Tag Archives: natural

The Big-Ag-Fueled Algae Bloom That Won’t Leave Toledo’s Water Supply Alone

by PilarMullins Posted on August 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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The citizens of Toledo, Ohio, have embarked upon their new summer ritual: stocking up on bottled water. For the second straight year, an enormous algae bloom has settled upon Lake Erie, generating nasty toxins right where the city of 400,000 draws its tap water.

It’s a kind of throwback to Toledo’s postwar heyday, when the Rust Belt’s booming factories deposited phosphorus-laced wastewater into streams that made their way into Lake Erie, feeding algae growths that rival today’s in size. But after the decline of heavy industry and the advent of the Clean Water Act, there’s a new main source of algae-feeding phosphorus into the beleaguered lake: fertilizer runoff from industrial-scale corn and soybean farms. (Background here.)

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The Big-Ag-Fueled Algae Bloom That Won’t Leave Toledo’s Water Supply Alone

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

by FloreneGKQN Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama has been more vocal than any previous president about the need to combat climate change, and on Monday his administration is releasing a package of rules that will likely be the most important—and most controversial—piece of his climate legacy.

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation,” Obama said in a video released early Sunday morning. The Clean Power Plan, as the rules finalized Monday are known, is “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

Coal-fired power plants are the country’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the chief culprit driving global warming. They’re responsible for even more CO2 pollution than all the nation’s passenger vehicles. The new plan aims to slash those emissions by requiring every state to reduce the carbon “intensity” (that is, emissions per unit of energy produced) of its energy sector. By 2030, the plan is expected to slash the carbon footprint of the nation’s power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels—a more rigorous target than the 30 percent reduction outlined in a draft version of the rules released last summer.

In the final draft, the administration has relaxed deadlines for meeting the new carbon targets—states will now have until 2018 to propose a carbon-cutting strategy and until 2022 to implement it, according to leaked versions—a serious concern for environmentalists who have stressed the necessity of immediate action to limit climate change. And although the targets might sound ambitious, they might not actually be too different from what many states would achieve without them, thanks to a boom in clean energy that is already underway. Moreover, many of the changes required by the rules will play out under Obama’s successor, leaving open the possibility that they could be undermined by a climate change-denying president.

Still, the significance of this official crackdown on the gas behind global warming is hard to overstate, said David Doniger, director of the clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The very fact that they’re regulating carbon pollution from power plants is a historic step, a huge step,” he said. “This is part of using the existing law to turn the US from doing nothing, to playing a leadership role to curb climate change.”

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

by LonnaBuley599 Posted on July 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Coal-fired power plants are the single biggest driver of global climate change in the United States. That’s why President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving quickly to put the finishing touches on a new set of regulations, called the Clean Power Plan, that aim to reduce the nation’s overall carbon footprint 30 percent by 2030 by cracking down on emissions from the energy sector.

Unsurprisingly, many power companies—particularly those that rely on coal as their main source of fuel—are crying foul. Recently, one major coal company and a dozen coal-reliant states tried to block the new rules in federal court. (The court decided last month not to hear the challenge, since the rules haven’t yet been finalized.) And this week, executives from two of the country’s biggest power companies met with White House officials in an attempt to persuade them that the crackdown would be “too much too soon.”

As it turns out, those same two companies—Duke Energy and American Electric Power—emit more carbon pollution than any other power producers in the country. That’s according to a new report released from a coalition of environmental groups and power companies, which draws on public data from the EPA and the Energy Information Administration to reveal the carbon footprints of the 100 biggest power producers in the nation. Many of the names in the database, like AEP or California’s Pacific Gas & Electric, might be familiar from your monthly bill, depending on where you live. The list does leave out some big utilities, like New York’s Con Ed, that primarily distribute power they purchase wholesale from someone else. That said, the database offers a pretty comprehensive snapshot of the companies most responsible for producing climate-changing emissions in the US.

The chart below shows the top 10 climate offenders from the database, according to two different metrics, and where each company ranks nationwide in terms of total power production. The first chart shows total carbon dioxide emissions in 2013. Unsurprisingly, that list is comprised mostly of the country’s biggest power companies, such as Duke, Southern, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These companies produce a huge amount of power, and much of it comes from coal. Duke, for example, gets about 45 percent of its power from coal; for AEP, it’s about 60 percent.

