Category Archives: Anker

Birdology – Sy Montgomery

by Myrna Posted on June 9, 2020

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Birdology

Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur

Sy Montgomery

Genre: Biology

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: April 6, 2010

Publisher: Atria Books

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


Meet the ladies: a flock of smart, affectionate, highly individualistic chickens who visit their favorite neighbors, devise different ways to hide from foxes, and mob the author like she’s a rock star. In these pages you’ll also meet Maya and Zuni, two orphaned baby hummingbirds who hatched from eggs the size of navy beans, and who are little more than air bubbles fringed with feathers. Their lives hang precariously in the balance—but with human help, they may one day conquer the sky. Snowball is a cockatoo whose dance video went viral on YouTube and who’s now teaching schoolchildren how to dance. You’ll meet Harris’s hawks named Fire and Smoke. And you’ll come to know and love a host of other avian characters who will change your mind forever about who birds really are. Each of these birds shows a different and utterly surprising aspect of what makes a bird a bird—and these are the lessons of Birdology : that birds are far stranger, more wondrous, and at the same time more like us than we might have dared to imagine. In Birdology, beloved author of The Good Good Pig Sy Montgomery explores the essence of the otherworldly creatures we see every day. By way of her adventures with seven birds—wild, tame, exotic, and common—she weaves new scientific insights and narrative to reveal seven kernels of bird wisdom. The first lesson of Birdology is that, no matter how common they are, Birds Are Individuals, as each of Montgomery’s distinctive Ladies clearly shows. In the leech-infested rain forest of Queensland, you’ll come face to face with a cassowary—a 150-pound, man-tall, flightless bird with a helmet of bone on its head and a slashing razor-like toenail with which it (occasionally) eviscerates people—proof that Birds Are Dinosaurs. You’ll learn from hawks that Birds Are Fierce; from pigeons, how Birds Find Their Way Home; from parrots, what it means that Birds Can Talk; and from 50,000 crows who moved into a small city’s downtown, that Birds Are Everywhere. They are the winged aliens who surround us. Birdology explains just how very "other" birds are: Their hearts look like those of crocodiles. They are covered with modified scales, which are called feathers. Their bones are hollow. Their bodies are permeated with extensive air sacs. They have no hands. They give birth to eggs. Yet despite birds’ and humans’ disparate evolutionary paths, we share emotional and intellectual abilities that allow us to communicate and even form deep bonds. When we begin to comprehend who birds really are, we deepen our capacity to approach, understand, and love these otherworldly creatures. And this, ultimately, is the priceless lesson of Birdology : it communicates a heartfelt fascination and awe for birds and restores our connection to these complex, mysterious fellow creatures.

See original – 

Birdology – Sy Montgomery

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, Casio, Dolphin, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, Poetry, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Birdology – Sy Montgomery

The Book of Eels – Patrik Svensson

by Myrna Posted on May 23, 2020

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Book of Eels

Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World

Patrik Svensson

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $14.99

Expected Publish Date: May 26, 2020

Publisher: Ecco

Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS


Part H Is for Hawk, part The Soul of an Octopus, The Book of Eels is both a meditation on the world’s most elusive fish—the eel—and a reflection on the human condition Remarkably little is known about the European eel, Anguilla anguilla. So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the “eel question”: Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don’t understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery. Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson crafts a mesmerizing portrait of an unusual, utterly misunderstood, and completely captivating animal. In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Rachel Carson, for whom the eel was a singular obsession. And we meet the scientists who spearheaded the search for the eel’s point of origin, including Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who led research efforts in the early twentieth century, catching thousands upon thousands of eels, in the hopes of proving their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea. Blending memoir and nature writing at its best, Svensson’s journey to understand the eel becomes an exploration of the human condition that delves into overarching issues about our roots and destiny, both as humans and as animals, and, ultimately, how to handle the biggest question of all: death. The result is a gripping and slippery narrative that will surprise and enchant.

View this article: 

The Book of Eels – Patrik Svensson

Posted in alo, Anchor, Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Book of Eels – Patrik Svensson

Your kid’s first car just might be electric

by TarahFreeland Posted on May 20, 2020

Two decades from now, children born into a world shaped by COVID-19 will be coming of age, and while the pandemic’s lasting imprint is unclear, one detail is coming into focus: Baby’s first car will probably be electric.

