Just Politics

[jbsliverer]

Maybe, before the fossil fuel industry demands the ability to mess our house up more, they should learn how to clean up their own rooms.


US transition to electric vehicles would save over 100,000 lives by 2050 – study
Swapping gas for zero-emission vehicles would also lead to 2.8m fewer asthma attacks and avoid 13.4m sick days

Overall, communities of color and low-income neighborhoods would reap the biggest benefits from zero-emission technologies as they currently suffer disproportionately from air pollution and climate disasters, the study says.

Nina Lakhani in New York
Wed 30 Mar 2022 00.01 EDT

A speedy nationwide transition to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy would save more than 100,000 American lives and $1.2tn in public health costs over the next three decades, according to a new report.

Analysis by the American Lung Association highlights the public health damage caused by the world’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and provides a glimpse into a greener, healthier future – should political leaders decide to act.

According to the report, swapping gas vehicles for zero-emission new cars and trucks in the US would lead to 110,000 fewer deaths, 2.8m fewer asthma attacks and avoid 13.4m sick days by 2050.

The shift would lead to a 92% fall in greenhouse gases by 2050, generating $1.7tn in climate benefits by protecting ecosystems, agriculture, infrastructure from rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events including drought and floods.

The calculations are based on transitioning to 100% electric cars sales by 2035 and 100% electric trucks by 2040, as well as ditching dirty fossil fuels for 100% renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear by 2035.

However, given political polarization in the US and a lack of political urgency, it seems highly unlikely that oil and gas companies will stop drilling or that American car dealers will be selling only electric cars by 2035.

Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) legislation, which includes historic funds for climate initiatives, has failed to move through the Senate due to stonewalling by the Republicans and the conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, the fossil-fuel friendly senator from West Virginia.

But the ALA report details the widespread health benefits that could be achieved if political leaders prioritized climate action over corporate profits.

“The current rising gas and energy prices are a symptom of our addiction to fossil fuels. But outside the economic pain, there’s significant public health pain caused by our addiction to fossil fuels. Transitioning to zero-emission technologies and energy depends on strong political leadership and investments, in order to get the potential health benefits off the page and into the real world,” said Will Barrett, author of Zeroing in on Healthy Air.

The scientific evidence is unequivocal. Any further delay in concerted global action to tackle the climate crisis will miss a rapidly closing window to secure a livable future, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the US, transportation and energy are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases and toxic air.

At least four in 10 Americans – more than 135 million people – live in communities affected by unhealthy levels of air pollution which increase the risk of asthma attacks, strokes, lung cancer, heart attacks, impaired cognitive functioning, premature births and premature death.

The greatest direct health risks are faced by those living close to highways, ports, rail yards, refineries, drilling sites, pipelines and power plants – who are disproportionately communities of color and low-income households. These health burdens are due to decades of inequitable land use policies and systemic racism.

According to the ALA, a shift to zero-emission technologies compared with business as usual would lead to a 78% reduction in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – which can cause difficulty breathing, nausea, damage to the central nervous system and cancer. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are associated with increased ER visits and hospitalizations with asthma, could fall by 92%. (NOx and VOCs are building blocks for ozone – or smog.)

Fine ??particle (PM2.5) pollution, which elevates the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and asthma, would drop 61% by 2050.

Every state stands to benefit, with more than half gaining at least $10bn in cumulative public health savings from a range of avoided health impacts like premature deaths, asthma emergencies and sick days. The country’s two most populated states – California and Texas – could save $100bn, while six others – Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, New York, Illinois and Michigan – stand to save at least $50bn by 2050. (Hawaii and Alaska were not included.)

The hundred US counties, accounting for about 3% in total, with the highest proportion of people of color could experience about 13% of the cumulative health benefits of the green transport transition.

The impacts of doing nothing are very real.

As a child, Rohan Arora from the Washington DC area would rush to fetch his asthmatic father’s inhaler as he coughed and wheezed, triggered by the air pollution on his journey home from work. “It was almost every day, a hazard of living in a city, and sometimes he needed to go to the hospital. Transitioning to zero emissions and clean renewable energy is urgent,” said Arora, 21.

Heavy-duty vehicles like cargo trucks account for just 6% of the national on-road fleet, but generate 31% of the total greenhouse gases in the transport sector. In short, cars produce more harmful planet-heating gases and air pollutants because there are so many of them on the road, but trucks are by far the more toxic.

BBB legislation earmarks $555bn to tackle the energy and transport sectors through a variety of grants, tax incentives and other policies to boost jobs and technologies, as well as major investments in sustainable vehicles and public transit services.

