Tuesday troubles

I read where Turkey has experienced another earthquake on top of the tragic one several days ago. It shows how fragile life is and how the planet is indiscriminate on who is impacted by its rumblings.

With such tragedy, it makes me more perturbed by weak-minded tyrants and elected officials who feel the need to invade other countries. Putin has shown how fragile his ego is by not realizing he has harmed his own country by trying to take over land from another.

But, before the US gets too high and mighty, we should not forget we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. This was determined to be the case by a British commission that found British PM Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush at fault for deceiving the British people about invading Iraq.

To be frank, we are focusing on the wrong things. The two most significant long term concerns by the members of the World Economic Forum are the global water crisis and impact of climate change. The latter makes the former independent concern even more troubling hastening evaporation and threatening fresh water aquifers with rising sea levels. But, climate change also is cooking the chemicals left in the earth like a crockpot making them worse per ecologist and biologist Sandra Steingraber.

So, we need to tell so-called leaders to stand down and quit being so narrow-minded with their war games. Always remember the line from the movie “Troy.” “War is old men talking and young men dying.” That sums it up nicely. We have more important things to deal with.

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Religious support for the environment (a reprise)

The following post was written about eight years ago following a Sierra Club meeting I attended. The Pope did publish his piece of climate change, which was very profound and insightful as it was released before the former president pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord (the US has since reentered it). It should be noted the Pope has a degree in chemistry, so his scientific background gives him a little more credibility than a self-professed less than studious former president.

A Catholic Nun, a Muslim Imam and a Jewish Rabbi walked into a room. Per the Rabbi, there is no punch line as this is not a joke, as all three came to discuss how their religions support treating the environment well. The discussion was called “Interfaith Perspective on Caring for the Planet.” After viewing a movie called “Stewardship and Lost Rivers,” co-produced by two professors at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which featured numerous religious leaders of various faiths, it is very apparent that each religion supports doing something about man-influenced climate change and treating our environment well for our children and grandchildren’s sake. In fact, Pope Francis will be publishing a position paper that says these very things later this summer, in advance of the next United Nations global meeting in Paris on doing something about climate change.

The Catholic Nun, who is one of 25 Climate Action leaders in the US Catholic Church, was keen on equating poverty and maltreatment of the environment. She noted that people in poverty are more impacted than others due to the placement of environmentally harmful energy sources nearer poor neighborhoods and the inability to easily pick up and move or seek medical help for illnesses perpetuated by pollution and energy waste product. Also, climate change seems to hit impoverished low-lying areas with sea rise and encroachment into farm land and fresh water supplies. In fact, one of the co-producers of “Stewardship and Lost Rivers” who was present used the term “eco-racism” to define the inordinate onus placed on the impoverished.

Yet, each religious leader echoed what was noted in the film regarding the wishes of God, Allah or a supreme being to treat the environment well for future generations. The Rabbi told the story of a man who was planting a tree that would not bear fruit for 75 years. When he failed to attend a meeting with a potential Messiah, he said he needed to finish planting this tree, as a tree bearing fruit was here when he came along and, irrespective of whether this is the Messiah, people will need the fruit from the tree. This is echoed in Deuteronomy where God tells the armies if they must wage war, to avoid cutting down the fig trees, as people will need to eat regardless of who wins.

Each religious leader discussed our need to be good stewards with our resources, in particular, water which is important in all religions symbolically and spiritually, but as well as to survive. I spoke with the Imam afterwards, and he noted because water is so dear in the Middle East, Muslims can use sand instead of water in their prayers. We discussed in Steven Solomon’s book “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization,” Solomon notes that Saudi Arabia is oil rich and water poor, which will cause huge problems in the not-so-distant future. Sounds like Texas, Oklahoma and California to me.

This topic resonated with me, especially when poverty and the environment were linked. We must do something about man-influenced climate change and its impact on the world. We need to treat our resources of air and water as dear as they are and will become in the future. As noted in the movie, there is no “Planet B,” as this is the only chance we get. We cannot rewind and change what we have done, but we can alter the future course. It is great to see religious leaders, like the Pope and these three folks, embrace the need to act to address our environmental concerns and poverty, as well. We should follow the instructions in our religious texts and join them.

Big Friendly Giants and seas of solar panels

My wife and I flew up to visit our youngest son and drive back the car he had been driving as he got a new one. On the fifteen-hour journey back, it was wonderful to see all the sights of the coast and mountains once we moved inland. Along the journey, we also took delight in seeing a number of windmill and solar farms.

