind the fracking boom. Charts found at the Energy Information Agency show oil demands increasing at the same time production was dwindling in the USA. Therefore, oil prices climbed, reaching a peak of $140 a barrel in 2009. This increase meant more money was available for oil companies to invest in a capital-intensive process like fracking.
Horizontal high-pressure hydraulic fracking requires major investments in infrastructure such as pipelines, compressor stations and fractionators it also requires water, sand and chemicals. The U.S. EPA and Department of Energy said that an average of seven million gallons of fluid are used for each well. If one percent are chemical additives, that means upwards of over 70,000 gallons of chemicals including biocides, surfactants, and anti-corrosive agents are required for each well. Additionally, a study by Yale Public Health found that of these hundreds of chemicals, over 80 percent have never been reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Of the 119 that have been reviewed by IARC, 55 were found to be carcinogenic. Among the chemicals most frequently used in fracking, 24 are known to block the hormone receptors in humans, according to a 2017 study published in Science Direct.
Fracking has contaminated water wells and a 2020 article in the Journal of Petroleum Technology stated “wellbore integrity cannot be taken for granted.” The XTO Energy well blowout in Belmont County in February 2018 was from a “failure of the gas well’s casing or internal lining.” This blowout released the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of methane by oil and gas industries in countries like France.
Methane gas is much more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas and according to a study in Biogeosciences, a significant portion of the anthropocentric methane emission increases are due to the fracking boom in North America.
The waste water left over after a well is fracked is known as “produced water.” In addition to brine, which is a result of the prehistoric conditions which formed the oil and gas reserves, the waste also contains radioactive materials (Radium -226 and Radium-228) and any chemicals initially injected with the fluid.
In 1978, the EPA exempted oil and gas wastes from exploration and production activities from the hazardous waste management program Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. This includes produced water, drilling fluids and drill cuttings. Yet, in 2002 the EPA admitted that just because the wastes were exempt this did not mean that wastes could not present a hazard to human health and the environment.
The oil and gas industries are also exempt or excluded from certain sections of these federal environmental laws: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to Know Act.
To claim that “millions of jobs” will go away if fracking is banned is misleading at best. The industry has been in decline for several years. An August 2020 article in OilPrice.com stated, “Driven by low prices not seen much in modern history, formerly high-flying shale drillers like Chesapeake Energy have gone bankrupt. The Service providers like Halliburton and Schlumberger have written off tens of billions worth of fracking-related equipment, closed facilities and laid off thousands of workers.”
Unlike oil and gas, solar and wind “feedstock” is free and as pointed out in a recent CleanTechnica article, “it takes years to design, build and activate any coal or gas-powered facility.” A 50 MW wind farm can be built in six months. Residential solar can be installed in a few days.
Internal reports show oil and gas industry scientists knew back in the 1980s about the negative effects their products would have on the earth’s climate. Yet, for nearly thirty years they spent millions of dollars promoting climate denial. They also realized clean renewable energy is quickly replacing dirty fossil fuels. In order to save their bottom line, they are now pushing plastics production as a use for fracked gas.
About 42 percent of the 300 million tons of plastic produced each year is used once and thrown away. This includes beverage bottles, take out containers and plastic wrap. Our planet is literally drowning in plastic, it is in the tap water, beer, fish, soil and air. Microplastics and toxic plasticizers permeate our bodies and we are paying for the convenience of plastic with our health.
Wind and solar energy development in the USA lags behind most developed nations. This is not because of a lack of technology or the ability of these sources to supply energy. It is simply a matter of politics and subsidies. HB 6 in Ohio is an example of how the energy industry pays politicians to thwart the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency. USA fossil fuel subsidies are $20 billion a year.
I suggest everyone take ten minutes to read the brief document called “The Green New Deal.” It calls for “achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers” and to ” eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible.” It does not say we will do away with all fossil fuels.
The fact is our planet is in trouble. A wise person would think twice before investing in plastic-making companies that squander a finite resource to make beverage bottles and take-out containers. A wise person would address climate change while there is still time to make a difference.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Be a climate voter
Letters to the editor in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel by Eric Engle
Oct 17, 2020
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action is a voluntary association on file with the WV Secretary of State’s Office and works on both sides of the Ohio River to organize, mobilize, educate on and build coalitions around addressing anthropogenic (human-caused) global climate change. We have been around for 5 years this month and are busier than ever! Our current major focus is encouraging the people of West Virginia and Ohio and the surrounding region to be climate voters.
