Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:07:45 AM
Natural Gas Nation: EIA Sees U.S. Future Shaped By Fracking
Natural gas drilling rigs dot the landscape in Wyoming, one of several states contributing to a boom in natural gas production that will create a lasting impact on the U.S. economy, according to the government's new annual energy outlook.
December 7, 2012
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/12/121207-annual-energy-outlook-2013/ [with comments]
*
AEO2013 Early Release Overview
This release is an abridged version of the Annual Energy Outlook that highlights changes in the AEO Reference case projections for key energy topics. The Early Release includes data tables for the Reference case only. The full AEO2013 will be released Spring of 2013.
December 5, 2012
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/index.cfm [report at http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/pdf/0383er(2013).pdf ]
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Does Frac Sand Mining Rush In Wisconsin Threaten Public Health?
The Cooks Valley frac sand mine lies just across the road from Victoria Trinko's farm.
Frac sand dust blows from piles at a mine in Woodbury, Minn.
12/07/2012
While flying back home to Wisconsin earlier this fall, Victoria Trinko had no trouble spotting her family farm from the sky. She simply looked for the frac sand mines that have begun to punctuate the rural Midwestern landscape.
From the ground, tending to her cows, Trinko said she is more likely to feel, smell or taste the presence of those mines and the trucks hauling its powdery sands toward an expanding array of natural gas drilling sites. The sand is an essential ingredient in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/fracking-sand-health-hazard-_n_2146992.html ], process.
"When I walk in from the field, I can feel the dust on my face. This grit, I can chew it," said Trinko, the town clerk for Cooks Valley, Wis. In October, about a year after a mine opened within a half-mile of her home, she was diagnosed with asthma.
Trinko can't prove a connection, much as it's been tough for residents at the other end of the natural gas production line to definitively say that drilling has poisoned their air and water. But she is one of a number of Midwest residents convinced of the health hazards posed by the frac sand mining that has proliferated in tandem with fracking. The process of fracking requires blasting large volumes of water, chemicals and silica sand into bedrock. Up to 4 million pounds of the sand is used per well to prop open the newly created rock fractures that release the natural gas.
Wisconsin's sands happen to be perfectly suited for such a task. Since May 2010, the number of mines and processing plants in the state jumped from 10 to about 110, according to Thomas Woletz of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The burgeoning business, say industry representatives, is a boon for the state's economy.
"We've provided thousands of great-paying jobs, which will be here for decades," said Martin Lehman, a spokesman for the Badger Mining Corp [ http://www.badgerminingcorp.com/ ]. "There's never been a non-occupational adverse health effect from silica sand. Badger takes the health of our neighbors and communities very seriously."
But the relative lack of research or monitoring of the sand mining's impacts has left a "big gaping question mark," said Jim Tittle, whose documentary film "The Price of Sand [ http://thepriceofsand.com/ ]" is set to debut in late January.
"As much as the companies say there are no worries, I've travelled around the state and keep hearing stories about people living fairly close to mines having lung issues," said Tittle.
In addition to aggravating asthma and other respiratory conditions, inhalation of fine silica sand dust [ http://www.osha.gov/dsg/topics/silicacrystalline/index.html ] is known to cause problems that can develop years, even decades, later, including cancer and silicosis, an irreversible lung disease that has historically plagued miners and construction workers.
The federal government released an occupational hazard alert [ http://www.osha.gov/dts/hazardalerts/hydraulic_frac_hazard_alert.pdf ] in June after a study found the majority of air samples taken at fracking sites had more silica dust than recommended. Nearly a third had at least 10 times the recommended limit. The researchers did not study effects of the dust on nearby residents or on mining operations.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/frac-sand-mining-wisconsin-health_n_2256753.html [with comments]
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Keystone Conflict: Nebraska Firm Reviewing Tar Sands Project Has Ties to Pipeline Builder
An activist rallying against the Keystone XL pipeline at a public hearing on Tuesday.
December 7, 2012
When Nebraska residents showed up for their final chance to speak out about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday night, they were greeted at every turn by smiling employees of HDR Engineering, Inc., uniformly decked out in khaki pants and blinding white Oxford shirts embroidered with the company’s corporate logo. HDR, an engineering and consulting firm based in Omaha, was hired by the state to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the $7 billion project, which, if approved, would transport toxic crude oil from the Alberta tar sands fields across Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.
Conflict-of-interest concerns have plagued the Keystone project from the beginning. Now it turns out that HDR has a very cozy relationship with the company it was supposed to evaluate. For starters, HDR was hired by TransCanada in 2009 to help build a $1.2 billion natural gas-fired power plant in Ontario. In a press release, a company executive called landing the Ontario project [ http://www.hdrinc.com/about-hdr/news-and-events/news-releases/2009-11-16-hdr-secures-major-power-project-in-canada ] “a significant win for HDR.” Then in 2011, HDR undertook a feasibility study for TransCanada’s renewable energy development group. These facts were far from hidden. As part of the selection process for the Keystone job, HDR let the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality know about its links to TransCanada.
