Tag Archives: grist

EPA guard physically shoved a reporter out of the building

by DedraMillsaps Posted on May 23, 2018

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Scott Pruitt convened an EPA national drinking water summit in response to criticism that the EPA and White House had intervened to block a report that disclosed the harmful effects of certain contaminants in drinking water. Now, the summit has become a center of a new controversy. The Associated Press, CNN, and E&E News were barred from covering Pruitt’s speech on Tuesday.

The summit was intended to solicit feedback on a class of chemicals, perfluorinated compounds, PFAS, that can be found in nonstick coatings and firefighting foam. The study, which has still not yet been released by the Trump administration, finds the chemicals can cause health problems and developmental defects at levels far below what the EPA officially considers to be safe.

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When AP reporter Ellen Knickmeyer showed up at the EPA building to report on the day’s events, guards barred her “from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building.” When she asked “to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building.”

Several outlets still made it in, though they were only allowed to remain for Pruitt’s speech and not for the meetings. The outlets with reserved seats included Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Hill, The Washington Post, Bloomberg BNA, and one of Pruitt’s favorites, The Daily Caller.

“This was simply an issue of the room reaching capacity, which reporters were aware of prior to the event,” EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox said in a statement to Mother Jones. “We were able to accommodate 10 reporters, provided a livestream for those we could not accommodate and were unaware of the individual situation that has been reported.”

An hour after emailing this statement, the EPA announced it was opening the second portion of its summit to all reporters and invited Mother Jones to attend.

This is only the most recent event in Pruitt’s contentious history with press, blocking reporters from press lists and from attending the administrator’s events. Emails recently released under the Freedom of Information Act show Pruitt’s staff going to great lengths to limit public access to the administrator over the last 16 months. EPA staff determined whether reporters belonged to “friendly” and “unfriendly” outlets, and discussed strategies for blocking the so-called unfriendly press from events.

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EPA guard physically shoved a reporter out of the building

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Bitcoin’s energy use got studied, and you libertarian nerds look even worse than usual

by FreddyTyio Posted on May 17, 2018

Bitcoin’s energy footprint has more than doubled since Grist first wrote about it six months ago.

It’s expected to double again by the end of the year, according to a new peer-reviewed study out Wednesday. And if that happens, bitcoin would be gobbling up 0.5 percent of the world’s electricity, about as much as the Netherlands.

That’s a troubling trajectory, especially for a world that should be working overtime to root out energy waste and fight climate change. By late next year, bitcoin could be consuming more electricity than all the world’s solar panels currently produce — about 1.8 percent of global electricity, according to a simple extrapolation of the study’s predictions. That would effectively erase decades of progress on renewable energy.

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Although the author of the study, Alex de Vries, an economist and data consultant based in the Netherlands, has shared these calculations publicly before, this is the first time that an analysis of bitcoin’s energy appetite has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal.

Bitcoin continues to soar in popularity — mostly as a speculative investment. And like any supercharged speculative investment, it swings wildly. Within the past 18 months, the price of bitcoin has soared ten-fold, crashed by 75 percent, only to double again, all while hedge funds and wealthy libertarians debate the future of the virtual currency.

Beyond its tentative success as a get-rich-quick scheme, bitcoin has an increasingly real-world cost. The process of “mining” for coins requires a globally distributed computer network racing to solve math problems — and also helps keep any individual transaction confidential and tamper-proof. That, in turn, requires an ever-escalating arms race of computing power — and electricity use — which, at the moment, has no end in sight. A single bitcoin transaction is so energy intensive that it could power the average U.S. household for a month.

A fluctuating bitcoin price, along with increases in computer efficiency, has slowed the cryptocurrency’s energy footprint growth rate to “just” 20 percent per month so far in this year. If that keeps up, bitcoin would consume all the world’s electricity by January 2021.

That simply won’t happen — government regulators would surely come to their senses by then — but it is a sign of bitcoin’s disastrous growth rate. In recent months, bitcoin supporters have criticized de Vries for being too pessimistic about its energy usage. But, as de Vries writes in the study, his estimates could also be missing out on secretive or illegal participation in the network, meaning there’s maybe even more happening than meets the eye. In at least one instance that de Vries found, a researcher was caught diverting a National Science Foundation supercomputer to mining bitcoin.

It’s a telling social phenomenon of late capitalism that we are willing to construct elaborate computer networks to conduct secure transactions with each other — and in the process torpedoing our hopes at a clean energy future.

