Dems buzz about breakout stars of Trump’s impeachment

Politico

Dems buzz about breakout stars of Trump’s impeachment

Holly Otterbein February 14, 2021

The Democratic House members who prosecuted the case against former President Donald Trump last week say they’ve been laser-focused on his trial.

But as their speeches were being piped into Americans’ homes 24-7, they also elevated their national profiles — in some cases, generating considerable buzz about their prospects for higher office.

Rep. Madeleine Dean is being talked about as a potential candidate for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania in 2022, a top priority for the party. Democratic strategists are speculating that Rep. Joaquin Castro, relatively well-known before the impeachment trial, further distinguished himself as an impeachment manager, advancing talk of a statewide bid in Texas. And an ex-Jeb Bush aide went so far as to say that Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse gave his “2004 convention speech” — a nod to former President Barack Obama’s breakout moment in politics.

For the lawmakers who have been able to use this moment to boost their name recognition and grow their fan bases, they’re following in the footsteps of Democratic and Republican impeachment managers who have shone in the past.

“I remember Lindsey Graham as an impeachment manager,” said Tom Lopach, former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “It is rare to have a congressional hearing or session of such import that it is on throughout the day. You have to go back to Watergate, you go back to the Iran-Contra hearing, you go back to the Clinton impeachment and Trump’s impeachment.”

Graham, who was an impeachment manager during former President Bill Clinton’s 1999 trial, ran for the Senate and won just a few years later in 2002. Asa Hutchinson, another then-House member who made the case against Clinton, is now the governor of Arkansas. Bill McCollum, also on the impeachment team against Clinton, went on to become Florida’s attorney general.

More recently, Democratic representatives such as Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Val Demings served as impeachment managers during Trump’s first trial, burnishing their national profiles. Schiff is now looking to be appointed California’s next attorney general. Demings, a Florida congressmember, made it to President Joe Biden’s vice-presidential shortlist.

Some of the impeachment managers for Trump’s second trial include Democrats who have considered or ran for higher office before, such as 2020 presidential candidate Eric Swalwell and Castro, who has eyed bids for the Senate. One Democrat who isn’t able to run for the Senate, Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett, has some Democrats wishing that she could after her steady performance.

Though impeachment is an inherently political process, elected officials typically don’t like to admit that working as a manager can come with electoral benefits. They were required to walk a careful line, especially when making the case that Trump incited a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol. Still, strategists from both sides of the aisle acknowledged that their roles likely furthered their careers.

“When you’re part of impeachment proceedings and you’re in a managerial position, of course you’re going to have better name ID. You’re on camera all this time, bringing incredible evidence,” said Sonia Van Meter, a former campaign consultant to Castro. “And anyone who’s paying attention to these proceedings is going to get to know your face.”

For some of the managers, their presentations were shared widely on social media. Neguse, who is an attorney and the youngest impeachment manager, won acclaim for his compelling and high-minded arguments. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead manager, poignantly talked about his daughter and son-in-law fearing for their lives during the insurrection only a day after he buried his son. Dean, who previously ran for lieutenant governor, grabbed viewers’ attention when she teared up recounting the day of the attack.

“The part where she showed emotion, that was very real and it gets to who she is,” said Larry Ceisler, a public relations executive based in Pennsylvania. “Obviously she’s raised her profile in the caucus, with political people, and maybe some people who don’t know her. When you distinguish herself as she has, people are going to mention her for the Senate opening.”

Ceisler added that her performance was likely influenced by her past experience as an executive director of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association: “She has at her fingertips some very good legal minds in Pennsylvania … and my guess is, knowing Madeleine, she didn’t go at this on her own, she would ask advice.”

Van Meter said the trial is “upping Joaquin Castro’s name ID and certainly Stacey Plaskett’s.”

She has also worked as a campaign adviser to Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a manager during Trump’s first impeachment, who she said has been invited onto TV and quoted in articles more often since the trial.

Jon Seaton, a former senior adviser to Graham during his 2016 presidential campaign, said the South Carolina Republican’s sense of humor during the Clinton impeachment trial led to national attention and media clips. Graham was noticed ahead of the trial for asking, “Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?’” — a reference to a 1960s soap opera.

“I think it did help. I don’t know if it was determinative, but it certainly gave him a leg up,” Seaton said of Graham’s Senate bid shortly thereafter. “I just think he acquitted himself very well throughout the Clinton impeachment trial and I think people kind of liked him. And it’s always hard to break through, and that gave him an opportunity to break through that his opponents just didn’t have.”

But some Democrats who earned the most praise this week will likely not be in a position to run for higher office for some time. Neguse’s home-state senators are both Democrats, and Michael Bennet has said he plans to run again in 2022, while John Hickenlooper is not up for reelection until 2026. Incumbent Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, faces reelection in 2022.

Poor impeachment performances can also have a lingering effect. When Bruce Castor, a former acting attorney general of Pennsylvania, was named as one of Trump’s attorneys for the trial, it set off speculation that he was contemplating a bid for Senate or governor in 2022. But that chatter has died down after his initial speech last week was widely panned — including by Trump.

