A warning sign near the Dakota Access Pipeline endpoint in Patoka, Illinois on Nov. 11, 2016. Cyrene Krey / Flickr
The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline won a reprieve Wednesday when an appeals court canceled a lower court order mandating the pipeline be shut down and emptied of oil while a full environmental impact statement is completed.
<p>The shutdown order, which would have gone into effect Wednesday, marked the first time a major oil pipeline was court ordered to cease operations for environmental reasons. But while its reversal is disappointing for pipeline opponents, Wednesday's decision was not wholly favorable for the pipeline, either. The court refused to halt the initial order for a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-pipeline-environmental-review-2645577384.html" target="_self">new environmental review</a> of the pipeline's crossing under the Missouri River, where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe fears it will pollute its <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" target="_self">drinking water</a> and sacred lands if it leaks.</p><p>"We've been in this legal battle for four years, and we aren't giving up this fight," Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Mike Faith said in an <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/dc-circuit-mixed-decision-dakota-access-shutdown-order?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social" target="_blank">Earthjustice press release</a>. "As the environmental review process gets underway in the months ahead, we look forward to showing why the Dakota Access Pipeline is too dangerous to operate."</p>
<div id="e3dbb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f1c6bf3b1b2ec9c26be8e6fd6776c2be"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1291118408277397505" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">But the fight isn't over! DAPL's permit to cross underneath Lake Oahe is vacated, so it's effectively operating ill… https://t.co/EOPn59siC7</div> — Earthjustice (@Earthjustice)<a href="https://twitter.com/Earthjustice/statuses/1291118408277397505">1596661591.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put the question of whether the pipeline could continue to operate without a permit back to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump-administration" target="_self">Trump administration</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/dakota-access-pipeline-staves-off-shutdown-order-once-again" target="_blank">Bloomberg News reported</a>. It said it expected the Army Corps of Engineers to clarify the issue.</p><p>"It's interesting what the court did here," Earthjustice lawyer Jan Hasselman, who represents the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, told Bloomberg. "While the focus has been on this judicially imposed shutdown order, the bigger picture is the environmental impact statement and whether a permit will be reissued under the next administration."</p><p>Hasselman argued that the pipeline is now operating illegally, and, if the Army Corps of Engineers decides to let it keep running while a review is completed, the issue will return to court.</p><p>"[W]e are confident that it will be shut down eventually," he said in the press release.</p>
<p>The pipeline's owner Energy Transfer had immediately appealed the shutdown order, and the company's lawyer said it would continue with the legal process.</p><p>"We believe our legal positions are strong, and we are confident that the pipeline will continue to operate," General Counsel Tom Mason told Bloomberg.</p><p>The oil and gas industry more generally had a mixed response to Wednesday's ruling.</p><p>"The Court rightly stayed the decision to shut down and empty the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been operating for over three years and provides millions of tax dollars to states, affordable energy to the entire region, and thousands of jobs along its route," American Petroleum Institute senior vice president and chief legal officer Paul Afonso said in a statement reported by <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/510748-court-cancels-shutdown-of-dakota-access-pipeline" target="_blank">The Hill</a>. "However, the failure to uphold the easement granted years ago by the federal government exemplifies the problems with our outdated permitting system, which allows protracted challenges to advance within the courts and ultimately take away jobs, tax dollars, and investments that pipelines bring to communities that sorely need them."</p>
<p>The Dakota Access Pipeline currently carries 570,000 barrels of oil a day 1,172-miles from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. The fight against the pipeline garnered international attention through major <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous" target="_self">Indigenous</a>-led <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/what-standing-rock-gave-world-2549906333.html" target="_self">protests</a> in 2016 and 2017. The Obama administration <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/army-corps-permit-dakota-access-pipeline-2128363393.html" target="_self">denied</a> the river crossing permit in late 2016, but President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-2211697835.html" target="_self">pushed the project through</a> via executive order early after taking office. It has now been operating a little more than three years.</p>
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A British Petroleum petrol station on March 10, 2017, in Ciudad Satelite, Naucalpan de Juarez municipality, Mexico State. The company will reportedly start to offer electric vehicle recharging stations at its retail gasoline stations. RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images
BP, the energy giant that grew from oil and gas production, is taking its business in a new direction, announcing Tuesday that it will slash its oil and gas production by 40 percent and increase its annual investment in low-carbon technology to $5 billion, a ten-fold increase over its current level, according to CNN.
