Attributed to Huddy Ledbetter (Leadbelly) – but who knows…?
Month: May 2019
AOC: Trump Voter Switches on Climate
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez via ThreadreaderApp:
About an hour ago, I was walking out of my office for the day.
There was a man what I believe was his teenage son hanging a small sign they made outside my office (we let people leave well wishes on our wall).
Astonishingly, his sign read: “Trump supporters for Ocasio-Cortez.”
I was pretty astonished.
We shook hands, he introduced himself, and told me he wanted to show his support.
I could barely get my question out – I wanted to honor his positivity, yet respectfully find a way to ask, “How?”
I somehow got it out: “With all respect sir, how do you… manage to support both of us at the same time?”
This is what he said:
“I’ve been saying for years that climate change is our most important crisis. You’re one of the only ones who‘s been willing to be decisive on it.”
Then he said, “I like you. I can tell that you are genuine and fighting for us. You’re real and you get it.”
I thanked him and his family from the bottom of my heart.
All of this is to say don’t let any politician, no matter the party, lecture you about what is “possible” or “electable.”
Don’t ever let a politician imply that working people are “less-than” or “uneducated” – aka that they are the ones in the way of solving the climate crisis.
The forces getting in the way of solving our climate crisis are politicians themselves + lobbyists. It is the willingness to bend to corporate power – the same ones that use coal miners’ plights for a tax break, yet refuse to pay for those same miners’ healthcare for black lung.
If you don’t understand this man’s sign – or don’t approach it with a desire to – then you do not understand this political moment.
The same folks who said Trump was impossible in 2016 are the same ones lecturing on what’s “electable” in 2020.
Don’t buy it. Vote your values.
Biden Leads Pack, but How is He on Climate?
I haven’t settled on a favorite candidate for 2020 yet, and history suggests it’s way too early to get strung out about it.
At this point in the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton was at about 2 percent in the polls, and the presumed nominee was (New York Governor I’ll have to remind yungins’) Mario Cuomo.
So Uncle Joe Biden is showing a lot of early strength, based on name recognition, association with the very popular Barack Obama, and a hunger for normalcy and stability. He’s a got good communication skills, especially with disaffected blue collar Dems in key states. That’s all good.
But Joe has come under fire lately for some, perhaps not so well considered statements that sound a little to lukewarm on warming.
I get the outrage – but I’m old enough to remember “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Al Gore and George Bush”. Spoiler, turns out there was.
A big part of Biden’s climate policy mirror’s Obama’s. Not sufficient.
But given that, would I take Obama back as President right now?
In a hot minute.
Discuss.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden is crafting a climate change policy he hopes will appeal to both environmentalists and the blue-collar voters who elected Donald Trump, according to two sources, carving out a middle ground approach that will likely face heavy resistance from green activists.
The backbone of the policy will likely include the United States re-joining the Paris Climate Agreement and preserving U.S. regulations on emissions and vehicle fuel efficiency that Trump has sought to undo, according to one of the sources, Heather Zichal, who is part of a team advising Biden on climate change. She previously advised President Barack Obama.
The second source, a former energy department official advising Biden’s campaign who asked not to be named, said the policy could also be supportive of nuclear energy and fossil fuel options like natural gas and carbon capture technology, which limit emissions from coal plants and other industrial facilities.
Continue reading “Biden Leads Pack, but How is He on Climate?”Joe Biden may not be the most progressive candidate in the crowded Democratic primary field. But one thing is for certain: Among 2020 presidential candidates, he has the longest legislative record on climate change.
In fact, Biden has taken this title a good deal further by claiming to have pioneered some of the earliest climate change legislation in U.S. history.
“I’m one of the first guys to introduce a climate change bill, way, way back in ‘87,” Biden said during a stump speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 1.
We were curious if that was accurate. A review of the legislative history shows Biden is right.
What did Biden’s bill do?
The Delaware senator’s first climate change bill, introduced in 1986, died in the Senate. But the following year a version of Biden’s legislation survived as an amendment to a State Department funding bill. President Ronald Reagan went on to sign it into law.
The upshot of Biden’s Global Climate Protection Act was to call on the president to set up a task force to plan how to mitigate global warming.
Biden spoke about the bill on the Senate floor in January 1987 in terms that seem uncannily familiar to present-day warnings. He discussed, among other ills, the threat to human habitat resulting from melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels.
“Life on this planet exists only under highly specialized circumstances,” Biden said during a Senate session. “Indeed, so special are these circumstances that even a small rise in temperature could disrupt the entire complicated environment that has nurtured life as we know it.”
The Weekend Wonk: Fleeing Climate Change
Why the US Has no High Speed Rail
Money.
Well, greed, and money.
Houston, You have a ..Glub..glub..glub…
Houston is having hurricane style flooding without a hurricane this week.
It’s hard to imagine how the city continues as normal if it’s going to be hit like this regularly. How many 500+ year rainstorms has it had in the last 5 years?
Above, for review, impacts of Hurricane Harvey on Houston make a good object lesson in climate change dynamics.
Continue reading “Houston, You have a ..Glub..glub..glub…”In a week that has already seen Houston and surrounding areas in Southeast Texas face some of the most severe rainfall since Hurricane Harvey, heavy storms again pounded the city late Thursday, leaving at least three bayous flowing over the top of their banks, nearly 90,000 residents without power and dozens reportedly trapped for a time in floodwater on Interstate 10.
