President Joe Biden released his 2023 budget proposal this week. It includes significant increases in the environmental realm and nearly $45 billion to address various aspects of climate change, although he has yet to declare it the emergency that it is. That’s $16.7 billion higher than the previous budget, an enormous change in “normal” times. While this definitely would move us in the right direction, it’s still far less than is truly needed. Because these are anything but normal times. But I’ve already had my say on that subject in “Maybe if the climate crisis were labeled national defense it would get funded like we mean it.”
After Congress has its say on the budget, whatever’s left ought to go into effect Oct. 1 at the start of the federal fiscal year. But recent history shows that’s a joke.
The administration chose not to include any big new climate-related projects in the proposed budget. Reportedly that was done at least in part because there is still cautious optimism that at least some of the climate-related provisions of the House-passed, Senate-blocked Build Back Better (BBB) Act will be approved by the end of summer in a reconciliation bill not subject to filibuster. That analysis makes sense because we know Republicans will take a chainsaw to any BBB-like provisions included in budget legislation.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a climate science denier who is the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, makes clear what the reception will be, saying in a statement, “President Biden’s budget is another pipe dream of liberal activism and climate extremism. It spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much.” If that sounds like a tiresome Reagan-era theme song, you aren’t mishearing.
Despite the beating that Biden’s proposed climate-related boosts will get, it’s worth looking at some of his specifics on the matter as they stand now:
Japan aims to go 100% renewable by 2040. One means to achieve this is floating solar farms, three of which are already in operation. Under construction now is what will be the world’s largest floating solar farm at the Yamakura Dam. It will have a 13.7-megawatt capacity that can supply electricity to 5,000 homes.
YouTube Video
A court has ruled against South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment on its 2022 quotas for trophy hunting of endangered leopards, black rhinos, and elephants. The Humane Society International-Africa successfully argued that the department had failed to comply with a provision in the law requiring consultation ahead of time on setting such quotas.
The rulings came on the heels of a new report from Good Government Africa (GGA) disputing official claims that revenues from trophy hunting help conservation and members of low-income communities. The report says that “trophy hunting is a hobby for the wealthy that benefits the wealthy and generates little value for poor rural community members.” Said Ross Harvey, a natural resource economist who wrote the GGA report, “The opportunity costs are high and typically unaccounted for in this simplistic promotion of a highly extractive hobby. For the government to argue that ‘hunting is a part of SA heritage and culture’ is sleight of hand. To shoot imperiled species such as leopards, rhino and elephants for trophies is, instead, to promote a colonial practice of extraction, hardly an inherited culture.”
Numerous progressive organizations launched a campaign on Monday to spur congressional incumbents and candidates to reject campaign contributions in amounts larger than $200 from fossil fuel executives and lobbyists, and to pledge support for the Green New Deal. The pledge includes a promise to co-sponsor nine pieces of legislation. Among them: the "Keep It In The Ground Act," H.R. 2519; the "Environmental Justice For All Act," H.R. 2021, the sweeping bill developed by House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva; the Civilian Climate Corps bill, S. 1244, introduced by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and other proposals on housing and cities. The nine-item list is not exhaustive, according to the groups. More than a dozen Democratic incumbents and scores of candidates have signed the pledge.
Said Rep. Cori Bush, who introduced the Green New Deal for Cities Act last year, "The Green New Deal is about jobs, justice, and dismantling systemic racism that's poisoning the lungs and futures of Black and Brown people in St. Louis and all across the country. We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis. I'm proud to be part of an effort to hold people in positions of power accountable to the solutions we know are needed to address environmental racism, confront the fossil fuel industry, and realize true climate justice."
“Woefully inadequate” is how the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in its latest World Energy Transitions Outlook characterizes global efforts on energy to keep the world’s temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. To meet that goal, the authors said, will require 450 gigawatts of new solar generating capacity installed each year through 2030, most of it utility scale. North America will need to install 90 gigawatts of new solar capacity each year. As of Jan. 1 this year, the cumulative total installed in the United States was 121.3 gigawatts of solar, enough to generate electricity for about 23.4 million residences.
