Tag Archives: regional

Christie’s new woe: Court rules he illegally dumped climate protections

by IonaMartinelli Posted on March 26, 2014

Christie’s new woe: Court rules he illegally dumped climate protections

By

Gage Skidmore

As if New Jersey governor Chris Christie didn’t have enough problems!

A three-judge panel ruled Tuesday that Christie’s administration broke state law in 2011 when it withdrew New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

That’s because it didn’t bother going through any formal rulemaking procedures before pulling out of the carbon-cutting program. Instead, administration officials stated on a government website that the state wouldn’t participate in the program — and then argued in court that the online statement was sufficient public outreach under state law.

“The Christie administration sidestepped the public process required by law,” said Doug O’Malley of Environment New Jersey, one of two nonprofits that sued the government over its hasty withdrawal from RGGI, following Tuesday’s Superior Court ruling. “New Jerseyans support action to reduce the impacts of global warming. We hope that today’s ruling will help their voices be heard.”

The RGGI is a carbon-trading program that caps greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. The RGGI has sold about $1 billion worth of carbon pollution permits since 2009, reinvesting much of that money in clean energy and energy efficiency initiatives, resulting in estimated lifelong energy savings of about $2 billion — all the while cutting carbon pollution.

The ruling doesn’t automatically push New Jersey back into the RGGI, and it remains to be seen whether the state rejoins of the program.

“The court gave the administration 60 days to initiate a public process around any changes to the climate change pollution rules,” said attorney Susan Kraham, who represented the environmental groups. “Neither Governor Christie nor the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection can simply repeal state laws by fiat.”

Perhaps Christie could take a couple hours to quietly mull his anti-environmentalism, his opposition to the RGGI, and his faltering presidential aspirations during a leisurely drive in a Tesla over the George Washington Bridge.


Source
NJ Court: Gov. Christie Illegally Repealed Climate Change Pollution Rules, NRDC
Tuesday’s court ruling, Superior Court

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Christie’s new woe: Court rules he illegally dumped climate protections

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Scientists refuse to participate in silly Nebraska climate study

by anjunonstennyao Posted on October 25, 2013

Scientists refuse to participate in silly Nebraska climate study

By

J. Stephen Conn

How might climate change affect farming in Nebraska? Don’t expect a new state study to provide any useful answers.

Nebraska is looking for scientists to conduct a study into how climate change could affect the state, but climate scientists want nothing to do with it.

That’s because the legislation calling for the study limits its scope to “cyclical” climate change, whatever that is. State Sen. Beau McCoy (R), a climate denier and gubernatorial candidate, inserted the word “cyclical” into the bill before it was passed and signed into law this past spring.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists at [a Wednesday] meeting said they wouldn’t participate in the climate study if it excludes the influence of humans. Some said they wouldn’t be willing to ask others to consider doing the study, either.

Mark Svoboda, a climatologist with the university’s acclaimed National Drought Mitigation Center, said he would not be comfortable circulating a study proposal to his peers if it excluded the role of humans. …

Similarly, Martha Shulski, climatologist and director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center, [said] that the study’s scope will determine her staff’s potential involvement.

“If it’s only natural (causes), but not human, we would not be interested,” she said. …

“I don’t want my name on something … and be used as a political pawn,” Al Dutcher, Nebraska state climatologist, [said].

The author of the legislation that called for the study, state Sen. Ken Haar (D), had wanted it to examine all aspects of climate change, including the role of humans. Rejecting science and ignoring human involvement would make the state “look stupid,” he warned. “‛Let’s just embrace ignorance, and let our children deal with the consequences.’ That’s what that sounds like,” he said.


Source
State climate change study may go begging for scientists, Omaha World-Herald

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Scientists refuse to participate in silly Nebraska climate study

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Mighty mangroves shield Indian village from cyclone’s wrath

by JaimeLockett Posted on October 16, 2013

Mighty mangroves shield Indian village from cyclone’s wrath

By

Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava / Down to Earth

A Praharajpur fisherman sails past mangroves in the weeks before the cyclone hit.

Sometimes the best way of being protected from nature is by protecting nature itself — and a small coastal village in India is proof of it.