<p>Despite losing $16.8 billion in the second quarter of 2020, the ambitious plan to become a leading purveyor of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" target="_self">clean energy</a> sent the company's share price soaring 7 percent Tuesday, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/business/energy-environment/bp-renewable-investment.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported.</p><p>"This coming decade is critical for the world in the fight against climate change, and to drive the necessary change in global energy systems will require action from everyone," BP said in a statement, as CNN reported.</p><p>As part of its plan, the company will stop its oil and gas exploration in new countries and reduce its current production and carbon emissions by one-third, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/08/04/bp-built-its-business-oil-gas-now-climate-change-is-taking-it-apart/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p>
<p>In a discussion with analysts on Tuesday, BP's Chief Executive Bernard Looney set his company apart from its European counterparts, which have made vague commitments to address the climate crisis. Looney's pledge to invest around $5 billion a year in renewable energy like wind, solar and hydrogen, a clean-burning gas, made it the first oil and gas giant to specify its investment goal, according to The New York Times.</p><p>"This makes the BP the first supermajor to spell out, in detail, what the energy transition will actually entail, in practical terms," said Pavel Molchanov, senior energy analyst for the investment firm Raymond James, to The Washington Post.</p>
<p>"BP today introduces a new strategy that will reshape its business as it pivots from being an international oil company focused on producing resources to an integrated energy company focused on delivering solutions for customers," the company said, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-outlook/bp-to-cut-fossil-fuels-output-by-40-by-2030-idUSKCN2500NH" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p><p>The company expects demand for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a> to fall by 75 percent by 2050, if the increase in global temperatures is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or by 50 percent if warming is less than 2 degrees, BP head of strategy Giulia Chierchia told investors, as CNN reported.</p><p>BP said its will cut its oil and gas production by at least one million barrels a day by 2030, a 40 percent reduction from 2019 levels, as CNN reported.</p><p>While the company will dramatically expand its portfolio of clean energy technologies, the next five years will see BP continue to invest most of its money in oil and gas production, according to CNN.</p>
<p>"We believe our new strategy provides a comprehensive and coherent approach to turn our net zero ambition into action," Looney said in a statement Tuesday, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>The investment in low-carbon initiatives is set to jump to more than $3 billion by 2025 and $5 billion by 2030, "en route to 50 gigawatts of renewable generation capacity by 2030 alongside scale-up of other clean tech businesses," Molchanov said, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>The company sees a profitable future in providing clean energy to cities. According to The Washington Post, BP plans to advise cities on "power packages" with renewables, back-up batteries and financing. It also will also start to offer <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/electric-vehicles">electric vehicle</a> recharging stations at its retail gasoline stations.</p><p>Oswald Clint, an analyst at Bernstein, a market research firm, told The New York Times that BP's plans were "peer-leading" and that its potential to smoothly manage large projects in the renewables area was "underappreciated."</p><p>Environmental activists were lukewarm about the plans. Greenpeace UK described the announcement as a "necessary and encouraging start," but said BP must go further. "BP has woken up [to] the immediate need to cut carbon emissions this decade," senior climate campaigner Mel Evans said in a statement, as CNN reported.</p>
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Recycled paper at the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority's recycling site piles up in Edinburgh, Australia, on April 17, 2019. Brenton Edwards / AFP / Getty Images
By Alex Thornton
The Australian government has announced a A$190 million (US$130 million) investment in the nation's first Recycling Modernization Fund, with the aim of transforming the country's waste and recycling industry. The hope is that as many as 10,000 jobs can be created in what is being called a "once in a generation" opportunity to remodel the way Australia deals with its waste.
Waste Mountain
<p>The need for a dramatic increase in Australia's recycling capacity pre-dates the COVID-19 pandemic. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-27/where-does-all-australias-waste-go/11755424" target="_blank">Australians create approximately 67 million tons of waste a year</a>, and like in many wealthy countries, much of that was sent overseas. That all changed when China announced it was <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/china-has-banned-foreign-waste-so-whats-the-future-of-world-recycling" target="_blank">banning the import of a huge range of foreign waste</a> and recyclables. Soon <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/malaysia-flooded-with-plastic-waste-to-send-back-some-scrap-to-source" target="_blank">other countries followed suit</a>, and Australia was forced to look for alternative solutions.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNjY4Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDc4NjgwNH0.kcj4RYDc0cQERhMB5duEBzcdA9A0eJ5qad1OyIyIH98/img.png?width=980" id="37769" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2546d96e25cd54902ceb66a326743b4c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Biggest exporters of plastic. Statista
Waste Export Ban
<p>Australia has adopted a strategy of taking responsibility for its own waste. Starting in January 2021, it is phasing in <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/protection/waste-resource-recovery/waste-export-ban" target="_blank">bans on the export of different forms of waste</a>. By mid 2024, Australia's home-grown recycling industry will have to deal with an extra 650,000 tons of waste plastic, paper, glass and tires.</p><p>"As we cease shipping our waste overseas, the waste and recycling transformation will reshape our domestic waste industry, driving job creation and putting valuable materials back into the economy," federal environment minister Sussan Ley said in a <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-australia-waste/australia-to-set-up-132-million-fund-to-boost-recycling-following-export-curbs-idUKKBN247060" target="_blank">statement to Reuters</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNjY4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDU2NzA0M30.5pHIN6g44hCE4tNeeiJebL9KkNEb8Awnr3mOzRYWUDE/img.jpg?width=980" id="0aad3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="927fc17a933d0287cf67f633a3e745b9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Timeline for Australia's waste export ban. Australian Government
Trash Into Treasure
<p>The benefits to the environment of boosting recycling rates are well known – less landfill, less plastic in our ocean, reduced need for virgin materials, and lower carbon emissions. The Recycling Modernization Fund initiative aims to divert more than 10 million tons of waste from landfill, part of an <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/protection/waste-resource-recovery/publications/national-waste-policy-action-plan" target="_blank">overall strategy to reduce the total waste generated per person by 10%</a>, and push <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/7381c1de-31d0-429b-912c-91a6dbc83af7/files/national-waste-report-2018.pdf" target="_blank">Australia's total resource recovery rate from 58% in 2017</a> to 80% by 2030.</p><p>But like many countries, Australia is focusing on the economic benefits of better waste management as well.</p><p>"This will mean Australia converts more waste into higher valued resources ready for reuse locally by manufacturers and brands in their packaging and products," Rose Read, CEO of the National Waste and Recycling Industry Council, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-australia-waste/australia-to-set-up-132-million-fund-to-boost-recycling-following-export-curbs-idUKKBN247060" target="_blank">told Reuters</a>.</p>Green Jobs
<p>The great potential of the circular economy to create green jobs is being recognized across the world.</p><p>In the UK, the Waste and Resources Action Program has launched a <a href="https://wrap.org.uk/buildbackbetter" target="_blank">six-point plan which it claims could add $90 billion to the economy, and create 500,000 new jobs</a>. Investment in the circular economy forms a significant part of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html" target="_blank">$2 trillion climate plan that Democratic candidate Joe Biden</a> is taking into November's US presidential election. And the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_940" target="_blank">European Union has put its Green New Deal at the heart of its plans for recovery</a> from the economic shock of COVID-19.</p><p>The World Economic Forum's <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Future_Of_Nature_And_Business_2020.pdf" target="_blank">Future of Nature and Business</a> report identifies 15 systemic transitions with annual business opportunities worth $10 billion a year that could create 395 million jobs by 2030.</p><p>As is the case with Australia's Recycling Modernization Fund, a combination of private enterprise and government investment can offer ways to get people back to work by building a more environmentally sustainable economy.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A campaign targeting SUV advertising is a project between the New Weather Institute and climate charity Possible. New Weather Institute
To meet its climate targets, the UK should ban advertisements for gas-guzzling SUVs, according to a report from a British think tank that wants to make SUVs the new smoking, as the BBC reported.