IRENA estimates there will be 12 million job losses globally in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries over the coming decades, but these will be outweighed by “close to” 85 million new energy transition roles, including 26.5 million in clean energy.
You can see a larger and easier to read chart here.
Stephen Robert Miller writes:
“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” —Aldo Leopold from the foreword to his Sand County Almanac.
Oil Conglomerates Made Record Profits In 2021 by Carolyn Fortuna at CleanTechnica. “Surging gas prices have definitely hurt working people. However, that hasn’t stopped 25 of the world’s biggest fossil fuel corporations from collectively reaping $205 billion in profits in 2021. Record profits resulted from conscious decisions by oil and gas companies to monopolize on soaring prices and savor the financial rewards internally ... Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement that ‘as Americans encounter higher prices to fill their gas tanks or heat their homes, Big Oil is grasping at straws to explain why they are swimming in unused leases and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits—money they hand over to wealthy oil and gas company executives and shareholders rather than struggling consumers.’”
Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online shares little evidence of success, by Toby McIntosh at Mongabay. “Critics call the Coalition ‘a black box’ from which little light emerges, allowing the member companies to greenwash by pointing to their coalition membership cards. ‘The coalition is premised on the idea that self-regulation will work,’ said Simone Haysom, a senior analyst with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC).”
Indigenous Masai women gather at a community leadership meeting in Kenya in 2018.
Indigenous land rights take center stage in a new global framework for biodiversity conservation by Karl Burkart at Mongabay. “With negotiations underway in Geneva for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Indigenous land rights have finally taken center stage. The human rights group Avaaz released a 30-page document calling for the full recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) over their lands, waters, and territories within the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). ‘This is a historically important proposal. It acknowledges that if we truly want to achieve the top-level goal of the UN Convention — to save biodiversity and reverse the extinction crisis — we must simultaneously secure the land rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities at scale. We cannot achieve one goal without achieving the other.’”
Equality must begin at birth; solar power is the solution by Yariv Cohen at PV Magazine. “Solar energy already has life-changing effects when looking to bridge gaps between developed and developing countries ... Most maternal deaths can be prevented through access to skilled health personnel, proper facilities, equipment, and supplies. Many women who experience maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty conditions and do not receive adequate care to address complications. Electricity is a big part of the inadequacy. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million people, 300 million women, have access to only 98,000 health clinics, and from those, only 28% have electricity, according to McKinsey. Without electricity, the most basic infrastructure a clinic can have, women in rural areas give birth in dark rooms, and health workers are sometimes forced to ask pregnant women to cover the charges of candles, something many cannot afford.”
Europe can lead the way through an energy crisis without more fossil fuels by Rebecca Leber at Vox. “In five years, European countries hope to end dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and by the end of the year, they look to slash reliance on Russian gas by two-thirds. If Europe follows through on these pledges, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could propel one of the swiftest energy transitions in history. The biggest question now is whether it’s a transition off oil and gas — or just off Russian oil and gas. Right now, it seems fossil fuels are winning. Oil companies in the United States are eager for Europe to swap one fossil fuel for another and build out more infrastructure on both sides of the Atlantic to carry oil and gas to Europe. And despite their climate pledges, world leaders have shown early support for ramping up fossil fuel infrastructure.”
Climate Research Shouldn’t Be Funded by Fossil Fuel Companies by Ilana Cohen and Jake Lowe at The Nation. The oil and gas industry uses universities to influence environmental policy. Here’s how we fight back. “First, this is a call to cease our universities’ role in industry greenwashing, allowing oil and gas majors to stamp their name brands on credible-seeming university research around an energy transition. Second, it’s a call to protect such research’s integrity, given established patterns of vested corporate interests’ leading to skewed research outcomes. Third and perhaps most critically, it’s a call to stop the fossil fuel industry from co-opting the policy-making process and precluding the urgently needed just transition to renewable energy.”