We have over 400 yard signs out in several counties, but predominately Wood and Washington, that say on one side “Climate Voter Make America Green Again” and on the other side “Protect What’s Ours Be A Climate Voter.” We are well on our way to having 500 of these signs out! We also have 6 different billboards in Parkersburg, Vienna and Marietta sending messages like “The future will be green or not at all” and “Don’t deny our future! Be A Climate Voter,” with a picture featuring 7 young and prominent climate activists globally. In addition, we’re running about a 15 second radio ad with a climate poetry reading from two of our members the entire month of October, and we have run TV and radio Public Service Announcements from a contest we did with local colleges where the students created the PSAs and we offered cash prizes and paid to run them on television.
We’re in the process of sending out climate voter postcards that send this same message to everyone we can think of in our social circles, families and among our membership and their social circles and families. We can frequently be found on the editorial pages of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel and Marietta Times and we have a strong social media presence on Facebook and Instagram, a YouTube Channel, a website (movclimateaction.org), and have more social media coming (Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok).
Prior to the devastating pandemic, we had a very successful climate education program in both public and private schools reaching middle and high school science classrooms with a nonpartisan program that conformed to state science education standards with the full knowledge and approval of Superintendents’ Offices, administrations and science teachers, who were always present during presentations. We reached approximately 4,000 to 5,000 students and hope to continue this work when it is once again safe to do so.
We ask that you vote for candidates at all levels of government who will take the climate crisis we’re living in seriously and act meaningfully to address it with public policy. Together, we can address this crisis, but much of the work starts with governments, wealth and asset owners and managers, investors, insurers, bankers and financiers and others in both the public and private sectors who can alter our trajectory globally. For ourselves, our children, grandchildren and the rest of posterity, and for countless other species of flora and fauna with which we have evolved on this incredible planet, be a climate voter!
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Green Sanctuary Committee proposes pollinator garden
Local News Oct 9, 2020 in The Marietta Times by Janelle Patterson
Approximately 250 feet of Muskingum River frontage on the western bank is the proposed home of a pollinator planting garden and solar charging bench. (Graphic illustration by Janelle Patterson)
Bees may buzz in the breeze next year on the western bank of the Muskingum River, if a proposed pollinator planting is approved by Marietta officials.
On Wednesday, Rebecca Phillips, representing the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta, spoke before members of the Lands, Buildings and Parks Committee of Marietta City Council.
She described an opportunity for partnership, to reintroduce native flowering plants to a portion of the western bank of the Muskingum River between the west side boat launch and the Gilman United Methodist Church.
“There’ll be mostly pink and purple in the spring, then a lot of purple, some orange and some white in the summer and it would add so much color to that side of the river,” she described from the eastern bank Wednesday following the formal proposal to council.
Phillips explained that the funds to be used in the proposed garden are from a $7,500 grant awarded by DuPont’s “Clear into the Future” program to promote sustainability in Marietta.
The proposal also includes permission to install a solar charging bench on the city-owned riverbank adjacent to the 500 block of Front Street.
“That seemed like a good space to start the concept of native plantings on our river bank,” she said. “This would really be looking at the slope coming down and then up to the trail.”
While members of the LBP committee praised the proposal’s creativity, one councilmember also pointed to the labor strain such an experiment could solve on the limited staff-to-parkland ratio the city faces.
Councilman Geoff Schenkel said Phillips underplayed the significance the selected area could provide relief for in an already strapped public facilities labor force.
“And this really introduces a different type of flowering plant in an area that already has flowering plants,” he added.
Phillips also explained that the grant funds include hiring a master naturalist or master gardener to design the plantings so that native species with limited need for upkeep over time could be used in the bank.
The proposed area extends approximately 250 by 30 feet, from a mature tree near the old lock master’s house in front of the Gilman United Methodist Church facing the river, to the city launch ramp sign.
What’s next
City Law Director Paul Bertram and Phillips are to determine the extent of city ownership of the green space under discussion before legislation is proposed before council to propose a use agreement.
(Note Rebecca and many members of the Green Sanctuary Committee are members of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.)
Posted: October 17, 2020 by main_y0ke11
MOVCA Recommends WV3C October 22 Webinar
“Generational Perspectives and the Climate Crisis”
PARKERSBURG, West Virginia – Since large in-person gatherings indoors are not advisable during this time of COVID-19, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s usual Third Thursday programs have been suspended until public programs are safe for presenters and attendees. But MOVCA is pleased to announce an upcoming opportunity for taking climate action that doesn’t require meeting together in person.