The second chart shows the companies that are the most carbon-intense—that is, the companies that emit the most carbon dioxide per unit of electricity generated. Many of these are small, regional producers that rely almost exclusively on coal. While these companies generate relatively little power overall, what they do generate is exceptionally dirty, climate-wise. Big Rivers Electric, for example, provides power for a patch of western Kentucky with four coal-fired plants, the newest of which came online in 1986. Big Rivers declined to comment for this story. But a spokesperson for Great River Energy pointed out that the dataset may not fully represent a company’s portfolio, because it accounts only for power plants that the companies own and not for contracts with third-party wind and solar farms.

Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

Take another look at the top chart. You might have noticed that while many of the country’s largest power producers appear on the list of major carbon polluters, a few big names are absent. That’s important, and it illustrates the huge climate benefit of using low-carbon fuels. In some cases, these companies have avoided significant carbon emissions because their energy generation portfolio is made up mostly of nuclear (which practically zero-carbon) and/or natural gas-fired plants (which release relatively little CO2). For example, the nation’s number-two power producer is Exelon, which gets 59 percent of its power from nuclear. The number-four producer, NextEra, gets 52 percent of its power from natural gas, 27 percent from nuclear, and 16 percent from wind. In other words, the carbon footprint ranking is essentially a proxy for which power companies are most reliant on coal.

There’s some good news in the data, as well. In the last few years, nationwide coal use has dropped precipitously. That’s mostly a product of market forces, rather than environmental regulation: Natural gas, made cheaper by the fracking boom, has displaced coal in power plants across the country. At the same time, renewable energy sources have boomed.

“What you see in this report is a significant shift to cleaner fuels,” said Derek Furstenwerth, a contributor to the report and the director of environmental services at Calpine, one of the country’s biggest power companies. Like NextEra, Calpine gets the bulk of its power from natural gas. Calpine has also emerged as a major proponent of Obama’s climate plan.

The shift away from coal has had a significant impact on emissions: Since 2008, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector have dropped 12 percent. Other types of air emissions reported in the database are also way down, driven by regulations from the EPA that took effect prior to the Obama years. Emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide (both of which cause acid rain and other nasty environmental impacts) are down 74 percent and 80 percent, respectively, since 1990. The trends in those emissions offer a bit of a crystal ball into what will happen when the federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions kick in, said Dan Bakal, a contributor to the report and director of the electric power program at Ceres, a group that tracks environmental issues in the private sector.

“At the time, industry really thought reducing NOx and SO2 emissions was not going to be achievable and that it would be much more costly,” he said. “But they stepped up to the challenge and found ways to reduce emissions very cost-effectively. The same thing will happen with CO2.”

Just because carbon emissions are already on the decline, doesn’t mean Obama’s rules are unnecessary. The change isn’t happening fast enough to avert dangerous climate change, Bakal said. But the current trend does show that cleaning up the power sector is possible.

Complying with the Clean Power Plan “will be a bit of a stretch for the industry, which is appropriate for a regulation intended to put us on an improving path,” Furstenwerth said. “But we believe that it’s definitely achievable.”

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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

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Exxon Knew About Global Warming More Than 30 Years Ago

by FMRBeatriz Posted on July 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change—seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm’s own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial.

The email from Exxon’s in-house climate expert provides evidence the company was aware of the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, and the potential for carbon-cutting regulations that could hurt its bottom line, over a generation ago—factoring that knowledge into its decision about an enormous gas field in south-east Asia. The field, off the coast of Indonesia, would have been the single largest source of global warming pollution at the time.

“Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia,” Lenny Bernstein, a 30-year industry veteran and Exxon’s former in-house climate expert, wrote in the email. “This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70 percent CO2,” or carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change.

However, Exxon’s public position was marked by continued refusal to acknowledge the dangers of climate change, even in response to appeals from the Rockefellers, its founding family, and its continued financial support for climate denial. Over the years, Exxon spent more than $30 million on think tanks and researchers that promoted climate denial, according to Greenpeace.

Exxon said on Wednesday that it now acknowledges the risk of climate change and does not fund climate change denial groups.

Some climate campaigners have likened the industry to the conduct of the tobacco industry which for decades resisted the evidence that smoking causes cancer.

In the email Bernstein, a chemical engineer and climate expert who spent 30 years at Exxon and Mobil and was a lead author on two of the United Nations’ blockbuster IPCC climate science reports, said climate change first emerged on the company’s radar in 1981, when the company was considering the development of Southeast Asia’s biggest gas field, off Indonesia.

That was seven years ahead of other oil companies and the public, according to Bernstein’s account.

Climate change was largely confined to the realm of science until 1988, when the climate scientist James Hansen told Congress that global warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels.