Ukrainian Conservation Organizations Shift Missions to Humanitarian Support by John R. Platt at The Revelator. “Ukrainian conservation organizations have largely shifted their efforts to support refugees and other citizens in need, even as the environmental toll from the Russian invasion continues to loom over the country’s future. ‘Almost all our projects are frozen now,’ said Bohdan Prots, CEO of the Danube Carpathian Program, during a webinar organized by Eurosite (the European Land Conservation Network). The event was meant to address the war’s effects on both people and nature. ‘After the first day … we changed from major conservation activity to mainly humanitarian support until the war is over,’ Prots said.”
Methane Leaks in New Mexico Far Exceed Current Estimates, Study Suggests by Maggie Astor at The New York Times. “Startlingly large amounts of methane are leaking from wells and pipelines in New Mexico, according to a new analysis of aerial data, suggesting that the oil and gas industry may be contributing more to climate change than was previously known ... Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University who was not involved in the study, called it ‘very carefully done.’ Dr. Howarth has long argued that the E.P.A. substantially underestimates the methane problem. The new study calculated methane emissions at 9.4 percent of gross gas production, which dwarfs the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1.4 percent estimate.”
Protesters against a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline
Organizing Across State Lines to Stop a Pipeline by Ray Levy Uyeda at Yes! Magazine. “Activists in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nebraska are proving that building collective community power can successfully counter Big Oil’s monied interests. There’s a blueprint, organizers say, of what to do when a pipeline threatens already vulnerable communities. The first step is to educate neighbors and those who care about the land. The second is to make the building process as legally untenable as possible by advocating for the passage of new city and county laws, demonstrating a pipeline’s fallibility to state environmental agencies. ‘It’s hard to fight against major corporations when you don’t have money,’ says Crystal Cavaliere, a member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. Cavaliere lives in Mebane, North Carolina, and is one of the main leaders working on the Southgate resistance efforts. She says organizers and impacted residents are made to feel like if they don’t have money, they don’t have power. Cavaliere’s work is to disprove that hypothesis.”
Why U.S. Population Growth Is Collapsing by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. “A country grows or shrinks in three ways: immigration, deaths, and births … America’s bias against immigration is self-defeating in almost every dimension. ‘Immigration is a geopolitical cheat code for the U.S.,’ says Caleb Watney, a co-founder of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank in Washington, D.C. ‘Want to supercharge science? Immigrants bring breakthroughs, patents, and Nobel Prizes in droves. Want to stay ahead of China? Immigrants drive progress in semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing. Want to make America more dynamic? Immigrants launch nearly 50 percent of U.S. billion-dollar start-ups. The rest of the world is begging international talent to come to their shores while we are slamming the door in their face.’”
Ørsted and Eversource's offshore wind turbine installation vessel. A report from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says five or six of these vessels and a whole lot else will be needed to make President Joe Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind-generating capacity by 2030.
U.S. offshore wind supply chain: By the numbers by John Engel at Renewable Energy World. “The U.S. has enough planned offshore wind energy capacity to meet President Joe Biden's goal of developing 30 gigawatts by 2030. But to build those projects, the U.S. needs to quickly ramp up its domestic supply chain, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Lab says the U.S. needs 2,100 wind turbines, 6,800 miles of cable, 2,100 foundations, 58 crew transfer vessels, and as many as 50,000 trained workers to meet the Biden administration's goal of 30 GW of offshore wind energy deployed by 2030. A key requirement will be upgraded port facilities. Only one East Coast existing port is adequately prepared for this, with a couple of others making the needed upgrades ... Matt Shield, NREL's senior offshore wind analyst, said the offshore wind supply chain report is intended to ‘help the industry strategically plan’ how to develop a domestic supply chain that supports development goals through "realistic pathways and enabling actions."