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Bitcoin’s energy use got studied, and you libertarian nerds look even worse than usual

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A federal judge has climate science questions. Here are the answers.

by MinnieCourtice Posted on March 21, 2018

Today’s courtroom drama unfolding in San Francisco will come in the form of a “tutorial” on climate science, not a debate.

Federal Judge William Alsup, a quirky, inquisitive man who previously taught himself the Java programming language for a 2012 lawsuit involving Oracle and Google, will be the only one asking questions. There will be no direct debate between lawyers representing the people of the State of California and those for the defendant oil companies.

In a court document, Judge Alsup narrowed his focus to eight specific questions regarding climate science (in bold below). In the two weeks since the questions were posted, climate scientists have attempted to crowdsource the best, most succinct answers. (I’ve further summed them up in just a few words, in parenthesis.):

  1. What caused the various ice ages (including the “little ice age” and prolonged cool periods) and what caused the ice to melt? When they melted, by how much did sea level rise? (Natural changes in the Earth’s orbit and the amount of greenhouse gases. Sea level rose a lot — more than 400 feet.)
  2. What is the molecular difference by which CO2 absorbs infrared radiation but oxygen and nitrogen do not? (Three-atom molecules vibrate more easily than two-atom molecules.)
  3. What is the mechanism by which infrared radiation trapped by CO2 in the atmosphere is turned into heat and finds its way back to sea level? (Greenhouse gases like CO2 emit extra trapped energy from the sun, warming the surface.)
  4. Does CO2 in the atmosphere reflect any sunlight back into space such that the reflected sunlight never penetrates the atmosphere in the first place? (Yes, but not enough to matter.)
  5. Apart from CO2, what happens to the collective heat from tail pipe exhausts, engine radiators, and all other heat from combustion of fossil fuels? How, if at all, does this collective heat contribute to warming of the atmosphere? (The amount of heat from the sun that’s trapped by greenhouse gases is 100 times more than direct heat from fossil fuel burning.)
  6. In grade school, many of us were taught that humans exhale CO2 but plants absorb CO2 and return oxygen to the air (keeping the carbon for fiber). Is this still valid? If so, why hasn’t plant life turned the higher levels of CO2 back into oxygen? Given the increase in human population on Earth (four billion), is human respiration a contributing factor to the buildup of CO2? (Yes, this is still valid – but this process is roughly carbon neutral, so there is no major impact on the climate. And human respiration of CO2 is 10,000 times too small to matter to the climate.)
  7. What are the main sources of CO2 that account for the incremental buildup of CO2in the atmosphere? (Fossil fuel burning and deforestation)
  8. What are the main sources of heat that account for the incremental rise in temperature on Earth? (Human activities are likely responsible for 93 to 123 percent of recent global warming. It can go over 100 percent because we’re canceling out what would be natural cooling.)

The crowd-sourcing effort (with references) was coordinated by NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, who in an email to Grist said he doesn’t actually expect there to be much disagreement over the science in today’s courtroom tutorial. Chevron, one of the defendants, is not planning to deny evidence at all in its explanations. In fact will refer Judge Alsup to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the gold standard of mainstream climate science.

“Despite the attempted interventions from the fringe,” Schmidt wrote, “ I doubt that the defendants or plaintiffs will be making much hay with the science.”

Even if disagreement is unlikely, Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist from Texas A&M University — who penned a Twitter thread of answers to Alsup’s questions — hailed the uniqueness of today’s court activities.

“Obviously, I wish these issues were not still being debated in court, since they’re not being debated in the scientific community, but I also appreciate the deliberate approach the judge seems to be taking,” he wrote to Grist.

No matter what the oil industry lawyers argue today, these facts are well established: Human activities are by far the dominant cause of modern climate change, and only a sharp reduction in our emissions — which means our use of oil — will help solve the problem.

Continued here:  

A federal judge has climate science questions. Here are the answers.

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Queen Elizabeth has no patience for plastic.

by KirkPJHixoknucv Posted on February 13, 2018

Here’s how humanity could all but ensure its own demise: Dig up all the coal we have left and burn it, warming the planet 4 to 6 degrees C.

But that worst-case scenario doesn’t match up with what’s really happening in the world, Justin Ritchie, lead author of a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, told Grist.

That’s because money spent on climate change measures goes further than it did 30 years ago. Plus, baseline trends show greenhouse gas emissions are on the decline. Most studies underestimate the effect these factors have on global decarbonization.

