Jim Probst: Mr. Pruitt, we do know our ideal temperature (Gazette)
OP-ED March 19, 2018
In a recent interview, Scott Pruitt, the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, questioned if global warming is “necessarily a bad thing.” He went on to say that it is fairly arrogant of us to think that we know what the ideal surface temperature should be in 2100.
Well Mr. Pruitt, there are things that are known and commonly accepted when it comes to “ideal” surface temperature. As head of the EPA, it seems that you should be aware of these facts. Our earth is classified as a “Goldilocks Planet,” that is a planet that is not too hot or too cold to allow for liquid water. We fit that classification because of our distance from the sun and because we have an atmosphere whose composition helps to retain a portion of the energy we receive from our sun.
Human activity is changing the makeup of our atmosphere so that more of the sun’s energy is being retained and our planet is warming. It’s pretty basic stuff.
Responding to the question of an “ideal” temperature, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe responded, “there is no one perfect temperature for the earth, but there is one for us humans, and that’s the temperature we’ve had over the past few thousand years when we built our civilization, agriculture, economy and infrastructure. Global average temperature over the past few millennia has fluctuated by a few tenths of a degree, today, it’s risen by nearly 1 degree centigrade, [1.8 degrees Fahrenheit] and counting.”
Mr. Pruitt also continues to advocate for what he calls a red team-blue team exercise that would somehow establish a consensus on the “key” issues surrounding climate change. The thing is that this work has already been done by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which was established in 1989, during the George H.W. Bush administration, to “assist the nation and the world to understand, assess, predict and respond to human-induced and natural processes of climate change.”
This group released its fourth report in 2017, and the following Trump administration departments participated: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, Transportation, NASA, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian, U.S. Agency for International Development and, last but not least, the EPA.
It seems like you might have been provided a copy of the report, Mr. Pruitt. A short list of some of the conclusions reached in this report includes:
n The period from 1901-2016 is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization.
n Emissions of greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of the observed warming.
n Thousands of studies from around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures — melting glaciers, diminishing snow cover, shrinking sea ice, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and increasing atmospheric water vapor.
n Heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the U.S. and globally and is expected to continue to increase.
n Heat waves are becoming more frequent and the incidence of forest fires has become more frequent since the 1980s.
n Without major reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions, we could be looking at as much as a 9 degree increase in global average temperature by the end of this century.
Already, we have seen more than 3,500 people die in a heat wave in India and Pakistan in 2015. Can you imagine what we will be witnessing with that level of increased temperature?
In 2014, the Department of Defense stated that climate change “will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.”
In closing, I would like to respond to one last statement from Mr. Pruitt. In the same interview, he is quoted as saying that, “this agency for the last several years has been more focused on what might be happening in 2100, as opposed to what is happening today.”
With all of the information we have available as to what kind of a world we are leaving for those that come behind us, I find that statement to be the very definition of short-sightedness.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Preserve and protect
Preserve and Protect
Parkersburg News and Sentinel – April 22, 2018
Today is Earth Day. Back in 1968, when Apollo astronauts were on a mission to identify landing sites on the moon, one of them accidentally turned back to earth and took the first picture of the earth from space. “Earth Rise” is an iconic image we all know. This one picture of our vibrant, beautiful, and fragile planet against the black void of space electrified people around the world. Within 18 months, the first Earth Day was celebrated worldwide. In the United States the Environmental Protection Agency was founded, and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts were passed with overwhelming majorities in Congress. This happened during Richard Nixon’s administration almost 50 years ago.
Before 1970 there were no rules or laws regulating pollution of our water and air. Both corporations and citizens treated our planet as an open sewer with no regard for the fact that we all share the earth’s water and atmosphere. That picture of earth from space said more than any words that we are all connected by our existence on this breathtaking planet, and that pollution in any part of the world affects my ability to have a healthy life as well as future generations.
While the actions to legislate consequences for polluters have cleaned up the environment somewhat, in the MOV we still live on the most polluted river in the United States. The burning of fossil fuels over the past 150 years has put so much greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that global systems are out of balance with what many species require to survive. Oceans have become more acid as the water absorbs the excess CO2. Shrinking ice caps and rising sea levels are visible from space. The Paris Climate Accords are the first ever global action plan that is at a scale that begins to address the scope of the problems we face, but not on a timeline to prevent the extinction of the majority of species alive today.
