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Arizona’s bonkers election audit sharply divides state Republicans

MSNBC – The MaddowBlog

Arizona’s bonkers election audit sharply divides state Republicans

Republicans at the national level are confronting notable divisions, but GOP divisions in Arizona are considerably worse.

By Steve Benen May 17, 2021

Image: Arizona Recounts 2020 Presidential Election Ballots

Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, center, works to move ballots from the 2020 general election at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, on May 1, 2021.Courtney Pedroza / Getty Images file

The 2022 election cycle is bound to be an interesting one in the state of Arizona. The Grand Canyon State will host a wide-open gubernatorial race with no clear frontrunner; Sen. Mark Kelly (D) will seek a full term just two years after his special-election victory; and there will likely be other competitive contests and up and down the ballot.

Republicans have reason to feel anxious about their prospects. While Arizona has traditionally been a reliably red state, Democrats have won both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats, and Joe Biden narrowly carried Arizona last fall — becoming only the second Democratic presidential hopeful to win the state in the last seven decades.

All of which suggests Republicans in the state have every incentive to get their act together, broaden their appeal, and settle on a mainstream message and policy agenda. What GOP officials in Arizona are actually doing, however, are tearing each other apart. Politico noted over the weekend:

Republicans in the state are still divided over the results of the last election, months after President Joe Biden was sworn into office. An ongoing and extraordinary audit of the 2020 vote count in the state’s largest county — rooted in conspiracy theories and the false belief that Biden’s election was not legitimate — is deepening the schism six months after the election, with no clear end in sight.

One of the first signs of trouble came last week, when state Sen. Paul Boyer (R), who used to support his party’s truly bonkers election audit, conceded that the process was making Arizona Republicans “look like idiots.” The GOP state legislator added that he didn’t realize how “ridiculous” the review would be.

As the week progressed, Jack Sellers, the Republican chairman of the board of supervisors in Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous county, whose votes are the target of the GOP audit — described the ongoing process as reaching a “dangerous” stage. Sellers went on to condemn his own party’s “lies and half-truths” about the election results, and said Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based firm Republicans hired to conduct this fiasco, “are in way over their heads.”

Around the same time, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, another lifelong Republican, was asked about his party’s ongoing election audit. “My fear is that all of this is further tearing at the foundations of our democracy and tearing at people’s faith in our electoral systems,” he told the New York Times. “If there were fraud going on, if there was systematic corruption going on, I would be the first to speak out against it. But we have looked at this again and again and again with numerous audits here.”

Evidently, a certain former president doesn’t care. In fact, Donald Trump released a bizarre written statement on Saturday, claiming, “The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal…. Additionally, seals were broken on the boxes that hold the votes, ballots are missing, and worse.” The former president went on to complain that his allied outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax, aren’t alerting the public to these made-up developments.

In reality, Trump’s claims were deranged, and Stephen Richer, the local Republican official who oversees Maricopa County’s elections department, described the former president’s nonsense as “unhinged.” Richer added, “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country.”

As last week helped demonstrate, Republicans at the national level are confronting notable divisions of their own. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), for example, was ousted from her GOP leadership post for daring to tell her party inconvenient truths about democracy, and the party was similarly split on whether to see Jan. 6 insurrectionist rioters as harmless and patriotic tourists.

But the divisions among Arizona Republicans are even more stark — and they’re likely to get worse. As the Associated Press reported, “Republican Senate President Karen Fann has demanded the Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors come to the Senate to answer questions raised by the private auditors she has hired.”

The Recycling Industry in America Is Broken

EcoWatch

The Recycling Industry in America Is Broken

By Tiffany Duong April 20, 2021 – Repost

Recycling and general waste plastic wheelie bins awaiting collection for disposal in Newport, Rhode Island. Tim Graham / Getty Images

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. According to The National Museum of American History, this popular slogan, with its iconic three arrows forming a triangle, embodied a national call to action to save the environment in the 1970s. In that same decade, the first Earth Day happened, the EPA was formed and Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, encouraging recycling and conservation of resources, Enviro Inc. reported.

According to Forbes, the Three R’s sustainability catch-phrase, and the recycling cause it bolstered, remain synonymous with the U.S. environmental movement itself. There’s only one problem: despite being touted as one of the most important personal actions that individuals can take to help the planet, “recycling” – as currently carried out in the U.S. – doesn’t work and doesn’t help.

Turns out, there is a vast divide between the misleading, popular notion of recycling as a “solution” to the American overconsumption problem and the darker reality of recycling as a failing business model.

The Myth: Recycling Began as a Plastics’ Industry Marketing Tactic

When it was first introduced, recycling likely had altruistic motivations, Forbes reported. However, the system that emerged was never equipped to handle high volumes. Unfortunately, as consumption increased, so too did promotion of recycling as a solution. The system “[gave] manufacturers of disposable items a way to essentially market overconsumption as environmentalism,” Forbes reported. Then and now, “American consumers assuage any guilt they might feel about consuming mass quantities of unnecessary, disposable goods by dutifully tossing those items into their recycling bins and hauling them out to the curb each week.”

Little has changed since that Forbes article, titled “Can Recycling Be Bad For The Environment?,” was published almost a decade ago; increases in recycling have been eclipsed by much higher consumption rates. In fact, consumerism was at an all-time high in January 2020 before the pandemic hit, Trading Economics reported.

But, if the system doesn’t work, why does it continue? Turns out, consumers were misled – by the oil and gas industry. News reports from September 2020 revealed how the plastic industry-funded ads in the 1980s that heralded recycling as a panacea to our growing waste problem. These makers of virgin plastics were the biggest proponents and financial sponsors of plastic recycling programs because they created the illusion of a sustainable, closed-cycle while actually promoting the continued use of raw materials for new single-use plastics.

To the masses, these programs justified overconsumption and eased concerns over trash that could be thrown into recycling bins, Forbes reported. Generations of well-meaning Americans since the 1970’s and ’80’s – believing these communications masterminds – have dutifully used-then-recycled plastics and other materials. They trusted that their discards would be reborn as new goods instead of ending up in oceans and landfills.

The plastics industry went even further, lobbying 40 states to put the recycling triangle symbol on all plastic – even if it wasn’t recyclable, Houston Public Media reported. This bolstered the public image of plastic as a renewable resource, but the cost was clarity about what actually can be recycled. As recent as 2020, a Greenpeace report found that many U.S. products labeled as recyclable could not actually be processed by most domestic material recovery facilities.

