yahoonews--2019-02-26--Erin Brockovich blasts Trump over reckless careless environmental regulation rollbacks

Erin Brockovich blasts Trump over ‘reckless, careless’ environmental regulation rollbacks

“Through Her Eyes” is a new weekly half-hour show hosted by human rights activist Zainab Salbi that explores contemporary issues from a female perspective. You can watch the full episode of “Through Her Eyes” every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on Roku, or at the bottom of this article.  Erin Brockovich has never been afraid to take on the big guys, so why not the president of the United States?  Brockovich is calling out the Trump administration for rolling back dozens of environmental regulations, saying it would be a “disaster” to lose any more environmental protections.  “You’re playing with everybody’s lives. And I think it could be a fatal blow,” Brockovich said in an interview with the Yahoo News show “Through Her Eyes.”  Brockovich became a household name almost 20 years ago when Julia Roberts portrayed her on the big screen, dramatizing Brockovich’s David vs. Goliath-like fight against Pacific Gas & Electric over the company’s contamination of drinking water in Hinkley, Calif. The legal battle resulted in the largest direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history.  A tireless environmental and consumer advocate, Brockovich has now set her sights on Trump’s regulatory rollback.  “This is really reckless, careless behavior that has total disregard for the environment and the appreciation that water sustains our life and the future of our health,” Brockovich said of lifting regulations.  So far, the Trump administration has rescinded or scaled back 47 environmental regulations, and is aiming to eliminate 31 more.  Brockovich insists that climate change and the environment should “absolutely” be major issues in the 2020 presidential election, but says they shouldn’t be topics that divide candidates or voters along partisan lines.  “I don’t know why we should politicize water and our health,” she exclaimed. “Every single human being on this planet needs water to survive. How could we possibly define humanity based on whether you’re a liberal or a conservative?”  Since Brockovich’s victory over PG&E, the company has twice filed for bankruptcy. PG&E currently faces another class-action lawsuit that alleges their faulty equipment and negligence played a role in the wildfires that recently devastated communities in California.  “This is a company that has failed miserably at keeping their antiquated system up to date,” Brockovich said. “I don’t know where we’ve missed a step here and not seen that this company was bound to do this again and again and again.”  Reached for comment, PG&E told Yahoo News that it “continues to assess” its infrastructure.  “The families impacted by the recent devastating wildfires are our customers, our neighbors and our friends,” the company said in a written statement. “Our hearts go out to those who have lost so much, and we remain focused on supporting them through the recovery and rebuilding process.”  The fire that wreaked havoc in and around Paradise, Calif., killed 85 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Last week, the company canceled $130 million in bonuses to employees, saying it couldn’t justify those payments when fire victims were still suffering. The cause of the fire, as well as PG&E’s role, remains under investigation.  Brockovich, however, has already seen enough from PG&E to render her own judgement. “Do we wait until they kill more people?” she asked.


wnd--2019-11-12--Now environmentalists take aim at kitchens to save the planet

(BREITBART) -- Environmentalists in California are willing to let the state dictate how they cook in their own kitchens in an attempt to save the planet.  Thirteen cities and one county in California have put in place zoning codes encouraging or requiring all-electric new construction, virtually banning builders from running natural gas lines into homes and apartments to fuel appliances, including stoves and ovens.  USA Today reported that people believe the move is necessary to fight climate change “with an eye toward creating fewer legacy gas hookups as the nation shifts to carbon-neutral energy sources.”


windowoneurasiablog--2019-12-26--Environmental Protests in Russia Sparks Talk about a New Green Party but Forming One Won’t Be Easy,

Environmental Protests in Russia Sparks Talk about a New Green Party but Forming One Won’t Be Easy, Expects Say

Staunton, December 24 – Environmental protests across the Russian Federation would seem to be the basis for the formation of a new green party especially since the major systemic parties have not adopted ecological protection as a major issue, but creating such a party, experts say, faces enormous obstacles and thus is unlikely to happen.  His comments were echoed by opposition politicians and experts at a meeting earlier this month in Shiyes where Yevgeny Royzman, former Yekaterinburg mayor, and Marina Litvinovich, a rights activist, argued that the environment is already affecting politics and that a new party could emerge on that basis.  As Voytenko notes, “the idea of establishing an ideological party” isn’t new. There is already a Green Party, but it hasn’t reached out to the protesters. URA news reports that “according to unconfirmed information, the Presidential Administration” is thinking about reorganizing it so that it could draw off protesters from other opposition parties.  The poll Voytenko’s group commissioned shows there is real support for doing something about the environment. More than a third of the population across the country views the ecological situation in the regions where it lives as bad. Women, those with higher educations and those in cities are especially critical.  Residents of Siberia and the Far East are the most critical while those in the North Caucasus FD and the Volga FD are the least, a reflection less of where the problems really are than of media coverage, URA suggests. The fact that environmental concerns are greatest in the cities gives those who would create a new party an advantage: their supporters are concentrated.  But a major problem is that concern about the environment is lower in the two capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, than elsewhere, although even in them, “about 60 percent” say they are worried about environmental contamination. That limits the chances that an environmental party arising in the regions would be able to link up with party organizations in the capital.  There are far greater obstacles to the emergence of such a party, however, according to Voytenko and other experts. To address environmental problems, they say, one must focus on the actions of specific industries, many of which have powerful supporters in the Kremlin and at least some of whom provide employment for people who would like a cleaner environment.  A real environmental party could emerge given the declining support for those who talk only in general ideological terms, URA concludes; but there are two serious limiting factors: there isn’t any specific individual or group pushing the idea in Moscow and there isn’t the political “space” for a new green party at the federal level.  Unless that changes, the prospects for forming any new and effective environmental party in Russia will remain small.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-12-10--Massive Anti-Trash Protests in Russian North Reflect Fears Shiyes ‘Only Start of Environmental Catas

Massive Anti-Trash Protests in Russian North Reflect Fears Shiyes ‘Only Start of Environmental Catastrophes’

Staunton, December 8 – Because even the cities in the Russian North are small, it is sometimes difficult to know what the numbers of participants in demonstrations mean. But today, 10,000 people – or one in every six residents of Kotlas – marched to protest Shiyes and other Russian government plans to dispose of Moscow’s trash in the region.  Those take part in the protest there and in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic, were animated not only by a desire to express their support for those who have been standing against plans to build a dump for Moscow’s wastes in Shiyes but also by fears that Shiyes is only the first of Moscow’s plans to turn the North into a waste dump.  Given how cold it is in the Russian North in December where it is already deep in winter, it is truly impressive that so many people have come out. That should serve as a warning to officials in Moscow that Northerners are not going to roll over and play dead as Moscow goes about destroying their environment.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-12-06--‘Forgetting Their Fears,’ 17 Russian Rights and Environmental Groups Form Civic Coalition

Staunton, December 3 – Like all authoritarian states, the Putin regime relies on fear to keep the population in line. When its actions however vicious and cruel fail to instill fear, that regime like others in the past will be in serious trouble. There are growing indications that, as one activist put it this week, that Russians are “forgetting their fears.”  The new movement will not have the status of a legal person, Ponomaryev says, thus limiting the ability of the Russian state to use the legal system against it. He said many groups are ready to join the coalition, including For Human Rights, Russia’s Choice, Citizen and the Army, prisoner defense groups, and environmental activists like those at Shiyes.  “Russia is in the process of transformation,” Ponomaryev continues, “and the task of the rights activists is to be an intermediary between the powers and society. We see that society is now exercised” on more and more issues. And the new coalition will allow them to cooperate, support one another and share information.  Valery Borshchev of the Moscow Helsinki Groups adds that the formation of this coalition is one of the few bright spots in what has been “a most difficult even catastrophic year” for rights groups. Such organizations are “under threat” both directly through official pressure and by the regime’s creating Potemkin-like alternatives it controls.  But the Helsinki Group activist said that “the roots of the human rights movement in Russia are too deep for the powers that be to destroy and weaken them.”  Perhaps the most noteworthy development was the attendance at the meeting of environmental activists from the regions, people who have only rarely directly cooperated with Moscow rights activists. Among them was Dmitry Sekushin who has been part of the Shiyes anti-trash protests in Arkhangelsk Oblast.  He called the meeting of environmentalists and rights activists “a signal event. That we now will formally unite is the right move. We are already supported by several dozen regional environmental activists, organizations and meetings, and in the near future, we are planning our common work and coordinating our actions.”  “We need an exchange of experience because each of the regional environmental activists and movements has its own specific baggage of knowledge,” Sekushin said, adding that he and his colleagues are aware that by engaging in such actions, they may be putting themselves at risk of punishment by the state.  “But we are speaking about the health and lives of our children, and therefore people are forgetting their fears.”


windowoneurasiablog--2019-10-28--As if Russia Didn’t have Enough Environmental Problems, Moscow Boosts Imports of Nuclear Waste, Gree

As if Russia Didn’t have Enough Environmental Problems, Moscow Boosts Imports of Nuclear Waste, Greenpeace Says

