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Tag: "environment"

Dirty Energy’s Threat to the American Landscape

[ 7 ] February 8, 2012 | Erik Loomis

I have a piece out today at Alternet detailing the struggle to protect some of the United States’ most beautiful and unique landscapes from the scourge of dirty energy production. Ranging from the Sand Hills of Nebraska to West Virginia, upstate New York, the Louisiana marshlands, and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, dirty energy production threatens to devastate (and is devastating) some of the this nation’s unique places.

I also focus heavily on the impact of energy production on the human body, particularly exploring east Texas and southern Louisiana:

A polluted ecosystem leads to sick people. This is the case on the Gulf Coast from east Texas into Louisiana, where the oil industry processes its raw material. The people who live near these plants, ranging from roughly Corpus Christi to the Mississippi River, are mostly poor and African American. Petroleum companies have intentionally sited their plants here, assuming that underprivileged people cannot resist a multinational corporation. Local residents have seen high cancer rates, birth defects and congenital health problems. Working conditions in these plants are notoriously poor. A 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas killed 17 workers and injured more than 170.

However, locals have fought back. Although environmental organizations have been reluctant to take on their cases, environmental justice movements have demanded protection from exposure to toxic chemicals. Steve Lerner’s book Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor chronicles how the community of Diamond, Louisiana took on the town’s Royal Dutch Shell complex to stop the headaches, respiratory illnesses and cancers that afflicted residents. After years of organizing, Shell finally agreed to relocate their homes away from the plant.

That’s one limited success story, but thousands of poor people live their lives subjected to the environmental racism of the petroleum industry. Our energy future needs to include processing energy in a way that protects people’s health and spreads the burden of energy production more evenly.

How the Right-Wing Climate Change Deniers Work Their Evil Magic

[ 11 ] February 7, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Leo Hickman has a nice little piece of investigative journalism in the Guardian about how a right-wing climate myth gets born and spread. In short, a scientist working on whether wind farms might affect localized weather (within 300 meters), gets published. He suggests it might. A right-wing newspaper, in this case the British paper The Daily Mail, picks up on it, effectively rewrites the paper to fit its agenda, and publishes it. Climate change denier websites spread it around the internet. Right-wingers gloat.

Hickman interviewed the scientist involved, who is completely befuddled by what has happened.

I don’t know if there’s anything to be done about this, but scientists rarely have much of an understanding of how the right wingers will misrepresent their research. I mean, what are they supposed to do, stop their research? No. But it would be worthwhile for the leading scientific associations to create PR departments that fight for the proper dissemination and understanding of research and to provide some pushback when the anti-climate change forces make things up.

Bureaucratic Discretion and Environmental Protection

[ 3 ] February 7, 2012 | Erik Loomis

The Obama Administration is producing a comprehensive planning document for national forest management. By and large, environmentalists are OK with it. Except for one major exception. One of the key environmental victories in protecting the northern spotted owl and thus the Northwest’ old-growth forests was a 1982 United States Forest Service regulation that forced the agency to focus on the distribution of species throughout the forests, meaning that you had an emphasis on species movement, genetic diversity, and protecting swaths of habitat throughout a national forest. The timber companies and Republicans hated this because it empowered the courts to order the end to most old-growth logging to protect the owl.

This regulation is severely watered-down in the new regulations. Specifically, it allows the manager of a national forest to make these decisions, allowing a bureaucrat massive discretion in deciding the future of a species. Under a Democratic president, it’s possible that these decisions will be made with the health of the species and forest as a whole in mind. Under a Republican, appointees will almost certainly eviscerate any attempt to protect wildlife.

The larger question is whether science or politics will govern our national forest land. Is it more important to ensure the proper distribution of a species or play politics? Unfortunately, and again despite an overall forest policy that is reasonably good, the Obama Administration has decided to open the door for future presidents to undermine wildlife protection.

Another way of putting it is that the timber industry and their Congressional flacks like Doc Hastings are very pleased. And that’s never a good sign.

….Here’s a good example from New Mexico about why allowing political appointees to create environmental management policy is a bad idea.

The Environmental Legacy of War

[ 18 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

We are now out of Iraq, at least sort of. So now everyone can start putting their bad memories of the American occupation behind them, right? Of course, Americans forgot this yesterday, after all Real Housewives of Lubbock is on. But the Iraqis have a lot of reminders. Among them–massive and unmitigated pollution.

“Open-air burn pits have operated widely at military sites in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Department of Veterans Affairs notes on its website. On hundreds of camps and bases across the two countries, the U.S. military and its contractors incinerated toxic waste, including unexploded ordnance, plastics and Styrofoam, asbestos, formaldehyde, arsenic, pesticides and neurotoxins, medical waste (even amputated limbs), heavy metals and what the military refers to as “radioactive commodities.” The burns have released mutagens and carcinogens, including uranium and other isotopes, volatile organic compounds, hexachlorobenzene, and, that old favorite, dioxin (aka Agent Orange).

