Tag Archives: basically

Scott Pruitt might be on the wrong end of a Trump tweet soon. Here’s why.

by KennethDetwiler Posted on April 3, 2018

Common guesses include China, which is spending trillions to clean up transit, power plants, and factories. Or Germany, which has gone all-in on renewable energy. But the best answer might be the United Kingdom.

China’s emissions are still rising, and Germany’s are down 23 percent since 1990. Meanwhile, Britain has driven down its emissions by 43 percent since 1990, according to provisional data released Thursday. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Scott Burger helpfully turned the data into a graph:

So, has the U.K. simply moved its emissions to China by closing down the Sheffield steel plants and buying imported steel? Not quite — its overall emissions based on import consumption are down as well. (Though it’s true that the country’s traditional manufacturing sector has taken a hit, as you would know if you’ve seen The Full Monty.)

Of course, having low carbon emissions in the first place is better than polluting a bunch and making big improvements after the fact. All rich countries have pumped more than their share of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But the Brits have provided a model for maintaining all the modern creature comforts while kicking their carbon habit.

How did they do it? Basically, clean energy replaced a lot of coal, industry put a lid on super pollutants, and dumps captured more methane.

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Scott Pruitt might be on the wrong end of a Trump tweet soon. Here’s why.

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As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

by IsmaelFraley Posted on August 7, 2017

Apparently, U.S. Department of Agriculture staff are now supposed to say “weather extremes” instead.

In emails obtained by the Guardian from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a unit of the USDA, a department director told employees to make the following phrasing replacements in their work: “reduce greenhouse gases” with “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient efficiency”; “sequester carbon” with “build soil organic matter”; and “climate change adaptation” with “resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events.”

Basically, any reference to climate change or CO2 is a no-no.

Employees were understandably confused, and some were against the change — including one employee who expressed a desire to maintain scientific integrity. But the USDA insisted that it’s not intending to obscure data and studies, and that similar procedures had been executed under other administrations.

Surprise, surprise — these new procedures began days after Trump’s inauguration. The first email obtained by the Guardian, sent by NRCS Deputy Chief for Programs Jimmy Bramblett on Jan. 24, advised of the new administration’s “shift in perspective” with regard to climate change.

That perspective appears to be: Don’t mention it.

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As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

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Amazon Has the Deepest Penetration of Any Retailer In History

by Arletha21O Posted on December 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Not Everyone Wants to Shop on Amazon

Chris Outwater is among the 17% of U.S. primary household shoppers who say they never shop on Amazon, according to data from Kantar Retail ShopperScape. While the percentage has steadily declined over the past five years, roughly 22 million American households didn’t use the retailer this year.

Those Amazon holdouts tend to be older than U.S. shoppers overall, with an average age of 57 versus 49, respectively, according to Kantar, and they tend to earn less—$45,700 in annual income, compared with $62,800 among all shoppers. They are less likely to have or live with children.

Talk about burying the lede. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but the news to me is that 83 percent of “primary household shoppers” shopped at Amazon at least once last year. Compare that to this from a June story in the Journal:

While total online spending comprised 7.8% of all retail purchases in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Department, more than half the population, or about 190 million U.S. consumers, will shop online this year, according to Forrester.

This is roughly 80 percent of all US adults, which jibes pretty well with the Kantar number. Basically, about 80 percent of all US adults shop online at least a little, and every single one of them has shopped at Amazon once or more. In other words, among online shoppers, close to 100 percent have shopped at Amazon. Is there any other retailer on the planet who can claim anything close to that number?

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Amazon Has the Deepest Penetration of Any Retailer In History

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Obama’s Red Line in the South China Sea: Scarborough Shoal

by ArnoldEarls4 Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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In light of today’s sweeping decision at the Hague denying China’s claim to various islands and reefs in the South China Sea, this is an interesting tidbit from the Financial Times:

US President Barack Obama in March delivered a stark admonition to Xi Jinping over the South China Sea, warning the Chinese leader of serious consequences if China reclaimed land at Scarborough Shoal, one of the most dangerous flashpoints in Asia.

….Following the meeting in Washington, China withdrew its ships from the area….“The signalling from the US side was that this was serious,” said a former official. “There was an accumulation of pieces … the conclusion was that the People’s Liberation Army was advocating action. It wasn’t necessarily indicators that Xi himself had made any decisions, but there was the feeling that it was on his desk and coming to him for a decision.”

….China has come under criticism for building man-made islands in recent years, but the US saw Scarborough as more strategically significant given its proximity to the coast of the Philippines, which has a mutual defence treaty with the US. Some officials worried that China could install radar and missiles on Scarborough. Along with facilities in the Paracel and Spratly Islands, that would help China create a strategic triangle, which would enable the policing of any air defence identification zone in the South China Sea.

At the moment, China reclaims land at various spots in the South China Sea, and everyone complains but nobody does anything about it. Likewise, we operate reconnaissance flights and perform Freedom of Navigation exercises, and China complains but doesn’t do anything about it. Basically, both sides can do whatever they want because neither side wants to start a war over it. This pretty obviously favors China at the moment, since they have the resources for large-scale reclamation projects and just enough of a navy to protect them. We have a considerably bigger navy, but it’s unlikely the American public would show much support for a shooting war with China to protect a rock out in the middle of nowhere. All China really has to do is wait a while for us to get bored, and then keep on building.

Link – 

Obama’s Red Line in the South China Sea: Scarborough Shoal

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This gorgeous video will remind you what an ugly mess the BP oil spill made

by LorrineWomble Posted on April 17, 2015

This gorgeous video will remind you what an ugly mess the BP oil spill made

By on 17 Apr 2015commentsShare

Disasters (natural or human-caused) are like TV shows. As soon as get into one, your friend tells you about another one that you just have to check out, and then by the time you’re caught up with that one, you start seeing headlines all over the place for a new one, and so on forever until one day you see an article about that one you haven’t thought about in a year, and you’re like, “Huh. Is that still happening?”

Monday is the five-year anniversary of the start of the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history, lasting for 87 days and spewing more than 200 million gallons of oil into the surrounding environment.

Here to remind us that, yes, the disaster is still a thing and probably will be for a while is renowned doodler and science communicator Perrin Ireland. In this video, she (literally) paints a pretty bleak picture. Basically, scientists are still trying to account for all the leaked oil and expect it to be years before they fully understand the spill’s impact on the local ecosystem.

Check out the video, and be sure to stay tuned for next season, when scientists continue the hunt for those pesky dispersants!

Oh, and by the way, have you heard about all those exploding oil trains?

Source:
Where’d the oil go?

, onEarth.

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This gorgeous video will remind you what an ugly mess the BP oil spill made

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Has Some Pretty Great Advice For This First Grader

by ShannonDanis Posted on November 18, 2014

Mother Jones

A 6-year-old girl wearing a badass Albert Einstein t-shirt recently had the rare chance to ask everyone’s favorite cosmologist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, what first graders like her can do to help the Earth.

Tyson’s response? Keep banging those pots, keep stomping in those muddy puddles.

“You are making a splash crater,” Tyson explained. “These are experiments. Just tell your parents they’re experiments and you want to become a scientist and they won’t stop you from doing anything you want.”

Basically, don’t let the grown-ups squash your curiosity! Watch his heartwarming advice in full below:

Originally posted here – 

Neil deGrasse Tyson Has Some Pretty Great Advice For This First Grader

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