As Cyclone Phailin rose from the Bay of Bengal over the weekend, bringing gales and floods to India that killed 27, residents of Praharajpur did the sensible thing and got the hell out of dodge. As the villagers returned home, they discovered that a restored mangrove plantation helped shelter their vulnerable village from the storm’s wrath.

About 40 of the village’s 200 homes were damaged, but residents told Down to Earth that it would have been worse without the mangrove. “In the nearby Sundrikhal and Pentha village, most of the houses have been washed away,” villager Ravindra Behera told the Indian environmental magazine. “We are better off because the forest has taken the initial brunt of the storm.” From the article:

“Our elders had made an embankment along the coast to prevent soil erosion in 1975. They randomly planted mangrove trees on the embankment. Gradually, this plantation converted into a mangrove forest. However, it was during the 1982 cyclone that we realized that mangrove can also prevent the storm from reaching us,” said Balram Biswal, another resident.

Thereafter, the villagers aggressively started planting mangroves on the island and also made provisions in the village to protect the forests. “We constituted a 15-member forest protection committee from among the villagers. The body penalised anyone who damaged the forests in any possible way and a night guard was appointed and paid Rs 100 per night to protect the mangrove,” said Behera.

Today, a dense forest of tall mangrove trees stands between the sea and Praharajpur. Apart from a shield from cyclone, the residents also get wood, honey and fruits from the mangrove. “The story of Praharajpur has also inspired nearby villages to plant and protect mangroves coasts. We hope that the forest comes to their rescue as well,” said Suresh Bisoyi of non-profit Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC).

Scientists and village survivors alike tell us that mangroves and other coastal ecosystems can shield our cities and towns from rising seas and storm surges. Here’s hoping that coastal governors in the U.S. are paying attention, too.


Source
Mangrove may have saved this village from Phailin, Down to Earth

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Mighty mangroves shield Indian village from cyclone’s wrath

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A win-Winco situation: Grocery chain treats employees well and has low prices

by nowy24login12 Posted on August 14, 2013

A win-Winco situation: Grocery chain treats employees well and has low prices

By Claire Thompson

Alisha Vargas

There are eight WinCo grocery stores within 100 miles of where I live. So how had I not heard about the Boise, Idaho-based chain until now? Next time I find myself in need of groceries in Kent, Wash., I’ll be sure to swing by the chain that’s making headlines as “Walmart’s worst nightmare.”

Why should Walmart be wary of this company that’s virtually unknown to shoppers outside the seven states in which it operates (and apparently to some inside those states as well)? Because WinCo, employee-owned since 1985, has figured out how to keep prices low — like lower-than-Walmart low — while still managing to not screw over its employees. Anyone who works at least 24 hours a week gets full health benefits, and WinCo puts an amount equivalent to 20 percent of employees’ salaries into a pension plan. The store claims that more than 400 “front-line” workers — cashiers, clerks, and others working on the floor instead of behind closed office doors — have pensions worth at least $1 million. Maybe that’s why, according to the company, the average hourly worker stays for more than eight years.

How does WinCo do it? What is the magic formula that Walmart and McDonald’s can’t seem to grasp? Well, for one thing, WinCo is privately held, and thus free from the obligation to put shareholder profits before all else. “It keeps a low profile and rarely engages in self-promotion,” according to the Idaho Statesman. How quaint and modest!

Alisha Vargas

Balancing low prices and employee satisfaction should be natural.

WinCo saves a lot by maintaining low overheard. First and foremost, it cuts out the middleman by sending its trucks directly to manufacturers, where the store buys product in large quantities that can net it up to a 50 percent discount. Also in WinCo’s bag of tricks are simple strategies like not accepting credit cards (to avoid paying fees to card processors), requiring customers to bag their own groceries, and literally cleaning up after Walmart: Instead of building new warehouses of its own, WinCo will take over vacant big-box stores.

Unlike Costco, which also has a reputation for low prices, no-frills décor, and an investment in employee satisfaction, Winco doesn’t require a membership fee, making it even more accessible to budget shoppers. And it’s expanding. It started in 1967 as a single store in Boise. In 1985, when then-CEO Bill Long negotiated an employee buyout, there were 18 WinCo stores selling less than $11 million on average. By 2007, WinCo stores numbered more than 50, and today, its nearly 100 locations do about $55 million in sales each. It has plans to expand into Texas next.