And sometimes, the volatile mix of electoral politics and impeachment can create uncomfortable moments. Dean’s son, former Obama aide Pat Cunnane, tweeted on Wednesday that Dean “seems comfortable in the Senate.”

Aware of the optics, Dean’s aides struck a different tone. “She’s focused on the trial,” said Dean’s spokesperson, Timothy Mack, when asked about Cunnane’s tweet.

Representative Joe Neguse’s Arguments at trump impeachment hearing

Ted Cruz’s Tweet About California Energy Shortages Comes Back To Haunt Him

HuffPost

Ted Cruz’s Tweet About California Energy Shortages Comes Back To Haunt Him

Jeremy Blum, Reporter, HuffPost February 16, 2021

An old tweet from GOP Sen. Ted Cruz criticizing California’s energy policies went viral on Monday as the senator’s own state, Texas, reeled from a massive snowstorm that knocked out power to more than 4 million homes and businesses.

Cruz’s August 2020 post had taken aim at a tweet from the Office of the Governor of California, which urged residents to conserve energy by turning off lights, limiting the usage of electrical appliances and adjusting thermostats.

At the time, California was gripped by a major heat wave and implementing its first rolling power blackouts since 2001.

“California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity,” Cruz wrote back then.

The senator also claimed that supporters of the Green New Deal ― like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, then campaigning for the White House, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) ― wanted “to make CA’s failed energy policy the standard nationwide.”

As Monday’s extreme snow and freezing temperatures caused Texas to implement its own rolling blackouts, multiple commentators referenced Cruz’s old tweet, pointing out that the senator was perfectly happy to criticize California last August but noticeably quiet when it came to the emergency measures affecting his own state.

As of Tuesday, outages in Texas were expected to last the full day for most affected homes and businesses. A representative for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas told a local ABC station that only about 10-15% of those customers were expected to get power back by mid-afternoon.

Adam Kinzinger’s Lonely Mission

The New York Times

Adam Kinzinger’s Lonely Mission

Reid J. Epstein February 16, 2021

NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 22: Congressman Adam Kinzinger attends the 2014 Global Leadership Dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street on October 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/FilmMagic)

WASHINGTON — As the Republican Party censures, condemns and seeks to purge leaders who aren’t in lockstep with Donald Trump, Adam Kinzinger, the six-term Illinois congressman, stands as enemy No. 1 — unwelcome not just in his party but also in his own family, some of whom recently disowned him.

Two days after Kinzinger called for removing Trump from office following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, 11 members of his family sent him a handwritten two-page letter, saying he was in cahoots with “the devil’s army” for making a public break with the president.

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” they wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!”

The author of the letter was Karen Otto, Kinzinger’s cousin, who paid $7 to send it by certified mail to Kinzinger’s father — to make sure the congressman would see it, which he did. She also sent copies to Republicans across Illinois, including other members of the state’s congressional delegation.

“I wanted Adam to be shunned,” she said in an interview.

A 42-year-old Air National Guard pilot who represents a crescent-shaped district along the Chicago’s suburbs, Kinzinger is at the forefront of the effort to navigate post-Trump politics. He is betting his political career, professional relationships and kinship with a wing of his sprawling family that his party’s future lies in disavowing Trump and the conspiracy theories the former president stoked.

Kinzinger was one of just three House Republicans who voted both to impeach Trump and strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from her committee posts. During the House impeachment debate, he asked Democrats if he could speak for seven minutes instead of his allotted one, so that he could make a more authoritative and bipartisan argument against the president; the request was denied.

He has taken his case to the national media, becoming a ubiquitous figure on cable television, late-night HBO programming and podcasts. He began a new political action committee with a six-minute video declaring the need to reformat the Republican Party into something resembling an idealized version of George W. Bush’s party — with an emphasis on lower taxes, hawkish defense and social conservatism — without the grievances and conspiracy theories that Trump and his allies have made central to the party’s identity.

To do so, Kinzinger said in an interview, requires exposing the fear-based tactics he hopes to eradicate from the party and present an optimistic alternative.

“We just fear,” he said. “Fear the Democrats. Fear the future. Fear everything. And it works for an election cycle or two. The problem is it does real damage to this democracy.”

Kinzinger said he was not deterred by the Senate’s failure Saturday to convict Trump in the impeachment trial.

“We have a lot of work to do to restore the Republican Party,” he said, “and to turn the tide on the personality politics.”

Kinzinger now faces the classic challenge for political mavericks aiming to prove their independence: His stubborn and uncompromising nature rankles the very Republicans he is trying to recruit to his mission of remaking the party.

His anti-Trump stance has angered Republican constituents in his district, some of whom liken him to a Democrat, and frustrated Republican officials in Illinois who say he cares more about his own national exposure than his relationship with them.