What’s more, HDR’s own website says one of its missions [ http://www.hdrinc.com/markets/energy/oil-and-gas ] is to “help oil and gas clients overcome the challenges of increasing government regulation and oversight and harsh physical and political climates, and exploit those opportunities.” Among the services its provides to pipeline companies is “helping them through the environmental planning and permitting process.” HDR promises “one-stop shopping,” so these companies “can focus on what they do best -- delivering oil.”
Yet Nebraska’s environmental regulators went ahead and hired HDR anyway.
[...]
http://www.onearth.org/article/keystone-conflict-nebraska-firm-reviewing-tar-sands-project-has-ties-to-pipeline-builder [with comment] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/keystone-conflict-nebrask_b_2259241.html (with comments)]
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Freedomworks' Coal Lobbyist a Former Pro-Tobacco Scientist (VIDEO)
By Kevin Grandia
Posted: 12/07/2012 5:47 pm
Tom Borelli [ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Thomas_J._Borelli ], a former science director at Philip Morris who fought claims that secondhand tobacco causes lung cancer and respiratory illness in children, is now touted on Fox News as an expert on the cleanliness of the coal industry. Borelli was busy this election season fighting Obama's "war on coal" [ http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/freedomworks%E2%80%99-deneen-and-tom-borelli-to-speak-at-t ] on behalf of his new employer, FreedomWorks.
Borelli has a long history of attacking the EPA on behalf of Big Tobacco. Serving in his role as Philip Morris' Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs, Borelli appeared in a notorious 1992 film produced by Philip Morris attacking the Environmental Protection Agency for declaring secondhand tobacco smoke as a known cancer-causing agent [ http://www.epa.gov/smokefre/healtheffects.html ]. Borelli states that:
"Based on careful review of the science we believe that environmental tobacco smoke has not been shown to be a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, respiratory disease in children or heart disease."
Watch it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ina1ibU5tNM (next below, as embedded)]:
Here's Borelli on Fox News Business in July 2012 talking about the widely-debunked Obama 'war on coal' [ http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/20/myths-and-facts-about-coal/190041 (the YouTube of the same next below, as embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnii-N1gBaQ )]:
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/freedomworks-coal-lobbyist_b_2251837.html [with comments]
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Ignoring Planetary Peril, a Profound ‘Disconnect’ Between Science and Doha
December 9, 2012, 6:00 am
In one of the most poignant moments of the Doha climate talks, the Philippine climate change commissioner, Naderev M. Sano, appealed to his fellow negotiators at a session deciding the contours of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjAv4aBiqY (above, as embedded)].
“Please let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around,” he said as he choked back tears.
Just days before, Typhoon Bopha had hit the Philippines [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/asia/typhoon-said-to-have-killed-hundreds-in-philippines.html ], killing hundreds of people. The typhoon, having been both unusually forceful and out of season, was deemed — like Hurricane Sandy — to be an extreme weather event, exacerbated by climate change [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-henn/hurricane-sandys-sister-t_b_2258957.html ].
You can see Mr. Sano addressing the plenary of the working group dedicated to the increasingly ineffective Kyoto agreement above.
Despite the pleas of the Philippine commissioner and those of many others, the Doha summit was almost politics as usual. It did take 24 hours of overtime, but the Doha Climate Gateway was finally approved Saturday. The agreement extends the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, when a more global emissions reduction agreement is to take effect.
“The Doha package represents a modest but important step forward,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, according to news reports.
Though the new, tougher and more inclusive treaty will be under negotiation until 2015, environmentalists warn that any deal that goes into effect in 2020 comes too late.
“We can’t wait until the 2020s to start cutting emissions. We are going to have to do it this decade,” said Samantha Smith, who heads the Global Climate and Energy Initiative of the World Wildlife Fund, in a telephone interview from Doha.
The American news media reported little on the climate talks, compared with Europe. That may be in part, as my colleague John Broder reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/science/earth/talks-on-climate-produce-promises-and-complaints.html ]: “It has long been evident that the United Nations talks were at best a partial solution to the planetary climate change problem, and at worst an expensive sideshow. The most effective actions to date have been taken at the national, state and local levels, with a number of countries adopting aggressive emissions reductions programs and using cap-and-trade programs or other means to help finance them.”
But, as John writes, climate change is “a problem that scientists say is growing worse faster than any of them predicted even a few years ago.”
“What this meeting reinforced is that while this is an important forum, it is not the only one in which progress can and must be made,” said Jennifer Haverkamp, the director of the international climate programs at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The disconnect between the level of ambition the parties are showing here and what needs to happen to avoid dangerous climate change is profound.”
Kumi Naidoo, the head of Greenpeace International, who also spoke to Rendezvous from Doha, said, “The biggest problem is the disconnect from the science.”
“We should peak in 2015 and then come down,” he said, referring to global emissions, “and we are just so far from that.”