The military pooh-poohs the problem, despite a 2009 Pentagon document noting “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops, the Times of London reported. In any case, it says, the waste isn’t all that toxic, and there is no hard evidence troops were harmed. Of course, one reason for that lack of evidence, reports the Institute of Medicine (which found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base alone), is that the Pentagon won’t or can’t document what it burned and buried, or where it did so.

The little media attention that has been paid to this massive pollution has dimly illuminated its potential impact on U.S. troops. Left in mephitic darkness are the contractors, often impoverished South Asians, who did the dirty work at the bases, as well as Iraqi civilians who live and farm nearby. The Times of London reported that “open acid canisters sit within easy reach of children, and discarded batteries lie close to irrigated farmland,” causing people to sicken and rats to die “next to soiled containers.”

The environmental issue is a hearts-and-minds thing. When Iraqis babies are dying of cancer, they will remember why this is happening. I realize that environmental considerations are never going to be a top priority during wartime, proper mitigation of pollution is a very important issue, both for the ecosystem and for the people who live in it.

Our Open Government

[ 12 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Josh Fox, the maker of the documentary Gasland and whom one might call today’s Ida Tarbell, was arrested today at the order of House Republicans during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Why? They tried to film it.

Open government at its finest! It’s far easier to destroy the nation’s environment if you can keep anyone from reporting on it.

Climate Scientists Strike Back

[ 96 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

After another dumb climate change denial article in the Wall Street Journal last week, a group of climate scientists had enough. We need a lot more aggressive attacks like this from the scientists. An excerpt:

Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

One of denialists’ prime tactics has been to confuse the public by stretching the definition of “expert” to mean “whoever they find to shill for them.” If you are a member of the general public, do you know the difference between climatologist and meterologist? Or any other kind of scientist? No. You put a guy in a lab on the TV and that looks pretty expert to most people. The Weather Channel passes for expertise for those who are into the weather and TV weather forecasters have been at the forefront of climate denial, even though they lack the knowledge to analyze long-term climate patterns.

Alternative Energy Subsidies

[ 28 ] January 29, 2012 | Erik Loomis

If there’s one thing more frustrating to environmentalists than the reluctance of the government to subsidize clean energy production, I don’t know what it is. Not only is it central to any reasonable plan for fighting climate change, but it just makes sense on so many levels. Subsidies have brought the prices of renewables nearly to that of dirty energy and it is falling all the time. And of course, the government subsidizes the heck out of fossil fuel production in ways both direct and indirect. The federal government made its decision to go all the way with the fossil fuel industry in the 1950s (if not before) and that might have made sense at the time. That it doesn’t see the future today and continues to favor dirty energy over clean hugely hampers America’s future. Future leading nations will have access to renewable energy and affordable prices with governments building connections between industry and itself to press for national growth. The U.S. remains stuck on an antiquated model.

On top of that, it continually amazes me that petroleum companies don’t rethink themselves energy companies and get behind renewables with all their capital. Money is money. Renewables are the future. Make them profitable. Does it really matter whether you are burning fossils or channeling the sun’s energy? Some oil people like T. Boone Pickens get this. Most do not. Insane for future corporate bottom lines, the future of people on this planet, and our national interest.

Engineering Nature

[ 7 ] January 29, 2012 | Erik Loomis

I found the comment section on my bayou post of yesterday interesting for a couple of reasons, including that saving the marshes is an impossible task. This really is not true. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have shaped the river to satisfy a number of masters, including the petroleum and shipping industries, the U.S. and Louisiana governments, the desire of New Orleans residents to stay dry, and their own need to justify their existence and expansion. The Mississippi is a fully engineered river system. But the marshlands are still savable within that system. Obviously, no one is going to call for the Mississippi to flow freely, in no small part because of the likelihood and historical frequency of it changing course (which was a real worry last spring with the floods). That will happen someday and will cause a massive economic disaster for the United States. But short of that, much can still be done. Water can be diverted into canals throughout the system and then allowed to flood locally over the marshes while still allowing plenty of water for shipping needs. The levees can be broken downstream and water can pass through of its own volition. In fact, there are several test projects for restoring marshlands that have proven locally successful. It really doesn’t take a lot for the marshes to come back–just let the silt settle and the alligators and land will return.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that in the United States and most of the world in 2012, all landscapes are engineered and controlled spaces. Even wilderness areas are heavily managed, in this case to not be commercially or industrially developed. But these are completely artificial boundaries that say much about our relationship with the natural world. Given this reality, we can choose to engineer nature in any number of ways to serve any number of purposes. We can’t completely control nature of course, although most Americans have a very difficult time understanding this. But we can and do shape the land for commercial development, residential development, parkland, wilderness, whatever. Managing it to create marshes is a question of political will, not engineering.