Staunton, October 24 – Despite a 2009 promise that it would not take in more nuclear wastes from abroad ( , Moscow will be taking in from Europe more than 12,000 tons of uranium tailings over the next several years, a profitable but  While the environmental organization says that most of the materials involved have relatively low concentrations of U-235 and while Europe now is more interested in having these materials stored rather than reprocessed, this latest action is certain to provoke increasingly environmentally conscious Russians.  The materials now to be imported are of sufficiently low dose, Valentin Gibalov, a Russian specialist on atomic energy, says, that they are more of a threat chemically than in terms of radiation and even that is minimal. But he expresses concern that the procedures for storing the materials may not be included in the contract, which remains unpublished.  Most likely, the imported uranium will be stored in containers of the same kind as Russia stores its own nuclear tailings; but these in many cases date to the 1950s, are kept outdoors, and are subject to deterioration, a pattern the Presidential Human Rights Council warned about in February 2019 ( president-sovet.ru/documents/read/664/  Gibalov says that the company involved in the imports, Urenco, has not done itself any favors by its opaque approach to the problems that do exist. A more open approach would calm Russians rather than lead to rumors and speculation that could trigger protests. Those are now increasingly likely in the current environment where Russians are demonstrating against dumps.  Vladmir Slivyak, vice president of the environmental activist group Ekozashchita which led ecological protests in 2004 to 2009, describes the latest move to import nuclear wastes from Europe as “cynical and amoral” and shows that the Russian authorities once again are putting profit before the welfare of the Russian people.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-10-19--Kremlin Mulls Creation of a Green Party to Capture Environmentalists and Defeat the KPRF

There is already a small Green Party in Russia headed by Oleg Mitvol, who earlier served in the Putin regime as head of the government’s environmental protection agency, but as he and others admit, it has little power and few prospects to emerge as a challenger in the upcoming Duma elections.  And while it is a good thing that the Presidential Administration is focusing on environmental concerns, Mitvol says, it is far from clear whether it could organize such a party effectively given that the Putin regime continues to insist that there are environmental problems throughout the world but not in Russia.  Changing its own message would work better for the Kremlin than creating yet another party.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-04-13--In Russian North Environmental Activism Becomes Political and Now Affects Ever Hotter Issues

In Russian North, Environmental Activism Becomes Political and Now Affects Ever Hotter Issues

Staunton, April 12 – Protests in the Russian north against Moscow’s degradation of the environment of their regions by its incautious development of an environmentally sensitive region and its plans to make things worse by disposing of trash from the capital there are becoming the trigger for broader and more political protests.  But while trash protests have attracted more media attention, environmental activism in the North has now focused on one issue that is far more immediately important to officials in the Russian capital – the disposal of nuclear waste products.  Yury Tyutrin, a local resident who edits the Khantanga website, says, that people are rising in revolt over these plans and “thank God for that.” Russia doesn’t need these rare earth minerals: they are being produced only to make money by export; and those who are doing that are doing so “at the expense of our health and the health of our children.”  He adds that residents, having had their fears confirmed by specialists, are “to speak honestly, now in a state of panic and shock.” They are also infuriated by the Russian firm’s effort to frighten them into silence by saying the town won’t exist at all if it doesn’t agree to have these waste disposal sites on its territory.  “Khatanga has been standing for almost 400 years,” Tyutrin says. “We have a port and air connections always have worked normally.” We can survive without these dumps. Indeed, he suggests, residents will be better off because they are less likely to sicken and die.  Residents are also upset that no one will take responsibility for saying that the company can put the wastes there, Gennady Shchukin, the head of the Association of Social Movements of the Indigenous Numerically Small Peoples of the North of Taymyr’s Dolgano-Nenets district. And they fear that as a result, bad things will happen and no one will stop them.  The experience of Sakha is both instructive and frightening in that regard. Olga Timofeyeva-Tereshkina, head of the Association of the Dolgans of Sakha, says that places in her area were forced to accept such nuclear wastes and now people are dying at 50 of leukemia and other former of cancer.  To prevent that from happening or at least happening without their views going on the record, residents of Khatanga plan to conduct a referendum on whether they approve such disposal locations. Activists say they expect pressure against them to increase over the five to six months it will take to prepare that effort.  But they have no confidence that meetings with the Russian company involved will lead to a positive outcome; and they hope that their efforts at direct democracy will attract the kind of broader attention that the firm will not be able to avoid. No one should die of cancer so that a company can make a profit.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-02-23--For Environmental and Security Reasons Moscow Must Combat Emptying Out of Rural Areas Economist Sa

For Environmental and Security Reasons, Moscow Must Combat Emptying Out of Rural Areas, Economist Says

Staunton, February 23 – At the present time, Andrey Gudkov says, two-thirds of Russia is virtually unpopulated, and with both demographic decline in adjoining regions, even more of the country’s territory will almost completely empty of people, with both the environmental and security risks that entails.  If there are no people in these regions, there will be no one to raise the alarm if there are problems; and there are going to be more such because it is precisely in these un- and under-populated regions where “processes connected with global warming are actively occurring, Gudkov points out.  “Perhaps,” he says, Russia doesn’t need to boost its overall population; but it very much does need to increase “the size of the population of particular regions.” Unfortunately, the economist continues, “demographic policy in Russia is supported less well than in many countries of Europe.”  For example, the Russian government does not have a program to support demographic development “at the level of municipalities.” And yet it is precisely there that Russia should be devoting its greatest efforts.  Vladimir Putin talks regularly about boosting the birthrate and extending life expectancy, but he rarely seems opposed in any way to rapid urbanization and rural depopulation. His health and education “optimization” programs have closed enormous numbers of hospitals and schools in rural areas – and contributed to the more rapid emptying out of the countryside.  Promoting a Russia of the cities (“agglomerzations”) is normally associated with Andrey Kudrin, but in actual fact, although Gudkov does not talk about it here, Putin by his actions or inactions is doing as much to make that image of Russia a reality, a trend that as the economist warns will involve significant collateral damage.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-01-29--Unresolved Environmental Problems Driving Down Russian GDP by Four to Six Percent a Year

Staunton, January 28 – Moscow talks a lot about addressing environmental problems, adopted a national strategy, and has spent billions of rubles on environmental cleanup efforts. But it has not put a serious dent in the problem; and contaminated air, land and water is harming the health and well-being millions of Russians and driving down GDP by six percent annually.  Almost 20 million Russians currently live in cities with high levels of air pollution, according to officials; and as many as 40 percent of the population often drink water that does not meet health standards. Both of these threaten public health and the country’s demographic future (  Perhaps even more serious as far as the Kremlin is concerned, experts say, is the fact that the country’s environmental problems are hampering economic growth, reducing GDP growth by four to six percent a year, effectively ensuring that unless Russia enters a new boom, its GDP figures will be negative or only slightly positive because of the environment.  More serious still, at least in prospect, is that environmental protests are spreading from a relatively small cadre of environmentalists to large portions of the population upset by the government’s decision to ship trash from Moscow to the regions without asking the latter’s approval.  Demonstrations in Moscow oblast have forced the government to go slow with its trash disposal plans there, and protests across the Russian north appear to be having the same consequence. If the situation deteriorates further and if it becomes clear to more people that Moscow can’t or won’t address it, these protests could become political.  That is what happened at the end of Soviet times, especially in the Baltic countries where environmental and historical preservation movements, at least nominally legal, grew into political movements that challenged Soviet rule and eventually helped to end the Soviet occupation of the three.  One of the closest observers of the beginning of this process in Estonia and subsequently a direct participant, Mari-Ann Kelam, has just given an interview to Region.Expert in which she outlines the ways in which “ecology can strongly influence politics.” It should be required reading by those in Moscow who aren’t dealing with this problem now (  Moscow’s plan to mine phosphates in Estonia in an environmentally sensitive area, “really stimulated demonstrations and acts of protest in Estonia,” the Estonian-American who now lives in Tallinn, says. It was far from the only issue but it was an important one because it was the kind of issue people could raise for a long time without getting in trouble.  There are certain parallels with the Estonian situation in the 1980s and Russia know concerning the environment. But there are important differences. Perhaps the most important is that Estonians directly attacked the system and its leadership for their problems while Russians so far have focused their criticism against local officials.  Moreover, given Russia’s size, it is far more difficult for activists to make contact with one another than it was in Estonia. That makes a truly national protest in Russia far more difficult than was the case in Estonia, but each protest can be a first step in that direction, something the Kremlin should remember.


westernjournal--2019-11-05--Trump Administration Scales Back Obama-Era Environmental Regulation