The Reality: Most Recyclables Aren’t Being Recycled

The U.S. relies on single-stream recycling systems, in which recyclables of all sorts are placed into the same bin to be sorted and cleaned at recycling facilities. Well-meaning consumers are often over-inclusive, hoping to divert trash from landfills. Unfortunately, the trash often ends up there anyways – with the additional cost of someone at a recycling plant sorting through it.

The single-stream system is easier on consumers, but results in a mixed stream of materials that is easy to contaminate, hard to sort and more expensive to process. There are a variety of items – including dirty pizza boxes, old clothing, hangers, plastic bags, aerosols, batteries and electronics – that, if added to a residential recycling bin, will contaminate the entire batch of recyclables, a Miami recycling center representative told EcoWatch. At that point, it can be too costly and too dangerous for employees to hand-pick out erroneous items. Because these items cannot be processed in the same way as recyclable materials, their inclusion often means the whole batch will fetch a lower price from buyers or must be thrown away.

“Most people have the attitude that if they just put it in the blue bin, it will get taken away and somebody will figure out what to do with it, but putting something in the blue bin and actually recycling it are two very different things,” said David Biderman, CEO and executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America.

Misunderstandings, misinformation and mislabeling aside, the harsh reality was and remains that most plastic can’t and won’t be recycled, reported NPR. For example, the EPA reported that plastic generation in 2018 was 35.7 million tons, accounting for 12.2 percent of municipal solid waste (MSW) that year. Of this total, only three million tons were recycled (an 8.7 percent recycling rate). The vast majority – 27 million tons – ended up in landfills, and the rest was combusted. The environmental agency also estimated that less than 10 percent of plastic thrown in bins in the last 40 years has actually been recycled.

The situation is slightly better for other recyclables, though they make up a smaller percentage of MSW. For example, glass products totaled 12.3 million tons in 2018, or 4.2 percent of the annual MSW generation. Almost 25 percent of glass was recycled, 61.6 percent ended up in landfills and 13.4 percent was combusted.

Post-consumer paper and cardboard for 2018 totaled 67.4 million tons, or 23.1 percent of total MSW generation for the year. The material also had the highest recycling rate of any other material in MSW – 68.2 percent. 25.6 percent of paper ended up in landfills and 6.23 percent was combusted.

According to this EPA data, recyclable plastics, glass and paper accounted for 18.5 percent, 5.2 percent and 11.8 percent of MSW landfilled in 2018, respectively. Those three materials alone comprised 35.5 percent of the total landfilled trash in the U.S. for the year; had they been properly collected, processed and purchased, they theoretically could have been diverted and recycled.

The Reason: Recycling Is Bad Business Around the World

Unfortunately, the EPA data also shows that 2018 was not an anomaly but rather another data point showing how the single-stream system in the U.S. has never been economically viable or feasible on a large scale. To further understand why recycling in America is failing, we need to think of recycled goods as commodities – because that’s what they are.

According to the recycling center representative, municipalities and counties pay for residential and commercial recyclables to be trucked to local and regional recycling plants for processing. Clean batches are sorted and/or compressed into bales of similar plastics, paper, aluminum or glass. The centers sell the cleaned recyclables on the open market to buyers who will process them into recycled materials like plastic pellets or post-consumer paper; these can be turned into new products.

This entire process – the processing and creation of saleable recycled goods – costs money. As with any good, profitability requires selling for a higher price than it costs to make. Contaminated batches are harder to process into new products and therefore fetch a lower price on the market, if they can be sold at all. Currently, U.S. recyclables are no longer profitable, and no one wants to buy them.

China used to buy the majority of the world’s plastics and paper for recycling, The New York Times reported. The U.S. has been the #1 generator of plastic waste in the world for years and used to ship more than half of its total plastic production to China, a November 2020 study found. The research also noted that up to one-fourth of American plastics sent abroad were contaminated or of poor quality, which would make it extremely difficult to recycle anyways.

Starting Jan. 1, 2018, China banned imports of most scrap materials because shipments were too contaminated, The Times reported; the country no longer wanted to be the “world’s garbage dump.”

As a result, the U.S. and other Western nations who had relied on China to offload their recyclables saw a “mounting crisis” of paper and plastic waste building up in ports and recycling facilities, The Times reported.

The Western nations began sending recyclable waste to other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Malaysia. These countries often lacked the infrastructure to handle recyclables, so a lot of the waste ended up incinerated or landfilled

In response, in 2019, the United Nations passed an amendment to the Basel Convention hoping to protect the poor and developing countries who’d taken up China’s vacated role in the global recycling trade. The amendment ambitiously aimed to clean up the global trade in plastic waste, making it more transparent and better regulated and allowing developing countries to reject contaminated shipments. The U.S. did not ratify the amendment, and new evidence suggests it continues to send illegal and/or contaminated shipments to developing countries.

Domestically, the closing of the Chinese market to U.S. recyclables bankrupted many domestic recycling programs because there was too much supply and no real demand. The smaller Asian countries could not accept nearly as much as China had. Prices of recyclables dropped, and bales of scrap materials were sent to landfills and incinerators when they couldn’t be sold, another Times article reported.

This left waste-management companies around the country with no market for recyclabes, The Atlantic reported. They’ve been forced to go back to cities and municipalities with two choices: pay a lot more to get rid of their recycling or throw it away. The news report noted that most are choosing the latter.

“The economics are challenging,” agreed Nilda Mesa, director of the Urban Sustainability and Equity Planning Program at the Earth Institute’s Center for Sustainable Urban Development. “If there is not a market for the recycled material, then the numbers do not work for these facilities as well as cities, as they need to sell the materials to recoup their costs of collection and transportation, and even then it’s typically only a portion of the costs,” Columbia’s State of the Planet reported.

Tiffany Duong is an avid ocean advocate. She holds degrees from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and is an Al Gore Climate Reality Leader and student member of The Explorer’s Club.

She spent years as a renewable energy lawyer in L.A. before moving to the Amazon to conduct conservation fieldwork (and revamp her life). She eventually landed in the Florida Keys as a scientific scuba diver and field reporter and writes about the oceans, climate, and the environment from her slice of paradise.

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

BBC News

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

May 7, 2021

A security guard stands outside the cooling towers for a coal-powered power plant — China emitted 27% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2019

China emits more greenhouse gas than the entire developed world combined, a new report has claimed.

The research by Rhodium Group says China emitted 27% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2019.

The US was the second-largest emitter at 11% while India was third with 6.6% of emissions, the think tank said.

Scientists warn that without an agreement between the US and China it will be hard to avert dangerous climate change.

China’s emissions more than tripled over the previous three decades, the report from the US-based Rhodium Group added.