Crucial to conservation, Indigenous communities’ environmental leadership endures. By Mike Gaworecki at Mongabay. “The Mongabay Newscast highlights how more recognition is being given to the role that Indigenous peoples play as conservationists. Gaworecki speaks with Michelle Nijhuis, whose latest book, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, is a history of the modern conservation movement. She tells about the book and what it has to say about how Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge have finally come to be acknowledged as vital to the cause of conservation. He also speak to Julie Thorstenson, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. She explains that the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States manage more than 140 million acres of land, and that many are working to conserve and reintroduce endangered or declining wildlife, from bison and condors to salmon and ferrets.”
• Ten Ways the U.S. Could Cut Gas Reliance Right Now (But Probably Won’t) • Electric Bike Sales Are Booming, Thanks to High Gas Prices • BOEM sets May auction for offshore wind leasing in 2 areas off the Carolinas • The U.S. added 3.5 gigawatts of grid-scale energy storage in 2021 • Bobcats With a Taste for Python Eggs Might Be the Guardians of Florida’s Swamp • A Climate Warrior’s Journey From Summit Talks to Street Protests • Are Electric Cars Good Or Bad? Auto Execs & Politicians Can’t Make Up Their Minds • Postal Service doubles number of EV delivery trucks in initial order • California groundbreaking set for largest wildlife highway crossing
After Congress has its say on the budget, whatever’s left ought to go into effect Oct. 1 at the start of the federal fiscal year. But recent history shows that’s a joke.
The administration chose not to include any big new climate-related projects in the proposed budget. Reportedly that was done at least in part because there is still cautious optimism that at least some of the climate-related provisions of the House-passed, Senate-blocked Build Back Better (BBB) Act will be approved by the end of summer in a reconciliation bill not subject to filibuster. That analysis makes sense because we know Republicans will take a chainsaw to any BBB-like provisions included in budget legislation.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a climate science denier who is the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, makes clear what the reception will be, saying in a statement, “President Biden’s budget is another pipe dream of liberal activism and climate extremism. It spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much.” If that sounds like a tiresome Reagan-era theme song, you aren’t mishearing.
Despite the beating that Biden’s proposed climate-related boosts will get, it’s worth looking at some of his specifics on the matter as they stand now:
- $11 billion to help finance climate efforts by developing nations. Of that, $1.6 billion would go to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which finances climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries. This compares with Biden’s $2.7 billion request in 2022, which Republicans cut to $1 billion, with none of it going to the GCF. The U.S. pledged $3 billion by 2020 for the GCF, but since $1 billion was contributed toward this goal under President Barack Obama, the U.S. has made no further contributions to the fund. The rich countries have pledged $100 billion a year for the fund’s aid to poor countries by 2024.
- $11.9 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a 25% increase over the current $9.5 billion EPA budget. Congress whacked Biden’s similar proposal last year to a 3% increase. $1.5 billion of that would go for environmental justice work.
- $48.2 billion for Department of Energy, a 7% rise over current spending. That includes $3.3 billion on clean energy growth alone, with $90 million of that for a grid deployment office to modernize the nation’s electrical grid and $502 million to weatherize and retrofit low-income homes. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy would get $700 million, a $250 million increase to accelerate clean energy innovation. Last year, President Biden attempted to initiate an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Climate, but that went nowhere in Congress.
- $17.5 billion for the Department of Interior, a 24% increase. Included would be $254 million for renewable energy on public lands. Of this, $478.9 million would go to the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, agencies responsible for permitting of oil and gas programs and safety and environmental enforcement on federal lands onshore and offshore.
- $339 million for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which falls under the Department of Transportation. The money goes to hiring more safety inspectors, the collection of safety data on rural pipelines, and the reduction of methane emissions.
Biden also seeks to dump oil subsidies estimated to be worth $44 billion over a decade.
WEEKLY ECOVIDEO
Japan aims to go 100% renewable by 2040. One means to achieve this is floating solar farms, three of which are already in operation. Under construction now is what will be the world’s largest floating solar farm at the Yamakura Dam. It will have a 13.7-megawatt capacity that can supply electricity to 5,000 homes.