The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed regulation on Monday that would give coal-fired power plants additional time to comply with two different Obama-era rules.  The proposal would modify a 2015 rule that required utilities to clean coal ash and toxic heavy metals from wastewater before disposing of it.  Coal ash waste is sometimes stored in unlined pits or ponds near power plants, and dangerous heavy metals can seep into groundwater and waterways.  The Clean Water Rule of 2015 also established Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Pretreatment Standards that limited wastewater discharges into surface waters and wastewater treatment plants.  The EPA proposed giving the facilities until Aug. 31, 2020, to come into compliance with this Coal Combustion Residuals rule and until the end of 2028 to implement new wastewater disposal standards, Reuters reported.  TRENDING: Gov. Cuomo Says 'Good Riddance' to Trump Leaving NY, Don Jr. Responds with Savage Takedown  Although the Trump administration had delayed these rules, the formal proposal from the EPA became necessary after a 2018 court decision overturned some of the 2015 EPA’s provisions.  “Today’s proposed actions were triggered by court rulings and petitions for reconsideration on two 2015 rules that placed heavy burdens on electricity producers across the country,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement.  “We are providing both at the same time in order to provide more certainty to the American public,” he said. “These proposed revisions support the Trump Administration’s commitment to responsible, reasonable regulations by taking a commonsense approach, which also protects public health and the environment.”  The EPA said its proposal would take a “flexible, phased-in implementation approach” to the rule.  The agency estimated that the plan would save utilities over $175 million a year and reduce the number of pollutants discharged in water by approximately 105 million pounds per year compared with the Obama-era rules.  “We applaud the Trump EPA’s latest efforts to protect coal mining and the livelihoods of those who depend on its success in West Virginia,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said, according to the EPA release. “The proposed regulations will improve the regulatory burden on the coal industry and lower the cost of electricity for West Virginians.”  Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Charles Snavely added that the guidelines “enable states to develop a workable regulatory framework for coal combustion residuals and effluent guidelines while still protecting the environment.”  However, Thomas Cmar, an attorney for environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said the EPA is “allowing the power industry to continue dumping toxic contaminants in our waterways at the expense of public health,” according to The Associated Press.  RELATED: Former California Gov. Jerry Brown Blames Trump and Republicans for Wildfires  “Instead of taking the data into account and recognizing these rules need to be made stronger, this administration has been turning a blind eye to the facts,” Cmar said, according to Reuters.  The EPA said it will be holding two 60-day public comment periods on the proposals and a virtual public hearing for each of the new rules.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


westernjournal--2019-02-06--Wood Instead of Coal More Foolishness from Radical Environmentalists

Wood Instead of Coal: More Foolishness from Radical Environmentalists

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washingtonpost--2019-12-09--The Energy 202: Majority of U.S. states slashed environmental budgets over past decade, new study fi

The Energy 202: Majority of U.S. states slashed environmental budgets over past decade, new study finds

The Trump administration has promised to give individual states more power to set their own strategies for curbing air and water pollution.  But states may not be up to the job: A whopping 30 states have cut their environmental budgets over the past decade, a new study found.  And it's raising concerns among environmental advocates about whether states have enough resources to stop polluters.  "The bottom line is it's past time to give both the U.S. EPA and state agencies the resources they need to enforce our environmental laws," said Eric Schaeffer, head and co-founder of the Environmental Integrity Project, which conducted the analysis of anti-pollution programs in the Lower 48 states published late last week.  Half of all U.S. states cut their budgets for environmental programs by more than 10 percent when adjusted for inflation between 2008 to 2018, the study found. During that decade-long stretch, state environmental protection agencies shed more than 4,400 jobs. The analysis only looked at state-level programs combatting pollution, and did not include those that manage wildlife or state parks.  In Pennsylvania, during a decade of growth in natural gas production in the Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania, state officials slashed funding for pollution control efforts by 16 percent even as the overall state budget grew by 18 percent.  And in Texas, which saw a similar boom in oil and gas extraction in the Permian Basin in the western half of the state, lawmakers cut funding at its Commission of Environmental Quality by 35 percent even as overall state spending grew by 41 percent.  “I knew there had been some cuts, but even I was alarmed to see” the report, said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas.  The findings are especially significant given leaders at the federal Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump have said they want to grant states more enforcement responsibilities and then support them when needed.  Environmental advocates have argued that shifting responsibility to the state amounts to a retreat on pollution prevention, but Trump officials refer to this concept as “cooperative federalism.”  “Cooperative federalism is a cornerstone of the administrator’s approach,” Andrew Wheeler said during his 2017 nomination hearing to become the EPA's second-ranking officer under then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. (Wheeler became agency head after Pruitt stepped down the following year.) “We must work cooperatively with the states to ensure that the environment and public health are both protected.”  When asked about the cuts to state environmental spending, the EPA said in a statement that it is "fully committed to fulfilling our mission of protecting human health and the environment and working closely with our state, local, and tribal partners."  The cuts came as many states fell under Republican control after the tea-party wave election of 2010. The steepest decline in environmental funding occurred in Wisconsin under the budgetary knife of then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who was first elected that year.  But blue states were not spared as lawmakers sought to tighten belts after the Great Recession. New York cuts its environmental spending by nearly a third over the decade, while Illinois slashed funding for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency by a quarter over that same period.  “Clearly, the recession had some impact,” said Schaeffer, who previously served as director of EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement. “Interestingly, for some states, because of the federal stimulus package, there was actually a flood of money in 2010-11.”  One of the few states to significantly increasing its environmental spending since 2008 was California. The nation's most populous state almost doubled funding for the California Environmental Protection Agency over the decade, from $2.4 billion to $4.2 billion, to both implement a new recycling law and launch a cap-and-trade program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  But when it comes to California specifically, the Trump administration has been less keen on protecting states' rights. It's been more interested in asserting federal supremacy rather than allowing the big blue state to pursue pollution standards more aggressive than those of the federal government.  In September, the EPA revoked California’s long-standing authority to set stricter air pollution standards for cars and light trucks. The agency has even accused California of “failing to meet its obligations” to protect the environment because of the large homeless populations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  “It’s a terrible situation — that’s in Los Angeles and in San Francisco,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that month.  “They have to clean it up,” he added. “We can’t have our cities going to hell.”  — Trump taking on “elements of bathrooms”: Trump told reporters he has called on the EPA to look into water efficiency standards and low water pressure in sinks, showers and toilets. • What Trump said: “We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on — in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water,” he said. “ You turn on the faucet; you don’t get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It’s dripping out — very quietly dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water. So, EPA is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion.” • Trump also renewed his attack on energy-efficient lightbulbs: again criticized energy-efficient bulbs, saying that old-fashioned and energy-intensive bulbs were more flattering. “They got rid of the lightbulb that people got used to. The new bulb is many times more expensive,” he said . “And I hate to say it, it doesn't make you look as good. Of course, being a vain person, that's very important to me. It gives you an orange look. I don't want an orange look.”  — A glimpse of Pete Buttigieg’s work at McKinsey: The presidential candidate released a “summary” of his work at consulting firm McKinsey and Co. It included an outline of seven projects that included one examining “opportunities to sell more energy-efficient products for a ‘consumer goods retail chain,’” The Post’s Chelsea Janes reports. He also worked on a project co-sponsored in part by the EPA and Energy Department to find ways to address climate change with energy efficiency. In yet another project, he worked separately with an environmental nonprofit to research renewable energy. • But is this disclosure enough? Buttigieg worked at the consulting giant for 2 1/2 years and has faced calls for more transparency around his work there. “In a statement issued by his campaign Friday evening, the South Bend, Ind., mayor also reiterated his request to McKinsey and Co. to free him from the confidentiality agreement that prevents him from disclosing further details,” Janes adds.  — PFAS provisions pulled from NDAA: Provisions to regulate a dangerous class of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” — have been taken out of the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters that negotiations were essentially complete, the Hill reports. “The House-passed version of the NDAA would have forced the cleanup of PFAS under the Superfund law and would have directed the EPA to set a maximum contaminant level,” per the report. PFAS provisions had recently emerged as a roadblock in negotiations over the bill. • What happened: House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) nixed a bipartisan deal on the issue, E&E News reports, even after months of negotiations and a threat from Pelosi not to bring the annual defense authorization bill to the House floor without PFAS provisions. "This week, Democrats and Republicans were finally close to a good deal on PFAS provisions, but in a rush to quickly pass the NDAA, [Armed Services] Chairman [Adam] Smith [D-Wash.] — at the behest of Rep. Pallone — unilaterally took PFAS off the negotiating table," according to a source familiar with the NDAA negotiations. • What’s next: If the final NDAA addresses PFAS, it will include a Senate version which would “give the military until 2023 to stop using firefighting foam containing PFAS — however, ships are exempt from this — and require military firefighters to undergo testing for the chemicals during physicals. The Senate's version would also allocate $10 million to the research and development of a firefighting foam that is free from the toxic chemicals,” per E&E.  — Another House climate bill expected: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters she expects the House Select Committee Climate Crisis to make a policy recommendation that will lead to another major climate change bill ahead of the 2020 election. “It's been an open question for months whether Democrats would hold a vote on broad decarbonization legislation, given the potential political risks and that Republicans still control the Senate,” E&E News reports. “Pelosi offered no specifics this morning about what potential broad legislation would look like or how House leaders would reconcile work in various committees.” • To quote: “That is the purpose of the Select Committee, not just to be an academic endeavor, but to report to the legislative committees so that we can act upon it and build along the way, in the public, the fact that Congress is acting," Pelosi said.  — Perhaps the strictest ban on single-use plastics in the U.S.: The Honolulu City Council voted 7 to 2 to pass a bill to prohibit businesses and restaurants from using plastic utensils, plastic straws and polystyrene foam food containers on Hawaii’s most populated island, HuffPost reports. Nearly 70 percent of the state’s resident’s live on Oahu, where the single-use plastic ban will take effect in phases.  — Oceans are losing oxygen: A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature found the oxygen levels in oceans worldwide dropped 2 percent between 1960 and 2010, the New York Times reports. And climate change is largely to blame. • Why it’s important: “This loss of oxygen in the ocean is significant enough to affect the planetary cycling of elements such as nitrogen and phosphorous which are ‘essential for life on Earth,’ [report editor Dan Laffoley] said …. Warming temperatures also affect the ability of ocean water to mix, so that the oxygen absorbed on the top layer doesn’t properly get down into the deeper ocean. And what oxygen is available gets used up more quickly because marine life uses more oxygen when temperatures are warmer.”  — PG&E reaches multibillion-dollar wildfire settlement: The company said it reached an approximately $13.5 billion settlement to pay to victims of the devastating wildfires that killed dozens and destroyed homes. “The massive settlement could compensate tens of thousands of victims who have had to recover and rebuild after losing homes, businesses and loved ones in the blazes,” The Post’s Derek Hawkins reports. “It would also mark a step forward in the beleaguered utility’s attempts to emerge from bankruptcy in the coming months.” • The reaction: “We are pleased that PG&E has finally admitted that the victims’ losses exceed $13.5 billion, and that PG&E is responsible,” Robert Julian, a lawyer from the firm BakerHostetler representing the victims, said in a statement. • What this means for the company: “PG&E said the latest deal would put it on a path to emerge from bankruptcy by June 30, the deadline to participate in a fund created by the state legislature that California utilities will use to pay for future wildfires linked to their equipment,” Hawkins writes. “ … Even if the settlement is approved, however, PG&E will still have to reconcile with a frustrated and distrustful public and government officials who want to rein the company in.”  — What happened when a Boston suburb tried to block new oil and gas hookups: Brookline, Mass. became the first municipality on the East Coast to ban gas hookups in new construction projects starting in 2021, “a move proponents say will help the suburb of 58,000 people achieve its ambitious goal of zeroing out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” HuffPost reports. It was an effort that the fossil fuel industry tried to spoil at the last minute. Still, other communities probably will follow suit. • Why it’s notable: “The behind-the-scenes effort in [Brookline] is part of a growing industry push to thwart municipal gas regulations, which are becoming increasingly common as local governments look to do their part to combat global climate change,” per the report. • The House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Energy holds a hearing on research and innovation to address the critical materials challenge on Tuesday. • The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on the upcoming implementation of the International Maritime Organization’s new global sulfur standard for marine fuels on Tuesday. • None on the U.S. Coast Guard Arctic strategic outlook on Thursday.  —"One of the most precious and important fossil sites in the world”: Christina Chung illustrated the art to accompany this piece by The Post’s Sarah Kaplan on the Burgess Shale, a massive Canadian fossil trove. “Weirdness seems to be the defining characteristic of Burgess Shale organisms,” Kaplan writes.


