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

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

 

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

DeSmog

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

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

Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know

Meredith Rosenberg        May 5, 2021

 

Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know
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

Oil pipeline builder agrees to halt eminent domain lawsuits

Adrian Sainz                            May 4, 2021

In this Jan. 28, 2021, file photo, Clyde Robinson, 80, speaks with a reporter while standing on his acre-sized parcel of land, in Memphis, Tenn. Robinson has been fighting an effort by two companies seeking a piece of his land to build part of an oil pipeline that would run through the Memphis area into north Mississippi. City council members in Memphis, Tenn., delayed a vote Tuesday, May 4, on a law that could make it more difficult for a company to build an oil pipeline over an aquifer that provides clean drinking water to 1 million people. The pipeline company also agreed to halt eminent domain lawsuits against property owners like Robinson (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz, File).
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

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

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams                 May 04, 2021

Pesticides Threaten the 'Foundations of the Web of Life,' New Soil Study Warns
“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. 

From dust bowl to California drought: a climate scientist on the lessons we still haven’t learned

From dust bowl to California drought: a climate scientist on the lessons we still haven’t learned

Maanvi Singh in San Francisco                        April 29, 2021
<span>Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

 

California is once again in a drought, just four years after the last dry spell decimated ecosystems, fueled megafires and left many rural communities without well water.

Droughts are a natural part of the landscape in the American west, and the region has in many ways been shaped by its history of drought. But the climate scientist Peter Gleick argues that the droughts California is facing now are different than the ones that have historically cycled through the Golden State.

Related: California is on the brink of drought – again. Is it ready?

“These are not accidental, strange dry periods,” said Gleick, the co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a global thinktank that has become a leading voice on water issues in California and around the world. “They’re increasingly the norm.”

Gleick this week spoke with the Guardian about the history of drought in the west, and the urgency of reshaping our relationship to water. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The California governor has declared a drought emergency in two counties, a few years after the state faced its last major drought from 2011-2017. Are more frequent dry periods part of a new normal?

The last drought was a wake up call to the effects of climate change. For the first time, the public began to make the connection that humans were impacting the climate and the water cycle – affecting the intensity and severity of our droughts.

Since that drought, we have learned some lessons about improving water efficiency, and reducing waste. We had serious conversations about things like getting rid of grass lawns for example. But we still haven’t learned the fundamental message: that these are not accidental, strange dry periods. They’re increasingly the norm.

We better start to assume that the sooner we put in place policies to save water, the better off we are. We don’t seem to have learned that there still is enormous untapped potential for conservation and efficiency despite our past improvements.

If the last drought helped people wake up to a worsening climate crisishow did other defining droughts reshape our understanding of water in the region?

There were the dust bowl years of the 1930s, when thousands and thousands of people were dislocated from their homes in the western US because of severe drought that decimated agriculture and triggered deadly dust storms.

After drought in the 50s, we started building big water infrastructure like dams and aqueducts in California, in part because we knew that populations were growing in the coastal areas very rapidly and that we had to expand access to water supply. That infrastructure brought enormous benefits, but it came with massive costs that we didn’t appreciate at the time. In particular, it really started to disrupt our ecology.

Following the dust bowl, probably the worst drought we experienced in California was the 1976-1977 drought, which is considered the state’s worst two-year drought on record. That drought really, really showed us, OK, we’re vulnerable to extreme dry weather, despite having built these dams and the aqueducts to help store, conserve and distribute water. It showed us that massive population and economic growth has put new pressures on our water resources. I’d say that was our first real wake up call.

Of course, climate change wasn’t a contributor to the dust bowl in the 1930s. But it seems there are some major lessons we could learn from that period about how badly designed policies can really intensify natural disaster. Back then, it was farmers’ decision to plow up millions of acres of native grassland, and plant water-intensive crops that caused the soil to erode and stirred up the deadly, devastating dust storms that we associate with that drought.

The way we’ve decided to use water in the west has a long, complicated history. Going back to the dust bowl era, until now – at least on paper – agriculture and other industries have far greater rights than anyone else. And that has put an enormous stress on our system, economically.

Sure, during the dust bowl, settlers didn’t really understand some crucial things about soil management that we now understand. And we have learned how to make more food with less water. But we never had a rethink of our system of water rights, and how much of our limited water we should be spending on agriculture versus leaving in the natural ecosystem.

Those were lessons we should have learned during the dust bowl, and, frankly we are still having to learn.