Environmentalists charge that national economic interests took priority over the fight against global warming at Doha, even as an increasing number of people worldwide are becoming aware of the urgency of the problem.
A popular Twitter message that went around on the final days of the two-week summit:
“Scientists must be the most frustrated people on the planet right now.” #climatechange #cop18 upworthy.com/the-most-devas…
— Occupy Sandy (@OccupySandy) December 7, 2012 [ https://twitter.com/OccupySandy/status/277106108513001472 ]
Environmentalists also call on developed nations to be more transparent, both in their plans for emission reduction and their green financing pledges for the developing countries.
In a best-case situation, the United States would have “come in explaining how they would cut 17 percent from 2005 levels,” Ms. Smith said.
The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, also called for transparency in Green Climate financing. Mr. Ban arrived in Doha earlier this week to demand [ http://www.rtcc.org/ban-ki-moon-weighs-into-finance-debate-at-doha-climate-talks/ ] that rich countries show how they will fulfill their pledge of $100 billion a year in financing by 2020 to help poor countries deal with the negative effects of climate change.
“It is important that developing countries, especially those that are poor and vulnerable, are presented with a road map on how this commitment on long-term financing will be met,” Mr. Ban said.
An agreement on pledges between now and 2020 will be put off for another year, though individual countries and bodies — including the United States and the European Union — have already made firm pledges for the coming years.
The European Union, long seen as the dominant force in these negotiations, was criticized as showing weak leadership at this summit. Strife within the European family on whether unused emission credits — dubbed “hot air” — should be carried over into the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol weakened the European position.
Experts say that certain countries — like Russia and Poland — were allotted too many credits in the first Kyoto commitment period and that the unused and tradable credits would weaken future emission goals under the protocol, if carried over to the second commitment period.
More important, the Union backed down from previous suggestions [ http://setis.ec.europa.eu/newsroom-items-folder/eu-looks-to-move-towards-a-30-per-cent-emissions-cut-1 ] that it would cut its emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, remaining committed to the target of a 20 percent cut it had initially promised.
Poland is still heavily reliant on the most-polluting fossil fuels. The country, which was recently declared site of the COP19 meeting [ http://www3.unog.ch/dohaclimatechange/sites/default/files/Statement%20Poland%20-%20COP.pdf ] in 2013, is seen as opposing both “hot air” compromises and more severe emission reduction targets within the larger European Union. (Each annual meeting is formally known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP.)
Despite such failures, the European Union is still seen as the most plausible leader among rich nations.
“Europe still offers us the best opportunity to be the global environmental champion,” said Mr. Naidoo of Greenpeace, while insisting that the bloc needs to do a lot more.
Despite the discord within the Union on “hot air” credits, Ms. Hedegaard, the European climate commissioner, still worked at getting assurances that the credits, or assigned amount units, would not be bought by others.
Just had a bilateral with #Japan. They promised NOT to buy #AAUs.#COP18 #kyotoprotocol #hotair
— Connie Hedegaard (@CHedegaardEU) December 6, 2012 [ https://twitter.com/CHedegaardEU/status/276626265023328256 ]
In the final session several other countries — Australia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland to name a few — declared they would not buy unused credits.
Actions by U.S. negotiators were under special scrutiny this year both because of the extreme weather events the country has suffered and President Barack Obama’s post-election vow [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/us/politics/running-transcript-of-president-obamas-press-conference.html ] to make climate change part of the national agenda.
“It was a year when the U.S. could have come by putting more money and more cuts on the table,” Ms. Smith said.
“Obama’s team exhibit no improvement from previous COPs,” Mr. Naidoo of Greenpeace said in a press statement issued on Saturday. “Obama’s legacy could turn out to be no better than his predecessor’s.”
In one session, the Alliance of Small Island States [ http://aosis.org/ ] was seen to be fighting the United States on the issue of loss and damage, a proposal that was ultimately adopted and would pave the way for heavy emitters to be held financially liable for the effects of climate change in developing countries affected by climate change (For those interested, here’s a short primer [ http://www.rtcc.org/un-climate-talks-why-is-loss-and-damage-so-controversial/ ]).
“The disaster of Copenhagen happened on Obama’s watch and a failure in 2015 would be really bad for his legacy,” Ms. Smith said.
Despite Canada’s first place finish at the Climate Action Network [ http://www.climatenetwork.org/ ]’s Fossil of the Year award and the clever trick of activists who claimed to have registered [ http://twitpic.com/bjxde7 ] the Canadian environment minister in some undergraduate atmospheric climate science classes, environmentalists said not enough official reprimand had been made of Canada’s decision last year to leave the Kyoto Protocol.
“Another good outcome would have been for other countries to publicly chastise Canada,” said Ms. Smith of the World Wildlife Fund.
Despite a commitment to grow its own renewable energy share to 2 percent by 2020 (read John’s report here [ http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/snapshots-from-doha-and-elsewhere/ ]), Qatar, the oil-rich host country, was also criticized as not showing enough leadership at the summit.