Despite the slump in the global electric vehicle market this year, a new analysis from the research firm BloombergNEF suggests that electric vehicle adoption will accelerate, eventually. The researchers’ annual outlook estimates that by 2040, 58 percent of new passenger cars sold will be electric, up from 2 percent today, and electric models will make up 31 percent of all of the cars on the road.

But it’s going to be a bumpy road to get there. A report by research firm Wood Mackenzie released in early April predicted a 43 percent drop in global electric vehicle sales by the end of the year. The new analysis by BNEF estimated that sales would only dip by 18 percent. Either way, it’s a sharp change of course for the industry, which has been growing steadily for over a decade.

Automakers were also forced to shut down factories and suspend production to help contain the outbreak, delaying the release of some new electric models, such as the latest Chevy Bolt and the electric Hummer. And with oil prices at record lows, some experts predict that buyers won’t be able to justify the up-front costs of electric cars with savings on gas.

So how does any of this spell a fast and furious adoption of electric vehicles in the future? The short answer: cheaper cars and more aggressive climate change policy. In a statement, Colin McKerracher, head of advanced transport for BNEF, said the firm’s analysis suggested that internal combustion engine car sales already peaked back in 2017, and that electric car prices will finally be on par with their gas counterparts by 2025, thanks to falling prices for lithium-ion batteries. That day could come even sooner for Tesla vehicles: The company claims to be on the verge of introducing a new, more-affordable, long-lasting battery in its Model 3 sedan as early as later this year that it says will make the car cost competitive with gas models. But it will only be available in China to start.

The outlook is even brighter for electric buses, expected to make up 67 percent of all buses on the road by 2040, according to the analysis, as well as two-wheeled vehicles like mopeds and motorcycles, which are expected to be 47 percent electric by that year. To make this electric future viable, the world is going to need about 290 million charging stations, with a total price tag of around $500 billion, said Aleksandra O’Donovan, head of electrified transport for BNEF. Electric vehicles will increase electricity demand by about 5 percent.

Much of the sales growth will be in Europe and China, at least in the near term, where there is more policy support. There are now 13 countries around the world that have plans to phase out gas-powered cars altogether. The United States isn’t one of them. The U.S. government is currently in the process of phasing out a tax credit that helped spur electric vehicle adoption.

But states are attempting to pick up the slack. In Colorado, a new plan unveiled last month promises to add almost 1 million electric cars to the road in the next ten years and fully transition trucks and buses to electric options. Connecticut released a similar roadmap, with the goal of ramping up electric vehicle use by more than 100,000 vehicles in just five years. While budget drains endanger both of those plans, officials are optimistic that the momentum for electric vehicles is pandemic-proof.

Excerpt from:  

Your kid’s first car just might be electric

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, FF, GE, LAI, Mop, ONA, PUR, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Your kid’s first car just might be electric

Coronavirus has erased 600,000 clean energy jobs in two months — and that’s just the start

by Rachel06Hscjsgt Posted on May 14, 2020

Renewable energy has been one of the few bright spots amid a global pandemic, as solar and wind power have surged across electricity grids worldwide. But the industry that supports renewable power is getting devastated: The U.S. economy lost nearly 600,000 clean energy jobs in March and April, setting what had been one of the country’s fastest-growing sources of employment on edge. All the job gains in renewables over the last five years have now been wiped out.

The numbers demolished earlier estimates. Jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric vehicles tripled the losses originally reported for March, according to an analysis of Department of Labor data by BW Research. Their previous analysis had estimated that the industry would lose half a million jobs by the end of June; but that grim milestone arrived at the end of April instead.

“We saw those March figures and thought, ‘This is really quite severe and it’s going to get worse,’” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, one of the green energy groups which commissioned the report. “But I think what we didn’t realize is that March was just a signal of what was to come.”

With state governments locking down huge areas of the United States in an attempt to curb the coronavirus, the unemployment rate has jumped to almost 15 percent, the worst since the Great Depression. The Labor Department reported Thursday morning that claims for unemployment benefits have reached 36.5 million.