washingtonpost--2019-11-25--The Energy 202: Bloomberg touts environmental record in 2020 announcement

It's official: Mike Bloomberg is running for president. And he is about to spend millions of dollars to tout the millions of dollars he has already spent combating President Trump and the coal industry.  The former New York mayor, who is one of the richest people in the world, entered the crowded 2020 Democratic primary on Sunday after weeks of teasing a self-financed campaign. He unrolled a multipronged pitch to voters that included trumpeting his extensive environmental philanthropy since stepping down as mayor in 2013.  In a campaign video released Sunday previewing the issues he will focus on in the race, a narrator notes how Bloomberg both “stood up to the coal lobby” and to “the outright denial of this administration” on climate change.  Those lines appear to refer to at least two past spending endeavors by Bloomberg: The more than $100 million he put into the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign to press for the closure of coal plants, and a grant of nearly $6 million in 2017 into a New York University School of Law center helping state attorneys general challenge the Trump administration's rollback of environmental rules.  When it comes to campaigning for the Democratic nomination, that spending is both a blessing and a curse. Bloomberg has real bona fides in the environmental movement for his philanthropy, but his candidacy comes at a moment when many Democratic voters are deeply skeptical of the power billionaires wield in politics.  To that point: Bloomberg's campaign team is dropping more than $30 million to reserve television advertising to launch his last-minute bid. That sum is on top of his jaw-dropping $100 million ad campaign in key battleground states targeting Trump exclusively.  One of Bloomberg's rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said in a statement he was "disgusted by the idea that Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire thinks they can circumvent the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy our elections."  Bloomberg has butted heads with the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party before. When Barack Obama was in office, he irked some environmentalists by praising natural gas as a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewable sources. And more recently, he criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) Green New Deal as politically unrealistic.  So far, the Bloomberg campaign has focused on what the former mayor has already done on climate change — not what he would do if president. Bloomberg's newly refurbished campaign website claims his data-driven mayoral administration reduced New York's carbon footprint by 14 percent, planted 800,000 trees and added 850 acres to parks.  — Storming the field: Hundreds of climate change protesters poured onto the field at halftime of the Harvard-Yale football game on Saturday, holding signs and chanting “OK boomer." • The scene: The game was delayed for nearly an hour, and players from both teams joined the demonstrations in a “showstopping escalation,” The Post’s Jacob Bogage and Hannah Knowles report. “Protesters sat at the 50-yard line at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn., arms linked and chanting, as banners echoed calls for urgent change championed by lawmakers and activists around the country.” • What they wanted: More substantively, students from both universities want the schools to both divest their endowments from the fossil fuel industry and to forgive debt owed by hurricane-hit Puerto Rico. • 2020 candidates weigh in: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro and billionaire activist Tom Steyer each tweeted out their support of the protest.  — Trump vs. California: Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the move to rescind California’s waiver to set its own vehicle emissions standards. • Their argument: “EPA doesn’t have the authority to withdraw a waiver, and, even if it did, none of the justifications put forth stand up to scrutiny,” Mike Landis, an attorney for Environment America, said in a statement. Environment America was one of 11 groups to file the lawsuit alongside the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and others. The lawsuit follows a similar legal action from California and other states.  — EPA bans consumer use of chemical found in paint stripper: The Environmental Protection Agency’s ban on consumer sales of methylene chloride, a toxic chemical used in paint and coating strippers, went into effect on Saturday. Numerous major retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes, have already banned products containing the chemical. “EPA’s action keeps paint and coating removers that contain the chemical methylene chloride out of consumers’ hands,” EPA chief Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “It is against the law to sell or distribute methylene chloride for paint and coating removal in the retail marketplace — a step that will provide important public health protections for consumers.”  — Rick Perry avoiding the heat: The energy secretary is preparing to step down from his post on Dec. 1, but amid the House impeachment inquiry, he has declined to cooperate with a congressional subpoena and has so far avoided tough questions, CNN reports. • “Key questions about what he knew and when have gone unanswered, and Perry's aides appear to have shielded him on multiple occasions from questions about revelations in this week's testimony,” per the report. " … Perry avoided reporters' questions at two speeches he delivered earlier in the week. When he spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Energy Department officials shielded him from reporters by sending what appeared to be an empty decoy SUV driven by his security officers to the building's front door while Perry slipped through a different door.” • God's "chosen one": Meanwhile, "Fox & Friends" previewed Sunday evening an interview with Perry, in which he says Trump, despite his flaws, is an instrument of God. "God's used imperfect people all through history," Perry said. "King David wasn't perfect, Saul wasn't perfect, Solomon wasn't perfect."  — Protesters visit Pete Buttigieg’s office: Demonstrators with the Sunrise Movement occupied the South Bend, Ind., mayor’s office, calling on him to treat climate change as an emergency and to take more aggressive action for the city. • What Sunrise says: “Pete’s climate plan for South Bend is not good enough. Why? Because we need drastic action NOW,” Sunrise Movement representative Garrett Blad tweeted. The activist group told ABC57, the local ABC affiliate, that it wants Buttigieg to update his climate plans "so that there's accountability when it comes to pollution." • What Buttigieg’s campaign says: In a statement, Buttigieg’s presidential campaign touted the mayor’s environmental record. “From constructing the first LEED-certified South Bend city government buildings, to implementing green infrastructure in neighborhoods throughout the area, to responding to historic flooding caused by climate change, the Mayor has led from the front on climate," the campaign said. As president, Buttigieg says he wants to get the country to net-zero emissions by 2050.  — “I feel sad for him”: Actress and activist Jane Fonda accused Trump in a CNN interview of being “in bed with the fossil fuel industry” and said “what he’s doing to the world … is just criminal.” “[Trump's] behavior is the behavior, it’s the language of people who have been traumatized,” Fonda said. “And you have to hate the behavior but don’t hate the person. I don’t hate him. I feel sad for him. And what’s he’s doing to the world is just criminal, it’s just criminal, it’s terrible. But there are more of us, and we can make a difference.”  — Experts warn about the threat of 5G technology: Negotiators announced a long-awaited global deal to determine how companies should deploy 5G technology, but data from federal agencies and the World Meteorological Organization shows that it could pose a risk to weather forecasting accuracy. “Studies completed before the negotiations by U.S. government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Navy had warned that 5G equipment operating in the 24-gigahertz frequency band could interfere with transmissions from polar-orbiting satellites used to gather weather data,” The Post’s Andrew Freedman reports. “This could make forecasts much less reliable, the reports found.” • Politico hosts an event on environmental issues and the 2020 presidential election on Dec. 4.  — How much do you know about climate change? Take a quiz from Ryan Bacic and Aviva Loeb from The Post’s new Climate Solutions page to see how much you know about the basics of climate science.