By that time, it was clear that developing the Natuna site would set off a huge amount of climate change pollution—effectively a “carbon bomb,” according to Bernstein.

“When I first learned about the project in 1989, the projections were that if Natuna were developed and its CO2 vented to the atmosphere, it would be the largest point source of CO2 in the world and account for about 1 percent of projected global CO2 emissions. I’m sure that it would still be the largest point source of CO2, but since CO2 emissions have grown faster than projected in 1989, it would probably account for a smaller fraction of global CO2 emissions,” Bernstein wrote.

The email was written in response to an inquiry on business ethics from the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University.

“What it shows is that Exxon knew years earlier than James Hansen’s testimony to Congress that climate change was a reality; that it accepted the reality, instead of denying the reality as they have done publicly, and to such an extent that it took it into account in their decision making, in making their economic calculation,” the director of the institute, Alyssa Bernstein (no relation), told the Guardian.

“One thing that occurs to me is the behavior of the tobacco companies denying the connection between smoking and lung cancer for the sake of profits, but this is an order of magnitude greater moral offense, in my opinion, because what is at stake is the fate of the planet, humanity, and the future of civilization, not to be melodramatic.”

Bernstein’s response, first posted on the institute’s website last October, was released by the Union of Concerned Scientists on Wednesday as part of a report on climate disinformation promoted by companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and Peabody Energy, called the Climate Deception Dossiers.

Asked about Bernstein’s comments, Exxon said climate science in the early 1980s was at a preliminary stage, but the company now saw climate change as a risk.

“The science in 1981 on this subject was in the very, very early days and there was considerable division of opinion,” Richard Keil, an Exxon spokesman, said. “There was nobody you could have gone to in 1981 or 1984 who would have said whether it was real or not. Nobody could provide a definitive answer.”

He rejected the idea that Exxon had funded groups promoting climate denial. “I am here to talk to you about the present,” he said. “We have been factoring the likelihood of some kind of carbon tax into our business planning since 2007. We do not fund or support those who deny the reality of climate change.”

Exxon, unlike other companies and the public at large in the early 1980s, was already aware of climate change—and the prospect of regulations to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, according to Bernstein’s account.

“In the 1980s, Exxon needed to understand the potential for concerns about climate change to lead to regulation that would affect Natuna and other potential projects. They were well ahead of the rest of industry in this awareness. Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue,” he wrote.

“Natural resource companies—oil, coal, minerals—have to make investments that have lifetimes of 50-100 years. Whatever their public stance, internally they make very careful assessments of the potential for regulation, including the scientific basis for those regulations,” Bernstein wrote in the email.

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor who researches the history of climate science, said it was unsurprising Exxon would have factored climate change in its plans in the early 1980s—but she disputed Bernstein’s suggestion that other companies were not. She also took issue with Exxon’s assertion of uncertainty about the science in the 1980s, noting the National Academy of Science describing a consensus on climate change from the 1970s.

The White House and the National Academy of Sciences came out with reports on climate change in the 1970s, and government scientific agencies were studying climate change in the 1960s, she said. There were also a number of major scientific meetings on climate change in the 1970s.

“I find it difficult to believe that an industry whose business model depends on fossil fuels could have been completely ignoring major environmental reports, major environmental meetings taken place in which carbon dioxide and climate change were talked about,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.

The East Natuna gas field, about 140 miles north-east of the Natuna islands in the South China Sea and 700 miles north of Jakarta, is the biggest in Southeast Asia, with about 46 trillion cubic feet (1.3 trillion cubic meters) of recoverable reserves.

However, Exxon did not go into production on the field.

Bernstein writes in his email to Ohio University: “Corporations are interested in environmental impacts only to the extent that they affect profits, either current or future. They may take what appears to be altruistic positions to improve their public image, but the assumption underlying those actions is that they will increase future profits. ExxonMobil is an interesting case in point.”

Bernstein, who is now in his mid-70s, spent 20 years as a scientist at Exxon and 10 years at Mobil. During the 1990s he headed the science and technology advisory committee of the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group that lobbied aggressively against the scientific consensus around the causes of climate change.

However, GCC climate experts accepted the impact of human activity on climate change in their internal communications as early as 1995, according to a document filed in a 2009 lawsuit and included in the UCS dossier.

The document, a 17-page primer on climate science produced by Bernstein’s advisory committee, discounts the alternate theories about the causes of climate change promoted by climate contrarian researchers such as Willie Soon, who was partly funded by Exxon.

“The contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change,” the advisory committee said.

