See Ocean Diver's post
here.
Many environmentally related posts appearing at Daily Kos each week don't attract the attention they deserve. To help get more eyeballs, Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) normally appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The most recent Spotlight can be seen here. More than
23,075 environmentally oriented diaries have been rescued for inclusion in this weekly collection since 2006. Inclusion of a diary in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
Liquidating Our Water Resources - Improved Agricultural Practices Are Needed—by
Ellen Moyer: "The drought in California is now in its fourth year and the worst on record. All Americans should be concerned, because California produces nearly half of U.S.-grown fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Furthermore, 40 states in the U.S. are expected to experience water shortages within the coming decade. The crisis in California serves as an example of common agricultural policies and practices that damage our water supplies. The threat of water shortages will increase as climate change progresses, for example, by shrinking snowpack. Snowpack is vital to ecosystems and more than half of the world’s population. Snowpack provides about a third of California’s water supply when it melts in late spring and summer and replenishes reservoirs. California’s snowpack is at its lowest level on record. [...] While agriculture accounts for only 2 percent of California’s economy, as much as 80 percent of California’s water for human use goes to agriculture. Surface water is allocated according to a system of senior and junior water rights based on “first come, first served” and “use it or lose it” principles. The first farm that drew water can take what it needs forever, while farms arriving later must stand in line. Farms risk forfeiting part of their water allotments if they use less than allotted. On the other hand, there are no restrictions on tapping groundwater."
The Daily Bucket--Lord of the Frogs—by
6412093: "I dug out a fish-free backyard pond last year, attempting to create habitat for Oregon's native tree frogs. This year I saw native Treefrog/Chorus tadpoles (
Pseudacris regilla) in my 6 x 8 x 1.5' backyard pond (I call it the Frog Mitigation Area (FMA) on June 4, 2015. I counted over 40 at rest on flat stones in a couple inches of water on top of the pumphouse, and another 40 or more reposing at various locations and depths. According to Wiki, the terms tree frogs and chorus frogs refer to the same critter. The tadpoles metamorphized rapidly into tiny frogs than are smaller than a bumblebee. My FERC (Frog Environmental Regulatory Commission) permit originally required me to watch the tadpoles for an hour a day. I appealed that condition and had it changed to two hours of daily perusal. Almost all tadpoles have changed into frogs now."
You can find more excerpts from green diaries below the orange spill.
Because of the small number of eco-posts in the past few days, categories have been removed from this edition of the Green Spotlight this weekend only.
Sampling for Fukushima Derived Radionuclides in the Northeast Pacific and Arctic 2015—by
MarineChemist: "The purpose of this short diary is to update readers on the activities of the Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM) project. This post is the most recent in a series documenting scientific research into the impact of the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster on environmental and public health. [...] The icebreaker CCGS Laurier will leave the Victoria Coast Guard base this afternoon and take a direct, great circle, route to Dutch Harbor AK where American colleagues will join the ship for operations in the Bering Sea. The transect, largely west, across the northeast Pacific will intersect waters contaminated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns in March-April 2011. We will collect 60 liter (~16 US gallons) seawater samples from an underway seawater pumping system which will subsequently be passed over a specialized resin that concentrates Cs from the seawater. This resin will be placed in a high sensitivity gamma spectrometer and the emission spectra will be used to quantify the activity of radioisotopes in the seawater."
Canada Forest Fires Affect MT, ND, SD, MN, WI, MI Air Quality in Real Time Today—by LakeSuperior: "Remarkable imagery is available today from the NASA Aqua MODIS satellite instrument showing where smoke from fires in Northern Alberta is ending up in the United States....in Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and other parts of the Great Lakes and midwest. See here. Code Red and Code Purple air pollution conditions have occurred in the subject area today from EPA's AirNow.gov system: See here. Code Red conditions currently at Detroit Lakes, MN (must be spoiling EdShow's holiday weekend) and Brainerd, MN See here and here.
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging, Vol. 11.19: Floral Fireworks!—by estreya: "'You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you've overeaten, but it's patriotism.'—Erma Bombeck. With the holiday weekend upon us (yay!), our attentions turn to frosty drinks, festive flags, and of course, fireworks! But not all explosions of color require the backdrop of a darkening sky. [...] Here at home, hubby and i have a time-honored tradition of staying off the roads during a holiday and July 4th is no exception. But fireworks are legal in the state of Washington and several of the neighbors go wild with their purchases. This year, we may throw a few logs into the firepit, uncork a bottle of wine, and enjoy the dazzle that surrounds us."
Train Derails & Toxic substance Catches Fire in eastern Tennesee 5,000 people evacuated—by Lefty Coaster: "A train traveling through eastern Tennesee derailed and a tank car filled with toxic liquid acrylonitrile spilled and caught fire prompting an evacuation of 5,000 nearby residents. Liquid acrylonitrile is used in making plastics and when it burns its fumes contain cyanide. 52 people were taken to the hospital for treatment."