<p>The UK has set the ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2050, but that will be difficult to achieve if the public's appetite for large, private cars does not subside.</p><p>The <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911b51/t/5f1fe08099156872c6ca1e59/1595924618033/Smoking+Out+The+Climate+FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>, called <em>Upselling Smoke</em>, from New Weather Institute and climate charity Possible, says that SUV advertising should be compared to tobacco advertising, blaming the vehicles for creating a "more dangerous and toxic urban environment."</p><p>It says that if the UK is to meet its goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, drivers must be discouraged from buying large, heavily polluting vehicles, as the <a href="https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/lifestyle/cars/calls-ban-suv-advertising-meet-climate-targets-2931326" target="_blank">Edinburgh News</a> reported.</p>
<p>The New Weather Institute's <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y5dm3pwc" target="_blank">report</a> notes that the size, weight and drag of SUVs means they have a larger carbon footprint than your average car. Despite their enormous carbon footprint, car manufacturers spend millions to increase their share of the UK market. The marketing campaigns are working, too. Just last year, more than 150,000 new cars solved were over 4.8 meters long, which is too large to fit in a standard parking space, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/03/ban-suv-adverts-to-meet-uk-climate-goals-report-urges" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. That's a stark contrast to fully <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/electric-vehicles">electric vehicles</a>, which were only 2 percent of new cars sold. Globally, SUVs account for 60 percent of the increase in the global car fleet since 2010, according to the report.</p><p>The New Weather Institute used the 4.8 meters length as its benchmark, arguing that a smoking-style ban should be in place for any vehicle longer than that, since those vehicles emit more than 160g/km of CO2, as the Edinburgh News reported.</p>
<p>"The UK Government's plan for reaching net zero emissions relies on British drivers quickly switching away from buying traditional petrol and diesel cars to cleaner electric vehicles instead," the report reads, according to the Edinburgh News.</p><p>"That is now starting to happen, but there's a problem: we've been switching to buying SUVs even faster, and as a result the average carbon emissions of a new car sold in the UK have been going up instead of down for the past four years."</p><p>Andrew Simms, co-director of the New Weather Institute, said, according to the BBC: "We ended tobacco advertising when we understood the threat from smoking to public health.</p><p>"Now that we know the human health and climate damage done by car pollution, it's time to stop adverts making the problem worse. In a pandemic-prone world, people need clean air and more space on town and city streets."</p><p>He added that advertisements that promote the biggest and worst emitting SUVs were in effect "upselling pollution."</p>
<p>The report noted that the car industry advertises SUVs as being safer because of their size, but in the long run their pollution creates a far more toxic and dangerous environment for both drivers and pedestrians that will harm public health.</p><p>Robbie Gillett, a campaigner at Possible, said, as The Guardian reported: "Whilst millions of us are trying to reduce our carbon footprints to tackle the climate crisis, we have a multibillion-pound car and advertising industry aggressively marketing highly polluting vehicles – many of which are literally too big for UK streets.</p><p>"Their misleading ads promise us freedom and escape – but the reality of urban road conditions is grinding traffic jams, toxic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a> and spiraling carbon emissions from road transport that will trash our climate goals. Let's create space to breathe and space to think – free from the advertising pressures of big polluters."</p>
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New Analysis Shows How Electrifying the U.S. Economy Could Create 25 Million Green Jobs by 2035
30 July
Business
A new report from Mobilizing for a Zero Carbon America demonstrates how 25 million green jobs could be created over the next 15 years. U.S. Department of Energy / Flickr
By Jessica Corbett
A report released Wednesday by a new nonprofit—in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic disaster, and calls for a green recovery from those intertwined crises that prioritizes aggressive climate policies—lays out how rapidly decarbonizing and electrifying the U.S. economy could create up to 25 million good-paying jobs throughout the country over the next 15 years.