New York retail analyst Burt Flickinger III, a grocery-market specialist, uses WinCo as an example in talks with university students, calling the regional chain “arguably … the best retailer in the western U.S.”

Of course, WinCo still has a long way to go before it truly presents a threat to Walmart’s 4,000 U.S. locations [PDF]. But it’s nice to be reminded that, no matter what the corporate bigwigs might tell you about how they just can’t possibly offer their employees a living wage, another way is possible.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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A win-Winco situation: Grocery chain treats employees well and has low prices

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Arctic summers could be nearly ice-free in seven years

by s4o840t Posted on June 6, 2013

Arctic summers could be nearly ice-free in seven years

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Say goodbye to this stuff.

Everybody get ready to grab your swimsuit and head north. The latest melting projections by government scientists suggest that the Arctic could be nearly ice-free during summer in seven years — or maybe even sooner.

But before you get all excited about the novelty of taking a dive into waters that once harbored year-round ice, we should warn you that the seven-year thing is a worst-case scenario. But even the best-case scenario published in a recent scientific paper projects that the summer ice will virtually disappear during the first half of this century.

(Also, we should warn you that the water will still be pretty damned cold, if not quite as cold as before. Also, you might get run over by a container ship. Or coated by an oil spill.)

There is substantial conjecture — and concern — over when the Arctic will finally lose its summertime coating of ice to the effects of climate change. Some scientists have previously suggested that it could happen by 2016.

So NOAA scientists recently used three common techniques for predicting when the summertime ice would disappear from everywhere in the Arctic, with the exception of Greenland and a spot just north of the Canadian Archipelago, and compared the results. Their methods: They extrapolated sea ice volume data; they assumed rapid melting events such as occurred last summer and in 2007 would occur again; and they used climate models.

“At present,” the scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, “it is not possible to completely choose one approach over another.” More from the paper:

The large observed shifts in the current Arctic environment represent major indicators of regional and global climate change. Whether a nearly sea ice-free Arctic occurs in the first or second half of the 21st century is of great economic, social, and wildlife management interest. There is a gap, however, in understanding how to reconcile what is currently happening with sea ice in the Arctic and climate model projections of Arctic sea ice loss.

The use of these different techniques resulted in forecasts of nearly ice-free summers sometime around 2020, or around 2030, or around 2040. Massive pool party y’all!

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Youngstown, Ohio, voters on fracking: “Yes, please”

by trasze2aja Posted on May 8, 2013

Youngstown, Ohio, voters on fracking: “Yes, please”

By John Upton

Jason Shenk

On Tuesday, voters in Youngstown, Ohio, gave the fracking industry carte blanche to continue pumping chemicals into the ground beneath them and pumping natural gas out.

A city charter amendment that would have outlawed hydraulic fracturing in the city was rejected by voters, with the unofficial final vote tally showing 3,821 votes against and 2,880 in favor. The ballot measure would also have banned new pipelines in the city and prevented oil-field waste from being transported through the city.

A fracking boom is underway in Ohio, especially in its east, where Youngstown is located. But the boom has not brought with it many jobs for Ohioans, despite promises otherwise, as most of the work is being done by specialists who’ve come in from other states. It has, however, brought with it water pollution problems.

Opposition to the ballot measure was spearheaded by a business-backed group calling itself Mahoning Valley Coalition for Job Growth and Investment. That group was formed especially to defeat the ballot measure, and it easily outspent the measure’s backers. In campaigning, the business group had described the ballot measure as unconstitutional, far-reaching, and unenforceable, and claimed it would send the wrong kind of message to the business community.

From the Youngstown Vindicator:

Susie Beiersdorfer, a member of the Community Bill of Rights Committee that supported the amendment, said, “It’s a sad day for democracy. With the resources we had, it was an incredible effort, but we were outspent by the opponents.”

But this isn’t the end for the committee, many of whom also are members of Frack Free Youngstown.