Going back to the dust bowl era, until now – at least on paper – agriculture and other industries have far greater rights than anyone else

During the last drought, we saw the death of about 163m trees, and that dead vegetation helped fuel some of the worst fires in the state’s history. Even though research has found that conditions during the last drought were actually worse than the dust bowl – a lot of people in the west who lived through it wouldn’t describe it as being so bad.

Good infrastructure has insulated a lot of Californians from really feeling the impacts of drought. In the US, most of us don’t directly experience the consequences of drought the way people in other parts of the world do.

How do you measure 100m dead trees and the risk to forest fires that could be attributed to that drought? How do you measure the death of 95% of the Chinook salmon? How do you measure the impact on poor communities who were left without water? We don’t put dollar values on these things, and so we don’t directly see or feel the impact.

I don’t want to minimize the impact of the last drought on particular farmers. But the systems that we’ve built mean that even if some fields have to fallow, we can still keep growing during drought years. Even during a severe drought I can turn the water on my tap and, you know, incredibly cheap, pure water comes out.

But that’s not the case for many disadvantaged communities in the Central Valley, who couldn’t turn on the tap and get water. They’re the ones suffering most directly from the impacts of extreme drought, but they’re largely invisible to many other Californians. And that’s not the case for our ecosystems and fisheries and forests, which are dying out.

Fierce hail storms batter Texas, Oklahoma: ‘Billion-dollar’ damage likely from ‘gargantuan’ hail

USA Today

Fierce hail storms batter Texas, Oklahoma: ‘Billion-dollar’ damage likely from ‘gargantuan’ hail

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY                   April 29, 2021

 

Residents in Texas and Oklahoma were recovering Thursday after hail as large as softballs battered portions of the states a day earlier, leaving behind shattered windows on cars and in homes.

In Oklahoma, at least one injury was reported when large hail hit Norman and surrounding areas Wednesday evening, officials said. A National Weather Service spotter reported hail in excess of 3 inches in diameter around 9 p.m. in the Norman area.

A wind gust of 69 mph was measured in the area at 9 p.m. as the storm pushed through.

In all there were 38 reports of severe hail across the two states, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

“Yesterday was certainly a billion-dollar hail loss day across the U.S.,” Northern Illinois University meteorologist Victor Gensini said. “San Antonio and Fort Worth, Texas – along with Norman – were all impacted with large to significant hail. In addition, there was one gargantuan (4 inch) hail report near Hondo, Texas.”

Storm damage to cars in Norman, Okla., on April 29, 2021, after a hail storm hit the area the day before.
Storm damage to cars in Norman, Okla., on April 29, 2021, after a hail storm hit the area the day before.

 

CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said that it would be the second billion-dollar disaster this year in Texas, following the extreme Arctic outbreak back in February.

Hail makes up the highest number of insurance claims each year and can exceed $10 billion in losses annually, according to the Weather Channel.

Hail photos: Norman sees hail damage after Wednesday storm. View the photos

The storms were part of a sprawling system that brought severe weather and heavy rain to much of the southern and central Plains. In addition to large hail, storms also produced damaging winds and a few possible tornadoes, CNN said.

Contributing: The Oklahoman

People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere.

People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere.

Hiroko Tabuchi and Nadja Popovich              April 28, 2021
A home near the Marathon Petroleum Company refinery in River Rouge, near Detroit, April 24, 2020. (Emily Rose Bennett/The New York Times)
A home near the Marathon Petroleum Company refinery in River Rouge, near Detroit, April 24, 2020. (Emily Rose Bennett/The New York Times)

 

Over the years, a mountain of evidence has brought to light a stark injustice: Compared with white Americans, people of color in the United States suffer disproportionately from exposure to pollution.

Now a new study on a particularly harmful type of air pollution shows just how broadly those disparities hold true. Black Americans are exposed to more pollution from every type of source, including industry, agriculture, all manner of vehicles, construction, residential sources and even emissions from restaurants. People of color more broadly, including Black and Hispanic people and Asian Americans, are exposed to more pollution from nearly every source.

The findings came as a surprise to the study’s researchers, who had not anticipated that the inequalities spanned so many types of pollution.

“We expected to find that just a couple of different sources were important for the disparate exposure among racial ethnic groups,” said Christopher W. Tessum, an assistant professor in environmental engineering and science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the study. “But what we found instead was that almost all of the source types that we looked at contributed to this disparity.”

The study builds on a wealth of research that has shown that people of color in America live with more pollution than their white neighbors. Fine particulate matter air pollution, known as PM 2.5, is harmful to human health and is responsible for 85,000 to 200,000 excess deaths a year in the United States.