The Asian giant has the world’s largest population, so its per person emissions are still far behind the US, but the research said those emissions have increased too, tripling over the course of two decades.

China has vowed to reach net-zero emissions by 2060 with a peak no later than 2030.

President Xi Jinping reiterated his pledge at a climate summit organised by US President Joe Biden last month.

“This major strategic decision is made based on our sense of responsibility to build a community with a shared future for mankind and our own need to secure sustainable development,” President Xi said at the time.

However, China is heavily reliant on coal power.

The country is currently running 1,058 coal plants – more than half the world’s capacity.

Under the Paris accord, agreed in 2015, 197 nations pledged to limit global warming to below 2C. However, the world is far from meeting that commitment.

Central to the Paris Agreement are Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). These are targets intended to cut emissions.

NDCs represent the commitments by each country – under the Paris pact – to reduce their own national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

According to the Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action, China’s NDC rating is “highly insufficient” and “are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2C”.

President Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry travelled to China last month to meet counterparts and discuss how to work together to combat climate change, despite diplomatic tensions between the two countries on a range of other issues.

In a joint statement, the two sides committed to working together and with other countries on tackling climate change including specific action on emissions.

Leaders will come together for COP26 – a crucial climate change summit – in November in Glasgow, UK to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.

‘Rationals’ vs. ‘radicals’: Anti-Trump Republicans threaten third party

Reuters

‘Rationals’ vs. ‘radicals’: Anti-Trump Republicans threaten third party

Tim Reid May 11, 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over 100 former Republican officials will sign a letter on Thursday declaring that if the Republican Party does not break with former President Donald Trump and change course, they will back the creation of a third party.

The letter, headlined: “A Call For American Renewal,” is an exploratory move toward forming a breakaway party, two of its organizers said. The group is dismayed by what it says is a modern Republican Party driven by its allegiance to Trump, who continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“The Republican Party is broken. It’s time for a resistance of the ‘rationals’ against the ‘radicals,'” said Miles Taylor, one of the organizers. Taylor, while serving in the Trump White House, wrote an anonymous opinion piece in the New York Times in 2018 headlined: “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

The group first raised the threat in February following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters to try to disrupt congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

The letter highlights the wide intraparty rift over Trump.

Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president.

House Republicans are expected on Wednesday to oust Representative Liz Cheney from her No. 3 party leadership position within the chamber, because of her refusal to embrace Trump’s election claims and her move to back Trump’s second impeachment after the Capitol riot.

The letter signatories, who include former ambassadors, governors, congressional members and Cabinet secretaries, want the Republican Party to return to “principled” leadership and reject division and conspiracy theories, or face a new party dedicated to fighting for Republicans such as Cheney and against fearmongering and lies.

Backers of the reform group include former Republican Governors Tom Ridge, Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush-era Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and former House members Charlie Dent, Barbara Comstock, Reid Ribble and Mickey Edwards.

They may face an uphill battle in getting any current Republican officeholders to sign on – including Cheney herself, who in February rejected the idea of a third party, saying it would empower Democrats.

A spokesman for Trump, Jason Miller, said: “These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden.”

Evan McMullin, a former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and an independent presidential candidate in 2016, said if the Republican Party does not reject lies and extremism, part of it “will have no choice but to part ways with it and build something new. We’re excited about that prospect.”

(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

New Lawsuit Challenges ‘Fast-Track’ Permits Used for Oil and Gas Pipelines Nationwide

For nearly a decade, pipeline companies have relied on the contested Nationwide Permit 12 when their projects cross waterbodies in the U.S.

By Sharon Kelly May 5, 2021

Five environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in a Montana federal court alleging that the way that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues permits for oil and gas pipelines nationwide violates some of the country’s cornerstone environmental laws.

This new lawsuit, filed May 3, is the most recent round in a nearly decade-long battle, sparked under the Obama administration, over how regulators approach the environmental impacts from oil and gas pipelines and the extent to which the public gets a say in the permitting process.

That battle centers on whether pipeline builders should be allowed to use a generic permit, known to regulators as Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12), when pipelines cross rivers, streams and wetlands.

Critics say authorizing pipelines with NWP 12 lets builders off the hook when it comes to the environmental scrutiny that would otherwise be required and eliminates a chance for the public to weigh in before construction begins. They say that the way the Corps has used NWP 12 for oil and gas pipelines, approaching each small water crossing separately instead of looking at the cumulative effects from an entire pipeline, has put both drinking water supplies and threatened and endangered wildlife like Florida manatees and whooping cranes at greater risk.

“Nationwide Permit 12 is a tool for corporate polluters to fast-track climate-destroying oil and gas pipelines and exempt them from critical environmental reviews and consultations,” said Doug Hayes, an attorney for the Sierra Club, which joined the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Waterkeeper Alliance, and Montana Environmental Information Center in filing the lawsuit. “There’s no time to waste in eliminating this process, which only serves to bolster the oil and gas industry’s bottom lines.”

Oil and Water

Builders are already backing away from using NWP 12, with executives from natural gas pipeline company Equitrans saying on May 4 that they would seek individual permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s water crossings, and adding that the additional delays will push the project’s completion date back to the summer of 2022.

A representative for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that the Corps does not comment on pending litigation.

Representatives for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of American, a trade organization advocating for the natural gas pipeline industry, did not respond to a request for comment. “Presidents on both sides of the aisle have used the program,” John Stoody, vice president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, told the Associated Press. “Not until the modern era — when we have activists trying to use pipelines for their climate goals — has there been any controversy.”

Tens of thousands of permits for water-crossings are on the line. The Corps has estimated that NWP 12 would be used to permit more than 40,000 water crossings over the next five years — including small projects as well as massive interstate pipelines carrying fossil fuels and the raw materials for plastic and petrochemical manufacturing.

Part of the problem, the lawsuit alleges, is that the Corps’ use of NWP 12 short-circuits the environmental scrutiny required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), allowing major transmission pipelines that never actually underwent a full environmental review to be approved.

“The Corps allows oil and gas pipelines to use NWP 12 repeatedly for each water crossing along a project’s length, with no limit to the number of times a pipeline can use NWP 12 or the total number of acres of wetlands that a project can impact,” the plaintiffs wrote. “NWP 12 thereby allows the Corps to artificially treat large interstate pipeline projects as hundreds or even thousands of separate ‘single and complete projects’ to avoid the more transparent and thorough individual permit process required” by the Clean Water Act and other federal laws.

From Obama-era Keystone XL to Trump Era

The Clean Water Act gives federal regulators power over any construction and development that takes place near rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and other bodies of water. If a construction project involves, say, dredging a river or adding fill material like dirt into a wetland or stream, a builder has to get a Clean Water Act permit beforehand — a process that can take years in some cases.