washingtonpost--2019-11-11--The Energy 202: Some environmentalists aren’t thrilled about a potential Bloomberg 2020 run

Many environmentalists have celebrated Michael Bloomberg as a philanthropist who has generously bankrolled the fight against climate change, spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own fortune on trying to close coal-fired power plants.  But they're not as excited about Bloomberg, the potential 2020 presidential candidate.  The former New York mayor, who is worth more than $53 billion according to Forbes, began taking steps late last week to mount a bid for the Democratic nomination for president.  But Bloomberg’s possible self-financed campaign has some environmentalist asking: Why not use that considerable wealth to redouble the ex-New York mayor's environmental efforts rather than to make a long shot White House bid?`  “There is a lot of work to be done in that advocacy,” said Evan Weber, political director and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement. “It’s not really clear how a presidential run advances those efforts.”  It was only a few months ago the 77-year-old seemed content with writing checks rather than running for office. In June, after declaring he would not run for president, Bloomberg launched a $500 million campaign to close every coal plant in the country and halt the growth of natural gas. That commitment came after Bloomberg had already spent more than $100 million on the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign to target coal plants for closure.  “The most important thing we can do is to phase out coal as fast as possible,” Bloomberg said in a speech at a U.N. climate summit last month.  But that big-dollar spending hasn't stopped Bloomberg from butting heads with other Democrats as the party shifts further to the left on climate change — and as scientists issue increasingly dire predictions about a warmer future.  Earlier this year, Bloomberg criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) Green New Deal, which calls for a complete overhaul of the economy to transition away from fossil fuels over the next decade, for standing “no chance of passage in the Senate over the next two years.” And during the Obama administration, Bloomberg praised hydraulic fracturing for natural gas as a way of cutting energy costs and reducing dependence on coal.  “This race doesn’t need another candidate supporting tepid climate change policy,” said Mitch Jones, climate and energy program director at Food & Water Watch. “We know which side Bloomberg is on — the side of fossil fuel fracking and pipelines.”  More recently, though, Bloomberg has stepped back from talking about natural gas as a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewable sources. “Science increasingly shows that the days of seeing gas as a bridge fuel are coming to an end,” Bloomberg said earlier this year.  Bloomberg seems to have resurrected his interest in the race as swing-state polls show former vice president Joe Biden weakening. But he would have an uphill battle to get organized in a place like Iowa, which holds first-in-the-nation caucuses that often set the tone for the rest of the primary.  “Bloomberg's climate advocacy has been second to none,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser who now works with the Progressive Policy Institute. “But as a longtime Republican and multibillionaire businessman, his chances of winning this particular Democratic nomination are remote.”  “Bloomberg could use his fortune to help Democrats beat Trump in many more effective ways than what would likely amount to a vanity race for the presidency,” he added.  That is a criticism that has dogged the only billionaire to actually declare a run for the Democratic nomination: Tom Steyer. The financier and environmental activist, who helped spur the Obama administration to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, has bankrolled hundreds of Democratic candidates through NextGen America (originally NextGen Climate), his advocacy nonprofit and political action committee.  Both Bloomberg's and Steyer's bids come at a moment when several leading 2020 contenders, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), are questioning whether business executives like Bloomberg should even have such vast fortunes in the first place.  “Welcome to the race, @MikeBloomberg! If you're looking for policy plans that will make a huge difference for working people and which are very popular, start here,” Warren tweeted Thursday, linking to her proposal for a tax on the wealth of billionaires like Bloomberg.  — Is this the end of Florida orange juice?: A lethal disease is devastating the state’s citrus industry, having infected 90 percent of the groves in Florida. • What the disease does: The bacterium, called huang long bing, “often prevents raw green fruit from ripening, a symptom called citrus greening,” The Post’s Darryl Fears reports. “Even when the fruit does ripen, it sometimes drops to the ground before it can be picked. Under Florida law, citrus that falls from a tree untouched cannot be sold.” • By the numbers: Nearly 5,000 of the more than 7,000 farmers that grew citrus in 2004 have since stopped, and two-thirds of the factories that process fruit to juice have shuttered. Packing operations have tanked, too. According to one University of Florida study, 34,000 jobs have been eliminated in the decade leading up to 2016. • How climate change is contributing to the problem: The bacterium is spread by an invasive species, a tiny insect called a citrus psyllid. “A study by researchers at the University of Florida and Virginia Tech shows that climate change will allow the psyllid to spread to states north of Florida as their temperatures rise,” Fears adds.  — Experiencing ANWR (without getting in an airplane): Environmental groups have organized a traveling art installation that aims to bring the remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska closer to Americans in the Lower 48. • The exhibit: Members of the Gwich’in, Alaska Natives with ancestral ties to the refuge, have joined with conservation groups and others to create the immersive experience, which has appeared in New York City, finishes its D.C. run Monday and will move on to San Francisco. The “Arctic Refuge Experience. Step in. Step up” features images shot by several filmmakers, songs by the Gwich’in and archival congressional testimony. As visitors walk through billowing smoke in a room full of screens and mirrors, footage of migrating caribou, birds and Arctic foxes from the 19.6 million-acre refuge appear onscreen. • Why now? The project comes as the Interior Department finalizes plans to auction off oil and gas drilling rights in the refuge. The exhibit also includes a room designed to mobilize opposition to the upcoming lease sale, where attendees can record voicemails for Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and the CEOs of Exxon, Chevron, Hillcorp and ConocoPhillips. They can also vote on what action to take next against the lease sales: under a 2017 law, two lease sales encompassing at least 400,000 acres must take place by 2024.  “The system is designed in a way that only oil companies can bid,” said Irene Pedruelo, lead strategist for DoSomething Strategies, which helped design the exhibit. “Let’s try to bid for the land.”  — Rick Perry relied on “usual talking points” at July meeting: The energy secretary did not discuss anything inappropriate during a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainians, according to October testimony from former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, Politico reports. Hill told congressional impeachment investigators, according to remarks made public Friday, that “Perry had been talking at great length about [the] energy sector and corruption. And at no point did I think that anything Secretary Perry said referred to any of these issues that are under discussion today … Secretary Perry was having one, kind of, one set of discussions and that, clearly, Ambassador Sondland seemed to be having a different one.” • What else to know about the meeting: “Both Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the NSC staffer overseeing Ukraine policy, said Perry did not participate for long in a subsequent meeting, which Sondland convened after Bolton abruptly shut down the first meeting. That happened, Hill said, after Sondland said President Donald Trump would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once the country agreed to “go forward with investigations,” specifically into Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that employed Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.”  — Interior Dept. proposes contract with company Bernhardt previously lobbied for: The Interior Department is proposing awarding a permanent federal water contract to the Westlands Water District, which was previously represented by the secretary. David Bernhardt served as a lobbyist for Westlands until 2016, before joining the department in 2017 as a deputy secretary.  “Responding to questions, Interior spokeswoman Carol Danko said the handling of the Westlands’ contract was delegated entirely to California staffers of the Bureau of Reclamation, which is under the Department of Interior. The agency will make a final decision after the legally mandated public comment period, she said,” the Associated Press reports. The proposed contract has raised concern among Democrats and environmental groups. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told the AP: “The Interior Department needs to look out for the public interest, and not just serve the financial interests of their former lobbying clients.”  — “It’s a question of how do we continue to have life here”: Ocracoke, one of the barrier islands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, has been closed to visitors since Hurricane Dorian washed over the region. Residents there are grappling with whether the island, “crouched three feet above sea level between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound, can survive the threats of extreme weather and rising sea levels,” The Post’s Frances Stead Sellers reports. Scientists have long warned that the island is an indicator of what’s to come for much of the U.S. coast. But some, like the township’s county commissioner Tom Pahl, are committed to recovery. “Is this really sustainable? The answer is pretty clearly no,” Pahl told Sellers. “But what’s the timeline? No one has been able to say, ‘You’ve got 15 years, 40 years, 100 years.’ The clear-eyed vision is resiliency then retreat.”  — Climate change and nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands: The United States buried plutonium under a concrete dome in the Pacific Ocean after World War II. The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands holds more than 3.1 million cubic feet of nuclear waste. Now, as sea levels rise because of climate change, the dome could collapse, the Los Angeles Times reports in this investigation. “Officials in the Marshall Islands have lobbied the U.S. government for help, but American officials have declined, saying the dome is on Marshallese land and therefore the responsibility of the Marshallese government,” the L.A. Times reports. “…To many in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Runit Dome is the most visible manifestation of the United States’ nuclear legacy, a symbol of the sacrifices the Marshallese made for U.S. security, and the broken promises they received in return. They blame the United States and other industrialized countries for global climate change and sea level rise, which threaten to submerge vast swaths of this island nation’s 29 low-lying atolls.” • The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on nuclear power on Wednesday. • The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation will hold an executive session to consider various legislative measures and nominations on Wednesday. • The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on the future of science in EPA rulemaking on Wednesday. • The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands will hold an oversight hearing on Wednesday. • The House Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States will hold a legislative hearing on Wednesday. • Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will be featured in a keynote discussion at an event hosted by RealClearPolitics and The National Mining Association on Wednesday.  — If you’re looking for something to do (and have a national park near you): All 419 national parks have waived admissions fees Monday for Veterans Day.