My grandfathers smoked tobacco back when we didn’t understand the effects of smoking on health. They were also coal miners and didn’t know the dangers that burning fossil fuels represented to our future. As we learn new facts, we know we must and can change our behavior to ensure our futures. For every one of us, it’s personal. On this Earth Day ask yourself what you are doing to preserve that fragile blue marble spinning through space for your children, for your grandchildren, and for the life that many believe God placed in our hands to nurture and protect.
Jean Ambrose
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Open letter to McKinley
Mar. 4, 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Ron Teska, Belleville
, WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Mr. McKinley, I am writing to express my concern for our grandchildren’s and those yet to be born’s future.
With the Stream Protection Rule in effect Mountain Top Removal has already completely covered and destroyed over 1,200 miles of head water streams. And why would power companies and coal companies with million dollar salaried CEOs and billion dollar profits think it unreasonable to put a scrubber on these plants for their own grandchildren to breathe easier? To blame government and EPA is a slap in the face to all your constituents.
“… he is advocating for a national energy policy that invests in fossil energy research …” Are you suggesting that while we are still able to burn fossil fuels we need to do so cleanly in order to manufacture wind/solar/geothermal/ energy for a better world for your constituents? Or do you really believe coal should be mined and burned as long as there is coal? Why not a solar panel factory instead of a cracker plant? It’s construction, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and other industry jobs, as long as the sun shines. And our grandchildren will be able to breathe easier, have safe water to drink, and not think of you as a criminal pap.
Why can you not face the many fossil fuel companies in this state and try to come up with a bill forcing them all to put a mere 5 or 10 percent of their profits into construction of, for instance, a solar panel factory in McDowell County to hire some of the 142,000 union coal miners that have lost their jobs due to coal company greed. Today there are give or take 9,000 coal miners in WV taking out as much coal as when there were 142,000 coal miners. The difference is, all the profits go straight to the top. Long wall mining and MTR have taken the jobs leaving this state with the military as one of the only alternative for our high school graduates.
And in terms of taking care of our veterans I see only that you are taking care of them after our children have been duped into believing their sacrifice is for our country and its “freedom” when, in reality, we have troops in over 130 countries mostly protecting nearly 800 corporations we have overseas. Go to an elementary school and ask the student’s opinion what they would like you to do. And present the facts, not capitalistic oriented goals.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Oil and gas industry won’t police itself
Mar. 4 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Michael Ireland, Parkersburg WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Some people think methamphetamine is harmful. But we don’t need a law or agency to control it. The concerned parties should just hold a meeting and draw up a voluntary document agreeing that they won’t abuse the stuff. Problem solved, right? Let the industry police itself.
Oops, I made a typo. But no matter. This letter is in response to the expert op-ed of March 17-18. If the reader will substitute the word “methane” for methamphetamine in my first paragraph you will have my summary of the piece. It should have been printed on April 1.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Do not look to past
Mar. 4, 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Giulia Mannarino, Belleville
WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Recently, this newspaper used the “Our Opinion” column of the editorial page to commend U.S. Rep. David McKinley for being involved in the inclusion of the “45Q tax credit aimed at developing and deploying carbon capture technology” in the 2-year Congressional budget. The following day, this column complained mightily about a report on the coal industry issued by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). Apparently, the editor’s opinion is that our region’s economy can be improved by looking to the past rather than to the future.
I have seen a coal company ad from 1920 that described “clean coal.” This referred to the washing of the coal to remove loose coal dust so that it would be cleaner to bring inside. Over the years, “clean coal” has morphed into the suggestion that something can be done to coal to make it emit less carbon. For over 100 years, coal companies have been on the quest for clean coal and have not been able to deliver this technology. Coal will remain the most polluting of the fossil fuels. Representative McKinley is wasting tax dollars by pursuing this dead end.
According to what was noted in the column about the ARC’s report, it seems to be a factual review of the “changing coal economy” and mentions the needs of displaced workers. The columnist is critically irate; however, because the information in this report is not news to Appalachians who have lived through coal’s decline. It is also implied by the editor that the “environmental concerns” and “limits needed to curb climate change” are unnecessary and unfortunate (although curbing climate change is essential to the future of our planet). The ARC is also criticized because their report neglected to “start looking for solutions.”
