Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here is the most recent previous Green Spotlight. More than 25,315 environmentally oriented stories have been rescued to appear in this series since 2006. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
Steve Horn writes—After Keystone XL: TransCanada Building North American Fracked Gas Pipeline Empire: “Though President Barack Obama and his State Department nixed the northern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in November, the Canadian pipeline company giant has continued the fight in a federal lawsuit in Houston, claiming the Obama Administration has violated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As the NAFTA lawsuit works its way through pre-trial hearings and motions — and as Keystone XL has become a campaign talking point for Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump — TransCanada has quietly consolidated an ambitious North America-wide fracked gas-carrying pipeline network over the past half year. Since Keystone XL North got the boot, TransCanada has either won permits or announced business moves in Canada, the United States and Mexico which will vastly expand its pipeline footprint and ability to move gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) to market.”
Pakalolo writes—Centers for Disease Control blisters GOP Congress: Give us the Zika funds we need to protect women: “President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion four months ago to research this horrible virus and prevent localized outbreaks. The request is what the CDC said they needed to hopefully nip this virus in the bud before this national emergency explodes out of control. But guess what? The GOP Congress pushed through a $622 million bill to combat the virus. The Senate? Not much better. News.Lee.Net reports: The 241-184 House vote broke mostly along party lines as Democrats lined up in opposition, heeding a White House veto threat and a warning from a top government health official that the bill wouldn't do enough to respond to the growing threat from Zika.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket: These Tadpoles' Cool Trick Will Amaze You! “As the picture aboves shows, on June 2, the tadpoles had legs in Pear Pond of The Frog Mitigation Area. How can that be, when only two months ago they were sleek and tiny? And what’s even more astonishing, just a week after the first picture in this Bucket, all of some tadpoles’ parts have vanished and they’ve already morphed into an itty bitty frog, thusly. The remaining tadpoles are very active. Several of them nipped at this newly morphed frog. The frog reacted sharply, jumping back and scrambling for the shore.”
Lenny Flank writes—Daily Bucket: Wild Florida--The Softshell Turtle: “The first time anyone sees a softshell turtle, they notice right away that it is "different". As the name implies, softshells don't have the hard bony shell found in other turtles: instead, they have a flexible leathery covering. As a family, the softshells, known as Trionychids, are found in Asia, Africa and the Americas. There are three species in the United States and several subspecies, which used to be classed in the same Trionyx genus as some of the closely-related Asian varieties, but are now split away into their own genus, known as Apalone. The Spiny Softshell Apalone spinifera is the most wide-ranging, found everywhere in northern Mexico, southern Canada, and the US except the northwest. The Smooth SoftshellApalone mutica, is found in the central United States, and the Florida Softshell Apalone ferox is a Sunshine State specialty, extending somewhat into Georgia.”
Dan Bacher writes—Latest survey reveals Delta Smelt is nearly extinct: “The population of Delta Smelt plummeted to a new low in the annual spring survey conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) as the endangered fish moves closer to the abyss of extinction. The 2016 Spring Kodiak Trawl (SKT) index, a relative measure of abundance, is 1.8, a decrease from the 2015 index (13.8) and is the lowest index on record. The small 2 to 3 inch fish, found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is an indicator species that demonstrates the health of the estuary. As the Delta smelt declines, so do the other fish species found in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. ‘This decrease was expected since the Delta Smelt population was at a record low at the end of 2015,’ said Scott Wilson, Regional Manager of the CDFW Bay Delta Region in a memo. ‘The SKT monitors the adult spawning stock of Delta Smelt, and this year’s low index means the number of spawners is also at a record low. This may limit larval recruitment and hinder their ability to recover in 2016.’”
CLIMATE CHAOS
Lefty Coaster writes—Obama: "let's do something about that, because we don’t want Manhattan to be underwater: "President Obama spoke of the costs of doing nothing to reduce Climate Change when he addressed a DNC gathering in New York City. The majority of American people are going to want to invest in science and research to cure diseases and to make sure that our economy stays vibrant and innovative. And the majority of people believe in things like science -- and scientists. (Laughter.) And so when scientists tell us that the planet is getting warmer and we need to do something about it, the majority of people think that's a good idea, let's do something about that, because we don’t want Manhattan to be underwater.”