wakingtimes--2019-10-04--South Americas Second-Largest Forest is Also Burning and Environmentally Friendly Charcoal is S

South America’s Second-Largest Forest is Also Burning – and ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Charcoal is Subsidizing its Destruction

The fires raging across the Brazilian Amazon have captured the world’s attention. Meanwhile, South America’s second-largest forest, the Gran Chaco, is disappearing in plain sight.  The Gran Chaco, which spans from Bolivia and Brazil to Paraguay and Argentina, is extremely bio-diverse, with more than 3,400 plant and 900 animal species – including quebracho blanco trees, tapirs and jaguars. It is also home to at least 30 indigenous peoples, including the Ayoreo, some of whom live in voluntary isolation in their historic homelands, as well Mennonite colonies.  Now, due to the some of the fastest deforestation in the world, this once enormous ecosystem may soon be gone outside of protected areas. Since 2001, more than 31,000 square miles of forest were felled to make way for agriculture and cattle ranching in the Gran Chaco.  More than half of that deforestation took place in Paraguay, a small South American country of 7 million.  As in the Amazon to the north, cattle ranching and farming are the primary drivers of deforestation in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco.  But beyond beef and soy, the cleared land of the Gran Chaco produces some pretty unexpected stuff, too – everyday products that are exported and sold abroad to consumers who may never know their purchases contribute to the destruction of South America’s second largest forest.  I have investigated the spread of export-oriented agriculture in Paraguay since 2011. Paraguay, the eighth largest exporter of beef globally, sells 350,000 tons of beef each year to Russia, Israel, Chile and beyond.  There are at least 14 million head of cattle in the Paraguayan Chaco and over 4 million hectares of land devoted to cattle ranching – an area larger than Belgium.  The Paraguayan government hopes to climb into the top five of global beef exporters in the next 10 years. To meet that goal, ranchers will need more land – a lot of it – since Paraguay’s beef industry is based on grazing, rather than the feedlot model prevalent in the U.S.  To clear forest land for grazing, both legally and illegally, Paraguayan cattle ranchers use what’s called “chaining.” That means leveling the forest with tractors that drag heavy chains. Then they burn the fallen trees.  Increasingly, some Paraguayan ranchers are realizing that there’s money to be made off those felled trees, too. Rather than just incinerating the wood in their fields, they turn it into carbón – or charcoal, in English.  Across the Paraguayan Chaco, large brick kilns located off of main roads slowly bake the wood cleared from nearby forests, transforming it into charcoal that fuels weekend cookouts worldwide.  That charcoal is then stacked high on trucks that carry it to Paraguayan exporters, who ship it to Europe, the Middle East and the United States, among other major markets.  In those places, Paraguayan charcoal is often labeled it as “natural” or “environmentally certified”, suggesting that they are sustainable.  Paraguayan charcoal may be a “natural” product, but it’s hardly environmentally friendly. That’s because making and selling charcoal from recently cut trees – trees that previously went to waste – makes deforestation more profitable.  As a result, purchases of this product indirectly contribute to the deforestation of the Chaco, sometimes turning environmentally minded consumers into unknowing accomplices in the decimation of South America’s second-largest forest.  Paraguay exported nearly 9 million pounds of leather – a byproduct of its beef industry – last year.A similar problem arises with another Chaco good that’s sold far and wide: leather.  Paraguayan leather is refined and used in numerous industries across the world, particularly in Europe.  Car companies BMW, Citroën, Peugeot, Renault, Porsche and Ferrari all use leather from the Chaco to wrap everything from seats to steering wheels.  Playing a pickup game of soccer this weekend? Your shoes could be made of the same stuff.  Leather and charcoal don’t just make environmental degradation of the Paraguayan Chaco forest more profitable – sometimes, they are produced using forced labor.  According to recent complaints filed with the Paraguayan attorney general’s office and labor department, some Chaco cattle ranches exploit indigenous people, paying extremely low wages for jobs like fence building, clearing land or herding cattle. Some workers must buy food from expensive ranch stores using systems of credit that entrap them in debt.  A September 2018 United Nations report on contemporary forms of slavery in Paraguay shows that forced labor on Chaco cattle ranches and related industries is slowly improving due to increased compliance with labor laws, but affirms that it remains prevalent.  It can be overwhelming, I know, for consumers to investigate whether their leather, say, or the charcoal for their BBQ is ethically sourced.  There are so many worrying environmental problems in the world, and global supply chains are incredibly complex. So for consumers living far from the places that produce the goods they buy – even very conscientious ones – it is easier to focus on extraordinary events like the Amazon fires than to contemplate the unintended consequences of a weekend cookout.  But commonplace consumption habits matter when it comes to global environmental health. The things we buy may support the harmful underlying practices and industries that lead to acute crises like Amazonian fires or generalized problems driven by climate change.  That said, there’s no “out of sight, out of mind” when it comes to social and environmental justice. If South America’s great Gran Chaco forest continues to be leveled at the current rates, it will recede before most people even knew it existed.  Joel E. Correia is a member of the American Association of Geographers. The association is a funding partner of The Conversation US.


wakingtimes--2019-07-03--Rich Will Survive Environmental Crisis While Poor Wont UN Report Claims

A recent UN report has warned that the world is on the brink of a global environmental crisis that will disproportionately affect the world’s poor.  Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned that environmental destruction will continue to force people into situations where it is more difficult for them to survive. Alston predicted that many people will have to migrate in the coming years, which is not something that is easy for people in poverty to do, especially when considering the current immigration restrictions.  In the report, Alston has focused his attention on the climate, saying that a “climate apartheid” will further fragment the class structure throughout the world.  “What was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario. We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer,” Alston said, according to the Independent.  He pointed to cases of natural disasters, like 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, where the wealthy were able to weather the storm far better than the average New Yorker that was left without power or healthcare for days.  Meanwhile, “the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator,” Alston says.  However, it is important to note that climate is only one piece of this puzzle, although the issue often dominates conversations about the environment. Climate is a very abstract topic that has numerous contributing factors. Humans have the ability to influence some of these factors, but not all of them, especially the sun. Meanwhile, the oceans continue to fill up with plastic and the planet continues to lose plants and animals that are vital to its ecosystem.  Another problem raised by Alston in his report is that the majority of the world’s pollution comes from the largest corporations and governments.  “While people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves,” Alston says.  Yet, the poor populations of the world will still be expected to pay carbon taxes to help clean the mess up.  Without a doubt, the Earth is suffering. The planet is ravaged with environmental disasters, loss of important ecosystems and species, and a population that seems increasingly ignorant to the impact it is having on the rock they call home. It is clear that humanity needs to reevaluate its relationship with the planet and all of its inhabitants.  John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast. Read More stories by John Vibes  **This article (Rich Will Survive Environmental Crisis While Poor Won’t, UN Report Claims) was originally published at Truth Theory and is re-posted here with permission.**


vox--2019-10-31--Paper napkins are expensive and environmentally unsound. Now the industry is trying to save itself.