Wake up Appalachia! It is past time to face the reality that coal will never be a “vibrant industry” again. The solutions to an economic revitalization don’t involve the promise of the impossible or the revival of a dead as the dinosaurs industry. Instead they are right outside the door in the form of renewable resources such as solar power and wind energy. The entire world is involved in a renewable energy revolution. The USA will be playing catch up and WV will be left behind in the (coal) dust.
Giulia Mannarino
Belleville
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Mr. Pruitt, we do know our ideal temperature
Jim Probst: Mr. Pruitt, we do know our ideal temperature (Gazette)
OP-ED March 19, 2018
In a recent interview, Scott Pruitt, the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, questioned if global warming is “necessarily a bad thing.” He went on to say that it is fairly arrogant of us to think that we know what the ideal surface temperature should be in 2100.
Well Mr. Pruitt, there are things that are known and commonly accepted when it comes to “ideal” surface temperature. As head of the EPA, it seems that you should be aware of these facts. Our earth is classified as a “Goldilocks Planet,” that is a planet that is not too hot or too cold to allow for liquid water. We fit that classification because of our distance from the sun and because we have an atmosphere whose composition helps to retain a portion of the energy we receive from our sun.
Human activity is changing the makeup of our atmosphere so that more of the sun’s energy is being retained and our planet is warming. It’s pretty basic stuff.
Responding to the question of an “ideal” temperature, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe responded, “there is no one perfect temperature for the earth, but there is one for us humans, and that’s the temperature we’ve had over the past few thousand years when we built our civilization, agriculture, economy and infrastructure. Global average temperature over the past few millennia has fluctuated by a few tenths of a degree, today, it’s risen by nearly 1 degree centigrade, [1.8 degrees Fahrenheit] and counting.”
Mr. Pruitt also continues to advocate for what he calls a red team-blue team exercise that would somehow establish a consensus on the “key” issues surrounding climate change. The thing is that this work has already been done by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which was established in 1989, during the George H.W. Bush administration, to “assist the nation and the world to understand, assess, predict and respond to human-induced and natural processes of climate change.”
This group released its fourth report in 2017, and the following Trump administration departments participated: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, Transportation, NASA, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian, U.S. Agency for International Development and, last but not least, the EPA.
It seems like you might have been provided a copy of the report, Mr. Pruitt. A short list of some of the conclusions reached in this report includes:
n The period from 1901-2016 is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization.
n Emissions of greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of the observed warming.
n Thousands of studies from around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures — melting glaciers, diminishing snow cover, shrinking sea ice, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and increasing atmospheric water vapor.
n Heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the U.S. and globally and is expected to continue to increase.
n Heat waves are becoming more frequent and the incidence of forest fires has become more frequent since the 1980s.
n Without major reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions, we could be looking at as much as a 9 degree increase in global average temperature by the end of this century.
Already, we have seen more than 3,500 people die in a heat wave in India and Pakistan in 2015. Can you imagine what we will be witnessing with that level of increased temperature?
In 2014, the Department of Defense stated that climate change “will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.”
In closing, I would like to respond to one last statement from Mr. Pruitt. In the same interview, he is quoted as saying that, “this agency for the last several years has been more focused on what might be happening in 2100, as opposed to what is happening today.”
With all of the information we have available as to what kind of a world we are leaving for those that come behind us, I find that statement to be the very definition of short-sightedness.
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Solar Energy is possible
Solar energy is possible
Mar 11, 2018
In a recent study, scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science, University of California-Irvine, and CalTech found that wind and solar alone could provide 80 percent of U.S. electricity demand. A chart from Reuters news agency released week before last showed that in dollars per megawatt hour, solar and wind are the cheapest energy sources. In terms of alternate carbon-free power sources, hydropower already provides 6.5 percent of U.S. power while geothermal and biomass together add another 2 percent. All of those can be expanded, says Joe Romm, an American physicist and author.
To quote from the aforementioned study and Mr. Romm, “The key to achieving 80 percent penetration of just solar and wind power is a continental-scale transmission network or facilities that could store 12 hours’ worth of the nation’s electricity demand. Fortunately, costs for battery storage have plummeted in recent years so fast that in Colorado, building new renewable power plus battery storage is now cheaper than running old coal plants.”