Clean energy workers are no exception. During the pandemic, workers are unable to enter homes and buildings to retrofit aging equipment to make it more efficient. Financing for clean energy projects has also dried up, as investors try to wait out the economic downturn. And even those projects that are up and running are struggling to buy panels and parts from shuttered factories around the world.

The clean energy industry employed over 3.4 million Americans last year, triple the number employed by the fossil fuel sector — and without federal aid, industry leaders warn that the situation could get much worse. BW Research now estimates that the industry could lose 850,000 jobs, a quarter of those employed in clean energy, by the end of June.

Wetstone said he hopes that the federal government will take a page out of the 2009 Obama-era Recovery Act, which helped renewable energy rebound from the Great Recession. That bill included a provision allowing wind and solar developers to continue to use federal tax credits.

Even in good times, renewable developers often don’t owe enough in tax to the federal government to make green energy tax credits worthwhile, so they partner with big investors that can offset their own own taxes. When the economy slumps, however, investors don’t owe as much tax — and so are unwilling to participate. The 2009 bill bypassed this problem by turning those tax credits into grants. Doing that now, Wetstone said, could get many people back to work sooner.

So far, however, there are few signs that the federal government will help out the struggling renewable industry. “We’ve seen the president be outspoken in defense of the oil and gas sector,” Wetstone said. “And we certainly hope that our champions are willing to likewise stand up and provide the help that we’re seeking in the clean power sector.”

Read this article:  

Coronavirus has erased 600,000 clean energy jobs in two months — and that’s just the start

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, FF, GE, green energy, LAI, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Coronavirus has erased 600,000 clean energy jobs in two months — and that’s just the start

About all those oil tankers off the coast of California …

by RosaLadner63 Posted on May 13, 2020

The U.S. oil market was in a tailspin when dozens of oil tankers began approaching California’s coast in late April. The vessels, some as long as three football fields, were filled with millions of barrels of oil that suddenly had no place to go.

Amid the combined effects of a price war between oil-rich states Saudi Arabia and Russia and the COVID-19 pandemic’s curbing of demand, American refineries slashed production while onshore facilities filled to the brim. As a result, U.S. oil prices plunged to negative levels for the first time in history.

Tankers are still anchored near southern California today, and as they wait, they’ve switched from running their primary diesel engines to smaller auxiliary engines. While idling doesn’t create the carbon emissions of actually transporting cargo, the fleet is still generating the equivalent daily footprint of driving roughly 16,000 passenger cars. The giant ships burn fuel to keep lights on, power equipment, and heat the large volumes of crude oil resting in their tanks. Given the turbulent economy, oil analysts say the tankers might sit in suspended animation for weeks or months.

In recent days, as many as 32 tankers were anchored near Los Angeles and Long Beach, with some vessels leaving and new ones arriving as oil very slowly trickles in and out of ports. On May 11, 18 tankers filled designated spots as if in a “truck stop parking lot” three miles offshore, said Captain Kit Louttit, who monitors port traffic for the Marine Exchange of Southern California. That is about triple the typical number of tankers in those spaces.

Tankers along the U.S. West Coast, mainly off of California, held some 20 million barrels of oil on Monday, or nearly enough to satisfy a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption, according to market data firm Kpler. The floating supply glut should gradually clear once new deliveries from the Middle East and Asia stop arriving.

But while the idling ships remain near California, they “could pose an ongoing risk to air quality,” said Bryan Comer, a senior researcher at the environmental think tank International Council on Clean Transportation, or ICCT. “Especially because you have these ships lumped together.” The cluster, he noted, concentrates the pollution that drifts ashore.

ICCT gathers annual emissions and fuel-use data for the world’s shipping fleet. By its estimates, the largest oil tankers burn nearly 4 tons of petroleum-based fuel every day they’re at anchor. That means each ship emits more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide per day — the equivalent of driving nearly 800 passenger vehicles. Anchored tankers also emit about 15 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 8 pounds of particulate matter daily, contributing to smog and air pollution. (Those global data points hold true even off the coast of California, Comer said, despite cargo ships of all kinds having to meet some of the strictest air-quality rules in the region.)