The 1995 primer was never released for publication. A subsequent version, which was publicly distributed in 1998, removed the reference to “contrarian theories,” and continued to dispute the science underlying climate change.

Kenneth Kimmel, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said ExxonMobil and the other companies profiled in its report had failed to take responsibility about the danger to the public of producing fossil fuels.

“Instead of taking responsibility, they have either directly—or indirectly through trade and industry groups—sown doubt about the science of climate change and fought efforts to cut emissions,” he wrote in a blog post. “I believe that the conduct outlined in the UCS report puts the fossil fuel companies’ social license at risk. And once that social license is gone, it is very hard to get it back. Just look at what happened to tobacco companies after litigation finally pried open the documents that exposed decades of misinformation and deception.”

Keil, the ExxonMobil spokesman, confirmed that the company had decided not to develop Natuna, but would not comment on the reasons. “There could be a huge range of reasons why we don’t develop projects,” he said.

Full text of scientist’s email

Below is the text of an email from Lenny Bernstein to the director of the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University, Alyssa Bernstein (no relation), who had asked for ideas to stimulate students for an ethics day announced by the Carnegie Council.

Alyssa’s right. Feel free to share this e-mail with her. Corporations are interested in environmental impacts only to the extent that they affect profits, either current or future. They may take what appears to be altruistic positions to improve their public image, but the assumption underlying those actions is that they will increase future profits. ExxonMobil is an interesting case in point.

Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia. This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70 percent CO2. That CO2 would have to be separated to make the natural gas usable. Natural gas often contains CO2 and the technology for removing CO2 is well known. In 1981 (and now) the usual practice was to vent the CO2 to the atmosphere. When I first learned about the project in 1989, the projections were that if Natuna were developed and its CO2 vented to the atmosphere, it would be the largest point source of CO2 in the world and account for about 1 percent of projected global CO2 emissions. I’m sure that it would still be the largest point source of CO2, but since CO2 emissions have grown faster than projected in 1989, it would probably account for a smaller fraction of global CO2 emissions.

The alternative to venting CO2 to the atmosphere is to inject it into ground. This technology was also well known, since the oil industry had been injecting limited quantities of CO2 to enhance oil recovery. There were many questions about whether the CO2 would remain in the ground, some of which have been answered by Statoil’s now almost 20 years of experience injecting CO2 in the North Sea. Statoil did this because the Norwegian government placed a tax on vented CO2. It was cheaper for Statoil to inject CO2 than pay the tax. Of course, Statoil has touted how much CO2 it has prevented from being emitted.

In the 1980s, Exxon needed to understand the potential for concerns about climate change to lead to regulation that would affect Natuna and other potential projects. They were well ahead of the rest of industry in this awareness. Other companies, such as Mobil, only became aware of the issue in 1988, when it first became a political issue. Natural resource companies—oil, coal, minerals—have to make investments that have lifetimes of 50-100 years. Whatever their public stance, internally they make very careful assessments of the potential for regulation, including the scientific basis for those regulations. Exxon NEVER denied the potential for humans to impact the climate system. It did question—legitimately, in my opinion—the validity of some of the science.

Political battles need to personify the enemy. This is why liberals spend so much time vilifying the Koch brothers—who are hardly the only big money supporters of conservative ideas. In climate change, the first villain was a man named Donald Pearlman, who was a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. (In another life, he was instrumental in getting the US Holocaust Museum funded and built.) Pearlman’s usefulness as a villain ended when he died of lung cancer—he was a heavy smoker to the end.

Then the villain was the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a trade organization of energy producers and large energy users. I was involved in GCC for a while, unsuccessfully trying to get them to recognize scientific reality. (That effort got me on to the front page of the New York Times, but that’s another story.) Environmental group pressure was successful in putting GCC out of business, but they also lost their villain. They needed one which wouldn’t die and wouldn’t go out of business. Exxon, and after its merger with Mobil ExxonMobil, fit the bill, especially under its former CEO, Lee Raymond, who was vocally opposed to climate change regulation. ExxonMobil’s current CEO, Rex Tillerson, has taken a much softer line, but ExxonMobil has not lost its position as the personification of corporate, and especially climate change, evil. It is the only company mentioned in Alyssa’s e-mail, even though, in my opinion, it is far more ethical that many other large corporations.