We have always found the windmills to be elegant giants that are usually staggered in hilly terrain in large single digit of double-digit numbers. It is fun to count them as they go off into the distance. I feel like I am watching a higher tech version of “The BFG,” short for “Big Friendly Giant.”

Yet, clearly what we see more of is the solar farms. These photovoltaic panels number in the hundreds and thousands as they cover a field like a sea of solar panels. Solar energy jobs have been growing annually at double digit rates for years as the prices have come down. And, what is good for customers, but scary for utilities and fossil fuel companies, the solar farms need not be large enterprises to power some communities and neighborhoods.

What I have always liked about renewable energy, is these two approaches need not require any of our dear water to operate. With a global water crisis rivaling and made worse by climate change, not using water is a very good thing.

With the law signed last year, we will get to see more offshore and onshore wind energy. That is terrific. For those folks in our plains states, the sight of windmills is more customary with that windy part of the country. Texas still produces the most wind energy in the country and states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are seeing more than 1/3 of their electricity produced by wind.

And, yet the supporters of the fossil fuel industry have tried to pretend like it is not happening. What I find interesting is in oil rich Texas, a reason wind energy is so prolific is very quietly, the state legislature permitted the wiring to these rural locations to harness the electricity from wind energy. For those who still raise issues, please note that on a “60 Minutes” episode about ten years ago, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, said that natural gas will buy us time, but the future of electricity in the US is wind energy. I would add solar as well.

The future is now.

New study raises the heat on Exxon’s climate research

In an article from ScientificAmerican by Shannon Hall, called “Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago,” it is clear that Exxon has known about the risks for years and has purposefully obfuscated that truth when they went into the denial phase. Below are just two paragraphs, but please take the time to read the whole piece below or from one of the many other venues where it is published.

“Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue, according to a recent investigation from InsideClimate News. This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation—an approach many have likened to the lies spread by the tobacco industry regarding the health risks of smoking. Both industries were conscious that their products wouldn’t stay profitable once the world understood the risks, so much so that they used the same consultants to develop strategies on how to communicate with the public.

Experts, however, aren’t terribly surprised. ‘It’s never been remotely plausible that they did not understand the science,’ says Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University. But as it turns out, Exxon didn’t just understand the science, the company actively engaged with it. In the 1970s and 1980s it employed top scientists to look into the issue and launched its own ambitious research program that empirically sampled carbon dioxide and built rigorous climate models. Exxon even spent more than $1 million on a tanker project that would tackle how much CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. It was one of the biggest scientific questions of the time, meaning that Exxon was truly conducting unprecedented research.”

As you read the above and the attached, please note this is not news. Exxon scientists used to make speeches and lectures about global warming for years. They were forerunners of the research. Yet, in the late 1990s, the management decided to move into a denial phase engaging a PR campaign to discredit the science. The purpose was to make sure the cash cow of fossil fuels continued for as long as possible. It should be noted is part of this PR campaign was to rebrand global warming as the less threatening sounding climate change.

What I also found interesting is that Shell Oil even did a video back in the early 1990s of the concerns of global warming. So, it was not just Exxon that knew what the future held. Ironically, when Exxon continued to be insufficient in their actions, their shareholders reacted. The day before the Trump White House announced the US was pulling out of the Paris Climate Change Accord in 2017, Exxon’s shareholders voted that management must report to them what they are doing about climate change on a recurring basis.

Again, this story really is not news, but it more clearly defines what Exxon failed to do when they knew better.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

Pipelines breach and it is not rare when they do

In article on NBC News written by Dennis Romero called “In Kansas, crews contain largest-yet breach of Keystone Pipeline,” it tells of better news in stopping a large oil spill in Kansas. Yet, the story goes deeper as it shows the breaches are not uncommon. The last time I paid attention to this story, there had been fourteen breaches. Now we are up to twenty-two.

The full article is below. The following summarizes a few paragraphs. Just focus on the highlighted pieces for a quick thumbnail sketch.

“The operator of the Keystone Pipeline System, which carries a form of crude oil from Canada to multiple states for refining, said over the weekend that its largest breach yet has been contained for now.

The pipeline failure 3 miles east of Washington, Kansas, on Wednesday caused an estimated 14,000 barrels of crude, or 588,000 gallons of a form of crude known as tar sands oil, to spill into Mill Creek, a natural waterway, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration of the U.S. Transportation Department….

In the last five years, there have been at least three significant spills along the original Keystone Pipeline System, Wednesday’s being the most voluminous, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The pipeline regulators also noted accidents and breaches in the Keystone system in 2011, 2016 and 2020. The affected section is part of the 288-mile Cushing Extension, completed in 2011, which takes crude from Steele City, Nebraska, to Cushing, Oklahoma, regulators said.