The study indicates that the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement are more achievable than previously projected — but that’s not to say humanity isn’t in deep trouble.

It’s not “4 to 6 degrees bad,” Ritchie says. “It’s 3 degrees bad. You can’t say we don’t have to worry about implementing policies, we do. But it’s not going to reach the truly catastrophic scenarios.”

Another recent study published in the same journal shows that if all the coal plants currently planned actually get built, humanity could blow past the Paris goal of limiting warming to 2 degree C above pre-industrial levels.

Ritchie said his research doesn’t counteract that finding. “There’s a whole range of scenarios that can occur,” he says. “What our paper is trying to do is look at that whole range and how can we design policies that are more robust.”

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Queen Elizabeth has no patience for plastic.

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A woman was forcibly removed from a public hearing for listing lawmakers’ oil and gas donations.

by RolandoLarge Posted on February 13, 2018

Here’s how humanity could all but ensure its own demise: Dig up all the coal we have left and burn it, warming the planet 4 to 6 degrees C.

But that worst-case scenario doesn’t match up with what’s really happening in the world, Justin Ritchie, lead author of a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, told Grist.

That’s because money spent on climate change measures goes further than it did 30 years ago. Plus, baseline trends show greenhouse gas emissions are on the decline. Most studies underestimate the effect these factors have on global decarbonization.

The study indicates that the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement are more achievable than previously projected — but that’s not to say humanity isn’t in deep trouble.

It’s not “4 to 6 degrees bad,” Ritchie says. “It’s 3 degrees bad. You can’t say we don’t have to worry about implementing policies, we do. But it’s not going to reach the truly catastrophic scenarios.”

Another recent study published in the same journal shows that if all the coal plants currently planned actually get built, humanity could blow past the Paris goal of limiting warming to 2 degree C above pre-industrial levels.

Ritchie said his research doesn’t counteract that finding. “There’s a whole range of scenarios that can occur,” he says. “What our paper is trying to do is look at that whole range and how can we design policies that are more robust.”

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A woman was forcibly removed from a public hearing for listing lawmakers’ oil and gas donations.

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Oregon is about to get a big, $48 million pile of solar panels.

by FatimaPenington Posted on February 7, 2018

Here’s how humanity could all but ensure its own demise: Dig up all the coal we have left and burn it, warming the planet 4 to 6 degrees C.

But that worst-case scenario doesn’t match up with what’s really happening in the world, Justin Ritchie, lead author of a new study published in Environmental Research Letters, told Grist.

That’s because money spent on climate change measures goes further than it did 30 years ago. Plus, baseline trends show greenhouse gas emissions are on the decline. Most studies underestimate the effect these factors have on global decarbonization.

The study indicates that the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement are more achievable than previously projected — but that’s not to say humanity isn’t in deep trouble.

It’s not “4 to 6 degrees bad,” Ritchie says. “It’s 3 degrees bad. You can’t say we don’t have to worry about implementing policies, we do. But it’s not going to reach the truly catastrophic scenarios.”

Another recent study published in the same journal shows that if all the coal plants currently planned actually get built, humanity could blow past the Paris goal of limiting warming to 2 degree C above pre-industrial levels.

Ritchie said his research doesn’t counteract that finding. “There’s a whole range of scenarios that can occur,” he says. “What our paper is trying to do is look at that whole range and how can we design policies that are more robust.”

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Oregon is about to get a big, $48 million pile of solar panels.

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So is coal great again or what?

by brittanyswallow Posted on January 19, 2018

Some of these articles are sensationalized very nearly to the point of inaccuracy. Others are cases of “elaborate misinformation.”

A review from Climate Feedback, a group of scientists who survey climate change news to determine whether it’s scientifically sound, looked at the 25 most-shared stories last year that focused on the science of climate change or global warming.

Of those, only 11 were rated as credible, meaning they contained no major inaccuracies. Five were considered borderline inaccurate. The remaining nine, including New York Magazine’s viral “The Uninhabitable Earth,” were found to have low or very low credibility. However, even the top-rated articles were noted as somewhat misleading. (Read the reviews here.) 

“We see a lot of inaccurate stories,” Emmanuel Vincent, a research scientist at the University of California and the founder of Climate Feedback, told Grist. Each scientist at Climate Feedback holds a Ph.D. and has recently published articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Vincent says that the New York Times and Washington Post are the two main sources that Climate Feedback has found “consistently publish information that is accurate and influential.” (He notes that Grist’s “Ice Apocalypse” by Eric Holthaus also made the credibility cut.)