Activists who dared unfurl an unregistered banner that read “Qatar, why host not lead,” were immediately thrown out of the convention center by U.N. security guards and had their access privileges revoked. Several news sources reported [ http://www.arabianbusiness.com/activists-deported-after-doha-climate-protest-482029.html ] that the activists were then deported from the country.
Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/ignoring-planetary-peril-profound-disconnect-between-science-and-doha/ [with comments]
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Arctic's Record Melt Worries Scientists
06 December 2012
http://www.livescience.com/25279-arctic-record-melt-noaa.html [with comments]
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As climate warms, Arctic spawns massive ice islands
Here is one of the smaller ice islands drifting south. The largest was four times the size of Manhattan.
December 7, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/07/world/world-climate-ice-islands/ [with comments]
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Arctic lost record snow and ice last year as data shows changing climate
In Greenland, 97% of the ice sheet sustained some degree of thawing during a few days in July.
Findings from US science agency Noaa suggest widespread and irreversible changes because of a warming climate
5 December 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/05/arctic-sea-ice-scientists-report [with comments]
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2012: The End of the Arctic Era
Times have changed: Over a century ago Robert Peary explored a very different Arctic.
Dec 6, 2012
http://news.discovery.com/earth/report-2012-a-turning-point-for-the-arctic-121206.html [with comments]
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Greenland ice sheet albedo feedback with climate [the study referred to in the related following items]
http://bprc.osu.edu/~jbox/DS/2012%2012%20AGU%20Box%20albedo.pdf
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Arctic Wildfires Speed Melting of Greenland Ice, Study
Aerial photo of the Greenland ice sheet surface from mid-August, 2005. The dark areas are concentrations of light absorbing impurities. This example the impurities are some combination of dust, soot, and microbial activity.
Profile of the atmosphere above Greenland's ice sheet, showing areas of what researchers say is wildfire smoke.
Greenland ice melt extent trends, showing the extensive melt in 2012.
December 7th, 2012
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-wildfires-pose-growing-threat-to-greenland-ice-15334 [no comments yet]
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Smoke from Arctic wildfires may have caused Greenland's record thaw
static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2012/12/7/1354888938786/Wildfire-in-Alaska-and-im-008.jpg
Satellite images have tracked smoke and soot from tundra wildfires over to Greenland.
Satellite images suggest soot particles settled over ice sheet making it absorb more heat during last year's extreme melting
7 December 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/07/greenland-ice-melting-arctic-wildfires
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Arctic Wildfire Soot Darkening Greenland Ice Sheet
Dec 06, 2012
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/3857-greenland-ice-soot-melt.html [no comments yet]
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Balmy November Virtually Assures 2012 to Be Hottest Year [for the contiguous U.S.]
December 6th, 2012
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/balmy-november-virtually-assures-2012-to-be-hottest-year-on-record-15333 [no comments yet] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/2012-warmest-year-on-record-ever_n_2258945.html (with comments)] [citing http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/11 ]
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World's Oldest Trees Dying At Alarming Rate: Study (VIDEO)
By Ryan Grenoble
Posted: 12/10/2012 4:47 pm EST | Updated: 12/10/2012 5:34 pm EST
According to a disturbing new report, the world's oldest and largest trees may be dying off [ ] -- and fast.
The study determined that trees between 100 and 300 years old are perishing "en masse" because of a deadly combination of large destructive events like forest fires, and other, more incremental factors like drought, high temperatures, logging and insect attack. The steady increase in threats means old trees are dying at 10 times their normal rate, researchers concluded. Their study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6112/1305 ] appears in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Science.
“It’s a worldwide problem and appears to be happening in most types of forest,” explained lead author David B. Lindenmayer, of Australian National University, in a release [ http://www.ceed.edu.au/images/media_releases/Dec_7_2012_-_CEED_big_trees.pdf ]. "Large old trees are critical in many natural and human-dominated environments."
The scientists originally discovered a "very, very disturbing trend" while inspecting Swedish forestry records from the 1860s, then realized forests in Australia, California's Yosemite National Park, the African Savannah, Brazilian rainforests, and other regions of Europe had also suffered large losses of old trees.
Critically, "Big, old trees are not just enlarged young trees," Jerry F. Franklin of the University of Washington, another of the study's authors, told the New York Times [ http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/mighty-old-trees-are-perishing-fast-study-warns/ ]. "Old trees have idiosyncratic features -- a different canopy, different branch systems, a lot of cavities, thicker bark and more heartwood. They provide a lot more habitat and niches."
They also capture and store significant amounts of carbon, notes The Telegraph [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9728797/Worlds-oldest-and-biggest-trees-dying-out.html ], and recycle surrounding soil nutrients, which in turn encourages new growth.
Scientists warn that unless an urgent "world-wide investigation" can assess the loss and create conservation programs with time-frames that span centuries, the world's oldest trees are gravely imperiled.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/oldest-trees-dying_n_2272775.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Natural gas drilling rigs dot the landscape in Wyoming, one of several states contributing to a boom in natural gas production that will create a lasting impact on the U.S. economy, according to the government's new annual energy outlook.
