Author Archives: WillisBrenner1

A new car from Toyota runs on a very renewable resource: human waste.

Despite the political and market forces arrayed against it, the coal industry is still clinging to life, pushing forward massive new mines, export terminals, railway lines, and power plants.

In a special report this week, Grist examines the struggling industry’s long game, including one company’s efforts to build a $700 million project on the Chuitna River in south-central Alaska. Here are seven other places where the American coal industry is trying to resuscitate itself at the expense of, well, the rest of us:

  1. Millennium Bulk Coal Terminal Longview, Washington

Even after major backer Arch Coal declared bankruptcy and dropped its stake in 2016, the $640 million export terminal won’t die.

  1. Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal Oakland, California

The city council and Gov. Jerry Brown oppose the $1.2 billion proposal, but developers are threatening legal action.

  1. Wishbone Hill Coal Mine Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska

The project had cleared most of its regulatory hurdles when members of the the nearby Chickaloon tribe filed a lawsuit.

  1. Coal Hollow Mine Kane County, Utah

A company with a history of cleanup violations wants an expansion that would double the mine’s annual output.

  1. Kayenta Mine Navajo County, Arizona

Located on reservation lands on Arizona’s Black Mesa, the Peabody-owned mine opened in 1973 but faces new opposition.

  1. Dos Republicas Mine Eagle Pass, Texas

Opened for business in November 2015, the mine on the U.S.-Mexico border threatens archaeological sites and burial grounds.

  1. Kemper County Energy Facility Kemper County, Mississippi

Mississippi’s $6.7 billion “clean coal” plant has been criticized as excessively expensive and too carbon-heavy, but officials say it could be operational by October.

Read our special report: Coal’s Last Gamble.

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A new car from Toyota runs on a very renewable resource: human waste.

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Nobody knows if climate change sunk these islands or not

Nobody knows if climate change sunk these islands or not

By on May 10, 2016Share

If you’ve been paying attention to environmental news over the past 24 hours — and you’ve ended up on Grist, so we have to assume that’s the case — you’ll have noticed that five Pacific islands have apparently disappeared into the sea.

Quartz: “Five Pacific islands have been drowned by climate change, and more are sinking fast”

Gizmodo: “Because of climate change, five Pacific islands have vanished”

The Guardian: “Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits”

You get the picture. But here’s one more, also from The Guardian: “Headlines ‘exaggerated’ climate link to sinking of Pacific islands.” Ruh-roh.

According to The Guardian’s Karl Mathiesen, some writers didn’t bother to check in with the study’s authors to make sure their reporting accurately captured the research. The headlines in particular went overboard. When Mathiesen contacted lead author Simon Albert, he said he’d have preferred “slightly more moderate titles that focus on sea-level rise being the driver rather than simply ‘climate change.’”

“The major misunderstanding stems from the conflation of sea-level rise with climate change,” writes Mathiesen. “As a scientifically robust and potentially destructive articulation of climate change, sea-level rise has become almost synonymous with the warming of the planet.”

The focus on climate change could be confusing to readers, since sea-level rise has been a factor for the islands in question because of a shift in trade winds. Global warming is indeed a cause of rising seas. But for these islands, trade wind changes can also be attributed to natural climate cycles, and more research is needed to understand the relative contributions of each factor.

The flub demonstrates the importance of accurate environmental reporting. When journalists get it wrong, it’s only more fuel for science deniers’ favorite accusation that climate-change rhetoric is alarmist.

Climate Feedback, a climate journalism watchdog, recently launched a crowdfunding campaign with the aim of beefing up their fact-checking capacity. With any luck, efforts like these will help ensure reporters get the nuances right.

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Nobody knows if climate change sunk these islands or not

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Nobody knows if climate change sunk these islands or not