From a high-rise building in downtown Atlanta, a team of five strategists works around the clock to rescue the paper napkin from extinction. The group, dubbed the “napkin team,” is part of the strategy arm at Georgia-Pacific, a paper manufacturing behemoth that owns a host of napkin, paper towel, toilet paper, and tissue brands. Its mission is to rebuff criticisms of paper napkins as an extra expense or a needless source of environmental waste. And at its center is Lisa Silverboard, who has overseen branding for Georgia-Pacific napkins for eight years.  After holding branding roles at companies like Johnson & Johnson, Silverboard says, “I kind of landed in paper napkins.” But by the time she walked in the door at Georgia-Pacific, the paper napkin was in the throes of a crisis.  Once a mainstay of the American kitchen, paper napkins have rapidly shed market share. Two decades ago, 60 percent of American households regularly purchased paper napkins; today that figure has plummeted to 41 percent, according to Georgia-Pacific statistics.  “Our eating habits are changing,” says Silverboard. “There’s a lot more snacking. There’s a lot more on the go. We hear a lot from consumers that they’re eating more in the car, that they’re having smaller meals, and their needs have changed as it relates to napkins.”  The plunge has been especially precipitous among young consumers. While 61 percent of people aged 65 and older reported using paper napkins every day, just 37 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds answered the same way, according to a report from market research firm Mintel.  Recapturing that youth market might be the only way to ensure a future for the paper napkin. And under the guidance of its “napkin team,” Georgia-Pacific, which owns napkin brands like Vanity Fair, Mardi Gras, and Dixie, is making its last-ditch pivot toward napkins that appeal to young people. Yet to pull in younger consumers, paper napkin makers are taking on the trappings of a longtime enemy — the paper towel — and recruiting celebrities to restore their luster, all in the hope of sparing themselves from going the way of the plastic straw.  This isn’t the first time paper napkins have faced an existential crisis.  When the first paper napkins reached the US at the end of the 19th century, largely as a result of importing decorative paper napkins from Japan, many Americans objected. Accustomed to reusable napkins, they exclaimed, as one New York City newspaper put it, “Paper napkins! Who ever heard of such nonsense! What good are they?”  But paper napkins soon caught on for another reason: They promised, at least superficially, to balance out class distinctions. When cloth napkins were the only game in town, buying single-use napkins had been a measure of wealth — who but the richest could afford to throw out a cloth napkin after each meal? The availability of cheaply available Japanese paper napkins shifted that paradigm. The same newspaper went on to argue that “the introduction of paper napkins” to the poor “will do away with this social stratum.”  Another turning point for the paper napkin occurred in the middle of the 1900s, when the rise of the hamburger facilitated a new paper napkin boom — much to the chagrin of one Pittsburgh writer, who lamented in 1960, “My chief pet peeve against hamburgers, cheeseburgers, lottaburgers, et al is that they have ushered in the horrible paper napkins.”  By the middle of the 20th century, paper napkins were big business, with etiquette writer Emily Post giving disposable napkins cautious approval and a new crop of high-end paper napkin brands, chief among them Vanity Fair, advertising a “superbly soft” and “luxuriously embossed” napkin.  The origins of today’s turn away from paper napkins are complex, but some experts believe that environmental concern is at least a nominal factor. Paper napkins, while certainly not the largest contributor to global waste, are joining the ranks of balloons and plastic straws as casualties of the increasing skepticism of single-use paper and plastic products.  “We’re facing major challenges with things like climate change, plastic pollution, and all other kinds of pollution,” says Simon Lockrey, a sustainability researcher at RMIT University in Melbourne. “The napkin debate is just another one of these issues where we’re starting to reconsider reusable versus disposable options.”  In one report that linked the use of non-recycled tissue products — a moniker that includes paper towels, toilet paper, and paper napkins — to deforestation in Canada, lead author Jennifer Skene argued that abandoning paper napkins as well as similar products “could considerably slow forest degradation.”  It is relatively easy for paper napkins to incorporate recycled paper fibers. The more that paper fibers are recycled, the shorter they become — and because many paper napkins only need short paper fibers, a company could craft napkins from fibers that have already seen five to seven reuses, according to Stanford Magazine.  Every napkin in McDonalds, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Starbucks is made entirely from recycled paper  As a result, many restaurants have vowed to use 100 percent recycled paper napkins. Napkins in McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Starbucks stores, for instance, are made entirely from recycled paper. But while some napkin companies have specialty lines that promise high proportions of recycled content, like Seventh Generation’s 100 percent recycled napkins, other major brands including Vanity Fair, Mardi Gras, and Kleenex offer little to no recycled content at all.  Regarding the lack of recycled paper in Georgia-Pacific napkins, Silverboard notes, “Our fiber is sustainably sourced. We’re using certified wood that is replanted, so it’s not like people are clear-cutting areas.”  And to Georgia-Pacific’s benefit, Rosenberg doesn’t think environmental factors are the main reason younger consumers are abandoning paper napkins. “Recycled fiber by itself isn’t a really big consumer driver,” he says.  In fact, the main culprit for the precipitous decline of paper napkins is not environmental fears but an old foe: the paper towel. As a series of doomsday headlines have warned, consumers — especially young people — have made the simple decision to cut down on their number of purchases by substituting paper towels for paper napkins.  That’s in large part because paper towels are so flexible: They clean spills, wrap up vegetables, and dab lips all in one. “A lot of people have found paper towels to be an acceptable substitute for napkins,” says Silverboard. “They like the absorbency that a paper towel offers. You can fold it and put it next to your plate and it works kind of like a napkin, and that versatility is very appealing to a lot of people.”  Meanwhile, brand-name napkins like Vanity Fair and Mardi Gras are losing their cachet. Increasingly, when people do buy paper napkins, they’re opting for the private-label napkins — as opposed to name brands — that they can most cheaply find in stores.  ”Consumers don’t care which format they’re using as long as it does the job,” says Jamie Rosenberg, the household products analyst at Mintel. “This value proposition is what Vanity Fair is trying to get back.”  Early in 2018, Georgia-Pacific’s high-end paper napkin brand Vanity Fair rolled out Extra Absorbent, a paper napkin that pitches itself as “part paper towel, part napkin” and that a spokesperson says is designed to have “high appeal among millennials.” The product description for Extra Absorbent notes, “There’s no longer an excuse to use paper towels.”  Rather than compete with the paper towel, the paper napkin has decided to mimic it. And Silverboard notes there’s more on its way: “We have a team that’s working on a whole host of different innovation options.”  To resuscitate the floundering public image of the paper napkin, Georgia-Pacific has attempted to reformulate not just its products but its entire marketing strategy, too.  For one thing, the company recruited a rosé-slinging Amy Sedaris to tape ad campaigns for the new line of Extra Absorbent napkins. On Valentine’s Day 2018, Vanity Fair also partnered with Match.com to launch a marketing campaign, #DateANapkinUser, whose poster features a coiffed white man with a napkin pressed to his lips. The company even commissioned its own study that claimed napkin users are “statistically less likely to have broken up with someone over DM.”  Most recently, after this year’s Oscars, musician John Mayer teamed up with Georgia-Pacific to host his own afterparty for Vanity Fair, the napkin maker — a play on the magazine Vanity Fair’s famed post-Oscars gathering. In the ensuing days, AdAge dubbed Mayer a “napkin influencer.”  In truth, the deck is stacked against paper napkins. Their sworn enemy, the paper towel, is fighting hard against them. While the paper napkin has pivoted to become more like paper towels, the paper towel industry has countered by becoming more like … napkins. Earlier this year, for instance, Brawny released a competing product, called Tear-A-Square, that brings younger consumers paper towels divided into tearable grids.  To Rosenberg, the merging of paper towels and paper napkins is part of a larger trend in the household paper industry. Tissues, napkins, paper towels, and toilet paper “are losing their differentiation,” he says, and steadily collapsing into one mega-product. Just as paper towels are looking more like napkins, toilet paper is getting softer and more tissue-like.  More so than environmental concerns, the shrinking of the paper market comes down to cost. “People in lower-income tiers are more likely to use paper towels as napkins, toilet paper as facial tissue,” says Rosenberg. “It’s cheaper to use paper towels as napkins than to buy napkins.”  “It’s cheaper to use paper towels as napkins than to buy napkins”  Still, this war between paper napkins and paper towels cannot help but feel like an exercise in corporate fatalism. Regardless of which product proves to have the greatest consumer staying power, the same small handful of corporate owners are profiting.  Georgia-Pacific owns three of the seven most popular napkin brands — Dixie, Mardi Gras, and Vanity Fair — according to the Simmons National Consumer Survey. It also owns the paper napkin’s most formidable foe: the paper towel maker Brawny. Likewise, another conglomerate, Kimberly-Clark, lays claim to both the fifth-most popular napkin maker — Kleenex — and its major paper towel competitor, Bounty.  Rosenberg notes that the reason these companies pit their napkins against their paper towels is for market research. Georgia-Pacific might own both Brawny’s Tear-A-Square and Vanity Fair’s Extra Absorbent, but seeing which product is more successful tells the company a lot about the market. “I think it’s really a consumer insights exercise,” he says.  It also doesn’t hurt that the financial risks are small. At least in the case of Georgia-Pacific, all of the profits from paper napkins and paper towels alike are in turn fed on to its corporate owner, Koch Industries, which also controls countless household product brands. Even as these individual companies maneuver against each other, the money is all trickling up to the same place.  Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.


vox--2019-02-27--How Trumps EPA is letting environmental criminals off the hook in one chart