December 7, 2012
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/12/121207-annual-energy-outlook-2013/ [with comments]
*
AEO2013 Early Release Overview
This release is an abridged version of the Annual Energy Outlook that highlights changes in the AEO Reference case projections for key energy topics. The Early Release includes data tables for the Reference case only. The full AEO2013 will be released Spring of 2013.
December 5, 2012
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/index.cfm [report at http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/pdf/0383er(2013).pdf ]
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Does Frac Sand Mining Rush In Wisconsin Threaten Public Health?
The Cooks Valley frac sand mine lies just across the road from Victoria Trinko's farm.
Frac sand dust blows from piles at a mine in Woodbury, Minn.
12/07/2012
While flying back home to Wisconsin earlier this fall, Victoria Trinko had no trouble spotting her family farm from the sky. She simply looked for the frac sand mines that have begun to punctuate the rural Midwestern landscape.
From the ground, tending to her cows, Trinko said she is more likely to feel, smell or taste the presence of those mines and the trucks hauling its powdery sands toward an expanding array of natural gas drilling sites. The sand is an essential ingredient in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/fracking-sand-health-hazard-_n_2146992.html ], process.
"When I walk in from the field, I can feel the dust on my face. This grit, I can chew it," said Trinko, the town clerk for Cooks Valley, Wis. In October, about a year after a mine opened within a half-mile of her home, she was diagnosed with asthma.
Trinko can't prove a connection, much as it's been tough for residents at the other end of the natural gas production line to definitively say that drilling has poisoned their air and water. But she is one of a number of Midwest residents convinced of the health hazards posed by the frac sand mining that has proliferated in tandem with fracking. The process of fracking requires blasting large volumes of water, chemicals and silica sand into bedrock. Up to 4 million pounds of the sand is used per well to prop open the newly created rock fractures that release the natural gas.
Wisconsin's sands happen to be perfectly suited for such a task. Since May 2010, the number of mines and processing plants in the state jumped from 10 to about 110, according to Thomas Woletz of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The burgeoning business, say industry representatives, is a boon for the state's economy.
"We've provided thousands of great-paying jobs, which will be here for decades," said Martin Lehman, a spokesman for the Badger Mining Corp [ http://www.badgerminingcorp.com/ ]. "There's never been a non-occupational adverse health effect from silica sand. Badger takes the health of our neighbors and communities very seriously."
But the relative lack of research or monitoring of the sand mining's impacts has left a "big gaping question mark," said Jim Tittle, whose documentary film "The Price of Sand [ http://thepriceofsand.com/ ]" is set to debut in late January.
"As much as the companies say there are no worries, I've travelled around the state and keep hearing stories about people living fairly close to mines having lung issues," said Tittle.
In addition to aggravating asthma and other respiratory conditions, inhalation of fine silica sand dust [ http://www.osha.gov/dsg/topics/silicacrystalline/index.html ] is known to cause problems that can develop years, even decades, later, including cancer and silicosis, an irreversible lung disease that has historically plagued miners and construction workers.
The federal government released an occupational hazard alert [ http://www.osha.gov/dts/hazardalerts/hydraulic_frac_hazard_alert.pdf ] in June after a study found the majority of air samples taken at fracking sites had more silica dust than recommended. Nearly a third had at least 10 times the recommended limit. The researchers did not study effects of the dust on nearby residents or on mining operations.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/frac-sand-mining-wisconsin-health_n_2256753.html [with comments]
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Keystone Conflict: Nebraska Firm Reviewing Tar Sands Project Has Ties to Pipeline Builder
An activist rallying against the Keystone XL pipeline at a public hearing on Tuesday.
December 7, 2012
When Nebraska residents showed up for their final chance to speak out about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday night, they were greeted at every turn by smiling employees of HDR Engineering, Inc., uniformly decked out in khaki pants and blinding white Oxford shirts embroidered with the company’s corporate logo. HDR, an engineering and consulting firm based in Omaha, was hired by the state to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the $7 billion project, which, if approved, would transport toxic crude oil from the Alberta tar sands fields across Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.
Conflict-of-interest concerns have plagued the Keystone project from the beginning. Now it turns out that HDR has a very cozy relationship with the company it was supposed to evaluate. For starters, HDR was hired by TransCanada in 2009 to help build a $1.2 billion natural gas-fired power plant in Ontario. In a press release, a company executive called landing the Ontario project [ http://www.hdrinc.com/about-hdr/news-and-events/news-releases/2009-11-16-hdr-secures-major-power-project-in-canada ] “a significant win for HDR.” Then in 2011, HDR undertook a feasibility study for TransCanada’s renewable energy development group. These facts were far from hidden. As part of the selection process for the Keystone job, HDR let the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality know about its links to TransCanada.