Having spent twenty years working for Exxon and ten working for Mobil, I know that much of that ethical behavior comes from a business calculation that it is cheaper in the long run to be ethical than unethical. Safety is the clearest example of this. ExxonMobil knows all too well the cost of poor safety practices. The Exxon Valdez is the most public, but far from the only, example of the high cost of unsafe operations. The value of good environmental practices are more subtle, but a facility that does a good job of controlling emission and waste is a well run facility, that is probably maximizing profit. All major companies will tell you that they are trying to minimize their internal CO2 emissions. Mostly, they are doing this by improving energy efficiency and reducing cost. The same is true for internal recycling, again a practice most companies follow. Its sic just good engineering.

I could go on, but this e-mail is long enough.

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Exxon Knew About Global Warming More Than 30 Years Ago

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Goldman Sachs to Summer Interns: Don’t Stay in the Office Overnight

by Tracee3261 Posted on June 17, 2015

Mother Jones

By Olivia Oran

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc has told its summer investment banking interns not to stay in the office overnight in a bid to improve working conditions for its junior staff.

The move, according to company sources and confirmed by a Goldman spokesman, illustrates how Wall Street banks are seeking to curb excessive hours worked by young employees who see internships and entry-level jobs as a chance for a lucrative investment banking career.

Goldman has told its new crop of summer banking interns they should be out of the office between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m. during the week.

Goldman and other banks have taken steps over the last several years to encourage junior employees, known as analysts and associates, to take time off in a profession notorious for all-nighters and 100-hour work weeks.

The moves came after the death of a Bank of America Corp intern in London in 2013 fueled concerns over working excessive hours. It was later revealed the intern died of natural causes.

Soon after, Goldman told its junior bankers to take Saturdays off and also formed a task force to address quality of life issues.

Bank of America said at the time it would recommend junior employees take off a minimum of four weekend days per month.

Wall Street summer interns are typically college juniors who work as analysts and business school students who serve as associates.

Goldman has more than 2,900 summer interns this year.

Goldman ranked as the top worldwide M&A adviser last year, according to Thomson Reuters data. The bank advised on 449 deals with a total value of $983.9 billion.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Goldman Sachs to Summer Interns: Don’t Stay in the Office Overnight

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Younger You – Eric R. Braverman

by Myrna Posted on June 4, 2015

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Younger You

Unlock The Hidden Power Of Your Brain To Look And Feel 15 Years Younger

Eric R. Braverman

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 7, 2008

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education

Seller: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.


Break the aging code and feel 15 years younger—from the inside out.In the constant battle to stay young and feel fit, we will try any of the quick fixes that come on the market, including so-called miracle products, fad diets, trendy exercise programs, and untested supplements. Many even risk elective surgical procedures just to look young again. But you don&apos;t need surgery, pricey cosmetics, or starvation to look and feel 15 years younger. The secret to living a longer, more vibrant life has at last been discovered, and the proverbial fountain of youth is right in your hands. Discover how you can: Get a restful, restorative night&apos;s sleep and have energy that lasts all day long Lift your mood by increasing your natural hormone levels Improve your heart health with natural supplements, herbs, and spices Increase your muscle mass, boost your memory, build your bones, save your skin, and much more! Younger You has doctors talking …&quot;Younger You is an interesting and logical approach to preventing, diagnosing, and modifying the aging process. … Baby boomers will find much in these pages to protect and reassure them.” –Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D.Rossi Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine, New York Hospital Weil Cornell Medical Center, and author of Live Now, Age Later, Power to the Patient, and Doctor, What Should I Eat?&quot;Focusing on the critical role of hormones produced by the brain, Dr. Braver man outlines a totally integrative program to restore hormonal balance and thereby restore readers to a younger, healthier, and more vital self, regardless of chronological age.&quot;–Nicholas Perricone, M.D., FACN Bestselling author of 7 Secrets to Beauty, Health, and Longevity, The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet, The Perricone Promise, The Perricone Prescription, and The Wrinkle Cure &quot;Just as Dr. Braverman says, we are only as young as our oldest part. This book is not just for us, but for our children, who can make changes to their diet and lifestyle now and reap the rewards later.&quot;–David Perlmutter, M.D.Director, Perlmutter Health Center and author of The Better Brain Book.

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Younger You – Eric R. Braverman

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Big Oil tries to rebrand itself as Big Gas

by SusanaPvzbtr Posted on June 3, 2015

Big Oil tries to rebrand itself as Big Gas

By on 3 Jun 2015 2:42 pmcommentsShare

As the world moves toward a climate change deal this December, the oil industry has dived into an all-out campaign to rebrand itself as the climate-friendly natural gas industry.

On Monday, six of Europe’s largest oil and gas companies wrote to the U.N., saying they stand ready to accept a price on carbon. This kind of market mechanism, they noted, could encourage “the use of natural gas in place of coal.” And if that were to happen, well, they wouldn’t complain.