Worldwide, shipping regulators are cracking down on sulfur pollution, which is linked to heart and lung disease — and is thought to raise the risk of dying from COVID-19. As of this past January, oceangoing vessels can burn fuel with only 0.5 percent sulfur content, a significant drop from the previous limit of 3.5 percent. However, since 2009, California has required ships sailing within 28 miles of its coastline to use lighter “distillate” fuels with just 0.1 percent sulfur content. (A similar rule now applies to most coastlines in the United States and Canada.) Still, even the cleaner-burning distillate fuel has nearly 70 times the sulfur content of on-road diesel fuel.

It’s not yet clear how the tankers will affect shipping pollution overall — especially in light of pandemic-induced disruptions across the industry. Container ships and other cargo vessels are sailing far less frequently to ports around the world as measures taken to slow the spread of coronavirus upend trade flows and squeeze consumer demand. In Los Angeles, home of the busiest U.S. container port, cargo volumes fell by 15.5 percent in the first four months of 2020, with no growth expected in the near future. Comer said researchers haven’t yet calculated the net effect of fewer trips and idling tankers on shipping-related emissions.

Much like in California, oil tankers are crowding ports in places like India, Singapore, and the U.S. Gulf Coast, serving as temporary storage units or waiting indefinitely for customers. With cities and countries on lockdown, global oil demand fell sharply in April to levels last seen in 1995, according to the International Energy Agency. Russia and Saudi Arabia only agreed last month to cut output to ease the glut.

According to ICCT’s Comer, some of these stranded vessels pose pollution concerns beyond air quality. Certain tankers burn dirty bunker fuel — a byproduct of the petroleum refining process — and use “open-loop” scrubbers to reduce the ship’s sulfur output in line with regulations. The scrubber systems mix water with exhaust gas, filter it, then dump the resulting washwater — an acidic mixture that contains carcinogens like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals that can harm marine life. ICCT estimates that large vessels emit nearly 40 tons of scrubber washwater every hour.

This particular problem doesn’t apply to California, where state regulators prohibit scrubber use. And while anchoring so many massive tankers could raise the risk of collisions and spills, Capt. Louttit said that every vessel’s movement is monitored and planned in advance to prevent such a catastrophe. The U.S. Coast Guard also flies helicopters over California’s San Pedro Bay to ensure the vessels aren’t leaking oil or dumping trash or sewage.

The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, which monitors air quality in the state, said that given the tankers’ “fairly low” power needs while idling, their emissions “are not likely as high as” when the ships are at berth and running pumps to load crude oil onto ships or shore. Nevertheless, storing the excess crude at sea doesn’t come without some environmental cost.

“We are experiencing a unique and extraordinary situation,” CARB spokesperson Karen Caesar said about the tankers. “We are closely monitoring the situation and tracking these ships.”

Originally from:

About all those oil tankers off the coast of California …

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Anker, Aroma, FF, GE, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on About all those oil tankers off the coast of California …

Does New York need a new natural gas pipeline? It’s about to decide.

by lavondawaugh411 Posted on May 11, 2020

Last week, more than 100 protesters tuned into a virtual rally for a milestone push in a three-year battle against the Williams Pipeline, a controversial project that would bring a new supply of natural gas into New York City and Long Island. With individual pleas, homemade signs, musical performances, and speeches from the likes of Bill McKibben, Cynthia Nixon, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, the protestors tried to summon the people power of a live event to tell New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration to stop the pipeline once and for all.

“We can’t pretend we are making progress on combating climate change if we continue to build out fracked gas infrastructure that will lock in emissions for years to come,” said Stringer, who is rumored to be considering a run for New York City mayor in 2021. “Let’s finish stopping this pipeline and move on to building out a cleaner, more sustainable city.”

The rally was held ahead of the May 17 deadline for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to rule on a key permit for the project. The pipeline would cut through northern New Jersey and then out about 23 miles into New York Harbor to connect with the existing gas system. One year ago, the agency denied the permit on the grounds that it failed to meet the state’s water quality standards. New Jersey’s environmental agency did the same. Both rejections were issued “without prejudice,” meaning Williams could reapply — which it quickly did.