YouTube Video
SHORT TAKES
South Africa Inflates Value of Trophy Hunts to Conservation says report
A court has ruled against South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment on its 2022 quotas for trophy hunting of endangered leopards, black rhinos, and elephants. The Humane Society International-Africa successfully argued that the department had failed to comply with a provision in the law requiring consultation ahead of time on setting such quotas.
The rulings came on the heels of a new report from Good Government Africa (GGA) disputing official claims that revenues from trophy hunting help conservation and members of low-income communities. The report says that “trophy hunting is a hobby for the wealthy that benefits the wealthy and generates little value for poor rural community members.” Said Ross Harvey, a natural resource economist who wrote the GGA report, “The opportunity costs are high and typically unaccounted for in this simplistic promotion of a highly extractive hobby. For the government to argue that ‘hunting is a part of SA heritage and culture’ is sleight of hand. To shoot imperiled species such as leopards, rhino and elephants for trophies is, instead, to promote a colonial practice of extraction, hardly an inherited culture.”
‘Green New Deal Champions Pledge’ Pushes Candidates to Embrace Bold Climate Agenda
Numerous progressive organizations launched a campaign on Monday to spur congressional incumbents and candidates to reject campaign contributions in amounts larger than $200 from fossil fuel executives and lobbyists, and to pledge support for the Green New Deal. The pledge includes a promise to co-sponsor nine pieces of legislation. Among them: the "Keep It In The Ground Act," H.R. 2519; the "Environmental Justice For All Act," H.R. 2021, the sweeping bill developed by House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva; the Civilian Climate Corps bill, S. 1244, introduced by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and other proposals on housing and cities. The nine-item list is not exhaustive, according to the groups. More than a dozen Democratic incumbents and scores of candidates have signed the pledge.
Said Rep. Cori Bush, who introduced the Green New Deal for Cities Act last year, "The Green New Deal is about jobs, justice, and dismantling systemic racism that's poisoning the lungs and futures of Black and Brown people in St. Louis and all across the country. We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis. I'm proud to be part of an effort to hold people in positions of power accountable to the solutions we know are needed to address environmental racism, confront the fossil fuel industry, and realize true climate justice."
Report says world will need 5.2 terawatts of solar capacity this decade
“Woefully inadequate” is how the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in its latest World Energy Transitions Outlook characterizes global efforts on energy to keep the world’s temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. To meet that goal, the authors said, will require 450 gigawatts of new solar generating capacity installed each year through 2030, most of it utility scale. North America will need to install 90 gigawatts of new solar capacity each year. As of Jan. 1 this year, the cumulative total installed in the United States was 121.3 gigawatts of solar, enough to generate electricity for about 23.4 million residences.
IRENA estimates there will be 12 million job losses globally in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries over the coming decades, but these will be outweighed by “close to” 85 million new energy transition roles, including 26.5 million in clean energy.
You can see a larger and easier to read chart here.
Can Nature Reclaim Iowa?
Stephen Robert Miller writes:
GREEN QUOTE
“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” —Aldo Leopold from the foreword to his Sand County Almanac.
ECOPINION
Oil Conglomerates Made Record Profits In 2021 by Carolyn Fortuna at CleanTechnica. “Surging gas prices have definitely hurt working people. However, that hasn’t stopped 25 of the world’s biggest fossil fuel corporations from collectively reaping $205 billion in profits in 2021. Record profits resulted from conscious decisions by oil and gas companies to monopolize on soaring prices and savor the financial rewards internally ... Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement that ‘as Americans encounter higher prices to fill their gas tanks or heat their homes, Big Oil is grasping at straws to explain why they are swimming in unused leases and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits—money they hand over to wealthy oil and gas company executives and shareholders rather than struggling consumers.’”
Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online shares little evidence of success, by Toby McIntosh at Mongabay. “Critics call the Coalition ‘a black box’ from which little light emerges, allowing the member companies to greenwash by pointing to their coalition membership cards. ‘The coalition is premised on the idea that self-regulation will work,’ said Simone Haysom, a senior analyst with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC).”