In fact, most major oil companies have been focusing more on natural gas in recent years in anticipation of a global response to climate change — and they want us to know. “Total is gas, and gas is good,” the CEO of the French oil company said Monday. And on Tuesday, Shell’s CFO argued for leaving coal in the ground but not oil and gas. Both companies produce more gas than oil.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil and Chevron, two American companies that didn’t sign on to the European companies’ letter calling for a price on carbon, are also pushing gas as the future fossil fuel in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S.

But there’s a big problem with this rebranding effort: Many scientists and economists have found that a switch to natural gas won’t necessarily decrease our carbon footprint. It may, in fact, make it bigger. There are two reasons for this: the methane leaks that come hand-in-hand with natural gas drilling and transportation, and economics.

First, the methane leaks. The gas is 84 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame, but data on how much of it is leaking into the atmosphere from gas drilling operations remains sketchy. In the U.S., the EPA estimated in 2012 that 30 million metric tons were seeping out of pipelines and pumps annually. That accounts for a full 9 percent of the U.S.’s total climate change–causing emissions.

And even if the industry were to completely deal with its methane-leakage problem, a number of studies — some looking at the U.S., some looking at the entire world — have found that the economics of natural gas make it unlikely that the fuel would help the world cut emissions. Natural gas is cheap right now. As oil companies are eagerly pointing out, it’s often even cheaper (and always much cleaner) than coal, which currently accounts for 40 percent of the world’s energy. But natural gas is so cheap that it would also likely undercut the cleanest options, renewables. The low price would also encourage people to use more energy. We would essentially shift from burning coal and oil to burning natural gas — and investment in natural gas infrastructure would displace investment in clean energy and efficiency.

Meanwhile, world population will continue to grow and developing countries will continue to hook more of their citizens up to the grid. Energy production will balloon. And we’d be relying on a fuel that is, yes, cleaner than coal and oil, but that still generates a significant amount of CO2. In the end, many studies show, our carbon footprint wouldn’t be much different than if we just stuck with the less-than-great track we’re on.

So if these oil companies truly “stand ready to play [their] part” in stopping climate change, as they stated in their letter to the U.N., pushing natural gas is not the way to go about it. If they just want to knock their coal industry competitors out of the energy market — well, that’s something a bit different from addressing the climate crisis.

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Big Oil tries to rebrand itself as Big Gas

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By About 2020, We’ll Probably Finally Know Whether a $15 Minimum Wage Is a Good Idea

by JennaLazar Posted on May 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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So my near neighbor of Los Angeles is poised to raise the minimum wage to $15. How should we think of that?

Personally, I’m thrilled. Not because I think it’s a slam-dunk good idea, but because along with Seattle and San Francisco it will give us a great set of natural experiments to figure out what happens when you raise the minimum wage a lot. We can argue all we want; we can extrapolate from other countries; and we can create complex Greek-letter models to predict the effects—but we can’t know until someone actually does it.

So what do I think will happen? Several things:

In the tradeable sector, such as clothing piece work and agriculture, the results are very likely to be devastating. Luckily, LA doesn’t have much agriculture left, but it does have a lot of apparel manufacture. That could evaporate completely (worst case) or perhaps migrate just across the borders into Ventura, San Bernardino, and other nearby counties. Heavier manufacturing will likely be unaffected since most workers already make more than $15.

In the food sector, people still need to eat, and they need to eat in Los Angeles. So there will probably be little damage there from outside competition. However, the higher minimum wage will almost certainly increase the incentive for fast food places to try to automate further and cut back on jobs. How many jobs this will affect is entirely speculative at this point.

Other service industries, including everything from nail salons to education to health care will probably not be affected much. They pretty much have to stay in place in order to serve their local clientele, so they’ll just raise wages and pass the higher prices on to customers.

Likewise, retail, real estate, the arts, and professional services probably won’t be affected too much. Retail has no place to go (though they might be able to automate some jobs away) while the others mostly pay more than $15 already. The hotel industry, by contrast, could easily become less competitive for convention business and end up shedding jobs.

On the bright side, of course, a large number of low-income workers will see their wages rise. On the less bright side, the experience of Puerto Rico suggests that (a) employment losses could be as high as 9 percent, and (b) lots of low-wage workers will flee to other places.