“We’re going to have to work a little harder the next time,” said Beiersdorfer, who also won the Green Party’s primary Tuesday for Youngstown council president. “We’ll be back. We’ll regroup and figure out what we’re doing. We’re going to continue to fight to protect health and public safety.”

“With tonight’s vote, the people of Youngstown have announced that the city is open for business,” Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber President Tom Humphries said in a statement after the votes were tallied. Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras said the results demonstrated “the voters had no sympathy for those who want to hold us back.”

The city is open alright — wide open and ready for the injection of fracking chemicals.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Electric vehicles could stabilize grid, make money as batteries

by Jonathan Cawley Posted on April 30, 2013

Electric vehicles could stabilize grid, make money as batteries

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Makin’ money.

Electric vehicles aren’t just cars that are cleaner to operate than internal combustion dinosaurs. They’re also powerful batteries on wheels. Andthat quality could spur EV owners to buy electricity at night, or operate their own solar panels or wind turbines, and store the excess energy in their cars. Then they could sell that electricity onto the grid from their parked vehicles during the day, when energy prices are highest.

The University of Delaware began working with NRG Energy in late 2011 to try to realize and commercialize that concept. Last week, the project hit a landmark: It has begun selling power from parked EVs into an energy market being developed by wholesale electricity dealer PJM.

From the New York Times:

A line of Mini Coopers, each attached to the regional power grid by a thick cable plugged in where a gasoline filler pipe used to be, no longer just draws energy. The power now flows two ways between the cars and the electric grid, as the cars inject and suck power in tiny jolts, and get paid for it. …

The possibilities of using electric cars for other purposes are being realized around the globe. Electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid Volt are generally not sold in the United States with two-way chargers that could feed back into the grid. But Nissan is offering a similar device in Japan that allows consumers to power their houses when the electric grid is down.

In the Delaware project, each car is equipped with some additional circuitry and a battery charger that operates in two directions. When the cars work with the grid, they earn about $5 a day, which comes to about $1,800 a year, according to Willett M. Kempton, a professor of electrical engineering and computing. He hopes that provides an incentive to make electric cars more attractive to consumers, and estimates that the added gadgetry would add about $400 to the cost of a car.

According to a press release, the Delaware project became “an official participant in the PJM’s frequency regulation market” on Feb. 27. “Since then, the project has been selling power services from a fleet of EVs to PJM, whose territory has 60 million people in the 13 mid-Atlantic states.”

The option to sell electricity to the grid from parked cars could be particularly attractive for fleet operators. But the idea would also be expected to spread to personal garages and parking spaces, providing some extra spark for EV marketing efforts.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Drought is taking a toll on the Texas beef industry

by rakil23 Posted on February 28, 2013

Drought is taking a toll on the Texas beef industry

By Susie Cagle

Where’s the beef? Well, it’s not in West Texas these days. It’s always been kind of dry and desolate, but the last two years of epic drought have taken a serious toll on the region, driving in tumbleweeds and driving out agriculture and related business.

Earlier this month, a West Texas Cargill cattle processing plant suspended operations, leaving about 2,300 residents of Plainview out of work, more than 10 percent of the town’s population. The company says it’s not a permanent closure, but let’s be real, Cargill: This is looking a lot like devastating dust-bowl economics, round two. From The New York Times:

Dozens of former plant workers have already moved, finding new jobs with the plant’s owner, Cargill, or other companies outside Plainview or outside the state, many pulling their children out of the town’s 12 public schools. When workers receive their last paychecks in three weeks, the question is whether they will stick around. And then, the more existential question, can the town survive without those who leave?

With fewer than 8,000 households in the city and hundreds of them set to leave (or already gone), schools could lose millions in funding, and the ghost-town effect could accelerate. The Amarillo Globe-News reports:

The shutdown and its ripple through the regional economy could mean an annual loss of $1.1 billion in economic activity, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Economist Steve Amosson predicted in January when Cargill made the closure announcement.

American cow-eating is pretty terrible for the planet — arguably this Cargill plant is suffering to some extent by its own hand. But that’s no consolation to the workers who are now struggling to make it in an even more dry, more desolate Plainview. The Times reports that every Saturday, residents and laid-off Cargill employees walk in a circle around the closed plant, praying for a miracle. Soo I’ll hold off on celebrating.