The Thursday night storm continues a week of flooding in a city where the fallout from the historic 2017 hurricane is still being felt. Harris County meteorologist Jeff Lindner told the Houston Chronicle that more than three inches fell in most areas of Houston, but one area far east of Houston got nailed with four inches in 30 minutes. Some areas expected to see up to six inches of rain, the Chronicle reported.
George Clooney Against DUMBF**KERY
Could Nuscale Make Nuclear Smaller, Safer, Cheaper?
Another contender for “new” nuclear power.
While I wish them all the luck in the world, I have questions.
Nothing in the NPR story about potential for proliferation. Nothing about waste. (see below for Nuscale FAQ on these questions)
First working unit to be on line in 2026 – assuming a decade or so to prove it out and get investor’s confidence – not fast enough to help in pre-2030 build out of clean energy.
Obviously if it works, there’s potential after that – not hard to imagine a role for small modular generators like this.
Nuclear power plants are so big, complicated and expensive to build that more are shutting down than opening up. An Oregon company, NuScale Power, wants to change that trend by building nuclear plants that are the opposite of existing ones: smaller, simpler and cheaper.
The company says its plant design using small modular reactors also could work well with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, by providing backup electricity when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
The 98 nuclear reactors operating in the country now are large because they were designed to take advantage of economies of scale. Many are at risk of closing in the next decade, largely because they can’t compete with less expensive natural gas and renewable energy.
To respond to this dilemma, “we’ve developed economies of small,” says Jose Reyes, chief technology officer and co-founder of NuScale.
Instead of one big nuclear reactor, Reyes says his company will string together a series of up to 12 much smaller reactors. They would be built in a factory and transported by truck to a site that would be prepared at the same time.“You’re making your [reactor] pool and all that stuff on-site,” says Reyes. “In parallel, you’re manufacturing the modules, and then that cuts the construction schedule to about half.”
NuScale says it also has simplified how the plants are operated in ways that make them safer.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan happened when a tsunami knocked offline the emergency generators that cooled the reactors and spent fuel, leading to reactor meltdowns.
“We’ve looked at ways the systems have failed in the past and tried to remove those kind of failure modes from our design,” says Karin Feldman, vice president for the company’s Program Management Office.
NuScale’s design doesn’t depend on pumps or generators that could fail in an emergency because it uses passive cooling. The reactors would be in a containment vessel, underground and in a huge pool of water that can absorb heat.
That means that even a reactor that fails would still be safe. “It doesn’t require any additional water,” says Feldman. “It doesn’t require AC or DC power. It doesn’t require any operator action. And it can stay in that safe configuration for as long as is needed.”
Insurers See Jump in Climate Risks
According to a new report, climate change is now the number one concern for North American insurers.
Max Rudolph, fellow of the Society of Actuaries and author of the report, said this is the 12th year the group published an analysis.
“Climate change took the biggest jump this year of I believe any risk that I can remember, seeing it jump from 7 percent up to 22 percent,” he said.
Rudolph added that it’s becoming harder for risk managers to avoid thinking about climate change. He pointed to major hurricanes in 2017 and the longer, more intense wildfire seasons we’re seeing in the west.
“My personal opinion is that this is a case of the risk managers catching up to the actual risk that is out there,” he explained.
Annual Survey of Emerging Risks:
In comparing this year’s results to prior year results, the cyber/interconnectedness of infrastructure risk remained strong, no longer with a clean sweep but at least second place in each of the four questions listed above. This risk continued its position as number one for top five emerging risks, increasing to 56% as shown in figure 1. For the other three questions it fell to number two. It was runner-up for top current risk (12%), top emerging risk (15%), and combination risk (9% of all the risks chosen, in combination with another risk). Climate change risk, the survey’s big mover, now is considered the top current risk (12%), top emerging risk (22%), top combination risk (11%), and is second among top five emerging risks (49%, with a leading increase of 20% as shown in figure 2).
Science Sees Seaweed Benefits, Climate Help from Kelp
Continue reading “Science Sees Seaweed Benefits, Climate Help from Kelp”Harvesting wild kelp is ancient, but farming it is relatively new in the United States; it’s the main variety of seaweed being cultivated here. The technology was imported from Asia and adopted here by a group of ecologically minded entrepreneurs who view seaweed as the food crop of the future. Kelp is nutritionally dense (it’s loaded with potassium, iron, calcium, fiber, iodine and a bevy of vitamins); it actively benefits ocean health by mitigating excess carbon dioxide and nitrogen; and can provide needed income to small fisheries threatened by climate change and overfishing.
“Kelp is a superhero of seaweed,” said Susie Arnold, a marine scientist at the Island Institute in Rockland, Me. “It de-acidifies the ocean by removing nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon dioxide, which we have too much of.”A feel-good superfood, kelp is more than the new kale. It’s a rare bright spot on an increasingly dim horizon, an umami-rich glint of hope.
“Kelp is sustainable on so many levels,” said Briana Warner, the chief executive officer of Atlantic Sea Farms, a Maine kelp company that’s helping local fishermen start kelp farms. “It’s environmentally sustainable, it’s physically sustaining because it’s so good for you, and farming it helps sustain family livelihoods that are in danger of disappearing.”
Ocean scientists call kelp farming a zero-input food source. It doesn’t require arable land, fresh water and fertilizers (or pesticides). And kelp farming has been shown to improve water quality to such a degree that shellfish farmed amid the kelp develop noticeably thicker shells and sweeter, larger meat.
Before the first kelp farms started in Maine about a decade ago, if you wanted to cook with edible seaweed (not to be confused with the decidedly undelicious rockweed that washes up on beaches), you’d have go to the shore and forage it yourself.