“There doesn’t seem to be a camera or a microphone he won’t run to,” said Larry Smith, chairman of the La Salle County GOP, which censured Kinzinger last month. “He used to talk to us back in the good old days.”

Kinzinger is unapologetic about his priorities.

“Central and northern Illinois deserve an explanation and deserve my full attention, and they’ll get it,” he said. “But to the extent I can, I will also focus on the national message because I can turn every heart in central and northern Illinois, and it wouldn’t make a dent on the whole party. And that’s what I think the huge battle is.”

Kinzinger has drawn praise from Democrats, but he is not anyone’s idea of a progressive. His campaign website trumpets his long-standing opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and he is an opponent of abortion rights and increased taxes. He first won his seat in Congress with Sarah Palin’s endorsement.

Raised in a large central Illinois family — his father, who has 32 first cousins, ran food banks and shelters for the homeless in Peoria and Bloomington — Kinzinger was interested in politics from an early age. Before he’d turned 10 he predicted he would one day be governor or president, Otto said, and he won election to the McLean County Board when he was a 20-year-old sophomore at Illinois State University.

He joined the Air Force after the Sept. 11 attacks and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon his discharge he joined the Air National Guard, where he remains a lieutenant colonel. In the 2010 Republican wave Kinzinger, then 32, beat a Democratic incumbent by nearly 15 percentage points and, two years later, with support from Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader, ousted another incumbent, 10-term Republican Don Manzullo, in a primary following redistricting.

But Kinzinger soon became dispirited by a Republican Party he believed was centered around opposition to whatever President Barack Obama proposed without offering new ideas of its own.

“His frustration level has been rising ever since he got to Congress, and I think the Trump era has been difficult for him to make sense of and participate in,” said former Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas, who was one of Kinzinger’s closest friends in Congress before losing a 2018 reelection bid. When loyalty to Trump became a litmus test for Republican conservatism, Yoder said, “that became a bridge too far for him.”

While Kinzinger never presented himself as a Trump loyalist, he rarely broke with the former president on policy grounds, but he was critical of him dating back to the 2016 campaign, when he was a surrogate for Jeb Bush.

Trump was aware of Kinzinger’s lack of fealty. At a fundraiser in the Chicago suburbs before the 2016 election, Trump asked Richard Porter, a Republican National Committee member from Illinois, how Kinzinger would do in his reelection bid. He didn’t have an opponent, Porter recalled telling the future president.

Trump, Porter said, poked his finger in his chest and told him to deliver to Kinzinger a vulgar message about what he should do with himself. When Porter relayed the comment to Kinzinger during a conversation on Election Day, Kinzinger laughed and invited Trump to do the same.

In Illinois, Republicans have been struggling to guess what Kinzinger’s next move may be. In the interview, Kinzinger said he’s unlikely to pursue the 2022 nomination for governor or the Senate. Right now, he’s leaning toward running for reelection, but with redistricting looming this fall, it’s unclear how the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature will rearrange his district.

What is clear is that Kinzinger has found himself on the wrong side of rank-and-file Republicans at home. John McGlasson, the committee member for Kinzinger’s district, said the congressman had been “insulting with his comments” since Jan. 6.

Republican voters interviewed in the district last week lambasted Kinzinger for turning on Trump.

“If you want to vote as a Democrat, vote as a Democrat,” Richard Reinhardt, a 63-year-old retired mechanical engineer, said while eating lunch at a Thai restaurant in Rockford. “Otherwise, if you’re a Republican, then support our president. Trump was the first president who represented me. The stuff he did helped me.”

Kinzinger predicted “the hangover” of Trump’s post-impeachment popularity “will kind of wear off.’’

Former Gov. Bruce Rauner, the last Republican to win statewide office in Illinois, in 2014, said Kinzinger could find himself a casualty of the bitter schism dividing the party. “The only winners in the war between Trump and Republicans will be Democrats,” Rauner said. “For some voters, character matters. For most, it doesn’t.”

Kinzinger said he has little desire to reach out to the loudest critics in his district’s Republican organizations, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years and said hold little sway over voters. The letter-writers in his family, he said, suffer from “brainwashing” from conservative churches that have led them astray.

“I hold nothing against them,” he said, “but I have zero desire or feel the need to reach out and repair that. That is 100% on them to reach out and repair, and quite honestly, I don’t care if they do or not.”

As to his own future in the party, Kinzinger said he will know by the end of the summer whether he can remain a Republican for the long term or whether he will be motivated to change his party affiliation if it becomes clear to him that Trump’s allies have become a permanent majority.

“The party’s sick right now,” he said. “It’s one thing if the party was accepting of different views, but it’s become this massive litmus test on everything. So it’s a possibility down the road, but it’s certainly not my intention, and I’m going to fight like hell to save it first.”

Solar panel plant to be built at proposed Watertown business park, create hundreds of jobs

Tribune

Solar panel plant to be built at proposed Watertown business park, create hundreds of jobs

Craig Fox, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y. February 16, 2021

WATERTOWN — The Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency has landed what could be the biggest economic development project in its history with construction of a solar panel manufacturing plant at a proposed business park near Watertown International Airport.