What’s more, HDR’s own website says one of its missions [ http://www.hdrinc.com/markets/energy/oil-and-gas ] is to “help oil and gas clients overcome the challenges of increasing government regulation and oversight and harsh physical and political climates, and exploit those opportunities.” Among the services its provides to pipeline companies is “helping them through the environmental planning and permitting process.” HDR promises “one-stop shopping,” so these companies “can focus on what they do best -- delivering oil.”
Yet Nebraska’s environmental regulators went ahead and hired HDR anyway.
[...]
http://www.onearth.org/article/keystone-conflict-nebraska-firm-reviewing-tar-sands-project-has-ties-to-pipeline-builder [with comment] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/keystone-conflict-nebrask_b_2259241.html (with comments)]
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Freedomworks' Coal Lobbyist a Former Pro-Tobacco Scientist (VIDEO)
By Kevin Grandia
Posted: 12/07/2012 5:47 pm
Tom Borelli [ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Thomas_J._Borelli ], a former science director at Philip Morris who fought claims that secondhand tobacco causes lung cancer and respiratory illness in children, is now touted on Fox News as an expert on the cleanliness of the coal industry. Borelli was busy this election season fighting Obama's "war on coal" [ http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/freedomworks%E2%80%99-deneen-and-tom-borelli-to-speak-at-t ] on behalf of his new employer, FreedomWorks.
Borelli has a long history of attacking the EPA on behalf of Big Tobacco. Serving in his role as Philip Morris' Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs, Borelli appeared in a notorious 1992 film produced by Philip Morris attacking the Environmental Protection Agency for declaring secondhand tobacco smoke as a known cancer-causing agent [ http://www.epa.gov/smokefre/healtheffects.html ]. Borelli states that:
"Based on careful review of the science we believe that environmental tobacco smoke has not been shown to be a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, respiratory disease in children or heart disease."
Watch it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ina1ibU5tNM (next below, as embedded)]:
Borelli has come a long way since then, including a short stint as a professional climate change denier [ http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/tom-borelli-phillip-morris-climate-change ]. He is now working at the right-wing think tank FreedomWorks as a Senior Fellow and a self-styled "expert" on the coal industry.
Here's Borelli on Fox News Business in July 2012 talking about the widely-debunked Obama 'war on coal' [ http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/20/myths-and-facts-about-coal/190041 (the YouTube of the same next below, as embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnii-N1gBaQ )]:
Is their no dirty product that Tom Borelli won't defend for the right price?
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/freedomworks-coal-lobbyist_b_2251837.html [with comments]
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Ignoring Planetary Peril, a Profound ‘Disconnect’ Between Science and Doha
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE
December 9, 2012, 6:00 am
In one of the most poignant moments of the Doha climate talks, the Philippine climate change commissioner, Naderev M. Sano, appealed to his fellow negotiators at a session deciding the contours of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjAv4aBiqY (above, as embedded)].
“Please let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around,” he said as he choked back tears.
Just days before, Typhoon Bopha had hit the Philippines [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/asia/typhoon-said-to-have-killed-hundreds-in-philippines.html ], killing hundreds of people. The typhoon, having been both unusually forceful and out of season, was deemed — like Hurricane Sandy — to be an extreme weather event, exacerbated by climate change [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-henn/hurricane-sandys-sister-t_b_2258957.html ].
You can see Mr. Sano addressing the plenary of the working group dedicated to the increasingly ineffective Kyoto agreement above.
Despite the pleas of the Philippine commissioner and those of many others, the Doha summit was almost politics as usual. It did take 24 hours of overtime, but the Doha Climate Gateway was finally approved Saturday. The agreement extends the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, when a more global emissions reduction agreement is to take effect.
“The Doha package represents a modest but important step forward,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, according to news reports.
Though the new, tougher and more inclusive treaty will be under negotiation until 2015, environmentalists warn that any deal that goes into effect in 2020 comes too late.
“We can’t wait until the 2020s to start cutting emissions. We are going to have to do it this decade,” said Samantha Smith, who heads the Global Climate and Energy Initiative of the World Wildlife Fund, in a telephone interview from Doha.
The American news media reported little on the climate talks, compared with Europe. That may be in part, as my colleague John Broder reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/science/earth/talks-on-climate-produce-promises-and-complaints.html ]: “It has long been evident that the United Nations talks were at best a partial solution to the planetary climate change problem, and at worst an expensive sideshow. The most effective actions to date have been taken at the national, state and local levels, with a number of countries adopting aggressive emissions reductions programs and using cap-and-trade programs or other means to help finance them.”
But, as John writes, climate change is “a problem that scientists say is growing worse faster than any of them predicted even a few years ago.”
“What this meeting reinforced is that while this is an important forum, it is not the only one in which progress can and must be made,” said Jennifer Haverkamp, the director of the international climate programs at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The disconnect between the level of ambition the parties are showing here and what needs to happen to avoid dangerous climate change is profound.”
Kumi Naidoo, the head of Greenpeace International, who also spoke to Rendezvous from Doha, said, “The biggest problem is the disconnect from the science.”
“We should peak in 2015 and then come down,” he said, referring to global emissions, “and we are just so far from that.”