Save Louisiana

[ 44 ] January 28, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Outside of the larger spectre of climate change, the biggest environmental crisis in the United States is the melting of southern Louisiana into the ocean.* A combination of diking the Mississippi River to prevent flooding and facilitate commerce and petroleum companies challenging through the marshes have decimated this unique and beautiful ecosystem to the onslaught of seawater. The channeling causes erosion, the dikes prevent natural replenishing of the marshes. This is not only about some alligators either. A great deal of our seafood comes from the area, particularly our shrimp, oysters, and crayfish. It is also much more than an environmental issue. The bayous are home to one of America’s most unique cultures; without the environment that shaped it, that culture wil disappear.

This is a solvable problem, at least for now. The long-term implications of rising sea levels will cause problems down the road. But we could reengineer the Mississippi to flood in various places in its delta to create new marshland. The area can recover fairly quickly. In an age where New Orleans has proven vulnerable to hurricanes, this is all the more important because the marshes provided a buffer against storms, sucking down their power before the storms hit New Orleans. By 2005, the marshes’ ability to do this had been severely attenuated.

Randy Fertel has an op-ed laying out the legislative options, which I fully support. I also highly recommend Mike Tidwell’s Bayou Farewell for an overview of both the environmental and cultural issues involved here.

* I know there’s some serious competition for biggest environmental crisis, with the strip mining of West Virginia the most obvious competitor. Not surprisingly, our insatiable demand for energy and to control nature to serve our economic desires is at the heart of both problems.

Renewable Energy Standards

[ 5 ] January 23, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Colorado is reaching a bit of an odd moment in the short history of renewable energy in this county. In 2004, Colorado voters decided to create a sustainable energy requirement for the state. It’s been wildly successful, so much so that the state has about reached it. And now there’s very little incentive for the energy companies to continue investing in renewables. Without the state mandate, progress is beginning to stall out.

While the clear answer to me is for Colorado voters to raise the bar, this gets at larger problems with the American grid. The decentralized nature of American energy allows for local decisions, which can be positive but can also lead to inertia. A federal initiative to improve renewable energy sources in the states could have great impact, but of course won’t happen in today’s climate. At the very least, we must have the extension of government subsidies for wind and solar energy, both of which are scheduled to expire by next year.

A state like Colorado is both windy and sunny and there’s no good reason it can’t be producing a huge chunk of its energy from renewable sources. With the cost of renewable energy declining, consumer demand might do a good bit to promote its continued expansion, but this is one area where government can make a huge difference in people’s lives and in the environment.

Keystone

[ 45 ] January 18, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Congressional Republicans ensured the death of the Keystone XL pipeline. By forcing Obama to decide on granting a permit within 60 days, they made it impossible to re-route the pipeline in a way that Nebraska lawmakers would find less unacceptable than the original route. Republicans did this to make an election point. On that front, I’m a little bit worried. With gas prices rising again, discontent could rise too and even though Keystone would mean nothing for gas prices in the short term, the president and his political party always suffer. On the other hand, gas was high 4 years ago and people are slowly accepting this new reality, Michelle Bachmann’s laughable pledge to get gas back to $2 notwithstanding.

So this is a pretty big victory for those trying to move us to a cleaner energy future, those opposed to massive pollution and those fighting climate change. Of course, others are upset about this. David Frum has an odd column bemoaning its failure, saying that environmentalists shouldn’t celebrate and that we need to build our way to the future, not deny permits. Yglesias retweeted this column with full his full approval: “What @davidfrum said.” You mean denying this one permit isn’t going to halt climate change and isn’t the final answer to all our energy questions? Who knew! Frum might be right that we need some carbon taxes, but it is an absolute environmental victory to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

Beverages

[ 24 ] January 17, 2012 | Erik Loomis

A couple of beverage-related stories this morning.

1. If you didn’t oppose fracking the Marcellus Shale before, let the Post provide some really strong evidence while you should: there is a significant chance the fracking process will pollute the groundwater used by Ommegang for their excellent beers. The thought of losing Ommegang is too much for me to contemplate. Luckily, the Ommegang brewers are leading the charge to protect their product and New York’s groundwater.

2. I know progressives love to trash Texas left and right but it’s a land of small charms. One of those charms is the town of Dublin, which has a restaurant serving the a 19th century offshoot Dr. Pepper recipe. It is (or was) delicious. I used to drink a lot of Dr. Pepper, though I gave it up a couple of years ago. But the Dublin Dr. Pepper was amazing. The multinational beverage corporation The Dr. Pepper Snapple Corporation was never comfortable with this “threat” to their brand and now they’ve cracked down. Dublin was so popular it began to sell some of its product online, violating the six-county radius agreement they had previously signed. Instead of coming to a compromise and saving this unique product, the multinational chose to crush Dublin Dr. Pepper, pulling the naming rights. Theoretically, the Waco-based corporation is going to continue the recipe and the store, but without the town’s association with it. We’ll see how long this lasts.

There really is nothing else in Dublin. It was a tourist attraction for this reason alone. The future viability of this town relies on it’s connection with its version of Dr. Pepper.

If you go to the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, the top floor is a love fest to the multinational that runs it. It’s pretty gross. Maybe it’ll include an exhibit on crushing small-town Texas.

More here.

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