The JCIDA will announce Tuesday morning that Convalt Energy, a New York City-based renewable energy company, plans to build a solar panel manufacturing facility in the agency’s proposed business park on Route 12F in the town of Hounsfield.

The Convalt facility would initially create about 165 jobs in the first year, then grow to 525 in five years, said David J. Zembiec, chief executive officer of Jefferson County Economic Development, the JCIDA’s sister organization.

DigiCollect, another company associated with Convalt Energy, would employ an additional 175 people in Watertown in its first year and expand to 1,535 jobs after five years.

Mr. Zembiec has been working with Convalt’s chairman and CEO, Hari Achuthan, since August. Mr. Achuthan’s company plans to invest $650 million in the venture over 10 years.

The state’s Empire State Development Corp. is offering tax credit and job credits to the company, Mr. Zembiec said.

Instead of relying on other companies, the airport facility would manufacture solar panels for a series of renewable energy projects that Convalt Energy is involved with in Africa and Asia.

“They want to avoid the middle man,” Mr. Zembiec said.

The company is developing renewable projects in the western and central Africa countries of Chad, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The company has worked on a 300-megawatt solar renewable project in Myanmar and owns a waste-to-renewable-energy plant in India. The company also runs wind and hydro power plants in other countries, according to its website.

The JCIDA’s Revolving Loan Fund Committee plans to approve a loan application and payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, agreement with the company Tuesday morning, with the full board voting on the funding package Thursday. Mr. Achuthan is in town to attend both meetings.

The company hopes to break ground on the airport park project in the fourth quarter of this year, or early 2022, Mr. Achuthan said Monday.

The company is still looking for investors in the project.

The announcement has been coming for weeks. In December of last year, Mr. Zembiec confirmed that a solar-related company was eyeing the airport park and that news could come by the end of the year. At the time, he declined to divulge the name of the company or any information about the venture.

In year one, Convalt plans to build a 20,000-square-feet facility and hopes to expand it to about 500,000 square feet by the fifth year.

The company would be the first to build on the site that the JCIDA has been trying to develop for several years. DigiCollect also would construct a 5,000-square-foot facility that would grow to 100,000 square feet in year five, Mr. Achuthan said.

DigiCollect, a software technology company, builds Enterprise Resource Platforms that would manage and monitor the company’s renewable energy system “in real time” once it’s in operation, Mr. Zembiec said.

The JCIDA owns the property. The main site for the airport business park, which is east of the airport off Route 12F, is about 90 acres. It includes an additional 12 acres on the west side of the airport.

Convalt had been looking at other sites in New York and outside of the state before deciding on the Watertown location, Mr. Zembiec said. He first mentioned a site in Deferiet to Mr. Achuthan, then the company CEO came to Watertown in November to see the airport site.

The airport location has a direct connection to air travel, it’s close to Interstate 81 and is in proximity to Canada and access to the St. Lawrence River, Mr. Zembiec said.

Fort Drum would be a source for its workforce at the facilities, with about 150 soldiers retiring from the post every month, Mr. Achuthan said. He noted the companies’ hopes of reverting to the north country’s manufacturing past, the region’s connection to hydro power and its rural atmosphere as other “attributes” that attracted him to Jefferson County.

He also noted that the state is making a commitment to renewable energy.

“It was checking off 20 boxes, not just one thing,” he said, adding that the JCIDA was “more aggressive” than other economic development agencies that competed for the project. “It just made for a natural fit.” It also was important to keep all operations at one site, rather than splitting them up in two or three areas, he said.

Mr. Achuthan is also the founder, chairman and CEO of ACO Investment Group, Convalt’s parent company. Founded in 2011 and based in New York City, ACO is an alternative investments manager and a private equity firm that focuses on investing in the energy, power, information technology, e-commerce, telecommunication, transportation and logistic sectors.

“We’re a quiet company that operates under the radar,” Mr. Achuthan said.

Prior to founding ACO and Convalt, Mr. Achuthan was a director at Credit Suisse Asset Management in the Alternative Investment group, where he covered hedge fund, real estate and private equity strategies.

He has a bachelor of science degree in applied economics from Hofstra University and is a frequent guest lecturer at Louisiana State University School of Business.

Florida can run on 100 percent clean, renewable energy

Miami Herald

Florida can run on 100 percent clean, renewable energy. Setting goals can make it happen | Opinion

Anna Eskamani February 16, 2021

We are at a tipping point when it comes to how we power our lives. Nationwide, and in Florida, we are still producing, consuming and wasting energy in ways that create lasting damage to our environment and our health. In 2021, we have the opportunity and know-how to tap into clean and renewable energy from sources such as the sun and wind, but doing so will require the nation and state to transform the way they produce and consume energy.

Given the inaction on clean energy at the federal level and the deep-rooted influence of fossil-fuel companies within our politics today, that transformation sometimes feels out of reach.