<p><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e540e7fb9d1816038da0314/t/5f209173294b6f5ee41ea278/1595969952405/Jobs_White_Paper_Compressed_Release.pdf" target="_blank"><em>Mobilizing for a Zero Carbon America</em> </a>envisions a dramatic transformation of the nation's power, transportation, building, and industrial sectors by 2035 to meet the global heating goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The first project of the newly launched <a href="https://www.rewiringamerica.org/" target="_blank">Rewiring America</a> is "based on an extensive industrial and engineering analysis of what such a decarbonization would entail."</p><p>The report details a two-stage "maximum feasible transition" (MFT) that would involve a World War II-style production ramp-up for three to five years, followed by "an intensive deployment of decarbonized infrastructure and technology up to 2035," which would include both supply-side generation technologies and demand-side technologies like electric vehicles.</p><p>In addition to creating millions of green jobs in the wake of a public health crisis that has left tens of millions of Americans <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/29/yale-study-600-unemployment-lifeline-championed-democrats-destroys-favorite-gop" target="_blank">unemployed</a> and helping the country contribute to the goals of the Paris accord—which President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/04/delivering-catastrophic-message-moment-great-urgency-trump-formally-begins-ditching" target="_blank">started</a> withdrawing from last November—the report says that the MFT approach would save households nationwide up to thousands of dollars in annual energy costs.</p><p>"While government investment will be critical to the transition, private capital also has a large role to play," a summary <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e540e7fb9d1816038da0314/t/5f205587b6d39a471674c41d/1595954567576/RewiringAmerica_Jobs+Report+Summary_Rag.pdf" target="_blank">document</a> from the group says. "The study estimates the government's share of overall costs to be about $300 billion per year for 10 years for an approximate total of $3 trillion, mostly in the form of loans and/or loan guarantees to spur lending, akin to similar loan systems that the government has created in the past."</p>
<div id="f81ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2fad6ba1ecf38ccb6549191cdb16426"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1288520002916823041" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A MacArthur Genius, business leader, and MIT physicist have a plan: get 25 million Americans back to work in good-p… https://t.co/tCvc2rmvd3</div> — Otherlab (@Otherlab)<a href="https://twitter.com/otherlab/statuses/1288520002916823041">1596042082.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"We can power our homes by the sun, charge our cars from clean energy while we sleep, and rethink city streets as we know them. In the process, we can create 25 million jobs in America. The only thing standing in the way is a leadership vacuum," lead author Saul Griffith, an engineer and inventor who was awarded the MacArthur "Genius Grant" in 2007, said in a statement.</p><p>Griffith, founder and chief scientist of the independent research and development lab Otherlab, joined with Alex Laskey, president and founder of the software company Opower, to launch Rewiring America, which focuses on decarbonization in the U.S. The report, co-authored by Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Sam Calisch, is part of a forthcoming book by Griffith.</p><p>"I think the best way to describe what needs to happen politically is we need a president and some level of bipartisanship that will enable FDR levels of urgency in action," Griffith <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90533448/how-to-create-25-million-jobs-by-decarbonizing-the-economy?partner=rss&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss" target="_blank">told</a><em> Fast Company</em>. "And you could use either FDR's response to the Great Depression or to World War II as your measure of that, but I think it's actually more analogous to the World War II effort in terms of the speed of industrialization to win that war."</p>
<p>A<em>s Fast Company</em> reported:</p><blockquote>The report attempts to make the idea of a Green New Deal more concrete. "I think all of the various Green New Deals and aspirational climate plans are narratively in the right direction, but we need to give them some ground truths and build some reality to them about what needs to happen from the ground up," he says. "Those aspirations are great, but this is actually what you now need to do to get there. I think this is one of the first analyses that really builds out that model from the ground up of what has to happen in order to keep this on target for two degrees."<br></blockquote><blockquote>The changes would also mean lower energy costs for consumers, and the report calculates that the average American household would save between $1,000 and $2,000 a year. Everyday life wouldn't necessarily change significantly. "We now have technologies that are transformative, meaning you can now roughly have the same size and shape car, but electric," Griffith says. "You can have the same size and shape house, but it will be run with electric heat pumps instead of the natural gas furnace. And if we have the sort of that spirit of can-do that America had mid-20th century, there's every reason to believe that our lives improve when we do this, and we can have and live something like the American dream. It'll just be electrified, not fossil-fueled."<br></blockquote><p>Leaders of the Sunrise Movement—a youth climate organization that advocates for the Green New Deal—endorsed the findings of Rewiring America's report, as did Sen. Brian Shatz (D-Hawaii), former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner, Niskanen Center director of climate policy Joseph Majku, and Mike Fishman, past secretary-treasurer of Service Employees International Union and current president of Clean Jobs New York.</p>
<p>"The Rewiring America team asked the question: 'What would happen if we actually tried to transition all of the infrastructure in American society over the next 15 years to stay within the 1.5ºC safe upper limit of global warming?'" said Evan Weber, co-founder and political director of the Sunrise Movement. "The answer they found is that would save consumers and society money, and it would create lots and lots and lots of jobs—around 25 million of them."</p><p>The report comes a couple weeks after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/14/more-work-do-major-step-forward-progressives-welcome-bidens-2-trillion-green-energy" target="_blank">unveiled</a> a $2 trillion green energy plan that progressive climate advocates, including Sunrise, welcomed as a "a major step forward." Biden's job-creating plan calls for a power sector free of carbon pollution by 2035.</p><p>Sunrise executive director Varshini Prakash <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/07/09/lets-keep-organizing-inside-look-biden-sanders-task-force-climate" target="_blank">served on</a> a unity task force launched by Biden and his former primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who won Sunrise's <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/09/grasping-scope-climate-crisis-and-fully-embracing-green-new-deal-youth-led-sunrise" target="_blank">endorsement</a>. She welcomed Biden's recent proposal while also promising that her group will work to ensure he actually delivers on it if he wins.</p>