Indigenous Masai women gather at a community leadership meeting in Kenya in 2018.
Indigenous land rights take center stage in a new global framework for biodiversity conservation by Karl Burkart at Mongabay. “With negotiations underway in Geneva for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Indigenous land rights have finally taken center stage. The human rights group Avaaz released a 30-page document calling for the full recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) over their lands, waters, and territories within the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). ‘This is a historically important proposal. It acknowledges that if we truly want to achieve the top-level goal of the UN Convention — to save biodiversity and reverse the extinction crisis — we must simultaneously secure the land rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities at scale. We cannot achieve one goal without achieving the other.’”
Equality must begin at birth; solar power is the solution by Yariv Cohen at PV Magazine. “Solar energy already has life-changing effects when looking to bridge gaps between developed and developing countries ... Most maternal deaths can be prevented through access to skilled health personnel, proper facilities, equipment, and supplies. Many women who experience maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty conditions and do not receive adequate care to address complications. Electricity is a big part of the inadequacy. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million people, 300 million women, have access to only 98,000 health clinics, and from those, only 28% have electricity, according to McKinsey. Without electricity, the most basic infrastructure a clinic can have, women in rural areas give birth in dark rooms, and health workers are sometimes forced to ask pregnant women to cover the charges of candles, something many cannot afford.”
Europe can lead the way through an energy crisis without more fossil fuels by Rebecca Leber at Vox. “In five years, European countries hope to end dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and by the end of the year, they look to slash reliance on Russian gas by two-thirds. If Europe follows through on these pledges, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could propel one of the swiftest energy transitions in history. The biggest question now is whether it’s a transition off oil and gas — or just off Russian oil and gas. Right now, it seems fossil fuels are winning. Oil companies in the United States are eager for Europe to swap one fossil fuel for another and build out more infrastructure on both sides of the Atlantic to carry oil and gas to Europe. And despite their climate pledges, world leaders have shown early support for ramping up fossil fuel infrastructure.”
Climate Research Shouldn’t Be Funded by Fossil Fuel Companies by Ilana Cohen and Jake Lowe at The Nation. The oil and gas industry uses universities to influence environmental policy. Here’s how we fight back. “First, this is a call to cease our universities’ role in industry greenwashing, allowing oil and gas majors to stamp their name brands on credible-seeming university research around an energy transition. Second, it’s a call to protect such research’s integrity, given established patterns of vested corporate interests’ leading to skewed research outcomes. Third and perhaps most critically, it’s a call to stop the fossil fuel industry from co-opting the policy-making process and precluding the urgently needed just transition to renewable energy.”
ECO-TWEET
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (or listen to)
Ukrainian Conservation Organizations Shift Missions to Humanitarian Support by John R. Platt at The Revelator. “Ukrainian conservation organizations have largely shifted their efforts to support refugees and other citizens in need, even as the environmental toll from the Russian invasion continues to loom over the country’s future. ‘Almost all our projects are frozen now,’ said Bohdan Prots, CEO of the Danube Carpathian Program, during a webinar organized by Eurosite (the European Land Conservation Network). The event was meant to address the war’s effects on both people and nature. ‘After the first day … we changed from major conservation activity to mainly humanitarian support until the war is over,’ Prots said.”
Methane Leaks in New Mexico Far Exceed Current Estimates, Study Suggests by Maggie Astor at The New York Times. “Startlingly large amounts of methane are leaking from wells and pipelines in New Mexico, according to a new analysis of aerial data, suggesting that the oil and gas industry may be contributing more to climate change than was previously known ... Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University who was not involved in the study, called it ‘very carefully done.’ Dr. Howarth has long argued that the E.P.A. substantially underestimates the methane problem. The new study calculated methane emissions at 9.4 percent of gross gas production, which dwarfs the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1.4 percent estimate.”