But it isn’t. Floridians have the power to demand better of their elected officials, and we have the state-based policy solutions to bring the Sunshine State into a clean-energy future.

That is why I filed House Bill 283, legislation to transition Florida to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040 and carbon neutrality by 2050. Filed in the state Senate by Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach, this legislation also bans fracking in Florida and establishes a workforce board to ensure that the state’s drive toward a clean-energy economy produces new high-paying jobs — a much-needed initiative following COVID-19’s damaging impact on the state’s unemployment rate.

Renewable energy resources are vast. Tapping into just a fraction of them could give us all the energy we need for every aspect of our lives. The United States has the technical potential to meet its current electricity needs more than 100 times over with solar energy alone, or more than 10 times over with wind energy. With that inexhaustible potential, falling renewable energy prices and installations booming, we can envision a future powered entirely by clean energy.

We have the power to reshape our energy future. Since the 1990s, states across the country have been setting minimum standards for renewable energy that utility companies must meet. Today, 30 states have these renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in place, and 25 of those have substantially increased their standards since they were first implemented.

States have consistently bumped up their renewable-energy targets, in part because of growing public demand for action, and because renewables have consistently risen to the occasion. Across the country, states, including Massachusetts, Colorado and California, have been meeting their targets ahead of schedule, increasing them, hitting them again and then repeating that cycle. We’ve learned one key lesson from this: Goal-setting works.

In just the past five years, seven states have stepped up to set the ultimate goal — reaching 100 percent clean or renewable electricity. Hawaii first started the trend with a landmark commitment in 2015, and California followed suit in 2018. Last year, New Mexico, Washington, Maine and New York all jumped on board, and Virginia became the latest to join those ranks in April. Momentum is building in many more states, and Florida absolutely should be next to set its sights on transitioning to 100 percent renewables.

With rising sea levels and increased storm activity directly affecting the Sunshine State, Florida has a chance to set an example and be a leader in clean energy. On top of risks from Mother Nature, the continued use of fossil fuels could lead to more harmful effects to our ecosystems like we saw in the Gulf in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

We need to stop digging for energy from the ground and instead garner the energy that is all around us. Passing HB 283 and adopting clean, renewable energy to power every aspect of our lives — from keeping the lights on to heating our homes and fueling our cars — will mean a safer, healthier Florida right now and for generations to come.

Rep. Anna Vishkaee Eskamani, a Democrat, represents Florida’s 47th district in Orange County in the state House.

What Will Happen To Our Planet After All the Polar Ice Melts

BSEV

What Will Happen To Our Planet After All the Polar Ice Melts

Around 50 million years ago, Earth had no glaciers. Today, it is partially covered with ice, but what will happen if the polar ice caps melt? How will our world look like and what will it happen to the environment, to humans and the animals whose lives depend on ice?

Scientists already know how the melting of glaciers will change the world because the event is already taking place. While the entire ice melting should take a few thousands of years, let’s take a look into the future and see how these changes will impact the entire planet. You’ll notice some of these events are already taking place!

20. A Longer Day

According to Steven Dutch (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay), when the polar ice caps melt, the day will be a little longer. How longer? Well… only around 2/3 of a second.

The melting of ice caps will redistribute the water on Earth and create a moment of inertia, so the rotation of Earth will be slightly slower.

19. Massive Earthquakes

It seems that all the ice melting on Earth will bring a slew of Biblical catastrophes. That includes massive earthquakes, explains Anthony Fordham, editor of Popular Science Australia. He likens Earth with a Ping-Pong ball that has a dent in it…

Here’s his fun and doomsday explanation.

18. Antarctica’s Volcanoes Will Also Erupt

The dent in Earth is the pressure that the sheet of ice lays on top of Antarctica. When the ice is remove, Earth’s crust will pop out and cause intense earthquakes all over the world.

Not to mention that the seismic activities will also make all the active volcanoes in Antarctica erupt.

17. Civil War?

In an interview with the National Geographic in 2013, Dr. Hal Wanless from the University of Miami stated that the rising water could lead to war:

“We’re going to see civil unrest, war. You just wonder how—or if—civilization will function.”

16. Huge Cities Underwater

The melting of polar ice caps will lead to evacuation of large cities like Miami or London who will be underwater. This lead to a huge refugee problem. By the next century, millions of people will need to find someplace else to live since the sea levels keep on rising.

15. Viruses Waiting to Be Released

Biologist Elena Giorgi knows that the permafrost hides many pathogens from antique times. With the thawing and melting of polar ice caps, many viruses and bacteria will be released. Giorgi explains that researchers have already discovered a “giant” prehistoric virus they named “pithovirus.”

14. Polar Bears Will Go Extinct

Considering polar bears live on the Arctic ice and their lives depend on that habitat, they will soon be extinct. According to Alun Anderson, the Arctic will be open ocean by 2050 and the “killer whale living in open water will be the symbol of the Arctic, replacing a bear on ice.”