Solar United Neighbors of West Virginia and Solar United Neighbors of Ohio recently partnered with groups like Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (of which I am Chair), the League of Women Voters, WVU-P, Interfaith Power and Light, and Friends of the Lower Muskingum River to bring the Mid-Ohio Valley Solar Co-Op to our area. 14 homes in the MOV had solar arrays installed. Chip Pickering of Pickering Associates has overseen the installation of solar on PHS, PSHS, and Williamstown High School as well as the Parkersburg Recycling Center and Marietta City Building.
The future is here. The time is now. Clean energy is a reality, but we must devote the resources to it. We must not get so wrapped up in shale development and petrochemical expansion as to miss this important opportunity. Our grandchildren will either thank or despise us for choices we make today.
Eric Engle
Parkersburg
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Ignore and make worse strategy
Feb 4 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Eric Engle, Parkersburg, WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
The White House is reportedly seeking a 72 percent budget cut for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and a reduction of the number of staff at the Office from 680 in the 2017 budget to 450 in the 2019 budget, according to The Hill newspaper and the Washington Post.
In the period 1979 to 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget in real dollars, according to an Environmental Defense Fund analysis, has seen a 55 percent reduction, even as the U.S. population has grown by 100 million people since then and our economy has doubled. Meanwhile, other federal agencies have seen an average 26 percent increase in their budgets during this time frame.
As I write, the House Energy Committee of the West Virginia House of Delegates is considering HB 4363, a bill “creating a tax credit for a manufacturer or power generating facility in West Virginia that purchases and uses coal, oil or gas.” Delegates Bill Anderson and John Kelly, Chair and Vice-Chair respectively of the House Energy Committee and Delegates from House District 8 (Anderson) and District 10 (Kelly) in Wood County, are cosponsors of the bill.
We need to be investing heavily in and incentivizing in our tax code renewable energy/battery storage, energy efficiency and sustainable development/agriculture. We need a revenue-neutral carbon tax like the Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal from Citizens’ Climate Lobby. What we’re doing instead is ignoring our climate crisis and ignoring clean water, air and soil and public health and safety.
On top of this willful blindness, we’re also abandoning our economy, especially in West Virginia, to the dustbin of a dirty energy past. Write, call, or Resistbot (text “Resist” to 504-09) today and tell your Congresspersons and Senators (who control the purse strings) and your Delegates and State Senators to start working toward a clean energy and sustainable future and to stop dooming posterity by living in the past.
Eric Engle
Parkersburg
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
MOVCA Receives Grant for 2018
MOVCA receives $10,000 grant from Dunn Foundation
25 Jan 2018 — The Parkersburg News And Sentinel
From staff reports
PARKERSBURG – Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action has received a $10,000 grant from the Dunn Foundation.
The 2018 grant is the second time the group has received funding from the Dunn Foundation. These funds will help support educational programs and community action campaigns in the Mid-Ohio Valley that raise awareness of the scientific evidence of climate change and the role humans have played in causing it, the group said.
Eric Engle, MOVCA chair, announced the award at the Jan.18 Third Thursday public outreach meeting. “Thanks to the Dunn grant, our teams of volunteer educators will work in cooperation with area science teachers to present programs in middle schools and high schools in both West Virginia and Ohio counties in the Mid-Ohio Valley,” Engle said.
“We will also continue to present these regular monthly programs – free of charge, and open to the public – on topics related to the science confirming the dangerous and urgent threats posed by changes to our planet’s climate, things we can and must address now,” Engle said.
Engle noted that the group has also begun a local fundraising campaign to further bolster the group’s participation with other environmental groups in the area. “As a voluntary organization registered in West Virginia, we can accept tax deductible donations through our fiscal agent, the West Virginia Citizen Action Education Fund. Anyone interested in supporting our efforts is encouraged to contact us for information on making donations.”
Vice Chair Jean Ambrose said the Dunn grant allows the volunteer-led organization to bring more regional and national presentations to the MOV. “The grant we received in 2017 made it possible for us to show Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” Ambrose said. “The grant also funded production of a public service announcement that we aired on local TV. With the new award, we hope to do more presentations like those, as well as branch out into new areas that will take our message to the community.”
The Dunn Foundation awards annual grants through a competitive application and review process. Referencing MOVCA’s award, Dr. Wayne Dunn from the Foundation board said, “The Dunn Foundation is happy to support the MOVCA as a group of citizens who care and work for a sustainable world that enables communities to enhance their happiness, well-being and economic prosperity.”