<p>Prakash also welcomed the analysis Wednesday, noting that "for so long we've been sold the lie that we have to choose between good jobs and a safe environment, that our generation has to choose between a livable planet and a thriving, equitable economy."</p><p>"The Rewiring America Plan puts that lie to rest once and for all," she said. "This report is a critical contribution that shows that urgently achieving an all-society clean energy future by 2035 is not only necessary and achievable, but will make the world that young people inherit more prosperous."</p><p>"We can achieve a just transition to a better world out of the wreckage of this economic crisis, with good union jobs for all, including low-income communities and communities of color," she added. "The only thing standing in the way is political will."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/29/new-analysis-details-how-electrifying-us-economy-2035-could-create-25-million-green?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank"> Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Tens of thousands of restaurants closed at the start of the pandemic are still recovering. Unsplash / Michael Browning
By Francesca DiGiorgio
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to increase federal aid for emergency food distribution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
<p>The <a href="https://mikethompson.house.gov/sites/mikethompson.house.gov/files/FEED_Act.pdf" target="_blank">FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act</a> will allow local and state governments to partner with restaurants on initiatives that feed people in need. It also calls on the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/" target="_blank">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> (FEMA) to cover 100 percent of the cost.</p><p>Though FEMA assistance typically <a href="https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/03/13/president-donald-j-trump-directs-fema-support-under-emergency-declaration" target="_blank">covers</a> up to 75 percent of emergency and disaster expenses, the FEED Act will waive regulations on this limit.</p>
<p>"If this pandemic has shown us anything, it's the need to innovate," said Representative Rodney Davis, a co-author on the FEED Act, in a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/496183-lawmakers-introduce-bill-backed-by-jose-andres-to-help-restaurants-feed" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This bill helps utilize our restaurant industry ... in a way that's never been done before."</p><p><a href="https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/nearly-24000-restaurants-are-closed-yelp-says" target="_blank">Tens of thousands of restaurants</a> closed at the start of the pandemic are still recovering. Some will never reopen. The new bill promises to revitalize the industry with funding to rehire staff and expand food distribution infrastructure for vulnerable populations.</p><p>"Too many families are going hungry during this pandemic, and it's not because America is running low on food," said Representative Jim McGovern, another co-author, in a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/496183-lawmakers-introduce-bill-backed-by-jose-andres-to-help-restaurants-feed" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p>
<p>As COVID-19 surges across the nation, food insecurity is increasing. Vulnerable populations including the elderly, young children and communities of color are among the <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/covid-19-lays-bare-vulnerabilities-u-s-food-security/?agreed=1" target="_blank">hardest hit</a>, according to multiple reports by the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/" target="_blank">Brookings Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/the-pandemic-is-exacerbating-america-s-systemic-food-inequality" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a> and others.</p><p>Household food insecurity for mothers with young children surpassed 40 percent in April 2020, a jump from 15.1 percent in April 2018, according to the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=94848" target="_blank">Brookings Institute</a>.</p><p>Congress has already taken a number of steps to address food insecurity during the pandemic. A <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/temporary-suspension-claims-collections" target="_blank">temporary suspension</a> of certain program requirements for the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program" target="_blank">Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a> (SNAP) allows more people to qualify for federal assistance.</p><p>In addition, the <a href="https://frac.org/blog/p-ebt-an-update-on-state-plans" target="_blank">Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer</a> (P-EBT) program helps families that qualify for reduced school meals to continue feeding their children while schools are closed. But <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/27/822647146/relief-package-a-good-start-say-advocates-for-the-poor-but-more-help-is-needed" target="_blank">administrative hurdles</a> currently prevent all those eligible from accessing the benefits.</p><p>To minimize these barriers, the FEED Act aims to set a new precedent for emergency response by easing restrictions on government aid, said Representative Mike Thompson of California.</p>
<p>Last year, the Congress member worked with Chef José Andrés of <a href="https://wck.org/" target="_blank">World Central Kitchen</a> to feed hundreds of residents displaced by wildfires in his district. The two joined forces again this year to introduce the new bill with other political leaders.</p><p>While the FEED Act won over the House in May as part of the <a href="https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20200511/BILLS-116hr6800ih.pdf" target="_blank">HEROES Act</a>, it still awaits Senate approval. Thompson, who is optimistic about the Bill's prospects, considers it an opportunity for national unity in the face of unprecedented challenges.</p><p>Thompson told Food Tank, "All of the things [the FEED Act] addresses: the need for healthy food, for small businesses to keep their doors open, for employees to have a paycheck, and for those paychecks to be spent in the local community, these are things that we can all agree on."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/new-feed-act-to-address-food-insecurity-with-help-from-restaurants/" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A group of 150 leading scientific and economic experts on the Amazon basin have taken it upon themselves to launch an ambitious conservation project. Jlwad / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
By Shanna Hanbury
With the Amazon rainforest predicted to be at, or very close to, its disastrous rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, deforestation escalating at a frightening pace, and governments often worsening the problem, the need for action to secure the future of the rainforest has never been more urgent.