Walruses will also go extinct, since the mothers give birth on ice…

13. We’ll Have A Hot Earth

Losing the ice caps will end with a hotter planet because of the albedo effect. Sunlight is reflected by ice into the atmosphere and the open water that will be at the North Pole instead of ice would absorb the sun radiation and make our planet warmer!

12. Expect Extremely Weird Weather

Weather will get wacky with. Winds will slow, so we’ll see some strange persistent weather, like very long periods of rain, snow storms or in the summer longer periods of heat and droughts.

11. New ‘Trans-Arctic’ Shipping Routes Will Form

According to researchers from the Ohio State University, by 2050, “common open-water ships” will be able to cross the Arctic in the summer and bigger “ice-strengthened ships” will get “robust new routes.”

Global trade will increase, but so will vessel safety standards, environmental protections, among others, explained researchers.

10. Alaska’s Infrastructure Crumbles

Cathleen Kelly (Center for American Progress) already reported that the permafrost is “sinking unevenly, causing highways, pipelines, railroads, runways, and other infrastructure to buckle.” With all the ice caps and glaciers melting, the infrastructure will crumble, and fixing it is very expensive!

9. Exploiting Oil In the Arctic

In 2015, Shell tried to exploit oil in the Arctic, but they finally gave up. They said they chose to stop it because of the “significant regulatory restrictions” from the government, but the main reason was the ice, severe winters and drifting ice. With all the ice gone, imagine how easier it would be for these companies to exploit oil…

8. Inuits Will Also Suffer

The Inuit people will have to adapt and change their way of life. According to the Canadian Inuit spokesman, Jose A. Kusugak, the people already are feeling the changes, and they will have to “completely reinvent what it means to be Inuit.” Researcher Dr. Lori Lambert added that they will also have to move and their traditions will be lost, since their “cultural identity depends on [the Arctic landscape].”

7. “We Are Nothing”

Kusugak said that no matter how Inuit’s lives will be in the future, “it will not be an uninterrupted continuation of the traditional ways.” In Qaataak, Greenland, the Inuit stated that “without the ice, we are nothing.”

6. Earth’s Continents Without Ice

Wondering how the maps will look if the Earth will be left with no ice? Here’s how the coastlines across some continents will look, when all the ice on land will get drained in the sea. It would raise the sea level by 216 feet and create new shorelines, new inland seas, while it will also drown many cities across the globe…

5. North America – No More Florida

Imagine there’s no Florida and Gulf Coast. Look at California, where San Francisco’s hills will become islands and the Central Valley will be just a giant bay.

4. Africa – Uninhabitable Regions, Now More Alexandria and Cairo

While Africa will keep most of its land, the extreme weather will make a huge region uninhabitable. Africa will lose Alexandria and Cairo, which will be swallowed by the Mediterranean.

3. Europe – No More London and Venice

Among many other lost shorelines, London and Venice will be swallowed by the sea. Netherlands will be gone, and so will most of Denmark. The Mediterranean will expand and raise the levels of the Black and Caspian Seas.

2. Asia – China and India Will Lose Massive Lands

Right now, that shoreline that is swallowed by the seas in China is inhabited by 600 million people. In the coastal India, 160 million people will have to find new homes and Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains will become an island.

1. Australia Gets a New Inland Sea

Australia will get a new sea, but most of the narrow coast will be lost. Unfortunately, most of the population lives on the coastal strip.

As you can see, some of the extreme changes from ice melting on Earth are already happening and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Let’s say the good news is the complete melting of the ice caps will happen thousands of years in the future.

Herrera Beutler says McCarthy told her Trump sided with the Capitol mob as the assault unfolded.

The New York Times

Herrera Beutler says McCarthy told her Trump sided with the Capitol mob as the assault unfolded.

By Nicholas Fandos February 13, 2021

Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, Republican of Washington, at the Capitol last week. — Credit…Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On the eve of a verdict in Donald J. Trump’s Senate trial, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him confirmed on Friday night that the top House Republican, Representative Kevin McCarthy, told her that the former president had sided with the mob during a phone call as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack unfolded.

In a statement on Friday night, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, Republican of Washington, recounted a phone call relayed to her by Mr. McCarthy of California, the minority leader, in which Mr. Trump was said to have sided with the rioters, telling the top House Republican that members of the mob who had stormed the Capitol were “more upset about the election than you are.”

She pleaded with witnesses to step forward and share what they knew about Mr. Trump’s actions and statements as the attack was underway.

“To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,” Ms. Herrera Beutler said in the statement.

Her account of the call between Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump, first reported by CNN, addressed a crucial question in the impeachment trial: what Mr. Trump was doing and saying privately while the Capitol was being overrun.

Ms. Herrera Beutler said that Mr. McCarthy had relayed details of his phone call with Mr. Trump to her. She has been speaking publicly about it for weeks, including during a virtual town hall on Monday with constituents, and she recounted their conversation again in the statement on Friday.