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Energy’s future is not the past
Jan 7 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Eric Engle,Parkersburg, WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
As of Dec. 29, the Trump administration officially repealed a 2015 rule that set standards on hydraulic fracturing on federal land. According to The Hill:
“The Obama rule focused mainly on three areas: mandating that companies disclose the chemicals they use to frack, requiring them to cover surface ponds that house fracking fluids and setting standards for the construction of wells.”
The Trump Interior Department attempted to delay until 2019 implementing rules meant to capture methane emissions from oil and gas operations as of Oct. 4, 2017, according to CNBC. The Interior Department, to quote CNBC at the time, “is seeking to water down or scrap the rules and wants to avoid imposing compliance costs on energy firms since it may ultimately kill the regulations.” A federal judge in San Francisco put a stop to this, thankfully, but the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will still likely kill the regulation if possible. Methane emissions contribute to at least 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.
In the midst of all of this, the BLM is permitting more oil and gas leasing in the Wayne National Forest, Ohio’s only national forest. The Wayne has units in Marietta, Athens and Ironton and the Marietta and Athens units are the most threatened. On this side of the river, with the Chinese memorandum of understanding, we’ll be looking at $84 billion of oil, gas and petrochemical development in the next 20 years. With the cracker plants, pipelines and storage hubs will come worse methane emissions, millions of gallons of contaminated water from our rivers and streams and other fresh water supplies after hydraulic fracturing (with contaminants that we’ll not be informed about, despite the fact that private studies have shown the presence of radioactive and carcinogenic materials), more wastewater treatment facilities threatening surface and ground water supplies, and more brine and residual waste trucks running nonstop on our roads. Not to mention the threats to private property owners who have to live close to all that, and who the companies will try to deprive of their lands.
When will Central Appalachia and the surrounding region realize fossil fuels are not the future? We must develop and produce renewable energy (solar, wind and water), electric vehicles with plenty of charging stations (including electric trains, planes and large truck fleets), develop commercially viable plastics and polymers alternatives (hemp shows a great deal of promise) and change our agricultural and development practices to focus on local, sustainable agriculture and development (including dramatically increasing energy efficiency and building more durable infrastructure to defend against new climate norms).
Let’s stop being victims of industry and start being the captains of tomorrow’s industries!
Eric D. Engle
Parkersburg
Last Updated: April 29, 2023 by main_y0ke11
Weather is not climate
Jan 7 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by George Banziger, Marietta, OH
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
The eastern portion of the U.S. is experiencing a severe cold snap. Those who deny the irrefutable pattern of scientific facts for human-induced climate change have jumped on this weather event as evidence against climate change. For example, in a characteristically sarcastic tweet Donald Trump mentioned it will be the coldest New Year’s Eve in New York, and we need some of that “good old-fashioned global warming.”
What the president and many other people fail to recognize is that weather is not climate. While weather is temporary and regional; climate involves long-term global phenomena. And the evidence for human-induced climate change is undeniable. The year 2014 was the hottest on record globally; 2015 was hotter than 2014; 2016 was hotter than 2015; and 2017 was the hottest year on record without (the temporary warming effect of) an El Nino. Sea level rises are occurring all over the world and threaten most directly and most immediately major cities along the ocean like Miami Beach. Glaciers from Greenland to the Antarctic, as well as sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, are retreating at an accelerating pace. Ocean temperatures worldwide are warming, giving rise to extreme storms such as hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017. Deforestation has created two effects — more carbon emissions from burning of trees and the elimination of trees as a “sink” for carbon dioxide. Prolonged droughts throughout the world, which are a consequence of climate change, have resulted in wildfires such as the Thomas Fire in California, and increasing desertification in Africa, Asia and Australia.
There is a 98 percent consensus among climate experts about the effect of burning fossil fuels and generating carbon emissions as the cause of these disturbing trends of climate change. Yet we have a president and an administration in Washington that refuse to recognize and act on this undeniable scientific evidence, and which has removed the U.S. from international agreements which address climate change.
One needs to do more than look out one’s back window on a cold January day to know about climate change. Once a person does recognize the importance of addressing the urgent issue of human-induced climate change, there are many actions one can take: adopting some habits and lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions such as grocery shopping with re-usable bags, using LED lights, installing solar panels on one’s house, place of work, or house of worship, buying a hybrid or electric vehicle, walking or bicycling to work; encouraging our public officials to adopt policies that reduce carbon emissions and that address climate change; and joining the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action group.
George Banziger
Marietta
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