But, of course, there’s a lot of construction in the U.S. and there are also a lot of rivers, streams, and wetlands. To make the permit process easier, especially when a given project isn’t really likely to have major impacts on a body of water, the Army Corps has created dozens of Nationwide Permits — permits that can be used at multiple sites — that builders can apply to use for many common projects, letting them step under the umbrella of that existing Nationwide Permit instead of having to get a new permit that’s specifically issued for their site.

President Obama’s administration first used NWP 12 for a major oil and gas pipeline when it greenlit the Keystone XL pipeline in 2012 — and ever since, using NWP 12 for pipelines has drawn outrage from activists who say that the generic permit process was meant for small local projects, like adding a boat ramp to a lake, not for building oil and gas pipelines carrying hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day across drinking water supplies.

In April 2020, a federal judge in Montana found that the Corps’ use of NWP 12 on Keystone XL was illegal and violated the Endangered Species Act in a ruling that not only tossed out Keystone XL’s permits but also vacated NWP 12 entirely. Soon after, that court amended its ruling to allow NWP 12 to still be used for things that aren’t oil and gas pipelines, like electrical power lines — but then, in July 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and temporarily revived NWP 12 for all pipelines except Keystone XL.

Next, in mid-January — one week after the failed January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and one week before leaving office — the Trump administration published a new version of NWP 12, a version the lawsuit asserts still falls short of the standards required by federal law. That version went into effect in March.

“We are extremely disappointed that the Biden administration has allowed the Nationwide Permits to go into effect,” Hallie Templeton, deputy legal director for plaintiff Friends of the Earth, said in a statement.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Delayed

The legal uncertainty clouding NWP 12 has already affected pipeline construction projects.

In an earnings call Tuesday, May 4, Equitrans Midstream executives revealed that the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which was originally slated to start carrying 2 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas in 2018, would be delayed until the summer of 2022. Costs for the 303-mile project will rise to $6.2 billion, executives said, up from an original budget of $3.7 billion.

MVP will no longer rely on NWP 12, executives said, but will instead apply for new permits for most of MVP’s water crossings from state regulators in Virginia and West Virginia and will be turning to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permits in cases where it plans to drill under rivers, streams, or wetlands.

“We do support and expect that the Army Corps will grant additional review time [for the state of Virginia permitting process] and as a result we do not believe that we will receive the necessary approvals during the third quarter of 2021 which we previously expected,” Diana Charletta, an Equitrans executive, said during the earnings call.

The company has said that about half of MVP’s roughly 1,000 waterbody crossings have not yet been finished.

MVP has faced strong grassroots opposition. In March, police arrested two activists and ended the Yellow Finch tree-sit, a long-running blockade by activists who had occupied MVP’s path for 932 days. Last week, two other protesters were charged with felonies after briefly blocking a truck carrying pipe for MVP in Virginia.

Scrutiny on Falcon Intensifies

Another project that has used NWP 12 for water crossings, Shell’s Falcon pipeline which would carry raw materials to Shell’s plastics manufacturing plant in western Pennsylvania, faced renewed calls this week for federal scrutiny following the recent public revelation of concerns raised by a whistleblower. The whistleblower first came to light in public records revealed by the FracTracker Alliance this March and in which Pennsylvania officials described “credible information that sections of Shell’s Falcon Pipeline project in western PA, developed for the transportation of ethane liquid, may have been constructed with defective corrosion coating protection.”

FracTracker Alliance and other environmental groups called for a full investigation from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and for Falcon’s construction to be suspended.

On May 4, Tristan Brown, acting administrator of PHMSA wrote to FracTracker Alliance, providing new details about specific concerns that had been raised in a July 2019 safety complaint, including concerns that related to places where Falcon crosses waterways.

“PHMSA has not identified actionable non-compliance or safety concerns specifically related to the July 2019 allegations,” Brown wrote, “but our safety oversight is an ongoing process.”

“PHMSA is aware of at least one individual indicating that he or she had been fired by Shell Pipeline Company while working on this project,” the letter notes, adding that another federal agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has jurisdiction over retaliation against whistleblowers.

A Shell spokesperson said the company is cooperating with all government and regulatory agencies that have jurisdiction over Falcon. “Our commitment to the safe construction and operation of the Falcon pipeline is unwavering,” Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith told DeSmog. “The robust design and installation of Falcon has been supported by numerous inspections and the pipeline meets or exceeds all safety standards and regulatory requirements. We look forward to the day it’s fully operational.”

Smith pointed to an OSHA whistleblower matter involving the Falcon project that was dismissed in March, though that case involved an employee of a Falcon contractor, not Shell Pipeline Company.

“We’re grateful for this information but sadly still have a lot of concerns and questions,” Erica Jackson, an organizer with FracTracker Alliance, said during a call organized by Appalachian regional groups to discuss the Falcon pipeline. She added that PHMSA’s response appeared to rely in part on data supplied by Shell, rather than independent inspections. “It appears that they’re relying maybe on self-reported data, which is concerning.”

Meanwhile, the lawsuit challenging the use of NWP 12 is bringing pipeline permits back into the spotlight. Plaintiffs in the case are seeking to vacate NWP 12 and asking the federal court in Montana for a declaration that the Corps’ use violated the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, NEPA, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

“The Corps’ failure to comply with bedrock environmental laws requires immediate attention,” Jared Margolis, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney, said in a statement. “There’s simply no justification for allowing destructive and dangerous pipelines to avoid rigorous environmental review, and it’s disheartening to see the Corps continue to flaunt its obligation to protect our nation’s waters and imperiled wildlife.”

Sharon Kelly is an attorney and freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She has reported for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, National Wildlife, Earth Island Journal, and a variety of other publications. Prior to beginning freelance writing, she worked as a law clerk for the ACLU of Delaware.

A sweeping U.N. report says methane is far worse for the climate, human health than previously thought

Axios

A sweeping U.N. report says methane is far worse for the climate, human health than previously thought

Andrew Freedman May 6, 2021

Methane emissions from oil and gas, agriculture and other sources are contributing to thousands more deaths per year from air pollution than previously thought, while simultaneously leading to a rapid increase in global average temperatures, according to a comprehensive new U.N. report.

Why it matters: The report, which is the most thorough study of methane’s contribution to global warming, public health ailments, and solutions to date.

It shows both the perils involved with continuing to drill and transport oil and natural gas and the range of available low-cost solutions to bring down emissions.

The details: The world would need to cut 40 to 45% of human-caused global methane emissions by 2030 in order to avoid 0.3°C of warming.