Environmentalists have argued that the incidents come with such a pipeline and that they’re not worth the convenience of more direct transportation for fossil fuel in a world coming to terms with global warming caused largely by burning it.

The Sierra Club said it was the 22nd time the pipeline it calls Keystone 1 has been the site of a spill, breach or accident.

‘There is no such thing as a safe tar sands pipeline and this is another disaster that continues to prove we must put our climate and our communities first,’ Catherine Collentine of the Sierra Club said in a statement.”

Oil transported by ship, derrick, train, truck or pipeline will breach at some point. And, the spills usually are disastrous. On the flip side, when an offshore windmill breaches, it causes a different result – a splash. When a solar panel breaches it causes a small outage.

Interestingly, Kansas is one of only two states that gets 40% or more of its energy from wind energy behind Iowa (see second article below). Ironically, the largest wind energy producer by volume in the US is the oil rich state of Texas. And, very quietly, Texas developed infrastructure to harness the electricity from these distributed windmills.

Let me close with the words I heard uttered by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens on “60 Minutes” about ten years ago before he passed away. He said natural gas will buy us some time, but the future of energy in America is wind energy. It is not a surprise that the windy plains states of America are leading the way.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kansas-crews-contain-largest-yet-breach-keystone-pipeline-rcna61196

Kansas continues to lead in wind energy

Desalination of sea water using renewable energy marries two issues

An important article on two of the planet’s major issues called “Egypt to build 21 desalination plants in phase 1 of scheme -sovereign fund” by Aidan Lewis appeared in Reuters this week. A few paragraphs are noted below with a link to the full article at the end of the post.

“CAIRO, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Egypt plans to award deals next year to build 21 water desalination plants in the first $3 billion phase of a programme that will draw on cheap renewable energy, the CEO of the country’s sovereign fund said on Thursday.

Egypt, which recently hosted the COP27 U.N. climate talks and is trying to boost lagging investment in renewables, also aims to start production at a series of proposed green hydrogen projects in 2025-2026, Ayman Soliman told the Reuters NEXT conference.

Egypt depends almost entirely on the Nile for fresh water, and faces rising water scarcity for its population of 104 million. The desalination programme aims to generate 3.3 million cubic metres of water daily in the first phase, and eventually reach 8.8 million cubic metres daily at a cost of $8 billion.

So-called green or clean hydrogen is produced using electrolysers powered by renewable energy to split water from oxygen. It is seen as a potential future power source that could reduce emissions, though to date it is largely limited to experimental projects. Analysts say challenges facing its growth include high costs and energy inputs, as well as safety concerns.”

This fund is set to pump money into two needed concerns – the worsening water crisis and the needed use of renewable energy to power the effort. The global water crisis matches climate change in terms of risk to our planet and has for several years. Climate change actually makes the water crisis worse through evaporation. Duke Energy noted in a report that its projections of water evaporation from its water sources to power the Charlotte metropolitan area will be 11% worse with climate change. When water levels get to low, Duke has to cut power production or use more water from the river sources which exacerbates the water crisis.

Marrying these two crises, we have too much salt water and too little fresh water. Efforts to use the former to replace the latter may start out as more expensive, which is why it has not been used as much before, but has to be part of our equation to help our planet and people. As with other efforts, over time the process will get more cost effective.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/egypt-build-21-desalination-plants-phase-1-scheme-sovereign-fund-2022-12-01/

British Prime Minister asks King to not speak at a climate change conference

In an article entitled “King Charles abandons plans to attend Cop27 ‘following Liz Truss’s advice’” by Nadeem Badshah of The Guardian, the environmentally conscious King was asked to not speak to the group by his new fossil fuel friendly Prime Minister. Here a few excerpts, with a link to the entire article below:

“King Charles III has reportedly abandoned plans to attend and deliver a speech at the Cop27 climate change summit on the advice of Liz Truss.

The monarch, a veteran campaigner on environmental issues, had been invited to the 27th UN climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, next month.

But the prime minister is understood to have raised objections during a personal audience at Buckingham Palace last month, according to the Sunday Times.

Buckingham Palace has confirmed King Charles III will not attend the summit.

A senior royal source told the newspaper: ‘It is no mystery that the King was invited to go there. He had to think very carefully about what steps to take for his first overseas tour, and he is not going to be attending Cop.‘

They said the decision was made on the government’s advice and was ‘entirely in the spirit of being ever-mindful as King that he acts on government advice.’ However, it remains ‘under active discussion’ about how King Charles will make his presence felt at Cop27, which runs from 6 to 18 November.