Steve Horn writes—Emails: US Senator Turned Exxon Lobbyist Limits Access to Public University-Based Archives: “Emails and documents obtained from Oklahoma State University (OSU) under the state's open records law depict an arrangement in which former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) donated his U.S. Senate papers to OSU, a public university, but still maintains full control of the papers and who gets permission to view them. A high-level staffer of Nickles at the time who was arranging the deposit of his records to OSU, GT Bynum — now running for Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma — wrote in a November 2004 email that a large part of the rationale for the set-up was ‘because Senator Nickles is dramatically younger than your average retiring senator’ and there exists ‘potential for...s omething in the archive which might embarrass the senator, his staff, or a colleague.’ Nickles, now 67 and principal of the lobbying firm Nickles Group, currently lobbies for ExxonMobil, Anadarko Petroleum, Exelon and other companies. He formerly served on the Board of Directors of Chesapeake Energy and currently serves on that of Valero Energy. This year alone, Nickles has lobbied for exports of gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), expedited permitting for domestic oil and gas and other oil and gas-related policy issues on behalf of those three companies.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Wrong, Wronger, Wrongest: Deniers Failing In Every Way: “First, there’s a story in the Daily Caller that tries and fails to provide ‘The Real Story’ behind a Carbon Brief report on solar beating coal for a month in the UK. Now, this mistake is somewhat forgivable, because the Daily Caller’s not really a ‘real’ news outlet, and the story in question is written by one Craig Boudreau, whose Daily Caller author page describes him as not a reporter or editor or analyst, but as a ‘reader.’ So it seems like he’s a commenter who has been given publishing privileges. In his twitter description, he calls himself ‘a musically illiterate musician,’ and apparently he’s pretty innumerate too, because even a commenter at the Daily Caller calls out his errors. Boudreau claims that solar out-produced coal by only 36%, when in fact it’s 49.6%, which is what Carbon Brief said in the first place. Probably an honest mistake, but, had the Daily Caller any sort of fact checker, one that should have been caught.”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
terrypinder writes—Weekly Wednesday Weather: Tropical Storm Colin, European Floods, Cascadia Rising, and more terrypinder: “Massive flooding is taking place in France and Germany, along with Austria, Belgium, Romania and Moldova. Many of the big and famous rivers in Europe, like the Rhine, the Seine, and the Danube are flooding. At least 20 have died. In Paris the rising Seine prompted the closure of the Louvre. The staff of the museummoved many vulnerable works to higher ground. Paris had a significant flood in 1910; it is not expected that this flood will exceed that. The flooding is of course in line with climate forecasts.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
bluto211 writes—George W. Bush’s EPA Head Tears Into ‘Emperor’ Trump Over ‘Dangerous’ Environmental Policy: “Former Republican governor of New Jersey and ex-head of the Environmental Protection Agency under George W. Bush, Christine Todd Whitman, just excoriated Donald Trump and his harebrained ideas on energy and environmental policy. In an interview with Mother Jones’ Climate Desk, Whitman didn’t hold back in ridiculing Trump for his outdated ideas and sounded the warning bells on how dreadful a Trump presidency would be for the environment. [...] Whitman first points out how little Trump appears to know about environmental issues in general: I don’t think he has a full grasp…of the issues. He’s [m]aking moves that I believe are totally contrary to the health and well-being of the country and the citizens, when you talk about walking away from [the Paris Agreement], when you talk about having a need to restart coal plants. He should know that the reason a lot of the coal plants are shutting down now has nothing to do with environmental regulations and everything to do with economics and the low price of natural gas, which he also wants to encourage. So those two things run counter to one another…He’s talking about rolling back the clock, which I think is very dangerous.”
terrypinder writes—The House Environmental Committee holds hearing on privatizing some weather services: “Sigh. Here we go again. I’d thought that we settled this 10 years ago, but apparently we haven’t. Now weather forecasting is a multi-billion dollar industry and from my point of view, both the public and private sectors work very well together. The private sector really can’t work without the massive public weather-gathering and earth-observing infrastructure the public sector has built. There might be the ability to launch ones own private weather satellite—with private launches thanks to progressive hero Elon Musk, but to my knowledge no one anywhere on Earth is using such a satellite. There are four in orbit that I know of, owned by a company named Spire, but their outputs are not ready and would not come close to anything NOAA, or the European Union, or India, or Japan has put up. Everyone public and private uses the ones governments here and overseas put up. Most models are developed by various governments—even the beloved ‘Euro,’ despite the fact that one has to pay for most its copyrighted outputs. There’s now a claim from Panasonic that their new weather model is better than most. I’ve not seen anything from it (because, well, it is proprietary) ---other than that the base on which the model is built is the publically funded GFS.”
Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees writes—Which 7 House Dems Voted to Gut Ozone Regulations? “Yesterday, the House passed the bill Ozone Standards Implementation Act, a bill to gut environmental regulations. Here’s what the bill would do: On Oct. 1, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule to strengthen the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone to 70 parts per billion (ppb), based on extensive scientific evidence about ozone’s effects on public health and welfare. The bill would extend for eight years EPA’s deadline for implementing the NAAQS EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Changing the deadline from 2017 to 2025 would put people at risk, especially the elderly, and those with asthma, which disproportionately are children from lower-income and minority communities. H.R. 4775 also changes the frequency with which EPA must conduct reviews of the NAAQS for air pollutants from five years to ten years. Currently, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to review the most up to date science and medical information on air pollutants every five years to ensure that the public is protected with the most up to date scientific advancements and understanding of air pollution. Lastly, the bill creates loopholes for achieving compliance with a particular ozone standard. [...] It passed 234 to 177. 7 Democrats voted for it, and 10 Republicans voted against it.”
WILDERNESS, NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
ban nock writes—Stealing Your Public Lands: “The video below (one minute long) explains in very easy to understand terms, how the western states came to have a lot of land owned by the US Government. The narrator has a popular TV show about self guided big game hunting and is also a CPA, his name is Randy Newberg. The combination of professional video production as well as the technical background to read documents and add up the numbers gives the video a very convincing feel. ‘They’ll get these public lands, when they pry them from my cold dead hands,’ says Randy. I realize the transfer of public lands from the feds to the states is probably not on the radar of many people, but for those of us in the west who recreate on these lands, it’s more of a big deal. Paul Ryan’s budget relied heavily on selling of public lands to make the numbers add up.”
ENERGY
Nuclear & Fossil Fuels
Steve Horn writes—Exposed: Online Auctions For Public Lands Oil/Gas Bids May Be Industry-Owned, Run: “If the recent past serves as prologue, then online leasing of oil and gas on U.S. federal lands may resemble the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, with one eBay-like company in particular standing to profiteer from the industry's proposed e-bidding scheme. That company, EnergyNet Inc., ran the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)'s online oil and gas bidding pilot program back in 2009. The Amarillo, Texas-based corporation also hosts online oil and gas bids for Texas, North Dakota, Utah and Colorado, effectively shutting out citizens of those states from the bidding process altogether. Online bidding, as opposed to BLM's current process of holding oral auctions at locations open for the public to attend (or protest outside), has been proposed by the industry-funded advocacy group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) as a reaction to the most recent set of actions held in early-May in Denver, Colorado by the Keep It In The Ground movement as a way to ‘end the circus.’”
Hydraulic Fracturing
Dan Bacher writes—Butte County Voters Pass Fracking Ban: “The voters in Butte County, California approved Measure E, a ban on fracking, by an overwhelming 71 percent on June 7. Butte is the fourth California county to ban the environmentally destructive and dangerous method of oil extraction, according to a statement from Frack-Free Butte County, the campaign organized by the Citizens Action Network (CAN), in coordination with the Butte Environmental Council, in the largely rural and agricultural county. San Benito, Santa Cruz and Mendocino counties have also passed fracking bans, as have the cities of Beverly Hills and Carson, “We are thrilled that Butte County voters decided to protect our clean water and almond and walnut farms from fracking,” said Dave Garcia, of Frack-Free Butte County. ‘We’re proud that we can hand down a community that’s green and pristine to our children and grandchildren.’ Measure E proponents were able to convince the voters that toxic fracking chemicals would destroy the county’s water supply and farmlands, as well as endanger the health of their citizens. The toxic chemicals used in fracking, including benzene, toluene and other carcinogens, could make groundwater unsafe for drinking and irrigation.”
Cardinal Fang writes—A ban on fracking? “I read that the Sanders team on the platform committee is pushing for a ban on fracking. Could someone explain how that would work? We heat our house with gas, we heat our hot water with gas, our stove is gas. I have solar panels on my house, but it’s dark right now and here I am watching TV and typing on my computer. The power plants in my area burn natural gas.”