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Are San Francisco oysters a wilderness wrecker or a pollution solution?

by NielPostma231 Posted on February 13, 2013

Are San Francisco oysters a wilderness wrecker or a pollution solution?

By Susie Cagle

OrinZebest

The San Francisco Bay Area has been having some mixed feelings about oysters lately: Are they good for the environment, bad for the environment, or just treats for happy-hour drinkers at the downtown Ferry Building?

Just north of San Francisco in Point Reyes, Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has been fighting to keep harvesting oysters on what was set to become protected wilderness land on Jan. 1. Local environmentalists are split on whether fewer oysters will allow the estuary to “quickly regain its wilderness characteristics” or instead/also lead to a big unfiltered load of seal poop in that wilderness. (Wilderness: It’s kind of gross!)

Either way, we’ll soon find out, as Drakes Bay just lost its federal appeal to stay beyond a Feb. 28 deadline.

Meanwhile, some miles east across the bay on the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, Christopher Lim and the Watershed Project are bringing oysters back. The bay had a large native oyster habitat that was wiped out by overharvesting and hydraulic mining. From KQED:

“Oysters, I think, definitely have that connection to people whether it’s through food … (or) the history of oysters in San Francisco Bay,” Lim said. “Part of the reason we would like to restore oysters is because we know of their ecosystem benefits in the Bay, and they were probably here in much greater numbers in the past.” …

Olympias, the only oyster species native to the Bay, are smaller — around two inches long — than the larger and more fast-growing Pacific you probably ordered at a restaurant. Lim said he enjoys the taste of Olympia oysters, but he makes one thing clear.

“The oysters that we’re researching here … we’re not meaning for them to be eaten,” he said. “We’re doing it for the ecosystem benefits that oysters bring to the shoreline and to the subtidal habitat.”

The Bay Area has that Wild West pioneer spirit, though, Christopher Lim. All I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if you attract some rogue divers out there searching for a snack.

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As emissions drop, Northeast tightens its cap-and-trade system

by donseoo Posted on February 8, 2013

As emissions drop, Northeast tightens its cap-and-trade system

By Philip Bump

Congratulations to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, pronounced “Reggie,” like Archie Andrews’ obnoxious friend) on effectively reducing carbon pollution! Kind of!

RGGI, long-time readers may recall, is a marketplace for carbon emissions in the Northeast. It’s cap-and-trade, explained more fully here. A price is determined for a set amount of carbon allowances and fossil-fuel power plants buy those allowances. Because of a big drop in emissions from participating states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont – the total amount of allowed emissions will be reduced next year.

vincent desjardins

The Ravenswood plant in Queens.

From The New York Times:

The regional group proposed a 45 percent reduction next year in the total carbon dioxide emissions allowed. …

The reduction from 165 million tons is expected to raise the price of compliance, and further reductions of 2.5 percent annually were likely to increase the value of the allowances that utilities must submit for every ton of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent, that they emit.

If the proposal goes into effect, the analysis done by the group, which is a collaboration of nine states to cut carbon emissions, indicates that by 2020, allowances that are now trading at $1.93 could trade as high as $10. That would be roughly at the level where allowances for California’s new economy-wide cap-and-trade system were auctioned last fall.

Carbon dioxide emissions in participating states have been dropping, but not so much because of RGGI. Rather, it’s for the same reason they’re dropping everywhere in the U.S.: transition from coal to natural gas and increased use of renewables.

Cap-and-trade is all about supply and demand. If RGGI allows far more pollution credits than are needed, prices for those credits plummet and polluters don’t need to worry about emissions. Reducing the number of credits constrains pollution.

But, of course, conservatives are complaining. From the Union-Leader:

“It’s time to remove our state from this failed cap-and-trade program and take away this burden from New Hampshire individuals and small businesses,” said Corey R. Lewandowski, state director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, in a statement.

“Today’s proposal to significantly reduce the number of permits available demonstrates the failure of the RGGI program.”

And that statement demonstrates the failure of Americans for Prosperity — a group with deep ties to the fossil-fuel-loving Koch brothers — to have any understanding of basic economics. In the Archie universe, AFP would be Moose.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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