This month, MOVCA is encouraging members and others interested in climate justice to participate in a free, live webinar hosted on Zoom by West Virginia Center on Climate Change (WV3C) from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 22: “What Do We Tell the Kids – And What Are They Telling Us? – Generational Perspectives and the Climate Crisis.”
“For some time, MOVCA has used ‘Save the Grandchildren’ as our motto,” said Adeline Bailey, a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action. “We know that what we do today – and what we don’t do – will have a far greater effect on the generations that follow us than on us. This webinar is right in line with our efforts to promote awareness of the climate crisis and educate ourselves and our neighbors about taking action now.”
Event organizers ask the following: “For climate generations — all over the world — what strategies support hope and positive action? How can understanding generational perspectives lead to better climate solutions?
Addressing these timely and important questions is the goal of the October 22, 2020 “Climate Generations” webinar. Please join us to learn from expert presentations, and to share comments and questions with the presenters.”
Expert presenters for the webinar:
Author Dana R. Fisher, Ph.D., a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland. Her research explores democracy, civic participation, activism, and environmental policymaking,with recent studies focusing on the youth climate movement and the American Resistance. Her sixth book is American Resistance: from the Women’s March to the Blue Wave (Columbia University Press 2019).
Danielle Lawson, Ph.D. , assistant professor of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management and Science Education at Penn State University. Her interests include environmental education, intergenerational learning, and social justice. Her ground-breaking study, “Children can foster climate change concern among parents,” was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Discussion Leader for the webinar is Sarah Cross, Campaigns Coordinator for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. Sarah earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies at the University of Montana, an M.S. in Agriculture from West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. in Education from Ohio University, where she researched the use of socio-scientific issues to promote scientific literacy.
This webinar is organized by the West Virginia Center on Climate Change (AV3C), a project of Friends of Blackwater, in partnership with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the WV Citizen Action Education Fund, with support from the Appalachian Stewardship Foundation. For more information, or to register, go to https://wvclimate.org/climate-generations-webinar/
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Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action focuses on raising awareness of the solid science establishing the danger of the climate crisis and the urgency of dealing with it. MOVCA supports the efforts of 350.org, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and is a Science Booster Club for the National Center for Science Education. The not-for-profit volunteer group also collaborates with other environmental groups on campaigns and events in the Mid-Ohio Valley. For more information, visit the organization’s web page (https://main.movclimateaction.org).
Last Updated: October 17, 2020 by main_y0ke11
A Shoe Strike for Climate Justice!
Announcing: A Shoe Strike for Climate Justice!
WHAT: Shoe Strike is a COVID-proof protest with shoes & protest signs
WHEN: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm on Saturday, October 17, 2020
WHERE: Eagle Park (Corner of Grand Central & 30th, Vienna, WV)
WHO: you and everyone you know
Bring your shoes and protest signs for Climate Justice to Eagle Park in Vienna, WV at 8:00 a.m.
Why a Shoe Strike?
Changing conditions from drought to floods to wildfires to massive hurricanes are leading to millions of climate refugees all over the world. Twenty-four million people were displaced by climate disasters in 2019, and the World Bank projects that climate change will displace 143 million people per year by 2050, unless we do something about it right now.
While the USA is among the biggest polluters causing greenhouse gas emissions, we seem to be unable to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Across the world and in the US, it is people of color who are being most negatively affected by climate change.
Since we cannot gather safely in large numbers due to the pandemic, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action has been holding Shoe Strikes for Climate Justice over the past several months. Shoe Strikes are modeled on the Sko Strejk movement that started in Sweden and is now spreading to other parts of the World. Local people donated their shoes and protest signs for this and previous Shoe Strikes to represent themselves and those who would gather to speak out about climate justice, but cannot because of COVID-19. More than 400 pairs of donated shoes have stood in for climate justice seekers at MOVCA-sponsored strikes in Parkersburg, Williamstown, and Marietta. The Vienna Shoe Strike will take place from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 17th at Eagle Park in Vienna (corner of Grand Central and 30th). When the Shoe Strikes conclude, the donated shoes will go to Cobbler John (Marietta, OH), to be part of an international humanitarian effort.
The Shoe Strikes sponsored by Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action are in coordination with Fridays for Future and other Shoe Strikes for Climate Justice! in the U.S.
For more information, go to FridaysforFuture.org.
Additional Information
With an ongoing tragic corona pandemic and economies in free fall, our federal decision makers are busy today. But strong leadership is also about being able to look beyond the chaotic present and act now to address a far greater challenge: the climate crisis.