National Grid, a gas utility that operates in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, would be the sole customer of the pipeline’s gas. As the fate of the project hangs in the balance, so do National Grid’s long-term plans — and, according to many observers, the fate of New York City and New York State’s climate goals. Both the city and state passed landmark laws last year that seek to drastically reduce carbon emissions by 2050. The city’s Climate Mobilization Act specifically aims to cut emissions from buildings — the majority of which come from natural gas heating systems.

After the Williams Pipeline permits were denied last summer, National Grid began rejecting new customer applications, claiming that it would not be able to meet future demand unless the pipeline was built. Real estate developments were stalled, new restaurants were left in limbo, and homeowners finishing up repairs couldn’t get the gas turned back on. The issue came to a head in November when Governor Cuomo accused the utility of extorting New Yorkers and threatened to revoke its license. The resulting settlement required National Grid to go back to the drawing board and come up with a slate of alternatives to make sure New Yorkers aren’t left in the cold if the pipeline isn’t built.

In February, before the novel coronavirus swept the country, the utility released a report with 10 ideas. One of them was the Williams Pipeline. The rest were smaller projects, none of which would alone solve the supply problem, the report said, although a scenario with some combination of them could. Most of the solutions involved building new gas infrastructure, like a liquefied natural gas terminal where gas would be delivered by tanker, or a smaller “peak shaving plant” that would store excess gas during the summer for when demand ramps up in the winter.

Some of the solutions on the menu were projects National Grid was already working on, like the construction of a new compressor station that will increase the amount of gas received through an existing pipeline. There were also three “no infrastructure” options that would expand existing programs that reduce demand for gas, like incentives for people to weatherize their homes and to replace their gas boilers with electric heat pumps. (National Grid is already required to offer these kinds of programs under New York State law.)

Critiques of the company’s report poured in from activists, environmental groups, politicians, and even the City of New York during a series of virtual public meetings the company was required to hold and in an online forum for public comments. During the meetings, National Grid President John Bruckner asserted that the company had not decided on any particular solution yet. However, some commenters felt the company’s report continued to make it seem like the Williams Pipeline was the only viable way for National Grid to avoid another moratorium, which could scare regulators into approving it. “If targets are not met, will have to restrict new gas customer connections,” the report reads, referring to potential scenarios with minimal to no new gas infrastructure.

Several groups, like the Environmental Defense Fund and NY Renews, an environmental justice coalition of more than 200 groups across New York State, criticized the company for failing to analyze the emissions impacts of each option, which would be necessary in order to evaluate whether they’re compatible with New York’s climate targets.

In comments submitted on behalf of New York City, lawyer Adam Conway wrote that adding new gas infrastructure runs counter to the city’s policies, and therefore only the “no infrastructure” options were viable tools for National Grid to address supply and demand gaps. An analysis performed by Synapse Energy Economics, a research and consulting firm, on behalf of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, alleged that National Grid’s assessment was flawed even prior to the pandemic, and that the company does not actually face an impending supply shortage. It found that the utility did not account for city and state energy efficiency and emissions reduction programs that will reduce demand for gas in the coming years.

At both the virtual meetings and among the online comments, some parties, like a nonprofit called Heartshare that provides utility grants to low-income households and the Community Development Corporation of Long Island, argued that the Williams Pipeline would be the safest option to ensure that low-income New Yorkers have an affordable way to heat their homes.

But National Grid agreed to play ball and evaluate its options again. On Friday, one week after the comment period closed, the company filed a supplemental report that incorporated some of its critics’ suggestions, including a greenhouse gas analysis and an update to the way the forecasted gap between supply and demand was calculated — which slightly reduces the projected gap. The new report narrows down the solutions and proposes two viable paths forward. Option A consists of the compressor station upgrade, a combination of “no infrastructure” measures to reduce demand, and a brand new option that was not in the original report — upgrading an existing liquified natural gas plant to increase its capacity. Option B is the Williams Pipeline.

If all of the criteria National Grid considered are given equal weight — safety, reliability, cost, compatibility New York’s climate targets — the report recommends Option A. However, if greater importance is placed on reducing risk and making sure the company can meet demand, “then the preferred choice is Option B” it says — the pipeline.