The Daily Bucket: Unintentional Edible Landscaping—by Elizaveta: "The record-breaking hot weather has caused a few mid-to-late July events to happen at the very end of June. Here's a sunflower head about to open. The finches will be pleased, even if it does confuse them and they alter their natural patterns a little. [...] There are already pumpkins on the vine. It seems every year I find myself hoping they form and orange-up before it gets too far into autumn and too cold and wet. Should we move Halloween up a few weeks or would that cause an early (-ier) onset of Christmas?"
The Daily Bucket - summer driftwood—by
OceanDiver: "
June 2015. Olympic Peninsula, PNW. Rialto Beach in winter has some of the most tempestuous waves along the Washington coast, swells driven a thousand miles by storms crashing straight onto this steep beach. Such energetic surf brings giant driftwood to settle at the top of the slope, which stays there through the following summer's more gentle waves. Some driftwood is SO big, and driven SO hard into the sand, it stays for many years in the same position, eroding gradually. I walk this beach every year, sometimes more than once. I've gotten to know certain driftwood. Others are new, or newly arranged old ones."
Kansas Wester Energy attacks solar—by olivia jane: "Westar Energy proposes a new rate plan that completely disincentivizes solar and energy efficiency. It raises costs for solar panel owners. Even for Kansas, completely controlled by ALEC and the Kochs, this is a new low. Our Senate President Susan Wagle from Wichita, and our Speaker of the House Ray Merrick from Stillwell, both sit on the board of ALEC. ALEC controls the entire Senate and most of the House. Wagle and Merrick will travel to San Diego to attend the ALEC meeting and get their legislative agenda behind closed doors. Taxpayers are probably footing the bill for them to attend; taxpayers paid for many KS legislators to attend another ALEC meeting recently."
NC Legislature Seeks To Lax Coastal Environmental Rules—by LamontCranston: "The title of the article is 'A Return To Failed Rules,' from the online publication called "Coastal Review Online" that further describes itself as being 'A Daily News Service Covering North Carolina's Coast': The news is grim and depressing as once again our Tar Heel Teabilly Taliban state politicians in Raleigh once again bow down to the corporate agenda of the A.L.E.C. and the Koch Brothers (along with "Minnie Me' Art Pope) to turn back the environmental laws that have been place to protect North Carolina's beautiful coastline. It seems that they feel the need to destroy all that is natural in North Carolina to advance the interests of 'promoting business'..... Really? This is the reason (a.k.a. "excuse) they give to turning our state clock back 50 years in terms of progress. "
Eleven economics lessons from ecosystems—by SkepticalPartisan: "Having previously established that economies mimic ecosystems, this similarity can now be exploited to illustrate how elements of economies relate to each other and the potential effects of various policies. This framing can be particularly useful when pundits of opposite ideologies present their carefully constructed limited context arguments to persuade the viewing public to their side. Low information talk show ‘debates’ are often ‘won’ by presenters whose ideologies most fit the viewer and not by the quality of their position or arguments. This is clearly a problem when a malinformed public is asked to vote for candidates who best support voters’ interests. This is an introduction to what can be inferred about economies from ecosystems, much of which counters current conservative framing."
Senate Bill 4 Regs Will Expand Fracking in CA.—by Dan Bacher: "The Governor Jerry Brown administration, known for its subservience to Big Oil, is gearing up for a massive expansion of fracking and other extreme oil drilling techniques that will contaminate California's groundwater supplies, pollute rivers and streams, and devastate coastal ecosystems, including so-called "marine protected areas" implemented under his helm. On July 1, anti-fracking, environmental and watchdog groups responded to the release of final fracking regulations developed under Senate Bill 4, pointing out that the rules promote more fracking and pollution of water supplies in the drought-plagued state. Senate Bill 4, the green light for fracking bill, was signed by Governor Jerry Brown on September 20, 2013. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the California League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund and other corporate 'environmental' NGOs provided green cover for the odious legislation. They backed the bill until the very last minute when they finally decided to withdraw support because of amendments from the Western States Petroleum Association and other Big Oil interests that further weakened the already weak legislation."
Winnemen Wintu and Allies Protest Governor’s California Water Summit in Sacramento—by Dan Bacher: "The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, other tribal representatives and their allies rallied, chanted, sang and waved signs on the sidewalk in front of Westin Hotel on June 29 and 30 outside the Second California Water Summit in Sacramento. They were there to protest Governor Jerry Brown’s efforts to exclude California Tribes, environmentalists, fishermen and other key stakeholders in this public meeting about massive state water infrastructure projects proposed under Proposition 1, the $7.5 million water bond. Members of the Concow Maidu, Miwok, Hoopa Valley, Pomo and other tribes and Native Hawaiian groups joined with local activists as they shouted, 'Water is sacred, water is life, protect the salmon, protect water rights.' Representatives of the Klamath Riverkeeper, Restore the Delta, United Native Americans and Occupy Sacramento also participated in the event. Around 40 people were there at the protest at any given time; over 100 people showed up at the event between the two days."