Environmentalists charge that national economic interests took priority over the fight against global warming at Doha, even as an increasing number of people worldwide are becoming aware of the urgency of the problem.
A popular Twitter message that went around on the final days of the two-week summit:
“Scientists must be the most frustrated people on the planet right now.” #climatechange #cop18 upworthy.com/the-most-devas…
— Occupy Sandy (@OccupySandy) December 7, 2012 [ https://twitter.com/OccupySandy/status/277106108513001472 ]
Environmentalists also call on developed nations to be more transparent, both in their plans for emission reduction and their green financing pledges for the developing countries.
In a best-case situation, the United States would have “come in explaining how they would cut 17 percent from 2005 levels,” Ms. Smith said.
The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, also called for transparency in Green Climate financing. Mr. Ban arrived in Doha earlier this week to demand [ http://www.rtcc.org/ban-ki-moon-weighs-into-finance-debate-at-doha-climate-talks/ ] that rich countries show how they will fulfill their pledge of $100 billion a year in financing by 2020 to help poor countries deal with the negative effects of climate change.
“It is important that developing countries, especially those that are poor and vulnerable, are presented with a road map on how this commitment on long-term financing will be met,” Mr. Ban said.
An agreement on pledges between now and 2020 will be put off for another year, though individual countries and bodies — including the United States and the European Union — have already made firm pledges for the coming years.
The European Union, long seen as the dominant force in these negotiations, was criticized as showing weak leadership at this summit. Strife within the European family on whether unused emission credits — dubbed “hot air” — should be carried over into the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol weakened the European position.
Experts say that certain countries — like Russia and Poland — were allotted too many credits in the first Kyoto commitment period and that the unused and tradable credits would weaken future emission goals under the protocol, if carried over to the second commitment period.
More important, the Union backed down from previous suggestions [ http://setis.ec.europa.eu/newsroom-items-folder/eu-looks-to-move-towards-a-30-per-cent-emissions-cut-1 ] that it would cut its emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, remaining committed to the target of a 20 percent cut it had initially promised.
Poland is still heavily reliant on the most-polluting fossil fuels. The country, which was recently declared site of the COP19 meeting [ http://www3.unog.ch/dohaclimatechange/sites/default/files/Statement%20Poland%20-%20COP.pdf ] in 2013, is seen as opposing both “hot air” compromises and more severe emission reduction targets within the larger European Union. (Each annual meeting is formally known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP.)
Despite such failures, the European Union is still seen as the most plausible leader among rich nations.
“Europe still offers us the best opportunity to be the global environmental champion,” said Mr. Naidoo of Greenpeace, while insisting that the bloc needs to do a lot more.
Despite the discord within the Union on “hot air” credits, Ms. Hedegaard, the European climate commissioner, still worked at getting assurances that the credits, or assigned amount units, would not be bought by others.
Just had a bilateral with #Japan. They promised NOT to buy #AAUs.#COP18 #kyotoprotocol #hotair
— Connie Hedegaard (@CHedegaardEU) December 6, 2012 [ https://twitter.com/CHedegaardEU/status/276626265023328256 ]
In the final session several other countries — Australia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland to name a few — declared they would not buy unused credits.
Actions by U.S. negotiators were under special scrutiny this year both because of the extreme weather events the country has suffered and President Barack Obama’s post-election vow [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/us/politics/running-transcript-of-president-obamas-press-conference.html ] to make climate change part of the national agenda.
“It was a year when the U.S. could have come by putting more money and more cuts on the table,” Ms. Smith said.
“Obama’s team exhibit no improvement from previous COPs,” Mr. Naidoo of Greenpeace said in a press statement issued on Saturday. “Obama’s legacy could turn out to be no better than his predecessor’s.”
In one session, the Alliance of Small Island States [ http://aosis.org/ ] was seen to be fighting the United States on the issue of loss and damage, a proposal that was ultimately adopted and would pave the way for heavy emitters to be held financially liable for the effects of climate change in developing countries affected by climate change (For those interested, here’s a short primer [ http://www.rtcc.org/un-climate-talks-why-is-loss-and-damage-so-controversial/ ]).
“The disaster of Copenhagen happened on Obama’s watch and a failure in 2015 would be really bad for his legacy,” Ms. Smith said.
Despite Canada’s first place finish at the Climate Action Network [ http://www.climatenetwork.org/ ]’s Fossil of the Year award and the clever trick of activists who claimed to have registered [ http://twitpic.com/bjxde7 ] the Canadian environment minister in some undergraduate atmospheric climate science classes, environmentalists said not enough official reprimand had been made of Canada’s decision last year to leave the Kyoto Protocol.
“Another good outcome would have been for other countries to publicly chastise Canada,” said Ms. Smith of the World Wildlife Fund.
Despite a commitment to grow its own renewable energy share to 2 percent by 2020 (read John’s report here [ http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/snapshots-from-doha-and-elsewhere/ ]), Qatar, the oil-rich host country, was also criticized as not showing enough leadership at the summit.