Protesters against a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline
Organizing Across State Lines to Stop a Pipeline by Ray Levy Uyeda at Yes! Magazine. “Activists in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nebraska are proving that building collective community power can successfully counter Big Oil’s monied interests. There’s a blueprint, organizers say, of what to do when a pipeline threatens already vulnerable communities. The first step is to educate neighbors and those who care about the land. The second is to make the building process as legally untenable as possible by advocating for the passage of new city and county laws, demonstrating a pipeline’s fallibility to state environmental agencies. ‘It’s hard to fight against major corporations when you don’t have money,’ says Crystal Cavaliere, a member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. Cavaliere lives in Mebane, North Carolina, and is one of the main leaders working on the Southgate resistance efforts. She says organizers and impacted residents are made to feel like if they don’t have money, they don’t have power. Cavaliere’s work is to disprove that hypothesis.”
Why U.S. Population Growth Is Collapsing by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. “A country grows or shrinks in three ways: immigration, deaths, and births … America’s bias against immigration is self-defeating in almost every dimension. ‘Immigration is a geopolitical cheat code for the U.S.,’ says Caleb Watney, a co-founder of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank in Washington, D.C. ‘Want to supercharge science? Immigrants bring breakthroughs, patents, and Nobel Prizes in droves. Want to stay ahead of China? Immigrants drive progress in semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing. Want to make America more dynamic? Immigrants launch nearly 50 percent of U.S. billion-dollar start-ups. The rest of the world is begging international talent to come to their shores while we are slamming the door in their face.’”
Ørsted and Eversource's offshore wind turbine installation vessel. A report from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says five or six of these vessels and a whole lot else will be needed to make President Joe Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind-generating capacity by 2030.
U.S. offshore wind supply chain: By the numbers by John Engel at Renewable Energy World. “The U.S. has enough planned offshore wind energy capacity to meet President Joe Biden's goal of developing 30 gigawatts by 2030. But to build those projects, the U.S. needs to quickly ramp up its domestic supply chain, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Lab says the U.S. needs 2,100 wind turbines, 6,800 miles of cable, 2,100 foundations, 58 crew transfer vessels, and as many as 50,000 trained workers to meet the Biden administration's goal of 30 GW of offshore wind energy deployed by 2030. A key requirement will be upgraded port facilities. Only one East Coast existing port is adequately prepared for this, with a couple of others making the needed upgrades ... Matt Shield, NREL's senior offshore wind analyst, said the offshore wind supply chain report is intended to ‘help the industry strategically plan’ how to develop a domestic supply chain that supports development goals through "realistic pathways and enabling actions."
Crucial to conservation, Indigenous communities’ environmental leadership endures. By Mike Gaworecki at Mongabay. “The Mongabay Newscast highlights how more recognition is being given to the role that Indigenous peoples play as conservationists. Gaworecki speaks with Michelle Nijhuis, whose latest book, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, is a history of the modern conservation movement. She tells about the book and what it has to say about how Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge have finally come to be acknowledged as vital to the cause of conservation. He also speak to Julie Thorstenson, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. She explains that the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States manage more than 140 million acres of land, and that many are working to conserve and reintroduce endangered or declining wildlife, from bison and condors to salmon and ferrets.”
ECOBITS
• Ten Ways the U.S. Could Cut Gas Reliance Right Now (But Probably Won’t) • Electric Bike Sales Are Booming, Thanks to High Gas Prices • BOEM sets May auction for offshore wind leasing in 2 areas off the Carolinas • The U.S. added 3.5 gigawatts of grid-scale energy storage in 2021 • Bobcats With a Taste for Python Eggs Might Be the Guardians of Florida’s Swamp • A Climate Warrior’s Journey From Summit Talks to Street Protests • Are Electric Cars Good Or Bad? Auto Execs & Politicians Can’t Make Up Their Minds • Postal Service doubles number of EV delivery trucks in initial order • California groundbreaking set for largest wildlife highway crossing