While many US cities are implementing strong climate action and adaptation plans, our federal government has backed out of our country’s commitments to the international Paris Climate Accord.
In the Paris Agreement, 194 countries agreed that the average temperature increase should be limited to well below 2 degrees with the aim of limiting it to 1.5 degrees. Despite this, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. Since the industrial revolution, we have already raised the average temperature by 1.2 degrees.
The warming means not just elevated sea levels, but also dehydrated agricultural land and greater evaporation of our precious water. Clearly these outcomes are unsustainable. Water availability and food production are projected to drop even further in Central America, and corn production is shifting northward into Canada.
There are plenty of things that individuals do to reduce their carbon footprints. Our state and federal representatives need to take the bigger steps towards a sustainable and secure society.
At the end of 2019 the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that they will stop making loans for projects involving fossil fuels. The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other major global financial institutions are now considering whether to follow the EIB’s example.
Perhaps our cities should build a more sustainable future by divesting from fossil fuels, before their value plummets. Perhaps our government leadership should build a more sustainable future for us all, by investing in the coming technologies of wind and solar power.
Source: FridaysforFuture.org
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
How will we pay for it?
Sep 10, 2020 in The Marietta Times by Aaron Dunbar
This question serves as something of a de facto catchphrase in American politics, if a decidedly lopsided one.
Want healthcare for all Americans? How will we pay for it?
Free college? How will we pay for it?
Keep citizens alive during a global pandemic? How will we pay for it?
Fund endless wars with a military budget larger than the next twelve countries combined? No problem! Here’s a trillion-and-a-half dollars every two years, go knock yourself out!
But if there’s one issue we absolutely do not want to spend money on, it’s climate change. And look, to a certain degree I get it. Climate change is a giant, slow-moving issue (relative to our perceptions), where the average person has no way of directly correlating their individual, daily actions with the endlessly complicated effects of our industry on the planet. And conservatives in particular have
a knack for cranking up the price tag of action on climate to make it appear prohibitively expensive, with President Trump once baselessly claiming that the Green New Deal being proposed by some Democrats would cost us up to $100 trillion.
That said, there’s admittedly no doubt that addressing this crisis will take a genuine level of sacrifice and commitment in economic terms.
But let’s be entirely clear here: the choice isn’t whether we will decide to pay for climate change. It is literally HOW are we eventually going to pay?
We are, in fact, already paying for our decades-long failure to rein in our emissions, and the price tag will only grow steeper as we continue to delay action.
As I write these words, the U.S. Gulf Coast is being battered by a 150-mph hurricane, having jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in a single day – a direct effect of warming oceans, according to scientists, along with the landfall of two separate hurricanes within hours of one another from the Atlantic, an event which may be entirely without precedent. All of this comes even as other parts of the country experience out-of-control wildfires almost certainly fueled by climate change, with temperatures in Death Valley reaching 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit- probably the hottest temperature ever recorded on our planet.
Make no mistake about it, we are absolutely paying for climate change.
The human cost alone, and the possibility of making the planet uninhabitable for our children, should be more than enough to motivate us. But as the only language we speak seems to be that of dollar signs, think of it this way: we can either start making serious changes now or later, when the cost of fixing what we’ve broken, if it can be fixed at all, will be trillions upon trillions of dollars higher than it already is today.
And on that note, for anyone with the means wishing to contribute to those affected by these most recent disasters, I highly recommend looking into any of the following organizations: The American Red Cross, United Way of Northern California, The California Fire Foundation, The Cajun Navy, The Houston Food Bank, and Austin Disaster Relief. Thank you.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Our future lies in clean, renewable energy
Sep 5, 2020 in Herald-Star by RANDI POKLADNIK
Most Ohioans who have lived in the state for more than 50 years have noticed that our weather is definitely changing. We have warmer winters overall, hotter summers, less snow and less rain, and in general when we do get rain events, they tend to be accompanied with extreme winds.
This summer is no exception. Since May, my county, Harrison, has had 24 days in the upper 80s and 19 days above 90 degrees. There are several portions of the state that have witnessed weeks without any significant rainfall.
May was the warmest May ever recorded globally. Also “freakishly” high temperatures were seen in the arctic, especially the Russian Arctic region in Siberia. On May 22, the town of Khatanga, located well north of the Arctic Circle, recorded a temperature of 78 degrees, some 46 degrees above normal. On Aug. 19, Death Valley’s temperature soared to 130 degrees, which broke U.S. records as well as global records as the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet.