About 30% of the cuts in methane emissions by 2030 would come from targeted measures, such as containing leaks in natural gas pipelines.
Another 15% of the emissions cuts would come from broader efforts to decarbonize the economy, such as turning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources, the report finds.
Inge Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program which co-produced the report, told reporters on a call Thursday morning that it’s no longer optional to tackle methane emissions.
“Without tackling this we cannot hit 1.5°C and we will certainly overshoot the [2°C target]. So, I think… that this is on the must have list.”

The big picture: Methane is a greenhouse gas that, while it is far more ephemeral in the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide (it only lasts in the air about 10 years, compared to hundreds to a thousand years for a molecule of CO2), is about ten times more potent as a global warming contributor.

Methane concentrations have risen rapidly during the past few decades, to record highs that are incompatible with the Paris Agreement’s 2°C temperature target relative to the preindustrial era, the report notes.
According to the report, there is “strong evidence” that the increases in methane amounts detected since the 2010s were “primarily attributable” to increased emissions from fossil fuel-related activities.
This period coincides with the fracking boom and growth in oil and gas production in the U.S. Methane is the main component of natural gas, and the report focuses on leak prevention, detection, and sealing abandoned wells as cost-saving measures that industry could implement.

Of note: The study also finds that there are considerable low cost to money-saving measures that oil and gas companies can take to cut their methane emissions from pipelines, drilling sites, and other facilities.

However, it finds that expanding natural gas infrastructure and usage without relying on currently unproven technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere is “incompatible” with limiting global warming to keeping global warming to 1.5°C relative to the preindustrial era.
“One thing the report calls for very strongly is not building any more of this fossil fuel infrastructure if we are phasing this out over the next couple of decades,” said Drew Shindell, an Earth scientist at Duke University and lead author of the new report.
In other words, the report calls into question the popular view in Washington that natural gas is a growing, so-called “bridge fuel” for use until renewables can more reliable supply power to the grid.
Other solutions would be employed to cut methane emissions from agriculture and coal sectors.

Context: The study also shows that methane emissions have much more significant health impacts than previously thought.

For every million metric tons of methane emissions that’s reduced, about 1,430 annual premature deaths would be avoided, researchers found.
Methane emissions are a contributor to ground-level ozone pollution, which is a deadly form of air pollution that can aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

What they’re saying: “Of all the short lived climate pollutants, methane has by far the largest current warming impact, accounting for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, and it is therefore now by far the top priority, short-lived climate pollutant that we need to tackle,” said Rick Duke, senior advisor to John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy on climate.

Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know

EcoWatch

Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know

Meredith Rosenberg May 5, 2021

Paul Souders / Stone / Getty Images

What Is Climate Change? Is It Different From Global Warming?

Climate change is actually not a new phenomenon. Scientists have been studying the connection between human activity and the effect on the climate since the 1800s, although it took until the 1950s to find evidence suggesting a link.

Since then, the amount of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases) in the atmosphere have steadily increased, taking a sharp jump in the late 1980s when the summer of 1988 became the warmest on record. (There have been many records broken since then.) But climate change is not a synonym for global warming.

The term global warming entered the lexicon in the 1950s, but didn’t become a common buzzword until a few decades later when more people started taking notice of a warming climate. Except climate change encompasses a greater realm than just rising temperatures. Trapped gases also affect sea-level rise, animal habitats, biodiversity and weather patterns. For example, Texas’ severe winter storms in February 2021 demonstrate how the climate isn’t merely warming.

Why Is Climate Change Important? Why Does It Matter?

Despite efforts from forward thinkers such as SpaceX Founder Elon Musk to colonize Mars, Earth remains our home for the foreseeable future, and the more human activity negatively impacts the climate, the less habitable it will become. It’s estimated that Earth has already warmed about one degree Celsius, or two degrees Fahrenheit, since the start of the Industrial Revolution around the 1750s, although climate change tracking didn’t start until the late 1800s. That warming number may not sound like much, but this increase has already resulted in more frequent and severe wildfires, hurricanes, floods, droughts and winter storms, to name some examples.

Environmental Impacts

Then there’s biodiversity loss, another fallout of climate change that’s threatening rainforests and coral reefs and accelerating species extinction. Take rainforests, which act as natural carbon sinks by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But as rampant deforestation is occurring everywhere from Brazil’s Amazon to Borneo, fewer trees mean that rainforests are becoming carbon sources, emitting more carbon than they’re absorbing. Meanwhile, coral reefs are dying as warming ocean temperatures trigger bleaching events, which cause corals to reject algae, their main food and life source. Fewer trees, coral reefs and other habitats also equate to fewer species. Known as the sixth mass extinction, a 2019 UN report revealed that up to a million plant and animal species could become extinct within decades.

Human Impact

It can be easy to overlook climate change in day-to-day life, or even realize that climate change is behind it. Notice there’s yet another romaine lettuce recall due to E. Coli? Research suggests that E. Coli bacteria are becoming more common in our food sources as it adapts to climate change. Can’t find your favorite brand of coffee beans anymore? Or that the price has doubled? Climate change is affecting that too. Climate change is also worsening air quality and seasonal allergies, along with polluting tap water. Not least, many preliminary studies have also drawn a line between climate change and the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that is still gripping much of the world. Future pandemics are likely to happen more frequently until the root causes, such as deforestation, are addressed.

Speaking of larger-scale issues, global water scarcity is already happening more frequently. The Caribbean is facing water shortages due to rising temperatures and decreased rainfall; Australia’s dams may run dry by 2022 as severe wildfires increase and Cape Town, South Africa has already faced running out of water.

As touched upon earlier, it’s one thing to be inconvenienced by a lack of romaine lettuce for a couple of weeks or higher coffee bean prices, but reports warn how climate change will continue to threaten global food security, to the point of triggering a worldwide food crisis if temperatures surpass two degrees Celsius.

Many of these factors are already contributing to climate migration, forcing large numbers of people to relocate to other parts of the world in search of better living conditions.

Unless more immediate, drastic action is taken to combat climate change, future generations will have to contend with worst-case scenario projections by the end of the 21st century, not limited to coastal cities going underwater, including Miami; lethal heat levels from South Asia to Central Africa; and more frequent extreme weather events involving hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, droughts, floods, blizzards and more.

What’s Happening and Why?

The Earth’s temperature has largely remained stable until industrial times and the introduction of greenhouse gases. These gases have forced the atmosphere to retain heat, as evidenced by rising global temperatures. As the planet grows warmer, glaciers melt faster, sea levels rise, severe flooding increases and droughts and extreme weather events become more deadly.