So if I had to guess, I’d say that Los Angeles will see (a) less poverty for low-wage workers who keep their jobs, and (b) higher prices for middle-class consumers, who will end up paying for the minimum wage hike. Since the poor spend more than the middle-class, this could be a net stimulus for the LA economy. On the downside, we’re also pretty likely to see significant job losses. In other words, I agree with Adam Ozimek that we should not treat this as terra incognita just because it’s never been done before:

It’s true that the farther we go out of the historical sample, the more uncertain we are about the magnitude of the impact. But I think minimum wage advocates are taking the wrong message from this. After all, a $100 minimum wage would also be out of sample and subject to the same “we have no clue” and “can’t be on solid ground” statements from Dube and Neumark. But this uncertainty is all in the direction of more job losses. When you enter unprecedented minimum wage hike territory your uncertainty goes up, but so undeniably does your risk of job losses. The idea that a minimum wage hike being of an unprecedented magnitude creates neutral uncertainty is like someone drinking more beer than they ever have just being uncertain about what it will do to their driving ability.

So we’ll see. My own guess is that $15 is too high. I would have supported something in the $10-12 range for a city as large and basically prosperous as Los Angeles. But $15? There’s just too much uncertainty in a number that big, and the uncertainty almost all points in the direction of significant job losses.

But I could be wrong! We now have three cities that are jumping into the deep end of the minimum wage debate, and that will eventually tell us more than all the speculation in the world combined. Fasten your seat belts.

Original article – 

By About 2020, We’ll Probably Finally Know Whether a $15 Minimum Wage Is a Good Idea

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Here’s What Osama bin Laden Wrote About Climate Change

by Shirlee47R Posted on May 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday morning, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a trove of newly declassified documents discovered during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Among the many letters, videos, and audio recordings is an undated document apparently written by bin Laden discussing the “massive consequences” of climate change, a phenomenon he describes as having more victims than wars.

The newly released document is very similar in content and language to a recording released in 2010, in which the Al Qaeda leader expounded on climate change and criticized the international community’s lackluster relief efforts in response to flooding in Pakistan. The speech, about 11 minutes in length, was accompanied by a video compilation that included images of natural disasters and Bin Laden.

In the document, Bin Laden calls attention to the fate of Pakistani children, who, he says, had been “left in the open, without a suitable living environment, including good drinking water, which has exposed them to dehydration, dangerous diseases and higher death rates.” He also laments that “countries are annually spending 100 thousand million euros on their armies” while failing to address the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.

This was not the only time Bin Laden spoke about climate change. In a different letter between Bin Laden and senior Al Qaeda leaders—also seized during the 2011 raid and written about by Foreign Affairs in March—Bin Laden remarked on a study about climate change and asked his associates to send it Al Jazeera. In 2010, Al Jazeera obtained an audio recording of Bin Laden criticizing the “industrial states,” the United States among them, for contributing to climate change.

Read the full text of the undated letter below:

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Letter Implications of Climate Change (PDF)

Letter Implications of Climate Change (Text)

Link – 

Here’s What Osama bin Laden Wrote About Climate Change

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The Pipeline That Texans Are Freaking Out Over (Nope, Not Keystone)

by KianBittner Posted on May 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Earlier this year a couple of billionaires landed a nearly $770 million contract to run a 143-mile-long natural gas pipeline through Texas’s pristine Big Bend region. As of May 11, rail shipments of pipe had begun to arrive in Big Bend’s Fort Stockton area. This recent progress on the pipeline project is fueling pushback from locals who’ve been concerned about this project since it was announced in November 2014. Big Bend is one of Texas’ last unspoiled wilderness areas and one of few remaining holdouts in a state riddled with energy transmission pipelines and large-scale oil and gas activity. Fearing potential land grabs, increased traffic, and environmental desecration, locals have been mobilizing through town hall meetings and launching activist campaigns to oppose it.

What is the Trans-Pecos pipeline? At 42 inches wide and under 1,400 pounds of pressure per square inch, the Trans-Pecos pipeline will carry as much as 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day after its projected completion in early 2017. The gas will originate in Texas’s Permian Basin, travel the length of the pipeline to the border at Presidio, Texas, and Ojinaga, Mexico, where it will be piped further into Mexico for industrial use and power generation. The project was commissioned by the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) as part of the country’s push to modernize its energy systems.

A consortium that includes two energy companies, Mexico-based Carso and Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, won the contract to construct the pipeline in January. Carso is owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s second-richest man, who made his original fortune by charging Mexico’s phone customers monopoly prices, while levying some of the highest fees disproportionately on the poor.