“You need to find the line between being catchy and interesting without overstepping what the science can support,” he says.

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So is coal great again or what?

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Climate change hits businesses where it hurts: their wallets.

by GradyChapdelain Posted on January 19, 2018

Some of these articles are sensationalized very nearly to the point of inaccuracy. Others are cases of “elaborate misinformation.”

A review from Climate Feedback, a group of scientists who survey climate change news to determine whether it’s scientifically sound, looked at the 25 most-shared stories last year that focused on the science of climate change or global warming.

Of those, only 11 were rated as credible, meaning they contained no major inaccuracies. Five were considered borderline inaccurate. The remaining nine, including New York Magazine’s viral “The Uninhabitable Earth,” were found to have low or very low credibility. However, even the top-rated articles were noted as somewhat misleading. (Read the reviews here.) 

“We see a lot of inaccurate stories,” Emmanuel Vincent, a research scientist at the University of California and the founder of Climate Feedback, told Grist. Each scientist at Climate Feedback holds a Ph.D. and has recently published articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Vincent says that the New York Times and Washington Post are the two main sources that Climate Feedback has found “consistently publish information that is accurate and influential.” (He notes that Grist’s “Ice Apocalypse” by Eric Holthaus also made the credibility cut.)

“You need to find the line between being catchy and interesting without overstepping what the science can support,” he says.

Link:

Climate change hits businesses where it hurts: their wallets.

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Trump trolls America during a cold snap that covers 1 percent of the Earth’s surface.

by Ginger52Ru Posted on December 29, 2017

In 2017, I couldn’t stop trying to identify corvids. It’s harder than you might think. My latest challenge: a photo of a black bird on the ground. It’s got the fluffy neck feathers of an adult raven and the blue eyes of a baby crow. I’m going with: Raven.

Turns out it’s an Australian raven, a species identifiable by their bright blue eyes. By the rules of #CrowOrNo, I win, because I correctly guessed it’s not a crow. (Though in fairness, I’d call it a draw.)

#CrowOrNo is a weekly Twitter challenge hosted by University of Washington crow scientist Kaeli Swift. Each week, she posts a picture of a bird, which always — to the untrained eye — looks an awful lot like a crow. For a few hours, the eager public submits guesses as to whether it’s a crow, or no. After the big reveal, she explains the clues to use to tell crows from their cousins.

The challenge helps illustrate the large and surprisingly complex world of corvids, a smart family of big-brained birds that includes crows, ravens, and jays. It also shines light on some great crow-themed mysteries, like why some crows have caramel-colored feathers.

For me, the more I learn about crows, the more I see the extraordinary in the most seemingly ordinary birds — like the fact they can recognize faces and might even give gifts.

That’s the value of taking science out of the lab to the social media sphere, like Swift is doing. And, crow or no, I think we could all use a little more science in our lives.

Jesse Nichols is a contributing assistant video producer at Grist.

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Trump trolls America during a cold snap that covers 1 percent of the Earth’s surface.

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Donald Glover’s ‘Atlanta’ is a double-Emmy winner.

by AllieMcdaniels Posted on September 18, 2017

“Clearly, our environment changes all the time,” the Republican leader said after touring Irma’s devastation. “And whether that’s cycles we’re going through or whether that’s man-made, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one it is.”

It’s good to see Scott pondering those wacky ideas we’ve all heard floating around: Human-caused climate change, more intense hurricanes, rising sea levels, etc. Coming to terms with climate change is a journey we all must pursue at our own pace! It’s not urgent or anything.

So what is Scott feeling sure about? Let’s hear it:

“This is a catastrophic storm our state has never seen,” he warned on Saturday before Irma hit Florida.

“We ought to go solve problems. I know we have beach renourishment issues. I know we have flood-mitigation issues,” he said in the wake of Irma.

“I’m worried about another hurricane,” he shared with reporters while touring the Florida Keys this week. We feel ya, Scott.

Big ideas! Perhaps a fellow Florida Republican could illuminate their common thread.

“[I]t’s certainly not irresponsible to highlight how this storm was probably fueled — in part — by conditions that were caused by human-induced climate change,” Florida congressman and Grist 50er Carlos Curbelo said this week.

In fact, it just might be necessary.

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Donald Glover’s ‘Atlanta’ is a double-Emmy winner.

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