The Greenhouse Effect

In the late 1800s, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius studied the connection between the amount of atmospheric carbon and its ability to warm and cool the Earth, and while his initial calculations suggested extreme warming as carbon increased, researchers didn’t start to take human-induced climate change seriously until the late 20th century.

But proof of human-led climate change can be traced to the 1850s, and satellites are among the ways that scientists have been tracking increased greenhouse gases and their climate impact in more recent years. Climate researchers have also documented warmer oceans, ocean acidification, shrinking ice sheets, decreased snow amounts and extreme weather as among the events resulting from greenhouse gases heating the planet.

Numerous factors contribute to the production of greenhouse gases, known as the greenhouse effect. One of the biggest causes involve burning fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas, to power everything from cars to daily energy needs (electricity, heat). From 1970-2011, fossil fuels have comprised 78 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Big Ag is another greenhouse contributor, particularly beef production, with the industry adding 10 percent in 2019. This is attributed to clearing land for crops and grazing and growing feed, along with methane produced by cows themselves. In the U.S. alone, Americans consumed 27.3 billion pounds of beef in 2019.

Then there’s rampant deforestation occurring everywhere from the Amazon to Borneo. A 2021 study from Rainforest Foundation Norway found that two-thirds of the world’s rainforests have already been destroyed or degraded. In Brazil, deforestation reached a 12-year-high in 2020 under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. As it stands, reports predict that the Amazon rainforest will collapse by 2064. Rainforests are important carbon sinks, meaning the trees capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere. As rainforests collapse, the remaining trees will begin emitting more greenhouse gases than they’re absorbing.

Meanwhile, a recent study revealed that abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking more methane than previously believed, with U.S. wells contributing up to 20 percent of annual methane emissions.

Not least is the cement industry. Cement is heavily used throughout the global construction industry, and accounts for around eight percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

Natural Climate Change

Granted, natural climate change exists as well, and can be traced throughout history, from solar radiation triggering the Ice Ages to the asteroid strike that rapidly raised global temperatures and eliminated dinosaurs and many other species in the process. Other sources of natural climate change impacts include volcano eruptions, ocean currents and orbital changes, but these sources generally have smaller and shorter-term environmental impacts.

How We Can Combat Climate Change

While the latest studies and numbers can often feel discouraging about society’s ability to prevent the worst-case climate scenarios from happening, there’s still time to take action.

As a Society

In 2015 at COP 21 in Paris, 197 countries came together to sign the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty agreeing to limit global warming in this century to two degrees Celsius, and ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels; it’s believed that the planet has warmed one degree Celsius since 1750. Studies show that staying within the two-degree range will prevent the worst-case climate scenarios from happening. Achieving this goal requires participating parties to drastically slash greenhouse gas emissions sooner rather than later. However, there have already been numerous setbacks since then, from former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement in 2020 to world leaders, such as China, the world’s biggest polluter, failing to enact aggressive climate action plans. Yet many of the treaty participants have been slow to implement changes, putting the world on track to hit 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century even if the initial goals are met. However, it’s worth noting that U.S. President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement in 2021, and pledged to cut greenhouse gases in half by 2030.

Then there’s the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 global agreement to phase out ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals that were commonly used in air-conditioning, refrigeration and aerosols. Recent studies show that parts of the ozone are recovering, proving that a unified commitment to combatting climate change issues does make a difference.

On a smaller scale, carbon offset initiatives allow companies and individuals to invest in environmental programs that offset the amount of carbon that’s produced through work or lifestyle. For example, major companies (and carbon emitters) such as United Airlines and Shell have pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in part by participating in carbon offset programs that remove carbon from the atmosphere. The problem is that these companies are still producing high levels of fossil fuel emissions.

While individuals can make a small impact through carbon offsets, the greater responsibility lies with carbon-emitting corporations to find and implement greener energy alternatives. This translates to car companies producing electric instead of gas vehicles or airlines exploring alternative fuel sources. It also requires major companies to rely more on solar and wind energy for their energy needs.

In Our Own Lives

While it’s up to corporations to do the heavy lifting of carbon reduction, that doesn’t mean individuals can’t make a difference. Adopting a vegan lifestyle, using public transportation, switching to an electric car and becoming a more conscious consumer are all ways to help combat climate change.

Veganism

Consuming meat relies on clearing land for crops and animals, while raising and killing livestock contributes to about 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization. By comparison, choosing a plant-based diet could reduce greenhouse gas footprints by as much as 70 percent, especially when choosing local produce and products.

Public Transportation

Riding public trains, subways, buses, trams, ferries and other types of public transportation is another easy way to lower your carbon footprint, considering that gas-powered vehicles contribute 95 percent of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Electric Vehicles

Electric cars and trucks have come down in price as more manufacturers enter the field, and these produce far lower emissions than their gas counterparts. Hybrid vehicles are another good alternative for lowering individual emission contributions.

Conscious Consumption

Buying locally produced food and items is another way to maintain a lower carbon footprint, as the products aren’t shipped or driven long distances. Supporting small companies that are committed to sustainability is another option, especially when it comes to clothes. Fast fashion has become a popular option thanks to its price point, but often comes at the expense of the environment and can involve unethical overseas labor practices. Not least, plastic saturates every corner of the consumer market, but it’s possible to find non-plastic alternatives with a little research, from reusable produce bags to baby bottles.

Climate Activism

Those interested in becoming even more involved can join local climate action organizations. Popular groups include the Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, to name a few. Voting, volunteering, calling local representatives and participating in climate marches are additional ways to raise your voice.

Takeaway

It’s taken centuries to reach a climate tipping point, with just a matter of decades left to prevent the worst-case climate scenarios from happening. But there’s still hope of controlling a warming climate as long as individuals, companies and nations make an immediate concerted effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions. As the world already experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic, a rapid unified response can make all the difference.

Meredith Rosenberg is a senior editor at EcoWatch. She holds a Master’s from the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in NYC and a B.A. from Temple University in Philadelphia.

‘Which climate change jobs will be in high demand in the future?’

Posted in Ask Sara

‘Which climate change jobs will be in high demand in the future?’

If you’re interested in helping the environment, consider one of these careers.

By Sara Peach May 5, 2021

Hi Sara,

What kind of careers are going to be in high demand in the future? Climate science? Engineering? Animal conservation? Will we wake up and try to save what’s left of the species on this planet? — Christina F.

Dear Christina,

Oh my, after the year we’ve all had, it feels risky to make predictions. The year 2020 showed us that even well-founded expectations can get scrambled by the metaphorical flap of a butterfly’s wings — or in this case, by a novel virus floating into our nasal passageways.