The company’s settlement with New York indicates that one of these paths will have to be decided upon by early June. Whether or not Option B is really on the table now sits in the hands of the Department of Environmental Conservation and Governor Cuomo.

This article is from: 

Does New York need a new natural gas pipeline? It’s about to decide.

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, Ringer, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Does New York need a new natural gas pipeline? It’s about to decide.

Coronavirus has city dwellers heading for the hills. Here’s why they should stay put.

by CharliSimmons1 Posted on March 27, 2020

In the beginning of March, as the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in New York City, Anne Hilton Purvis, a realtor with Coldwell Banker Village Green — a real estate company that serves Upstate New York — started getting calls from clients. They were looking for “a lot of short-term rentals — three months, six months, some people wanted to buy something cash,” she said. At first, Purvis, who is a family friend of this reporter, advised prospective buyers to reach out to Airbnb hosts who might be offering up longer stints instead of daily or weekly listings.

But as the state’s outbreak worsened, and the governor imposed restrictions culminating in a shutdown of the state’s nonessential businesses, she realized it was time to stop showing houses to urbanites trying to flee the big city. “In the short term, if we can follow the rules and stay where we are, that might make this thing not so prevalent,” she said.

Cities across the United States, and New York City especially, are dealing with explosive virus transmission rates and dwindling hospital resources. It makes sense that city dwellers are itching to flee urban areas: Density, as the New York Times recently reported, is the Big Apple’s Achilles’ heel in its fight to contain COVID-19. But there are a number of reasons why they should suppress that urge.

The suburbs and rural areas aren’t necessarily safer from coronavirus than cities are. While cities do have higher populations and higher levels of social contact, living in the suburbs or countryside still requires some contact with other people —which provides opportunities for the virus to spread. Epidemiological sparks in cities can migrate to the suburbs and beyond as people move around. So it’s not really a question of if coronavirus will start circulating in earnest in Upstate New York and other rural and suburban areas, but when. Once it does, rural Americans are at a disadvantage — they’re further from hospitals and have fewer medical resources available to them. Not to mention more than one in five older Americans, who are especially susceptible to coronavirus, live in rural areas. If you leave a city for the countryside, you’re putting them at risk.

A pandemic-fueled mass exodus out of cities doesn’t just potentially put a massive strain on suburban and rural resources, it also adds fuel to another looming crisis: climate change. Density is actually good for us when there isn’t a pandemic afoot (aka the vast majority of the time). It allows for robust mass transit networks, efficient housing, bike lanes, and foot traffic. All of that, in turn, is good for mitigating climate change.

It may sound counterintuitive, since cities have historically suffered from dangerous pollution problems, but city dwellers actually have smaller carbon footprints than folks living in rural places. One report found that average emissions in NYC were less than a third of the U.S. average, mostly because New York’s famously cramped apartments use less energy than the large houses enjoyed by other Americans and because New Yorkers use public transportation instead of driving everywhere. A different study found that the average Manhattan household produces 32 metric tons of carbon each year, while households in a nearby suburb produce 72.5 metric tons on average.

If that isn’t evidence enough to convince urbanites to resist the temptation to trade their tiny dwellings for a pastoral lifestyle, they should consider this: Singapore and Hong Kong, denser cities than New York, have been generally successful in containing the coronavirus thanks to early testing, dogged contact tracing, and mass compliance from its citizens. Much of America is under mandatory social distancing measures right now not because cities are inherently bad, but because the federal government handled the outbreak poorly and Americans are loath to give up their personal freedoms.

So if you’re a city dweller who cares about reducing the spread of COVID-19 and slowing down climate change, stay where you are. Purvis knows that’s not an easy pill to swallow. “We’re a country that doesn’t like to follow rules,” she said. “But the only way to make the virus go away and not hit so many people is if we do follow all of the rules.”

Source article: 

Coronavirus has city dwellers heading for the hills. Here’s why they should stay put.

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, PUR, Safer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Coronavirus has city dwellers heading for the hills. Here’s why they should stay put.

It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast

by LRIDarin36909 Posted on February 14, 2020

A federal judge finally confirmed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan of Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) on Thursday. The plan includes the sale of PES’s 1,300-acre refinery complex to a real estate company — putting an end to the largest oil refining operation on the East Coast.