Greenland has lost a catastrophic amount of freshwater due to glacier melt. A study using NASA satellites showed in one month it lost the same amount of ice that it normally loses in a year. The net ice loss in 2019 was more than 530 billion metric tons. To put that in context, that’s as if seven Olympic-sized swimming pools were dumped into the ocean every second of the year.
The storms, Laura and Marcos, are the earliest “L” and “M” storms ever to be named in August. The Atlantic record for earliest “L” storm is Luis on Aug. 29, 1995.” Sadly, as temperatures increase, we use more electricity to power our air conditioners and increase the emissions of climate changing gases.
Given that Ohio is experiencing firsthand the effects of a changing climate, you would think state leaders would be trying to incorporate as many energy-saving measures and renewable energy projects as possible into its energy mix. That is not the case.
I took part in two virtual testimony events held by the Ohio Power Siting Board in August. One was to receive comments for a proposed gas-powered electricity plant on the campus of Ohio State University. The other was for a proposed project called the Emerson Creek Wind Farm Project.
The gas power plant in Columbus is a $290 million project that would be located on the western side of the campus. It would provide 105.5 megawatts of combined heat and power exclusively to the university. It will be a major emitter of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. It will use fracked gas from our region, continuing the pollution that Southeast Ohio communities face every day from fracking, pipelines, compressor stations and other fracking infrastructure.
It will do nothing to alleviate the fugitive emissions of methane gas, a very potent greenhouse gas. The 2018 well blowout by XTO in Belmont County resulted in 20 straight days of 132 tons of methane being spewed into the air, a release so great it was picked up by a methane-monitoring satellite.
The other project, the Emerson Creek Wind Project, would straddle the counties of Huron and Erie and be located south of Sandusky. Its 70 turbines would provide 300 megawatts of electricity and power 88,000 homes. It would take advantage of existing power lines and roads and, as a result, little infrastructure would be needed aside from the half acre footprint for the turbine and access road.
The project will provide $51.3 million in landowner payments at a time when Ohio citizens are feeling the economic pain from the COVID-19 pandemic. The project also would help schools with a $54 million payment and the county and townships would benefit with a $27 million payment. There would be the creation of 150 construction jobs as well as 15 operation and maintenance jobs.
Wind power development in Ohio has been blunted by unreasonable restrictive legislation including the current set-back rules for wind turbines passed in 2014. These are the most restrictive in the nation. According to the Ohio Environmental Council, “the impact of this change was an effective moratorium on any new wind farm, because since 2014, the Ohio Power Siting Board has not approved any new wind farm projects.”
The power siting board has hampered Project Icebreaker Wind. This project, which would be the first offshore wind facility in the Great Lakes, would see the construction of a 20.7 megawatt demonstration wind farm with six turbines.
The project received all of the appropriate permits and conducted the environmental impact studies. However, in May, the OPSB added a “last-minute permitting condition” that would require the blades be turned off every night for eight months out of the year. This was supposedly to protect birds; however, an ornithologist who prepared the draft environmental impact said “this was the lowest-risk project” he ever worked on.
This restrictive legislation is preventing job creation in Ohio, preventing Ohio citizens from earning income from leasing their property for wind turbine development and does nothing to combat climate change. It is estimated that Ohio has lost $4 billion in economic opportunities because of the legislation.
A recent report in Energy News Network said Illinois has added the third most new wind capacity and is the sixth state to surpass 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity. Indiana ranks 12th nationwide with 2,317 megawatts.
Ohio only has 738 megawatts of installed wind capacity, yet the state is the largest manufacturer of components for the wind industry.
Even though advances in wind technology have made it one of the cheapest sources of electricity, Ohio remains in the past, clinging to energy sources that are dirty and unsustainable and passing crippling legislation like the infamous HB 6 that will significantly weaken the state’s renewable energy standards.
We need a future that adopts clean, green renewable energy with wind power as part of our energy mix.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Ignore chatter, learn more
Sep 5, 2020 in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel by Aaron Dunbar
“You’re a dummy!” “drink the kool-aid snowflake” “how about you go into your basement cupcake” “you need to seriously change your name to Aaron Dumbar.”
These are a few of the very mature responses I received when I dared to bring up the subject of climate change on a Republican lawmaker’s Facebook post. I’ve grown pretty used to receiving this kind of abuse from commenters whenever I write into The News and Sentinel about climate issues, and I want to be entirely clear here — none of these insults bother me even a single iota.