Take jobs in the solar energy industry. Between 2010 and 2019, employment in that field grew 167%, according to the Solar Foundation, a nonprofit educational and research organization. The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, estimated that the industry would employ 302,000 U.S. workers by June 2020. But pandemic-related lockdowns and furloughs resulted in only 188,000 workers employed in jobs supported by the solar industry by that month, 38% fewer than anticipated.

Still, as pandemic restrictions ease, emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide are rebounding. The problem of climate change is still with us — but so are job opportunities in addressing it.

Growth is expected in a range of climate-related occupations by 2029, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau developed scenarios to account for uncertainty related to the long-term economic impact of the pandemic. But even under its scenario in which pandemic-induced behavioral changes persist for years, the bureau’s estimates still point to increased demand for workers in the climate field.

Projected growth in select U.S. jobs related to climate change

Occupation title	Number of U.S. jobs (2019)	Growth expected, 2019-2029
Wind turbine service technicians	7,000	58.5%
Hydrologists	7,000	5.2%
Atmospheric and space scientists	9,900	6.8%
Solar photovoltaic installers	12,000	46.8%
Soil and plant scientists	17,800	7%
Conservation scientists	24,500	5%
Environmental science and protection technicians, including health	34,700	8.3%
Environmental engineers	55,800	2.9%
Environmental scientists and specialists, including health	90,900	7.8%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Special thanks to Elka Torpey, economist in the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections, BLS, who devised similar charts in 2018 and 2019 and assisted with the creation of this one.

Marilyn Waite, author of “Sustainability at Work: Careers that Make a Difference,” said in an interview that she expects to see growing demand for a range of jobs related to slowing climate change or helping people adapt to its consequences.

“There will continue to be a lot of work in renewable energy, including the technologies that enable that: energy storage as an example, energy management, energy efficiency,” she said.

Waite expects to see employment in the transportation sector, such as jobs related to the electrification of cars and decarbonization of shipping. In agriculture, she anticipates a range of opportunities, from soil scientists who will be needed to help farmers store more carbon in their soils to communicators who will market climate-friendly foods to the public.

Workers will also be needed to help communities adapt to the consequences of climate change that are already upon us, such as rising seas, intensifying wildfires, and worsening extreme weather. Engineers and builders are already in demand for projects that protect coastal communities from floodwaters.

Climate work for every profession

Demand for wind turbine service technicians will grow faster than any U.S. occupation between now and 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Similarly, despite the slowdown in 2020, solar photovoltaic installers can expect strong job prospects — it’s the third-fastest growing profession.

Top 10 U.S. occupations by expected growth

Occupation title	Growth expected, 2019-2029
1. Wind turbine service technicians	58.5%
2. Nurse practitioners	52.2%
3. Solar photovoltaic installers	46.8%
4. Information security analysts	43.0%
5. Statisticians	36.1%
6. Occupational therapy assistants	34.8%
7. Home health and personal care aides	33.8%
8. Physical therapist assistants	32.8%
9. Occupational therapy assistants and aides	32.6%
10. Data scientists and mathematical science	31.9%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

But if you’re not interested in working with solar panels or wind turbines — or if your career is already established in another field — don’t despair. People in many different occupations can contribute to addressing climate change. Nurses, for example, are educating patients about climate-related health risks and pushing hospitals to reduce energy consumption. Composers, artists and dancers are helping their audiences think more deeply about the problem. Social scientists, city planners, and counselors are also being called upon to help people and communities displaced by sea-level rise, wildfires, and extreme storms.

Office workers, too, can do their part. As Waite writes in her book, “Many of the choices to save water and energy that people make at home can be made at work. Company purchasing departments can also take into consideration the social and environmental impacts of their supply chains.”

Because climate change is a systemic problem, it will take people with all kinds of skills and backgrounds to fight it: writers, scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, community organizers, union leaders, teachers, elected officials, farmers, small business owners, chefs, designers, urban planners, architects, and more: a cacophonous crowd of people contributing their talents to the problem. In other words, the ideal career for addressing climate change may be the one you already have.

Sara is the Senior Editor of Yale Climate Connections. She is an environmental journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Scientific American, Environmental Health News, Grist, and Chemical…

Tom Toro is a cartoonist and writer who has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010.

Oil pipeline builder agrees to halt eminent domain lawsuits

Associated Press

Oil pipeline builder agrees to halt eminent domain lawsuits

Adrian Sainz May 4, 2021

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A company seeking to build a disputed oil pipeline over an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million people agreed verbally Tuesday to stop pursuing lawsuits against Tennessee property owners who refused to sell access to their land for construction.

Plains All American Pipeline spokesman Brad Leone said the company will put an agreement in writing with the Memphis City Council to set aside lawsuits filed against property owners fighting the Byhalia Connection pipeline. Leone spoke at a council committee meeting in which members discussed a proposed city law making it difficult for the pipeline to be approved and built.

Plains is part of a joint venture with Valero Energy to build the Byhalia Connection, a 49-mile (78-kilometer) underground pipeline linking the east-west Diamond Pipeline through the Valero refinery in Memphis to the north-south Capline Pipeline near Byhalia, Mississippi. The Capline, which has been transporting crude oil from a Louisiana port on the Gulf of Mexico north to the Midwest, is being reversed to deliver oil south through Mississippi to refineries and export terminals on the Gulf Coast.

Plains and Valero say the project will bring needed jobs and tax revenue to the Memphis area. Byhalia Connection has secured permission from Tennessee and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the pipeline.

The planned route would take the pipeline over the Memphis Sand Aquifer, which provides slightly sweet drinking water to 1 million people the Memphis area. It is part of a large aquifer system that lies beneath eight states and provides water for farms, factories and homes.

Environmentalists, lawyers, activists and politicians who oppose the pipeline are worried an oil spill would cause contaminants to seep into the aquifer and endanger Memphis’ drinking water. In a letter to the Army Corps, the Southern Environmental Law Center said the clay layer above the aquifer “has several known and suspected breaches, holes, and leaks.”

Activists also are upset that the pipeline would run through poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods in south Memphis that for decades have dealt with environmental concerns such as air and ground pollution. Community members have organized weekend rallies attended by pipeline opponents such as former Vice President Al Gore.

Most property owners along the path of the pipeline signed deals granting Byhalia access to their land. Property owners who haven’t agreed to receive payment in return for easements on their land have been sued, with the pipeline company’s lawyers trying to use eminent domain rights to claim property.

A hearing had been set for May 14 for a judge to hear arguments about whether Byhalia has a legal right to take the land.