A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy did not reply to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the House impeachment managers did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Republican leader’s response to Mr. Trump in the weeks since the attack on the Capitol has fluctuated. On the day of the House’s impeachment vote, he said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the attack because he had not denounced the mob, but he has since backtracked and sought to repair his relationship with the former president.

By Ms. Herrera Beutler’s account, Mr. McCarthy called Mr. Trump frantically on Jan. 6 as the Capitol was being besieged by thousands of pro-Trump supporters trying to stop Congress from counting Electoral College votes that would confirm his loss.

She said Mr. McCarthy asked him “to publicly and forcefully call off the riot.”

Mr. Trump replied by saying that antifa, not his supporters, was responsible. When Mr. McCarthy said that was not true, the former president was curt.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” he said, according Ms. Herrera Beutler’s account of what Mr. McCarthy told her.

Hours after the assault began, Mr. Trump tweeted a video in which he asked those ransacking the Capitol to leave. “Go home. We love you. You’re very special,” he said.

Nicholas Fandos is congressional correspondent for The New York Times, based in Washington. He has covered Capitol Hill since 2017, chronicling two Supreme Court confirmation fights, two historic impeachments of Donald J. Trump, and countless bills in between.

The global race to produce hydrogen offshore

BBC News

The global race to produce hydrogen offshore

Chris Baraniuk, Tech Business reporter February 12, 2021

Wind turbines stand at the Riffgat offshore wind farm, Germany

Last year was a record breaker for the UK’s wind power industry.

Wind generation reached its highest ever level, at 17.2GW on 18 December, while wind power achieved its biggest share of UK energy production, at 60% on 26 August.

Yet occasionally the huge offshore wind farms pump out far more electricity than the country needs – such as during the first Covid-19 lockdown last spring when demand for electricity sagged.

But what if you could use that excess power for something else?

“What we’re aiming to do is generate hydrogen directly from offshore wind,” says Stephen Matthews, Hydrogen Lead at sustainability consultancy ERM.

His firm’s project, Dolphyn, aims to fit floating wind turbines with desalination equipment to remove salt from seawater, and electrolyzers to split the resulting freshwater into oxygen and the sought-after hydrogen.

The idea of using excess wind energy to make hydrogen has sparked great interest, not least because governments are looking to move towards greener energy systems within the next 30 years, under the terms of the Paris climate agreement.

Hydrogen is predicted to be an important component in these systems and may be used in vehicles or in power plants. But for that to happen, production of the gas, which produces zero greenhouse gas emissions when burned, will need to dramatically increase in the coming decades.

Mr. Matthews says his firm’s project is just getting going, with a prototype system using a floating wind turbine of roughly 10 megawatt capacity planned, but not yet built.

It’s possible that the system could be based in Scotland and the aim is to start producing hydrogen around 2024 or 2025.

But there are many other ventures in this area besides Dolphyn.

Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa and energy firm Siemens Energy are ploughing 120m euros ($145m; £105m) into the development of an offshore turbine with a built-in electrolyzer.

German energy company Tractebel is exploring the possibility of building a large-scale, offshore hydrogen production plant powered by nearby wind turbines; and UK-headquartered Neptune Energy is seeking to convert an oil platform into a hydrogen production station, which will pump hydrogen ashore to the Netherlands via pipes that are currently transporting natural gas.

All of the excitement around hybrid wind energy and hydrogen generation systems is partly down to climate commitments but economics are also involved.

Large-scale hydrogen electrolyzers are becoming more available while the costs of installing wind turbines has fallen “dramatically”, says James Carton, assistant professor in sustainable energy at Dublin City University.

He and others think the time is right to kick-start large-scale hydrogen electrolysis at sea, though the idea has been around for many years.

Oyster is yet another project in this area, and involves a consortium of companies including Danish energy firm Ørsted and British electrolyzer specialists ITM Power, among others.

In the first instance, a wind turbine will power an onshore electrolyzer that will churn out hydrogen. The device will be exposed to sea spray to simulate, to a degree, the harsh environment facing offshore equipment. ITM intends to design a system compact enough to fit into a single wind turbine.

The firm’s chief executive, Graham Cooley, points out that it is much easier to store molecules such as hydrogen than electrons in batteries.

“All the renewable energy companies… they’ve realized they’ve got a new product,” he adds. “Now they can supply renewable molecules to the gas grid and industry.”

The Oyster consortium hopes to have shown off a demonstrator of its system within 18 months.

ITM Power Electrolyser — ITM plan to build a hydrogen-producing unit that can fit into a wind turbine

Among the many potential uses for hydrogen is as a fuel for gas-burning boilers in homes. Converting the domestic gas grid to provide hydrogen, and fitting homes with boilers capable of burning it, would be a huge task.

However, it would mean that excess wind energy could in principle be used to supply this giant system, meaning very little of that energy would go to waste, says Mr. Carton, referring to the gas main pipes scattered around the UK and Ireland: “We have a big tank, it’s just a really long tank in the ground.”