Activists who dared unfurl an unregistered banner that read “Qatar, why host not lead,” were immediately thrown out of the convention center by U.N. security guards and had their access privileges revoked. Several news sources reported [ http://www.arabianbusiness.com/activists-deported-after-doha-climate-protest-482029.html ] that the activists were then deported from the country.
Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/ignoring-planetary-peril-profound-disconnect-between-science-and-doha/ [with comments]
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Arctic's Record Melt Worries Scientists
06 December 2012
http://www.livescience.com/25279-arctic-record-melt-noaa.html [with comments]
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As climate warms, Arctic spawns massive ice islands
Here is one of the smaller ice islands drifting south. The largest was four times the size of Manhattan.
December 7, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/07/world/world-climate-ice-islands/ [with comments]
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Arctic lost record snow and ice last year as data shows changing climate
In Greenland, 97% of the ice sheet sustained some degree of thawing during a few days in July.
Findings from US science agency Noaa suggest widespread and irreversible changes because of a warming climate
5 December 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/05/arctic-sea-ice-scientists-report [with comments]
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2012: The End of the Arctic Era
Times have changed: Over a century ago Robert Peary explored a very different Arctic.
Dec 6, 2012
http://news.discovery.com/earth/report-2012-a-turning-point-for-the-arctic-121206.html [with comments]
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Greenland ice sheet albedo feedback with climate [the study referred to in the related following items]
http://bprc.osu.edu/~jbox/DS/2012%2012%20AGU%20Box%20albedo.pdf
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Arctic Wildfires Speed Melting of Greenland Ice, Study
Aerial photo of the Greenland ice sheet surface from mid-August, 2005. The dark areas are concentrations of light absorbing impurities. This example the impurities are some combination of dust, soot, and microbial activity.
Profile of the atmosphere above Greenland's ice sheet, showing areas of what researchers say is wildfire smoke.
Greenland ice melt extent trends, showing the extensive melt in 2012.
December 7th, 2012
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-wildfires-pose-growing-threat-to-greenland-ice-15334 [no comments yet]
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Smoke from Arctic wildfires may have caused Greenland's record thaw
static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2012/12/7/1354888938786/Wildfire-in-Alaska-and-im-008.jpg
Satellite images have tracked smoke and soot from tundra wildfires over to Greenland.
Satellite images suggest soot particles settled over ice sheet making it absorb more heat during last year's extreme melting
7 December 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/07/greenland-ice-melting-arctic-wildfires
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Arctic Wildfire Soot Darkening Greenland Ice Sheet
Dec 06, 2012
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/3857-greenland-ice-soot-melt.html [no comments yet]
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Balmy November Virtually Assures 2012 to Be Hottest Year [for the contiguous U.S.]
December 6th, 2012
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/balmy-november-virtually-assures-2012-to-be-hottest-year-on-record-15333 [no comments yet] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/2012-warmest-year-on-record-ever_n_2258945.html (with comments)] [citing http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/11 ]
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World's Oldest Trees Dying At Alarming Rate: Study (VIDEO)
By Ryan Grenoble
Posted: 12/10/2012 4:47 pm EST | Updated: 12/10/2012 5:34 pm EST
According to a disturbing new report, the world's oldest and largest trees may be dying off [ ] -- and fast.
The study determined that trees between 100 and 300 years old are perishing "en masse" because of a deadly combination of large destructive events like forest fires, and other, more incremental factors like drought, high temperatures, logging and insect attack. The steady increase in threats means old trees are dying at 10 times their normal rate, researchers concluded. Their study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6112/1305 ] appears in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Science.
“It’s a worldwide problem and appears to be happening in most types of forest,” explained lead author David B. Lindenmayer, of Australian National University, in a release [ http://www.ceed.edu.au/images/media_releases/Dec_7_2012_-_CEED_big_trees.pdf ]. "Large old trees are critical in many natural and human-dominated environments."
The scientists originally discovered a "very, very disturbing trend" while inspecting Swedish forestry records from the 1860s, then realized forests in Australia, California's Yosemite National Park, the African Savannah, Brazilian rainforests, and other regions of Europe had also suffered large losses of old trees.
Critically, "Big, old trees are not just enlarged young trees," Jerry F. Franklin of the University of Washington, another of the study's authors, told the New York Times [ http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/mighty-old-trees-are-perishing-fast-study-warns/ ]. "Old trees have idiosyncratic features -- a different canopy, different branch systems, a lot of cavities, thicker bark and more heartwood. They provide a lot more habitat and niches."
They also capture and store significant amounts of carbon, notes The Telegraph [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/9728797/Worlds-oldest-and-biggest-trees-dying-out.html ], and recycle surrounding soil nutrients, which in turn encourages new growth.
Scientists warn that unless an urgent "world-wide investigation" can assess the loss and create conservation programs with time-frames that span centuries, the world's oldest trees are gravely imperiled.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/oldest-trees-dying_n_2272775.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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