What does disturb me, however, is that those most vocal about insulting me appear totally unwilling to listen to the scientific experts on climate. I truly do not care whether anyone pays attention to what I have to say. I’m not an expert on climate change. And I’m not some self-professed “climate guru,” as I’ve been derisively called in the past.
But when I see information directly from NASA (you know, those very intelligent people who put us on the moon?) stating that human-made climate change is real, I can’t even imagine having the audacity to think that I personally know better than the smartest people on our planet.
I get asked a lot of the same questions about climate change over and over, and I generally have or can locate answers to just about all of them. But I’ve learned by now that climate change deniers don’t actually want answers. They want to throw as many gotcha questions as they can at you, then ignore every answer you give them and simply move on to something else.
However, for anyone out there who’s skeptical about climate change but who genuinely wants to learn more, I want to highly recommend looking into a few of the following titles that helped convert me from a climate change denier into a full-fledged environmentalist:
“Merchants of Doubt” (Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway); “The Madhouse Effect” (Michael Mann and Tom Toles); “Losing Earth” (Nathaniel Rich); “The Sixth Extinction” (Elizabeth Kolbert); “The Uninhabitable Earth” (David Wallace-Wells); or basically anything by Bill McKibben, one of the earliest and most prolific authors on climate.
There’s truly no room for genuine climate skepticism when the staggering mountains of evidence are viewed fairly and objectively. Nor can there be any doubt about the need for taking swift and immediate action to preserve our planet.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
More Opportunities For Climate Action with MOVCA
Sept 3, 2020 in The Parkersburg News and Sentinel by Adeline Bailey
PARKERSBURG, West Virginia – Since large in-person gatherings indoors are not advisable during this time of COVID-19, Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s usual Third Thursday programs have been suspended until public programs are safe for presenters and attendees. But MOVCA is pleased to announce upcoming opportunities to work for climate justice that don’t require meeting in person.
MOVCA members and friends are invited to participate in a free, five-day webinar series on Community Democracy presented by Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services beginning Monday, August 24th. Fair Shake is a nonprofit law firm that believes everyone should be able to defend their environment. They provide access to environmental justice through pro bono and income-based legal services on environmental issues.
Fair Shake’s Community Democracy Series aims to give people the tools they need to participate in the processes that shape their communities. Each segment of their free, five-part webinar series is hosted by one of their staff attorneys and dives into important aspects of local and regional democratic processes that are often overlooked. Some examples include zoning, long term land-use planning, environmental permitting, lead hazards, environmental justice, and organizing around risk-management.
The webinar series runs the week of August 24th – 28th, with a different topic relating to environmental justice covered each day, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Interested persons can register for one or all of the daily webinars. Learn more about the series and register at the link below:
If attending an online webinar doesn’t sound appealing, MOVCA invites any and all to participate in their second Shoe Strike for the Climate at Fenton Park in Williamstown on August 29th from 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Since large assemblies in person are restricted due to COVID-19, in July a small group from MOVCA met – wearing masks and practicing social distancing – to lay out more than 400 pairs of shoes donated by area residents, thereby representing citizens concerned about climate change, as well as future generations who have no voice with which to protest. The shoe strike in Williamstown will follow a similar pattern.
Anyone with shoes to donate or a protest sign for climate justice can bring them to the strike and stop by to say hello. If they prefer to drop off shoe donations in advance, MOVCA has set up sites in Parkersburg at the First Christian Church parking lot (1400 Washington Ave.) or at the Seventh-day Adventist Church (1901 Park Ave.); or in Marietta in the courtyard area at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Marietta (232 Third St.). After the strikes, MOVCA will give the donated shoes to local charity efforts.
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s Shoe Strike for Climate Justice is modeled on the Sko Strejk movement that started in Sweden and is now spreading to other parts of the world. The group plans to sponsor a third shoe strike in Marietta on September 25th, coordinated with a global climate action day organized by Fridays For Future. On September 25th, demonstrations and manifestations will take place all across the globe, all adjusted according to Covid-19 circumstances.
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action focuses on raising awareness of the solid science establishing the danger of the climate crisis and the urgency of dealing with it. MOVCA supports the efforts of 350.org, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and is a Science Booster Club for the National Center for Science Education. The not-for-profit volunteer group also collaborates with other environmental groups on campaigns and events in the Mid-Ohio Valley. For more information, visit the organization’s web page (https://main.movclimateaction.org).
Additional information:
Fridays for Future: FridaysforFuture.org.
Find Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action on the following social media:
Check out our Facebook group and join a conversation
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