<p>Now, a group of 150 leading scientific and economic experts on the Amazon basin have taken it upon themselves to launch an ambitious conservation project. The newly founded Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) aims to consolidate scientific research on the Amazon and propose solutions that will secure the region's future — including the social and economic well-being of its thirty-five-million inhabitants.</p><p>"Never before has there been such a rigorous scientific evaluation on the Amazon," said Carlos Nobre, the leading Amazon climatologist and one of the chairs of the Scientific Panel. The newly organized SPA, he adds, will model its work on the style of the authoritative reports produced by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in terms of academic diligence and the depth and breadth of analysis and recommendations.</p><p>The Amazon Panel, is funded by the United Nation's Sustainable Development Solutions Network and supported by prominent political leaders, such as former Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos and the elected leader of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin, José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal. The SPA plans to publish its first report by April 2021.</p>
Reversing the Amazon Tipping Point
<p>Over the last five decades, the Amazon rainforest lost almost a fifth of its forest cover, putting the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">biome on the edge</a> of a dangerous cliff. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/impending-amazon-tipping-point-puts-biome-and-world-at-risk-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">Studies show</a> that if 3 to 8% more forest cover is lost, then deforestation combined with escalating climate change is likely to cause the Amazon ecosystem to collapse.</p><p>After this point is reached, the lush, biodiverse rainforest will receive too little precipitation to maintain itself and quickly shift from forest into a degraded savanna, causing enormous <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/amazon-tipping-point-puts-brazils-agribusiness-energy-sector-at-risk-top-scientists/" target="_blank">economic damage</a> across the South American continent, and releasing vast amounts of forest-stored carbon to the atmosphere, further destabilizing the global climate.</p><p>Amazon researchers are now taking a proactive stance to prevent the Amazon Tipping Point: "Our message to political leaders is that there is no time to waste," Nobre wrote in the SPA's press release.</p><p>Amid escalating forest loss in the Amazon, propelled by the anti-environmentalist agenda of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/satellite-data-show-amazon-rainforest-likely-drier-more-fire-prone-this-year/" target="_blank">experts fear</a> that this year's burning season, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/fires-rage-in-the-amazon-despite-official-ban-greenpeace-photos-reveal/" target="_blank">already underway</a>, may exceed the August 2019 wildfires that shocked the world. Most Amazon basin fires are not natural in cause, but <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/brazilian-amazon-fires-scientifically-linked-to-2019-deforestation-report/" target="_blank">intentionally set</a>, often by land grabbers invading indigenous territories and other conserved lands, and causing massive deforestation.</p><p>"We are burning our own money, resources and biodiversity — it makes no sense," Sandra Hacon told Mongabay; she is a prominent biologist at the Brazilian biomedical Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and has studied the effects of Amazon forest fires on health. It is expected that air pollution caused by this year's wildfire's, when combined with COVID-19 symptoms, will cause <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/overlap-of-fire-covid-19-peaks-a-catastrophe-for-brazils-amazon/" target="_blank">severe respiratory impacts</a> across the region.</p><p>Bolivian ecologist Marielos Penã-Claros, notes the far-reaching economic importance of the rainforest: "The deforestation of the Amazon also has a negative effect on the agricultural production of Uruguay or Paraguay, thousands of kilometers away."</p><p>The climate tipping point, should it be passed, would negatively effect every major stakeholder in the Amazon, likely <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/amazon-tipping-point-puts-brazils-agribusiness-energy-sector-at-risk-top-scientists/" target="_blank">wrecking</a> the agribusiness and energy production sectors — ironically, the sectors responsible for much of the devastation today.</p><p>"I hope to show evidence to the world of what is happening with land use in the Amazon and alert other governments, as well as state and municipal-level leadership. We have a big challenge ahead, but it's completely necessary," said Hacon.</p>
Scientists Offer Evidence, and Also Solutions.
<p>Creating a workable blueprint for the sustainable future of the Amazon rainforest is no simple task. The solutions mapped out, according to the Amazon Panel's scientists, will seek to not only prevent deforestation and curb global climate change, but to generate a new vision and action plan for the Amazon region and its residents — especially, fulfilling development goals via a sustainable standing-forest economy.</p><p>The SPA, Nobre says, will make a critical break with the purely technical approach of the United Nation's IPCC, which banned policy prescriptions entirely from its reports. In practice, this has meant that while contributing scientists can show the impacts of fossil fuels on the atmosphere, they cannot recommend ending oil subsidies, for example. "We inverted this logic, and the third part of the [SPA] report will be entirely dedicated to searching for policy suggestions," Nobre says. "We need the forest on its feet, the empowerment of the traditional peoples and solutions on how to reach development goals."</p><p>Researchers across many academic fields (ranging from climate science and economics to history and meteorology) are collaborating on the SPA Panel, raising hopes that scientific consensus on the Amazon rainforest can be reached, and that conditions for research cooperation will greatly improve.</p><p>SPA participants hope that a thorough scientific analysis of the rainforest's past, present and future will aid in the formulation of viable public policies designed to preserve the Amazon biome — hopefully leading to scientifically and economically informed political decisions by the governments of Amazonian nations.</p><p>"We are analyzing not only climate but biodiversity, human aspects and preservation beyond the climate issues," Paulo Artaxo, an atmospheric physicist at the University of São Paulo, told Mongabay.</p><p>Due to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative's initial dates for a final report were pushed forward by several months, and a conference in China cancelled entirely. But the 150-strong team is vigorously pushing forward, and the first phase of the project — not publicly available — is expected to be completed by the end of the year.</p><p>The hope on the horizon is that a unified voice from the scientific community will trigger long-lasting positive changes in the Amazon rainforest. "More than ever, we need to hear the voices of the scientists to enable us to understand how to save the Amazon from wanton and unthinking destruction," said Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, on the official launch <a href="https://www.theamazonwewant.org/" target="_blank">website</a> called <a href="https://www.theamazonwewant.org/" target="_blank">The Amazon We Want</a>.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/scientists-launch-ambitious-conservation-project-to-save-the-amazon/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Demonstrators block the entrance to a Deutsche Bank branch in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart on Sept. 20, 2019. Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Krissy Waite
Climate activists are celebrating Deutsche Bank's new energy policy banning financial support of drilling in the Arctic, a move which comes after years of pressure from advocacy groups.