How Trump’s EPA is letting environmental criminals off the hook, in one chart

The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t going after polluters like it used to.  In its annual enforcement report released in early February, the agency revealed that it collected just $69 million in civil and administrative penalties from polluters in 2018, the lowest in more than a decade. The agency also collected just $88 million in criminal fines, down from $3 billion in fines in 2017.  The report noted that the totals can change dramatically year to year because of big cases, like the Volkswagen emissions cheating settlement that led to $4.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties in 2017.  But according to government watchdog groups, the drop off in fines in 2018 is part of a broader pattern under the Trump administration of lax enforcement of environmental laws.  A January report from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an advocacy group for public sector workers who deal with environmental issues, shows that the number of criminal cases the EPA referred to the Justice Department under President Trump is at the lowest level in 30 years:  It follows a 2018 report from the Environmental Integrity Project, which found a massive drop in the amount of fines Trump’s EPA collected from polluters relative to the past three administrations during the same time frame.  Both reports make the case that the EPA is neglecting its mission and letting bad actors off the hook. That, in turn, could lead more scofflaws to ignore critical air, water, and soil protection rules.  “The deterrent effect of these statutes gets limited,” said Jeff Ruch, the executive director of PEER. “Arguably, if they’re ignored altogether, you have pollution that goes on unabated.”  A big part of the EPA’s job is to go after individuals, businesses, and even local governments that violate environmental regulations. That can mean assessing a civil penalty for a company that doesn’t refine fuel properly. It can also mean prosecuting an auto engineer conspiring to cheat emissions standards, leading to federal prison time.  Generally, the cases referred for criminal prosecution involve actions that directly harm public health. But that requires the EPA to follow up on leads, analyze the evidence, and build a legal case.  One major reason this kind of enforcement has been down in recent years is that there’s been a big drop-off in investigations by its Criminal Investigation Division, the armed law enforcement branch of the EPA whose agents are trained to fight environmental crime.  In 2017, the number of agents at the division fell to 147, below the legal minimum of 200 set out in the Pollution Prosecution Act of 1990. That’s less than half the tally of agents employed in 2003.  “There’s a direct relation between personnel and the cases you can prosecute,” Doug Parker, a former EPA career employee who led CID under President Obama, told me. With fewer investigators to pursue leads, “you are absolutely missing cases.”  However, the Justice Department also has discretion over which cases it chooses to prosecute out of the cases it receives from the EPA. So a referral is only the first step in advancing a case against a polluter. “If you look at the data, they decline a healthy percentage of the referrals from the EPA,” said Ruch.  Over the past 32 years, the Justice Department prosecuted between 24 percent and 63 percent of the cases it received from the EPA in a given year. However, there were just 62 convictions in fiscal year 2018, the fewest since 1995.  Many of the cases underway now under the current EPA started under the prior administration, Parker noted. “Everything that I have seen announced in terms of substantive prosecutions have been cases that originated in the Obama administration,” he said. “There is little that I’ve seen that is not an Obama-era investigation.”  When asked for a comment about the decline in enforcement, an EPA spokesperson referred me to an EPA statement on the Fiat Chrysler settlement on emissions cheating allegations announced in January. The settlement requires the company to recall and repair vehicles that were equipped with a defeat device to fool emissions tests. Fiat Chrysler also has to pay a civil penalty of $305 million.  The [Fiat Chrysler] settlement also demonstrates how enforcement accomplishments for each year are highly influenced by large cases. The civil penalty for the FCA case alone is more than four times greater than all the civil penalties collected in FY2018. This case also demonstrates that while our overall number of case conclusions declined slightly in FY2018 from 1,978 to 1,818 cases, EPA is continuing to direct its resources to the most significant and impactful cases. For example, the cases EPA concluded in FY2018 required regulated entities to address over 809 million pounds of waste and pollutants, an increase of more than 40% over FY2017. Similarly, while the dollar value of Superfund cleanup commitments, oversight costs, and cost recoveries obtained in FY2018 ($613 million) is lower, those numbers also are greatly impacted by a few cases. In FY2018, EPA used its Superfund enforcement tools to facilitate cleanup and redevelopment at over 150 sites.  In essence, the EPA is arguing that the agency is going after the big fish — that the number of cases is down, but the impact of the cases it does pursue, in terms of settlements and pollution avoided, is up.  Susan Bodine, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, told a House committee on Wednesday that the amount of fines doesn’t reflect the extent of the EPA’s work on fighting pollution. “A strong environment program doesn’t mean we have to collect a particular dollar amount or pick up a number of penalties,” she said.  Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler made a similar point in his January confirmation hearing to become the permanent administrator. “In Fiscal Year 2018, EPA enforcement actions required the treatment, disposal, or elimination of 809 million pounds of pollutants and waste – almost twice as much as compared to 2017,” he said.  Ruch isn’t convinced. He said the EPA should be able to fight big and small cases at the same time, and that the reduced number of referrals reflects a lower priority on enforcement under the current administration. “We view enforcement as a core part of their mission,” he said.  And Fiat Chrysler’s emissions cheating was first uncovered by the EPA in 2015. The settlement is also a civil penalty, not a criminal penalty.  At the same time, the EPA is pursuing an aggressive policy agenda of rolling back and relaxing environmental regulations: greenhouse gas limits, mercury regulations, and clean water authority, among others.  By changing the rules, the EPA is changing what counts as a violation in the first place. That means if the Trump administration’s changes stick and aren’t undone in the courts, we may see even fewer prosecutions in the future.


vdare--2019-11-13--2020 Democrats Push Open Borders Despite Environmental Damage They Claim From Climate Change

Democrats are so desperate to import future liberal voters from abroad that the D-candidates will violate any alleged principles to import as many newbies as possible. The 2020 Democrats have gone off a cliff to be “pro-immigration” by extending the idea of immigrant to include anyone of the world’s nearly 8 billion inhabitants who might decide to move here. Add to that the Democrat promise of free healthcare for all, including illegal aliens, means there is a huge incentive to reach stupid-generous America.  The latest immigration pitch comes from Bernie Sanders who wants to welcome thousands of “climate refugees” to the US which assumes major suffering somewhere on the planet because of extended bad weather, drought or some other regional hiccup. I remain convinced that climate change is often trotted out as a cause of problems that can more properly be attributed to world population growth. Plus, climate change is a flexible enough problem to allow many government-imposed solutions, definitely a plus for Democrats.  Tucker Carlson examined the ramifications of Bernie’s plan for “climate migrants” on his Monday show.  We humans now number more than 7.7 billion persons, more than double the world’s population on the first Earth Day in 1970 when the number was 3.7 billion — that’s quite an uptick in just under 50 years.  Top Democrats claim to believe in climate change as a big problem that is worsened by the United States, yet they want to increase America’s population substantially by immigration. Go figure.  TUCKER CARLSON: Well a couple years ago, Bernie Sanders described open borders as a Koch brothers proposal because it is literally a Koch brothers proposal — it’s a libertarian idea — he was right. Mass migration reduces wages for low-skilled workers but now Sanders has changed his mind. His campaign has released an immigration proposal that reads like something the Koch brothers would write: it would halt deportation or abolish enforcement of our borders, abolish ICE and create a new category for something called “climate migrants.” Justin Haskins is a research fellow at the Heartland Institute. He joins us tonight to explain what a climate migrant might be, and more pressingly, Justin, why would a climate migrant have a right to come to my country? JUSTIN HASKINS: Well apparently climate migrants, which I don’t even think are a real thing, are essentially a category of people from third world countries, from developing nations, who are so supposedly suffering as a result of climate change, man-caused climate change. Now, I don’t believe that anybody is actually suffering from man-caused climate change, but Bernie Sanders’ proposal would have 50,000 people, 50,000 at minimum, come to the United States from around the world, who are suffering from climate change, supposedly, in just the first year — and over the course of his presidency, hundreds of thousands of people, because supposedly this is good for climate justice or something along those lines. But the most bizarre part of all of this is that I thought, according to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and everybody else in the socialist left, that human beings are causing climate change, that humans’ CO2 emissions, that that’s what’s causing climate change, and it’s going to be catastrophic. Well, if that’s true, then why are we bringing people from all over the world where they produce CO2 emissions less per person, in places like Mexico and Guatemala and places like that, why are we bringing them to the United States where we produce CO2 emissions per person at a much higher rate? It doesn’t make any sense. CARLSON: And also, if you cared about the environment, which I personally do emphatically care, and actually go outside once in a while, unlike most people on the left — why would you want a crowded country? Isn’t crowding your country the fastest way to despoil it, to pollute it, to make it a place you wouldn’t want to live? HASKINS: Yeah absolutely. Look, the left is schizophrenic on a lot of issues, and this is one of those issues. It doesn’t make any sense at all to have an open door, open border policy where you’re bringing people into the United States when people are supposedly destroying the planet, destroying the environment, where we’re we’re talking about population control in some parts of the left right now. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez says that she stays up at night, and she doesn’t think she can have children because she’s worried about the effect it’s having on climate change, but Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wants to bring in hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people from around the world into the United States. How does this make any sense? CARLSON: And actually, I mean this with sincerity, I feel sorry for her because I think she means it. I think that the movement that was started to clean up the environment which most people, again very much including me, totally for that has morphed into this weird cluster of neuroses where people actually think they can’t have children because of climate, and it’s sad. I mean it really is — paging Dr. Freud — I mean these people need help. Well I guess we all need help our society’s going crazy. Justin, thank you for your part in making it a little bit less crazy


usnews--2019-12-24--Environmentalists Request More Time on Idaho Forest Plan

LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Environmental groups have written a letter to the U.S. Forest Service requesting more time for public comment on plans for Idaho's Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.  The coalition of a dozen environmental advocacy organizations sent a letter to the agency Monday asking for a 90-day extension due to interruptions caused by the holiday season, The Lewiston Tribune reports.  The letter to Nez Perce-Clearwater Supervisor Cheryl Probert said the Dec. 20 release of the draft forest plan revision and environmental impact statement effectively removes about two weeks from the 90-day comment period.  Even those with time to examine the document are not likely to be able to reach forest service employees during holiday break periods, the groups said.  The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press Tuesday.  The two draft documents released by the forest service broadly describe management of Nez Perce-Clearwater for the next 15 to 20 years.  The documents are revisions of the individual Nez Perce and Clearwater forest plans that were last updated in 1987.  Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


usnews--2019-12-18--EU Claims Better Fishing Rules; Environmentalists Disagree

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations say the fish catch quotas they agreed upon for next year means they have made more headway in securing sustainable fishing in their waters — but environmentalists are strongly disputing that claim.  EU fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said Wednesday after two days of negotiations that almost 100% of EU fish landings from the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea will come from sustainable sources.  After having overfished both regions for years, the EU claims that 2020 will bring in a new era for fisheries.  “Next year, the EU member states fleet will fish at the level that will not hinder the regeneration of the stocks," Sinkevicius said.  Environmental groups strongly disagree with that claim. They say EU nations have again put the interests of their fishing industry ahead of the health of their waters. Some cod quotas for next year were cut but fishing for several other species can increase.  “The limits agreed by ministers suggest that progress to end overfishing has stalled or even reversed, a disappointing outcome for the year. Overfishing was supposed to become a thing of the past," said Andrew Clayton of The Pew Charitable Trusts.  Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.