A month earlier, dozens of Philadelphia-based climate activists made a trek to New York City to protest outside the building where a closed-door auction to sell the refinery site was being held. The activists hoped to prevent the site from being sold to a bidder with plans to keep the site running as a refinery. The following week, their wish seemed to have come true: Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a Chicago-based real estate company with a track record of turning defunct fossil fuel infrastructure into logistics centers, was the selected winner. For a moment, the future of the site looked bright. All that was left was approval from the bankruptcy court.

But the other bidders didn’t give up so easily. Industrial Realty Group (IRG), which had made a higher bid than Hilco, teamed up with Phil Rinaldi, the former chief executive of PES, to try to get the results of the auction voided so that IRG could continue running the site as a refinery. With the support of union leaders representing former refinery workers, Rinaldi urged the White House to get involved, arguing that more than a thousand jobs and national security interests were at stake. Peter Navarro, the assistant to President Trump for trade and manufacturing policy, openly backed IRG’s plan, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer, “We’d love to see that remain as a refinery.”

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross had a tough decision to make. Last week, the Delaware judge delayed the confirmation hearing to give stakeholders more time to object to the plan. But on Thursday, he officially signed off on the plan. “I’m very much satisfied that the sale to Hilco is the highest bid and sale,” Judge Gross said. “Clearly is in the best interest of the community as well, given the risks that were attended to the prior operations with the refinery, and a refinery frankly that had numerous and repeated problems over the years.”

As a result of yesterday’s hearing, Hilco is now set to buy the plot of land for $252 million, $12 million more than what was initially agreed upon. The final bankruptcy plan also includes $5 million in severance for laid-off refinery workers, as part of a larger settlement for all the refinery’s unsecured creditors. In addition, the plan will also pay PES executives as much as $20 million in bonuses on top of the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to them right after the refinery exploded last June.

Since the explosion, Philly Thrive — the grassroots environmental justice group that organized the protest of the auction — ramped up its efforts to organize and rally against the refinery for threatening public health. The group held several protests in front of the refinery, hosted call banks, wrote testimonies, and occupied government-owned buildings. Meanwhile, a report released last week found that the PES refinery, which processed 335,000 barrels of crude oil each day, released the highest levels of cancer-causing benzene pollution of any refinery in the country.

“Some people can’t afford to get up and move,” South Philadelphia resident Carol White, who lives about a mile away from the refinery and is also a member of Philly Thrive, told Grist after the June explosion. “There are older people living here inhaling fumes, newborn babies, kids under five, and ultimately, it’s impacted people of color.”

Philly Thrive’s months-long fight to end the refinery — along with its years-long fight to breathe clean air — have paid off. The PES refinery will now be permanently shut down and most likely be redeveloped as a mixed-use property. But the group said it’s not an end to the fight, and it looks forward to working with Hilco in determining the future of the land.

“Thrive members are already seeing and planning for the next fight ahead of us, including holding Hilco to a process of involving the public around redevelopment, taking on measures to get whatever justice we can around the benzene emissions, and also linking up with efforts around a Green New Deal,” Philly Thrive organizer Alexa Ross told Grist. “This is not the end of the fight.”

From: 

It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, solar, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast

Did BP really just pledge to become a net-zero company? It’s complicated.

by floystegall7 Posted on February 13, 2020

Net-zero promises from companies and governments are popping up as often as new Netflix shows, and just like those algorithmically driven hours of entertainment, not all clean energy commitments are created equal. The language used to describe these targets has become as meaningless as the “natural” label on your package of Perdue chicken: “Clean energy” and “net zero” can signify any number of things, and even “renewable” changes depending on who you ask.

The point is, when a fossil fuel major like BP announces its ambition to become a net-zero company by 2050, as it did on Wednesday, it’s important to read the fine print.

To start, “net-zero emissions” is different from plain old “zero emissions” in that it allows for things like carbon offsets, carbon capture technology, and natural solutions like tree-planting to make up for continued emissions. In this case, BP’s net-zero target does not mean it will stop exploring new reserves, extracting oil and gas, or selling it at the pump. Confusingly, it doesn’t even mean the emissions from all the oil and gas products BP sells will be net-zero in 2050.