ETP is led by Republican megadonor and multibillionaire Kelcy Warren of Dallas. In February, the company brought on former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the company’s Board of Directors to offer “strategic guidance to ETP’s executive management team,” according to a spokeswoman for the company. Even before that, Perry and Warren had ties: Perry has received at least $250,000 in campaign donations from Warren since 2011. ETP is also currently embroiled in a separate controversial pipeline project to transport crude from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to Illinois. The company is also facing claims that a representative from a subsidiary offered the services of a teenage prostitute to a landowner in exchange for letting ETP run the crude oil pipeline through his property. “We take these types of matters very seriously and are investigating further,” an ETP spokeswoman told KCRG of the claims.

What’s controversial about this project? ETP is running construction of the pipeline on the US side of the border, and Big Bend locals are frustrated with what they’re calling a lack of transparency from the company. Among their key complaints is confusion from ETP on which agency will provide regulatory oversight for the pipeline. This question hinges on whether the pipeline is designated as “interstate” or “intrastate.” The former means that the pipeline is crossing an international border, which would require a Presidential Permit, triggering more rigorous federal guidelines for the pipeline’s construction and operation. The latter, “intrastate,” would require a T-4 form from the Railroad Commission of Texas, the standard application for a permit to own and operate a pipeline through Texas.

Proposed route for the Trans-Pecos pipeline. ETP

Given current plans to have the gas transported into Mexico, some local activists argue that the pipeline should be designated interstate. But in mid-April, ETP hosted several “open house” meetings for Big Bend locals where they claimed the pipeline would be assigned the intrastate designation, and that the company had already applied for and received a T-4 permit from the Railroad Commission.

But a spokesperson for the Railroad Commission told Big Bend Now that’s not the case:

“The Railroad Commission’s pipeline safety jurisdiction applies only to intrastate pipelines that begin and end in Texas. The Energy Transfer flyer you provided me on this pipeline states the pipeline will terminate with an interconnect with a pipeline near Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, which means this is an interstate and international pipeline under the pipeline safety authority of the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and the U.S. Department of State. In short, their flyer is incorrect, and we are contacting the company to make a correction.”

The Railroad Commission did not respond to phone calls or emails from Mother Jones. In a recent email, Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners, says that only the small section of pipeline that crosses the international border requires a presidential permit, while the remaining 140-plus miles of pipeline across West Texas would fall exclusively under the Texas Railroad Commission’s authority.

How might this project affect the natural habitats? The Big Bend area is a geologically rich, wide-open expanse of mountains, desert, and ranch land; the nearby UNESCO biosphere reserve Big Bend National Park is home to 1,200 species of plants and scores of mammals, birds, reptiles, and other animal species. While the exact route isn’t yet known, the proposed direction shows the pipeline running through private ranch land, close to Big Bend Ranch State Park, and even closer to the Chinati State Natural Area, an undeveloped swath of land known for its diverse flora and fauna. In Texas, pipeline companies are legally allowed to use eminent domain to seize private land if an agreement isn’t reached with individual landowners. ETP’s Granado says that land condemnation is “always an option of last resort.”

But Big Bend is the kind of place where locals take private property seriously and have a distaste for outside interlopers. As local former justice of the peace and rancher Mary Luedeke told San Antonio Express-News, if “you go to talking about condemning something by eminent domain, you’ll get shot in this part of the country.” Anticipating a potential land grab, some locals have already sought legal counsel from San Angelo lawyer Joe Will Ross, who often handles eminent domain cases. (Citing his clients’ interests, Ross declined to comment for this story.)

More than anything, many locals object to what they see as a potential start to wider oil and gas activity in a region that has, up until now, managed to avoid it. “We don’t want the pipeline to impact the sanctity of this region,” says David Keller of Big Bend Conservation Alliance, which is organizing informational meetings on the pipeline for residents in affected counties. “If you go to Midlands just a couple hours north of here, it’s just an industrial wasteland, a sacrifice zone for the oil and gas industry. We see what that does to other communities,” he says, adding: “Big Bend is the last frontier of Texas. Wide-open spaces, beautiful open landscapes, antelope, all that, and we don’t want it to start getting industrialized.”

What’s next for the Trans-Pecos pipeline? Despite mounting opposition, ETP is laying the groundwork for construction, which they’ve announced will begin late this year or early 2016, with hopes of having natural gas flowing by 2017. The company has sent out land surveyors, one of whom was caught trespassing on a ranch; according to Granado, the rail shipments of pipe that began arriving in Big Bend this week will continue to do so through early July.

Correction: This article originally stated that the pipeline would run through public land areas.

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The Pipeline That Texans Are Freaking Out Over (Nope, Not Keystone)

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