Another source said the new monarch would be ‘personally disappointed’ to miss the conference and was “all lined up to go”, with several engagements planned around his Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), which aims to persuade businesses to invest in environmentally friendly initiatives.“

To be frank, this is a huge disappointment as climate change is such an important and urgent issue. It is my understanding from this and other articles, the new PM wants to promote offshore oil drilling, which is highly concerning given the rocky seas off Great Britain. It should be noted that Scotland is a forerunner in tidal and offshore wind energy given the rocky and windy seas, so an oil rig seems prone to disaster. And, in contrast, if an offshore wind turbine crashes into the sea, the only thing that would happen is a splash.

This has not been a good month for the new PM after winning the nod. Her embrace of trickle-down economics in her budget is of such concern, the Bank of England had to pony up $65 billion pounds to steady the cratering bond markets. Coupled with an inability to explain or understand financial matters in interviews, a poll yesterday said 71% of Brits have little confidence in her and her party to address financial matters.

While I was glad to see Boris Johnson step down given his transgressions and failure to lead, I was forewarned that his replacement may not be the solution needed or hoped. While the King (and Queen’s) role is in part ceremonial, one key function they do serve is being ambassadors for the UK. King Charles had meetings lined up at Cop to play such a role and to hear him speak on such an important topic would have made me proud if I were a Brit.

Let’s hope there is a change of heart and mnds.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/01/king-charles-abandons-plans-to-attend-cop27-following-liz-trusss-advice

Sucking the oxygen out of the room

I have written often about relevant issues not getting discussed as certain politicians and sloppy reporters and opinion people would rather discuss sensationalized and exaggerated issues, which may not be that big of a deal to begin with. Or, worse, the party complaining the most chose not to act to leave an issue open to blame the other side for its failure to address it. This last step is happening too often for my tastes. It truly sucks the oxygen out of the room.

When Donald Trump used “build that wall” as his bumper sticker theme in 2016, immigration was a problem, but down on the list of issues causing disenfranchisement in people in run-down areas. The two main culprits of companies chasing cheaper labor and technological advancements would not fit on a bumper sticker. Plus, it is hard to fear a robot like you can an illegal alien brought in as cheap labor in some industries. But, it should be noted when his bluff was called on his number one issue and Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham got him to agree on a wall funding for DACA being made law, he reneged on his promise in a matter of a few hours as not solving immigration was better as a campaign issue.

Right now instead of discussing more our US and global water crisis, our poverty and hunger problems, the threats to our civil rights and democracy, the need to further stabilize health care costs and access, the continuing threats to inflation and climate change, etc., we spend far too much time speaking about things that are not really problems based on some variation of “fear the other” as a threat. When I see “fear the other” issues being bandied about, I just move on as these are purposeful wedge issues to garner votes.

We just passed a good, but imperfect Inflation Reduction Act that included elements to reduce the deficit with increased taxes on the wealthy, help with renewable energy investment and stabilizing health care premiums continuing what happened with the pandemic funding. Although Republican led states will benefit from this, no Republican voted for it. If a party is going to complain about inflation, why did no one vote for it? No legislation is perfect, but no one, even when your state benefits?

Democrats have just done a similar ploy delaying a vote of the marriage equality act until after the election. It is arguable that it could not have passed, but the Democrats feel some lame duck moderate Republicans will be more inclined to vote in favor after the mid-terms. Yet, the bill had support and some momentum. Some Republicans in tough campaigns wanted to vote for it.

Politics has become a new sport with a zero-sum mindset – I must win and you must lose. We even have folks who taunt the other side. In this construct, the people who lose are the voters and citizens of our country and other countries. When the US fails to be a responsible global partner and citizen, then the rest of the world thinks less of us. Botching our pandemic response showed that the US cannot effectively deal with a major issue. The January 6 insurrection showed that even the US can look like a Banana Republic. The unproven bogus election fraud claims planned and touted by the losing former president, made us look like an autocratic country pretending to look like a democracy.

We must strive toward our better angels and civilly discuss our problems truthfully and factually. If any leader from any party cannot do this, then he or she needs to resign. And, we certainly do not need them running for office. Full stop.

Oil companies’ internal documents confirm gaslighting the public

An article in The Guardian yesterday by Oliver Milman called “Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims” does not paint the fossil fuel industry in a good light. Here are a few paragraphs, but I encourage you to link the article below.

“Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted ‘gaslighting’ the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs.