Emissions Controls & Carbon Pricing
Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees writes—Which 23 House Dems Sided with Big Oil over Obama and the Environment? ”Today, the House passed two resolutions expressing their disapproval of action on climate change. The first resolution (H Con Res 89) expressed the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy. It passed 237 to 163. 6 Democrats and 231 Republicans voted for it. 163 Democrats voted against it. One Democrat—Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM-01)—and one Republican—David Jolly (FL-13)—voted present.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Judge Sees Cost of Carbon Clearly Through Pro-Pollution Smoke Screen: “There’s a new non-peer-reviewed working paper making the rounds that suggests that the social cost of carbon might be negative, meaning carbon pollution is a good thing. It’s written by some guys at the fossil-fuel (and cult leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon) funded Heritage Foundation and Ross McKitrick, the Canadian economist perhaps best known for his many failed attempts to disprove Dr. Mann's hockey stick graph. The study was funded by Heritage, the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute, and the Canada-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy (while the Frontier Centre’s funding sources are unknown, its President Peter Holle is on CFACT’s Board of Advisors…). In a nutshell, the paper uses the denier-beloved estimates of climate sensitivity (1.64°C) based on the faux pause of the last decade and a half to suggest CO2 doesn’t cause much warming and in fact, according to one model, carbon pollution will be good for us. Wouldn’t it be great if there were some sort of unbiased and neutral third party that could hear the best of ‘both sides’ of the debate and render a judgment about who’s right?”
Pipelines & Other Oil and Gas Transport
Walter Einenkel writes—Oil train derails, pollutes Native American lands and Columbia River, town evacuated: “Almost a week ago, 16 cars of a 95-car Union Pacific train, carrying crude from North Dakota, derailed by the town of Mosier, Oregon. The train’s crude contains the highly flammable bitumen, and upon crashing, caught fire. The initial reports were that the whole accident was contained and the Columbia River had not shown any signs of having been affected by the spilled oil. ‘Right now there are no impacts to the Columbia River from any oil releases,” said Greg Svelund, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “We can say that with confidence.’This was not entirely true, the Guardian reported the following day. Environmental crews worked on Saturday to contain a sheen of oil that appeared in the Columbia river along the Washington-Oregon border after a Union Pacific train derailed and caught fire. Officials said there was no immediate indication of harm to wildlife.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
Jayden writes—Saturday Morning Garden Blogging: Iowa Road Trip: “At the end of May we packed up the Jeep, loaded up Jaxon and his accoutrements, and headed north to Iowa for a family reunion. Going home is always bittersweet; seeing family pulls at the heartstrings and rekindles thoughts of moving back “home” to be closer to the folks. But then common sense and reality step in and before you know it the visit is over and once again we’re motoring south down I-35 to the land of warmth and sunshine. Over the past few years it has become somewhat of an expectation that when I do return to Iowa in late spring I am willingly pressed into service helping family members with their individual gardening efforts. It’s never anything major; just pulling a few weeds here and there and planting the flowers I bring along from Texas plus those that I can’t resist buying when scouring the available selections at their local garden centers. I offer advice on landscape design and suggest tweaks to various rough spots or bare patches in their gardens. This trip was no different although I was a little more hard-pressed for time than usual.”
MISCELLANY
Besame writes—Daily Bucket: wetlands win SF election, distracted slacker moths, and basalt is the fix Besame: “Nature won at least twice in last week’s primary election in California as Butte County passed a Fracking Ban by 71 percent, and the San Francisco Bay area approved 500 million dollars funding for wetlands. More good news is the research on carbon dioxide fixation. A study on the effects of artificial lighting to moths found bad news for plants needing moth pollinators, but also had a surprise. A ballot measure to fund wetland restoration around the San Francisco Bay, Measure A, passed in Tuesday’s election. This also is climate change planning as wetlands along the bay margins help mitigate flooding. The measure authorizes a parcel tax to raise $25 million a year until 2037 to fund bay enhancement and wetland restoration projects. It’s California’s first-ever regional ballot measure and included eight counties. The importance of coastal environment resilience to climate change was powerfully motivating for the 837,162 people who voted in favor (371,542 voted against it).”
gmoke writes—EcoCooler: Another Example of Recycled/Recycling Technology: “EcoCooler from Bangladesh is reportedly the world’s first-ever ‘zero electricity’ air conditioner, made of repurposed soft drink and water bottles, The Eco-Cooler ‘works without electricity to reduce temperatures up to 5° celsius.’ The design is open source with no copyright and plans are available from www.eco-cooler.com.”