For some, this is all very exciting. But there are hurdles yet to overcome. A spokesman for the wind energy industry body WindEurope says that while renewable hydrogen produced via wind-powered electrolysis is “future-proof”, a decade or so of technological development is required before these systems will have a larger impact.

Jon Gluyas, Ørsted/Ikon chair in geoenergy, carbon capture and storage at Durham University, adds that the real question is whether it is cost-effective to set up such equipment at scale. Proponents, unsurprisingly, argue it is – but with energy systems the proof is only ever in the pudding. Ultimately, Prof Gluyas says a mix of different technologies and approaches will be needed for countries like the UK to be carbon neutral.

For Mr. Carton, the vision remains tantalizing. Schemes that solve the problem of wind’s variability by using excess power to good use could be transformative, he argues: “It’ll change the way we look at renewables.”

Wind energy had a ‘banner year’ in 2020. Here’s what that means for Joe Biden’s climate plan.

USA Today

Wind energy had a ‘banner year’ in 2020. Here’s what that means for Joe Biden’s climate plan.

Elinor Aspegren, USA TODAY February 11, 2021

The wind energy sector in the U.S. blew away records in 2020.

A study from the American Clean Power Association released this month reports that 2020 was a record year for the industry, with developers adding enough megawatts of capacity to provide power for millions of homes and inching the U.S. closer to the Biden administration’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2035.

In all, 16,913 megawatts of new wind power capacity was installed in the U.S. last year – an 85% increase over 2019. That’s the equivalent of the power generated from 11 large coal plants, and enough to serve nearly 6 million homes, Jonathan Naughton, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming, told USA TODAY.

Texas hosted the most activity with 13% of energy output, followed by Wyoming (10%), Oklahoma (7%), Kansas (5%) and New Mexico (4%).

“2020 was a banner year for the wind industry,” Heather Zichal, president/CEO of American Clean Power, formerly the American Wind Energy Association, said in a statement. “Despite all the challenges COVID-19 placed on our businesses, we still shattered nearly every record for capacity and growth.”

Here’s how states stack up, and how the industry’s current capacity figures into the country’s goal for carbon neutrality.

Texas: Wind power ‘driving significant economic growth’

Wind power produced up to two thirds of Texas’s energy output in 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. In total, the Lone Star State generated about 29,407 MWs of wind power, installing 2,197 MWs in 2020 – meaning that if Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world for wind power capacity, some estimates say.

“Texas is the number one energy consumer in the country. Our economy and continued growth are dependent on reliable power, and how we meet this massive demand has tremendous implications,” Powering Texas writes on its website. “Renewable energy is helping Texas meet this growing demand for energy, while also providing jobs, bolstering rural economies and supporting communities all across the state.”

A vehicle drives past wind turbines on a rural road near Sweetwater, Texas, in this July 29, 2020, file photo.

Why is Texas such a windy state? It sits right in the wind belt, a swath of land blessed with an excellent wind resource. The wind resource continues straight up the middle of the country to Canada and includes Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. There’s also significant wind in portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming and Montana.

It also has less restrictive zoning, taxation systems that encourage building and robust transmission lines that together have allowed it to jump ahead of the rest.

Wyoming: An improving political climate for wind energy?

Wyoming is an interesting place for wind energy – it’s the No. 1 producer for coal in the country, said Naughton.

“Wind energy is always looked at as a threat to the coal industry,” he said.

But in 2020, the state nearly doubled its wind capacity for power, adding nearly 900 MWs over the past year. That signals to Naughton that the political climate for wind power is improving in the Cowboy State.

Biden’s climate crusade: How his plan to cut carbon emissions, create jobs could impact U.S.

“People are understanding that wind is likely to develop here and it produces some jobs and some tax money, and it does some good things,” he said.

Part of that is due to a tax on wind power, which brings in about $4.2 million a year, reported the Casper Star-Tribune.

But Naughton and other energy experts cautioned that people shouldn’t take the burst in Wyoming’s wind development as a trend from year to year. The Industrial Siting Council, the regulatory board charged with reviewing big wind project applications in the state, hasn’t received a new proposal for a wind project since 2019, the Star-Tribune reported.

How close is US to carbon neutrality?

Despite the wind energy industry’s gains in 2020, the U.S. remains far from carbon neutrality by 2035, a main goal in the Biden administration’s climate plan.

“We’re in the single digits still. But we’re in the high single digits,” Naughton said. Compared to 2000, when the U.S. was stuck in the sub-single digits, he added, “We’ve come an amazing way.”

Still, Naughton said the U.S. would need to accelerate its pace of installation to achieve President Joe Biden’s goal, which he described as doable with a recommitment to offshore wind energy farms and to those areas impacted by the loss of old energy outputs.

“We have a policy push to do it. And we also have an economic push to do it. So the pieces are in place,” he said. “We’ve just got to make sure it actually happens.”

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise and Rick Jervis, USA TODAY