But all of that aside, the company’s plan does contain significantly more aggressive goals than its peers.

“Depending on the details, it has the potential to be the most comprehensive climate strategy of any of the major oil companies,” said Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at Ceres, a sustainable business nonprofit. But like Logan said, it depends on the details, because while BP’s dreams are big, the company has disclosed few details on how it will achieve them.

BP

One of BP’s targets is to reduce emissions from all of its company operations, which it says is about 55 million tons of CO2 equivalent, to net zero. That includes emissions from things like gas flaring at the wellhead, company cars, and the electricity it buys to keep the lights on. BP’s goal here is somewhat par for the course these days — most of the major oil and gas companies have some kind of emissions reduction target for their operations (though not all of them are net zero).

What’s noteworthy, said Kathy Mulvey, the fossil fuel accountability campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is that BP says it will measure and reduce its methane footprint at all of its oil and gas sites. “That points to the reality that BP doesn’t actually know exactly how much methane its operations are emitting,” she said.

Critics of these plans say that operational emissions are small potatoes, and that fossil fuel companies should be responsible for the emissions from the oil and gas products they produce and sell to customers, known as scope 3 emissions. This is where BP’s plan really stands out. The company aspires to zero-out the carbon emissions from the eventual combustion of all of the oil and gas it pulls out of the ground by 2050. Right now that amounts to about 360 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year.

BP

In a speech about the plan on Wednesday, new CEO Bernard Looney tried to anticipate questions about this. He said that yes, this does mean BP’s oil and gas production will probably decline over time. “Does that mean we’ll be producing and refining hydrocarbons” — that’s fossil fuel industry–speak for fossil fuels — “in 2050? Yes, very likely,” he said. “Does that mean we’ll be producing and refining less of them in 2050? Yes, almost certainly. And our aim is that any residual hydrocarbons will be decarbonized.”

To date, only one other fossil fuel company has made this kind of commitment, the small Spanish company Repsol. But unlike Repsol, which has set near-term goals to gradually reduce emissions over time, and hinted at some of the strategies it will use to get there, BP offered no benchmarks or blueprints. Looney said the company would share more information on the “how” of its transition in September.

But there’s one key caveat to BP’s scope 3 target. The oil and gas that the company extracts is only a portion of its business. During a Q&A session after his speech, Looney broke down how they are thinking about scope 3 on a whiteboard.

BP sells a lot more oil and gas than it digs out of the ground, he said, because it also buys these products from other companies. So while it plans to zero-out emissions from the products BP itself extracts, it’s aiming for a 50 percent reduction in carbon intensity from all the products it sells, including those it’s just a middleman for.

That leaves open the possibility for the total emissions from BP’s sold products to continue to rise, as long as the amount emitted per unit of energy decreases. In his speech, Looney estimated that right now, total emissions from all the products it sells are about 1 gigaton per year.

Ultimately, with a goal of reducing its footprint by 415 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2050, BP’s new plan is worlds away from companies like Exxon and Chevron, which still claim they are not responsible for the emissions from customers using their products.

BP’s vision also includes a goal to increase the proportion of money it invests into non-oil and gas energy sources, like solar and wind, over time. Right now, that’s only about 3 percent of BP’s investments. But Looney declined to quantify the company’s target in this arena. “We don’t plan to commit to an arbitrary or preset number,” he said.

While critics have already leapt on the vagueness of the plan, Ed Clowes, a business journalist for the Telegraph, described BP’s dilemma aptly on Twitter. On the one hand, BP could stop selling oil and gas and self-destruct. But if it did, another company would step in to fill the gap, because right now, the world still (mostly) runs on oil. “BP has to be in the game to change it,” Clowes wrote.

View original article: 

Did BP really just pledge to become a net-zero company? It’s complicated.

Posted in Accent, alo, Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, solar, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Did BP really just pledge to become a net-zero company? It’s complicated.

Colorado climate activists’ latest tactic: fake news

by LaverneSomers Posted on December 7, 2019

Visit site: 

Colorado climate activists’ latest tactic: fake news

Posted in Anker, Casio, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Colorado climate activists’ latest tactic: fake news