Leone said the cases would be dismissed and the pipeline company plans to explore alternatives to the current route.

“A major part of that pause is not moving forward with the eminent domain lawsuits as mentioned,” Leone told the committee. “That’s absolutely something that we will agree to do.”

Council members then delayed vote on a proposed ordinance establishing a board to approve or deny construction of underground pipelines that transport oil or other potentially hazardous liquids near wells that pump millions of gallons of water daily from the aquifer.

Leone did not say the company would refrain from seeking easements with other property owners while the ordinance is delayed.

“We want our drinking water and our communities protected and we don’t want the pipeline company to continue misusing eminent domain to take land,” said Justin Pearson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline.

Pipeline opponents are backing the ordinance. But city council attorney Allan Wade said he has concerns about its legality.

Byhalia Connection said the ordinance would hurt local business and it would likely sue if the law is passed. A vote is not expected until at least July.

Byhalia has said the pipeline would be built a safe distance from the aquifer, which sits much deeper than the planned pipeline route. The company said the route was chosen after it reviewed population density, environmental features and historic cultural sites. Byhalia has attempted to build goodwill within Memphis by donating $1 million to local causes.

Byhalia also has said the pipeline route was not driven by factors such as race or class. The company has denied accusations of environmental racism that emerged after a Byhalia land agent said during a community meeting that the developers “took, basically, a point of least resistance” in choosing the pipeline’s path.

Pipeline opponents are fighting the project on several fronts. A federal lawsuit is challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the pipeline under a nationwide permit, and the Shelby County Commission has refused to sell to the pipeline builder two parcels of land that sit on the planned route.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, and about two dozen other members of Congress sent a letter asking the administration of President Joe Biden to reconsider the Army Corps’ permit approval.

Pesticides Threaten the ‘Foundations of the Web of Life,’ New Soil Study Warns

EcoWatch – Pesticides

Pesticides Threaten the ‘Foundations of the Web of Life,’ New Soil Study Warns

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams May 04, 2021

“Beetles and springtails have enormous impacts on the porosity of soil and are really getting hammered, and earthworms are definitely getting hit as well,” said study co-author Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. smaragd8 / iStock / Getty Images Plus

A study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science bolsters alarm about the role that agricultural pesticides play in what scientists have dubbed the “bugpocalypse” and led authors to call for stricter regulations across the U.S.

Researchers at the University of Maryland as well as the advocacy groups Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Center for Biological Diversity were behind what they say is “the largest, most comprehensive review of the impacts of agricultural pesticides on soil organisms ever conducted.”

The study’s authors warn the analyzed pesticides pose a grave danger to invertebrates that are essential for biodiversity, healthy soil, and carbon sequestration to fight the climate emergency — and U.S. regulators aren’t focused on these threats.

“Below the surface of fields covered with monoculture crops of corn and soybeans, pesticides are destroying the very foundations of the web of life,” said study co-author Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.

“Study after study indicates the unchecked use of pesticides across hundreds of millions of acres each year is poisoning the organisms critical to maintaining healthy soils,” Donley added. “Yet our regulators have been ignoring the harm to these important ecosystems for decades.”

As the paper details, the researchers reviewed nearly 400 studies “on the effects of pesticides on non-target invertebrates that have egg, larval, or immature development in the soil,” including ants, beetles, ground-nesting bees, and earthworms. They looked at 275 unique species, taxa, or combined taxa of soil organisms and 284 different pesticide active ingredients or unique mixtures.

“We found that 70.5% of tested parameters showed negative effects,” the paper says, “whereas 1.4% and 28.1% of tested parameters showed positive or no significant effects from pesticide exposure, respectively.”

Donley told The Guardian that “the level of harm we’re seeing is much greater than I thought it would be. Soils are incredibly important. But how pesticides can harm soil invertebrates gets a lot less coverage than pollinators, mammals, and birds — it’s incredibly important that changes.”

“Beetles and springtails have enormous impacts on the porosity of soil and are really getting hammered, and earthworms are definitely getting hit as well,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know that most bees nest in the soil, so that’s a major pathway of exposure for them.”

Underscoring the need for sweeping changes, Donley noted that “it’s not just one or two pesticides that are causing harm, the results are really very consistent across the whole class of chemical poisons.”

Buglife on Twitter

Co-author Tara Cornelisse, an entomologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, concurred that “it’s extremely concerning that over 70% of cases show that pesticides significantly harm soil invertebrates.”

“Our results add to the evidence that pesticides are contributing to widespread declines of insects, like beneficial predaceous beetles, and pollinating solitary bees,” she said in a statement. “These troubling findings add to the urgency of reining in pesticide use to save biodiversity.”

In December, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations released a report emphasizing how vital soil organisms are to food production and battling the climate crisis — and highlighting that such creatures and the threats they face are not being paid adequate attention on a global scale.

“Soils are not only the foundation of agri-food systems and where 95% of the foods we eat is produced, but their health and biodiversity are also central to our efforts to end hunger and achieve sustainable agri-food systems,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said at the time, pushing for increased efforts to protect the “silent, dedicated heroes” that are soil organisms.

A growing body of research has also revealed the extent of insect loss in recent decades, with a major assessment last year showing that there has been a nearly 25% decrease of land-dwelling bugs like ants, butterflies, and grasshoppers over the past 30 years. The experts behind that analysis pointed to not only pesticides but also habitat loss and light pollution.

In January, a collection of scientific papers warned that “insects are suffering from ‘death by a thousand cuts,'” and called on policymakers around the world to urgently address the issue. That call followed a roadmap released the previous January by 73 scientists outlining what steps are needed to tackle the “insect apocalypse.”

The roadmap’s key recommendations included curbing planet-heating emissions; limiting light, water, and noise pollution; preventing the introduction of invasive and alien species; and cutting back on the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

“We know that farming practices such as cover cropping and composting build healthy soil ecosystems and reduce the need for pesticides in the first place,” Aditi Dubey of University of Maryland, who co-authored the new study, said Tuesday. “However, our farm policies continue to prop up a pesticide-intensive food system.”

“Our results highlight the need for policies that support farmers to adopt ecological farming methods that help biodiversity flourish both in the soil and above ground,” Dubey declared.

While the solutions are clear, according to the researchers, the chemical industry is standing in the way.

“Pesticide companies are continually trying to greenwash their products, arguing for the use of pesticides in ‘regenerative’ or ‘climate-smart’ agriculture,” said co-author Kendra Klein, a senior scientist at Friends of the Earth. “This research shatters that notion and demonstrates that pesticide reduction must be a key part of combating climate change in agriculture.”

Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.