<p>The bank, a multinational investment company headquartered in Germany, announced Monday that it will no longer offer financial services to new projects that involve drilling for oil or gas in the Arctic. The policy also states it will not fund any <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands">tar sand</a> projects or <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/">fracking</a> in areas that have low water supply.</p><p>Concerns over the Arctic have risen in recent weeks as the region <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/27/warning-sign-major-proportions-number-siberian-forest-fires-increase-fivefold-week" target="_blank">has been battling</a> a prolonged heatwave and wildfires, which have been caused by human-driven climate change.</p><p>Last week, the World Meteorological Organization <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/siberia-heat-fire-and-melting-ice" target="_blank">announced</a> that Siberia's average temperature in June was 10°C above normal. The Arctic is warming over two times faster than the rest of the world.</p><p>Ben Cushing, Sierra Club senior campaign representative, said in a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/07/27/multinational-banking-giant-deutsche-bank-will-not-fund-arctic-drilling" target="_blank">statement</a> that it is becoming clear to banks that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/divest">divesting</a> from Arctic drilling is important. He pointed to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which spans over 19 million acres of Alaskan land.</p><p>"As the list of major banks rejecting funding for Arctic drilling continues to grow, it's clearer by the day that investing in the destruction of the Arctic Refuge would be a mistake," Cushing said. "The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration may still think auctioning off the Arctic Refuge is a good idea, but it′s obvious that oil companies would be foolish to take them up on their offer."</p>
<p>In 2017, Congress passed a provision allowing refuge lands to be leased to oil companies. <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/wild-places/alaska/oil-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge?gclid=CjwKCAjw9vn4BRBaEiwAh0muDMsB21ifOMIjiDqIzvZMM9RFxdtmUSjWbMzrh0GaktYXJ23dCbrtThoC7cMQAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Drilling is incredibly harmful</a> to the people and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> that live in the refuge because it because it <a href="https://www.barentsinfo.org/barents-region/Nature/Animals-and-plants/Habitat-fragmentation#:~:text=Habitat%20fragmentation%3A%20a%20threat%20to%20arctic%20biodiversity%20and%20wilderness&text=As%20human%20activity%20increases%2C%20however,of%20the%20area's%20wilderness%20heritage." target="_blank">divides natural habitats and interrupts migration patterns</a>. Polar bears, caribou, and the 270 other species of wildlife — and the Gwich'in people who rely on certain animals for sustenance — would suffer.</p><p>Deutsche <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deutsche-bank-says-it-wont-finance-any-new-arctic-region-or-oil-sand-projects-2020-07-27" target="_blank">stated it will not be terminating</a> any current financial backing of Arctic drilling projects, but that it will be evaluating all ongoing oil and gas business ventures by the end of 2020 and end any business in coal mining by or before 2025.</p><p>Urgewald, a Germany-based environment and human rights NGO that focuses on divesting from destructive projects, tweeted in response to the news that while Deutsche Bank's policy is needed, it's too little and too late.</p>
<div id="a044b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0a01f4da6d8b08cfefca4ee9a4cb576"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287726413144104970" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@DeutscheBankAG 's new policies are much-needed movement, but too little and too late. As long as companies like… https://t.co/DcqP5pE8S9</div> — urgewald (@urgewald)<a href="https://twitter.com/urgewald/statuses/1287726413144104970">1595852876.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, celebrated the news by congratulating <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">Indigenous</a> groups on their organizing.</p>
<div id="c1fbe" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="07221047ad734dbe3b48bb4ac7f34bba"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287745245451444233" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Add @DeutscheBank to the growing list of banks that won't touch Arctic or tarsands projects. Such great organizing,… https://t.co/EIZt732RpT</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/1287745245451444233">1595857366.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Tara Houska, founder of Giniw Collective and co-founder of Not Your Mascots, welcomed the bank's decision and called for others to follow suit. "If DeutschBank can stop, any of the banks can," she said. "Who's next?"</p>
<div id="7813b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0cf2b41665f65dd0c9c2ecebb5d3ceee"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287751906430013441" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Visited this bank in 2017, it had intense security. Felt the most removed, unconcerned about the human rights of th… https://t.co/wpEy2E7HOy</div> — tara houska ᔖᐳᐌᑴ (@tara houska ᔖᐳᐌᑴ)<a href="https://twitter.com/zhaabowekwe/statuses/1287751906430013441">1595858954.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Deutsche Bank joins Goldman Sachs, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/02/wells-fargo-joins-banks-rejecting-funding-arctic-drilling-pressure-heats-others-do" target="_blank">Wells Fargo</a>, Citi, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/25/even-worst-fossil-fuel-banker-jpmorgan-chase-will-no-longer-fund-way-destroying" target="_blank">JPMorgan Chase</a> and Morgan Stanley — five of the biggest American banks — in banning Arctic drilling from its company. Bank of America is currently the last of the largest banks in the U.S. to <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2020/04/major-banks-rule-out-funding-for-arctic-drilling-bank-america-risks-getting" target="_blank">issue</a> an anti-Arctic drilling policy or statement. Globally, about <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/campaign/banks_and_arctic_oil_and_gas" target="_blank">two dozen banks</a> have adopted these policies.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/27/pressured-climate-activist-groups-deutsche-bank-ditches-drilling-arctic" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, DC on Sept. 8, 2014. aa440 / Flickr
The inspector general for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will look into one of the Trump administration's hallmark environmental rollbacks: the weakening of Obama-era emissions standards. The law from the Obama administration was designed to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing fuel-efficiency standards. Now, the EPA's inspector general will try to determine whether or not the rollback violated the government's own laws, according to CNN.