Racial and socioeconomic disparities in exposure to PM 2.5 have been well documented and have persisted despite an overall decline in particulate pollution. But the researchers sought to get a better grasp of whether these disparities came from just a handful of sources or whether the inequalities could be seen more widely.

They used an air quality model to analyze data from the Environmental Protection Agency on more than 5,000 emission sources collected as part of a 2014 nationwide emissions survey. Then they identified differences in exposure to each by broad race-ethnicity and income groups, based on U.S. census data.

They found that nearly all emissions sources caused disproportionate exposures for people of color, on average, as well as separately for Black, Hispanic and Asian people. Black people were exposed to higher-than-average concentrations from all major emissions groups, while white people were exposed to lower-than-average concentrations from almost all categories. The disparities were seen nationally as well as at the state level, across income levels and across the urban-rural divide.

These findings were consistent with the experiences of communities on the ground, said Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who has written for more than 30 years about the need to redress environmental racism, who was not involved in the study.

“If you go to communities of color across this country and ask them, ‘What’s the source of the environmental problems?’ they can point you to every one: the highway, the chemical plants, the refineries, the legacy pollution left over from decades ago, in the houses, in the air, in the water, in the playgrounds,” he said. “Empirical research is now catching up with the reality: that America is segregated and so is pollution.”

On Wednesday, the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit group founded by former officials from the EPA, released a separate report that found that 13 refineries across the United States had released elevated levels of benzene, another harmful pollutant, into mostly minority and lower income neighborhoods in 2020.

These disparities have roots in historical practices, like redlining, under which the federal government marked certain neighborhoods as risky for real estate investments because their residents were Black. For decades, residents of redlined areas were denied access to federally backed mortgages and other credit, fueling a cycle of disinvestment and environmental problems in those neighborhoods.

“Communities of color, especially Black communities, have been concentrated in areas adjacent to industrial facilities and industrial zones, and that goes back decades and decades, to redlining,” said Justin Onwenu, a Detroit-based organizer for the Sierra Club. “And a lot of our current infrastructure, our highways, were built on — built through — Black communities, so we’re breathing in diesel emissions and other pollution just because we’re located right next to these highways,” Onwenu said.

The latest research, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, shows how that legacy continues to cast a shadow. Emissions from industry, construction and both light- and heavy-duty vehicles were among the sources that caused the largest absolute disparities for Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans.

Particulate pollution from coal-fired power plants, meanwhile, was one of the only sources that substantially affected white Americans more than average. That was explained, Tessum said, by the predominantly white demographics of many coal towns. Coal power plants also tend to have smoke stacks that are many hundreds of feet high, scattering fine particles more evenly across larger areas.

Likely for the same geographic reason, white Americans were slightly more exposed to particulate pollution from agriculture, including from soil tilling and wind erosion. But in California, which produces more than one-third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, Hispanic people were disproportionately exposed.

Newer industries can perpetuate these inequalities. A large Latino population in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, for example, near one of the nation’s largest concentration of Amazon warehouses, has suffered from the heavy diesel traffic that feeds the sprawling e-commerce hub.

“These warehouses are being built within feet of existing homes, within feet of schools,” said Cesunica E. Ivey, an assistant professor in chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the study. “Local voices in those neighborhoods are often drowned out,” she said. “And they can’t just move. You need resources to relocate.”

The coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a disproportionate toll on Black, Latino and other communities, added to the burdens.

“A lot of families have kids with asthma. There’s high rates of respiratory illness. Many people have died from cancer and other types of diseases,” said Vivian Huang, a director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which works with communities that live at the fence line of refineries and other polluting facilities in California. “The COVID pandemic has just exacerbated these immense inequalities.”

One surprising source of pollution that disproportionately affects communities of color, though a smaller source of emissions overall, were restaurants. A recent study that looked at Oakland, California, and Pittsburgh found that emissions from commercial kitchens — mostly from their use of cooking oils — were a surprisingly large fraction of particulate air pollution in those cities. More people of color tended to live nearby and so were more exposed.

Getting a clearer picture of how different sources of air pollution affect different groups of people is important, because history has shown that simply reducing overall emissions does not address racial and other disparities, said Joshua Apte, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-author of both the PM 2.5 and commercial kitchen studies.

“When nearly every major source category in the U.S. disparately impacts people of color, reducing sources alone is really insufficient to solve this problem,” he said. “We have to think about where the sources are as well.”