The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP…

The new documents are ‘the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers,’ said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.

‘If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,’ Wiles added.

Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are ‘explosive’ and show a ‘culture of intense disrespect’ to climate activists. The oil giants’ ‘climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,’ he added. ‘Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.'”

These revelations are not surprising but are alarming. It should be noted shareholders of Exxon Mobil voted to require management to inform them on the progress toward fighting climate change, the vote occurring the day before the former president pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord. The proof though is in the pudding. To me it is a culture of window dressing – making it look like management is doing something but really not as much as it seems.

Yet, for those who simply cannot believe Big Oil would do this, let me remind that eight CEOs of the tobacco industry sat in a panel in front of a Congressional Committee and lied to a direct question. The lie they covered up is they all knew nicotine was addictive dating back thirty years. Let me remind that per the movie “Dark Waters,” Dupont knew that making Teflon was harmful to people, including their own workers, and hid that fact. And, after losing a data-centric arbitration case, they reneged on paying restitution to people. They then lost successive lawsuits to individuals for multiple millions of dollars before settling all the cases.

It amazes me that leadership of these (and other) organizations are so protective of their brand, they avoid doing the right thing. They would rather hide it and hope their secret is never discovered. In the end, they are more harmful to their brand than coming out and admitting the truth. Compare what these companies did to what Johnson and Johnson did when someone was poisoning Tylenol capsules in the grocery stores. They admitted their own failure and acted quickly to make protective seals, setting off a larger trend in industry.

Gaslighting is not a flattering word. When we see these feel good commercials on TV put forth by the oil companies, we need to take them with a large grain of salt. They may just what it seems – window dressing.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/17/oil-companies-exxonmobil-chevron-shell-bp-climate-crisis

Couple of news items from the 49th and 50th states

Alaska and Hawaii each caught my eye in the news feed this morning. First from the largest state in the United States, Alaska held a special election to replace US Congressman Don Young, who had suddenly died earlier this year. The news is there was an upset win on two counts. Here is a brief snippet from a news article whose link is below.

“Democrat Mary Peltola has won a special election for the U.S. House in Alaska, defeating Republican Sarah Palin and becoming the first Alaska Native to win a seat in Congress as well as the first woman to clinch the state’s at-large district. Peltola’s win flips a seat that had long been in Republican hands. She will serve the remainder of a term left open by the sudden death of Rep. Don Young (R) in March. Young represented Alaska in Congress for 49 years.

Peltola, who’s Yup’ik, is a tribal fisheries manager and former state representative who led in initial counts after the Aug. 16 election. But her win wasn’t assured until Wednesday, when Alaska election officials made decisive second-choice counts using the state’s new ranked-choice voting system. Republican Nick Begich III, who finished third, was eliminated, and his supporters’ second-choice votes were redistributed to the remaining candidates.“

Palin who was endorsed by the most recent former president was the favorite given her populist name and the long tenure of a Republican hold on the position. But, the former governor, who did not complete her term after failing to help Senator John McCain win the presidency, was a very imperfect choice. And, I think the Alaskan people said enough to her candidacy. On the other hand, it looks like Peltola has had a compelling and dutybound career and deserves a shot to govern.

Second, news out of Hawaii is in keeping with a needed trend for the environment. A few snippets from the article below follow:

“The last bits of ash and greenhouse gases from Hawaii’s only remaining coal-fired power plant slipped into the environment this week when the state’s dirtiest source of electricity burned its final pieces of fuel. The last coal shipment arrived in the islands at the end of July, and the AES Corp. coal plant closed Thursday after 30 years in operation. The facility produced up to one-fifth of the electricity on Oahu — the most populous island in a state of nearly 1.5 million people.

Like other Pacific islands, the Hawaiian chain has suffered the cascading impacts of climate change. The state is experiencing the destruction of coral reefs from bleaching associated with increased ocean temperatures, rapid sea-level rise, more intense storms and drought that is increasing the state’s wildfire risk.”

It is good to see a state so impacted by climate change make this latest bold move. Coal power has been on the demise for about ten years as natural gas put the first nail in its coffin, then solar and wind have been even more cost effective in comparison as they added the other nails. And, tidal energy is starting to make more waves, pun intended.

So, the last two states, its largest and one of its smallest, are making headlines. Well done.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/hawaii-shuts-down-its-last-coal-fired-power-plant-as-ban-takes-effect/ar-AA11lSoA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-mary-peltola-wins-special-election-in-alaska-defeating-palin/ar-AA11jBXU?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=630f498a415e4585acb7376c45e3cfea