Fish and Wildlife Service restricts Shell's Arctic Drilling Plan curtailing scope of operation—by Lefty Coaster: "When Shell put together it Arctic Drilling Plan for the Interior Department it didn't comply with Fish and Wildlife Service protections for marine mammals like Walruses. Earthjustice discovered the discrepancy and soon after the FWS put restrictions on Shell's drilling plan limiting them to only drilling one of their planned six wells at a time to minimize industrial impacts like aquatic noise on Arctic species."
Hillary State Department Emails Contain Fully Redacted Job Description for Top Energy Diplomat—by Steve Horn: "The U.S. State Department released a batch of 3,000 searchable documents formerly stored on the private hard drive and in a private email account of Democratic Party presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Among them: a fully redacted job description for State Department International Energy Coordinator/Diplomat-At-Large. David Goldwyn — now a fellow at the Atlantic Council, fellow at the Brookings Institution and head of Goldwyn Global Strategies — would eventually come to assume that role as head of the State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources, a Bureau that premiered under the watch of then-Secretary Clinton. Goldwyn, as revealed in a Mother Jones article by Mariah Blake, headed up the State Department's Global Shale Gas Initiative as the leader of the Bureau of Energy Resources, where he “sold fracking to the world.” A biography for Goldwyn that appears to have come from the job application process for the position was also released by the State Department."
SCOTUS takes EPA to the MATS (Sort of)—by ClimateDenierRoundup: "Monday's Supreme Court decision on the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) has been portrayed by some as a 'significant loss' for the Obama administration's pollution control efforts, particularly in the context of the larger Clean Power Plan (CPP). But two articles, written by legal experts from the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU's Law School, deflate the hype. Jack Lienke gives an easy-to-read rundown of the ruling's ramifications at Grist, concluding that the 'impacts should fall somewhere between negligible and nonexistent." Richard Revesz has a slightly more technical piece in The Hill, concluding that, 'the repercussions of this ruling will be minor.' In short, the ruling directs the EPA to consider costs when deciding whether or not to regulate, as opposed to considering costs during the next stage, during which the organization decides how strict the regulation should be. Because many pundits parrot out-of-context quotes to say the regulations are doing "more harm than good," or to say the EPA is not doing a cost-benefit analysis at all on the MATS, it's helpful that Lienke links to the EPA's 510 page cost-benefit analysis of the proposed regulation."
Open thread for night owls: Naomi Klein speaks on Pope's eco-encyclical—by Meteor Blades: "I have spent the past two weeks reading hundreds of reactions to the encyclical. And though the response has been overwhelmingly positive, I have noticed a common theme among the critiques. Pope Francis may be right on the science, we hear, and even on the morality, but he should leave the economics and policy to the experts. They are the ones who know about carbon trading and water privatization, we are told, and how effectively markets can solve any problem. I forcefully disagree. The truth is that we have arrived at this dangerous place partly because many of those economic experts have failed us badly, wielding their powerful technocratic skills without wisdom. They produced models that placed scandalously little value on human life, particularly on the lives of the poor, and placed outsized value on protecting corporate profits and economic growth. That warped value system is how we ended up with ineffective carbon markets instead of strong carbon taxes and high fossil fuel royalties. It’s how we ended up with a temperature target of 2 degrees which would allow entire nations to disappear—simply because their GDPs were deemed insufficiently large."
Pew: Party and ideology matter a lot on climate and energy but not as much on other science issues—by Meteor Blades: "A study and statistical modeling of a previous survey by the Pew Research Center concludes that Americans are much more likely now than a few decades ago to line up on scientific issues according to their ideological leanings and party identification. But this alignment is not uniform and how tightly partisanship links to opinions on scientific issues depends a great deal on what those issues are: 'In this politically polarized culture, there is a strong temptation to think that people's partisan connections and their ideology dominate their thinking about every civic issue," said Cary Funk, associate director for science research and lead author of the new Pew Research analysis. "What's striking about these findings is that politics sometimes is at the center of the story about public attitudes and sometimes politics has very little to do with the way people think about science issues in the public arena. We find there are striking differences that center on age, educational attainment, gender, and race and ethnicity.'
Okay. That's not exactly surprising. But the details are nonetheless interesting."
The Daily Bucket: Unintentional Edible Landscaping—by Elizaveta: "The record-breaking hot weather has caused a few mid-to-late July events to happen at the very end of June. Here's a sunflower head about to open. The finches will be pleased, even if it does confuse them and they alter their natural patterns a little. [...] There are already pumpkins on the vine. It seems every year I find myself hoping they form and orange-up before it gets too far into autumn and too cold and wet. Should we move Halloween up a few weeks or would that cause an early (-ier) onset of Christmas?"