“Zero-emission transportation is a win-win for public health,” said Harold Wimmer, ALA’s president and CEO.

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Methane Leaks in New Mexico Far Exceed Current Estimates, Study Suggests
An analysis found leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin were many times higher than government estimates
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/climate/methane-leaks-new-mexico.html
By Maggie Astor
March 24, 2022
Startlingly large amounts of methane are leaking from wells and pipelines in New Mexico, according to a new analysis of aerial data, suggesting that the oil and gas industry may be contributing more to climate change than was previously known.

The study, by researchers at Stanford University, estimates that oil and gas operations in New Mexico’s Permian Basin are releasing 194 metric tons per hour of methane, a planet-warming gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. That is more than six times as much as the latest estimate from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The number came as a surprise to Yuanlei Chen and Evan Sherwin, the lead authors of the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“We spent really the past more than two years going backwards and forwards thinking of ways that we might be wrong and talking with other experts in the methane community,” said Dr. Sherwin, a postdoctoral research fellow in energy resources engineering at Stanford. “And at the end of that process, we realized that this was our best estimate of methane emissions in this region and this time, and we had to publish it.”

More on those reports

Stanford-led study: Methane leaks are far worse than estimates, at least in New Mexico, but there’s hope
Using airborne sensors that see methane in the air, Stanford researchers say leaks are more worrisome than thought, but hope lies in the sensing technology itself.
MARCH 24, 2022
BY ANDREW MYERS

The amount of methane – a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over 100 years – leaking from a huge U.S. oil and gas producing region is several times greater than the federal government estimates, according to a new study led by Stanford University...........
https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2022/03/24/methane-leaks-mues-fix-available/

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Special Report: Millions of abandoned oil wells are leaking methane, a climate menace
By Nichola Groom

15 MIN READ


SALYERSVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - (This June 16 story corrects comparison in paragraph eight of climate damage from methane leaks to that from U.S. oil consumption. The leaks cause climate damage roughly equivalent to typical U.S. oil consumption in one day, not two days.)


FILE PHOTO: Hanson Rowe, a landowner who blames a leaky gas well on his property for health problems, smells for the odor of gas emanating from an abandoned well on his property in Salyersville, Kentucky, U.S., February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston
In May 2012, Hanson and Michael Rowe noticed an overpowering smell, like rotten eggs, seeping from an abandoned gas well on their land in Kentucky. The fumes made the retired couple feel nauseous, dizzy, and short of breath.

Regulators responding to the leak couldn’t find an owner to fix it. J.D. Carty Resources LLC had drilled the well near the Rowes’ home in 2006 - promising the family a 12.5% royalty and free natural gas, which they never got. But Carty went bust in 2008 and sold the site to a company that was later acquired by Blue Energy LLC. Lawyers for both companies deny any responsibility for the leak.

A year later, Kentucky’s Division of Oil and Gas declared the well an environmental emergency and hired Boots & Coots Inc - the Texas contractor that doused oil-well fires after the Gulf War - to plug it. During the 40-day operation, the Rowes retreated to a trailer on their property and lived with no running water to escape the gases and noise. Regulators determined the leak was a toxic blend of hydrogen sulfide, a common drilling byproduct, and the potent greenhouse gas methane.

“I wouldn’t go through this again for $1 million,” said Hanson Rowe, who with his wife is suing the energy companies for compensation.

The incident, while extreme, reflects a growing global problem: More than a century of oil and gas drilling has left behind millions of abandoned wells, many of which are leaching pollutants into the air and water. And drilling companies are likely to abandon many more wells due to bankruptcies, as oil prices struggle to recover from historic lows after the coronavirus pandemic crushed global fuel demand, according to bankruptcy lawyers, industry analysts and state regulators.

Leaks from abandoned wells have long been recognized as an environmental problem, a health hazard and a public nuisance. They have been linked to dozens of instances of groundwater contamination by research commissioned by the Groundwater Protection Council, whose members include state ground water agencies. Orphaned wells have been blamed for a slew of public safety incidents over the years, including a methane blowout at the construction site of a waterfront hotel in California last year..............
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport

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NPR's 1A: UC expert explains risk of leaky gas wells
UC research warns of environmental impact of uncapped wells
www.uc.edu/news/articles/2021/10/bloomberg--uc-expert-shows-risks-of-leaky-gas-lines

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Fossil Fuels
Canada’s Tar Sands: Destruction So Vast and Deep It Challenges the Existence of Land and People
Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet.
insideclimatenews.org