<p>The inspector general said yesterday that its review would determine whether the agency's rule followed requirements for "transparency, record-keeping, and docketing, and followed the EPA's process for developing final regulatory actions," according to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-07/documents/_epaoig_notificationmemo_7-27-20_fuel-efficient.pdf" target="_blank">EPA documents</a>, as CNN reported.</p><p>In other words, the inspector general would like to see the paper trail that led to the decision and to see if there was undue influence or ethics violations from industry insiders for the slackening of tailpipe emissions standards, which was finalized in late March as the Trump administration's single largest rollback of federal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> rules, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/climate/trump-fuel-efficiency-rule.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>The new rule, named the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles rule, or SAFE, holds automakers to weaker fuel economy standards through 2025. The SAFE rule lowered the annual emission improvement requirements that the makers of passenger vehicles must meet. Rather than growing approximately 5 percent annually as required under an Obama-era mandate, the standards now increase about 1.5 percent annually. The Trump administration originally proposed freezing the standards entirely, as CNN reported.</p><p>The Obama era rule would have forced new cars to have a fuel efficiency standard of 54 miles per gallon of gasoline by 2025. The rollback of the law in the SAFE rule will essentially add 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, increase gasoline consumption by around 80 billion gallons, and increase oil consumption by 2 billion barrels, according to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/27/21340680/trump-epa-clean-car-rollback-obama-investigation" target="_blank">The Verge</a>.</p><p>The potential "irregularities" in crafting the rule were flagged in May by Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, who asked for an investigation in a letter to the EPA inspector general at the time, as The Verge reported.</p><p>"I'm pleased that the EPA Inspector General is opening an investigation into this rule, which was the product of the most procedurally problematic process my office has ever reviewed. If the EPA IG follows the facts, I have no doubt they will find that the Trump Administration failed to follow the law," Carper said in a statement Monday, according to The Verge.</p>
<p>The SAFE rule was marred with problems from the beginning. The Trump administration argued the rule would make roads safer because cars would be more affordable, making people more likely to upgrade. However, outside economists and public health experts have questioned the administration's justification of the rule, noting that its calculations do not stand up to rigorous independent analysis. They have asked the administration to release the formulas and economic models used to inform its justification, according to The New York Times.</p><p>In fact, the administration's own internal analyses showed that the opposite was true. It would create a higher cost for consumers than leaving the Obama-era standard in place and would contribute to more deaths associated with lung disease by releasing more <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">pollution</a> into the air, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>"This is really serious," said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund to The New York Times. "It's rare for E.P.A.'s inspector general to conduct an investigation of the agency's rule-making."</p>
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Trump Admin Reverses Obama-Era Restrictions on Pebble Mine Near Alaska's Largest Salmon Nursery
27 July
Politics
The Bristol Bay watershed supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. World Wildlife Fund / YouTube
Officials from the Trump administration announced last week that a plan to open a copper and gold mine that threatens Alaska's largest salmon nursery would not pose a serious environmental threat.
<p>This is a sharp about-face for the U.S. government, after <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-alaska-mining-salmon-2646141959.html" target="_self">the Obama-administration cited environmental concerns</a> and the threat to the spawning ground of the region's prized sockeye salmon when it put the brakes on the project in 2012, and again when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa">EPA</a>) expressed concerns about the salmon in 2014.</p><p>This new move represents the latest salvo in the Trump administration's thorough and systematic dismantling of environmental efforts and regulations from the previous administration. When it comes to the Pebble Mine, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/24/pebble-mine-alaska-trump/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported, a <a href="https://pebbleprojecteis.com/documents/finaleis" target="_blank">final environmental analysis</a> issued Friday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that the mine — which targets a deposit of gold, copper and other minerals worth up to $500 billion — "would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers" in the Bristol Bay watershed, which supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery.</p><p>Opponents of Pebble Mine criticized the review process as rushed, flawed, and favorable to the mine developer, as the <a href="https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2020/07/23/as-a-major-federal-environmental-review-comes-to-a-close-six-things-to-know-about-the-pebble-mine-proposal/" target="_blank">Anchorage Daily News</a> reported.</p>
<p>In a joint statement, Alannah Hurley with United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Norm Van Vactor with Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., Ralph Andersen with Bristol Bay Native Association and Katherine Carscallen with Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay said the final review "completely fails to adequately assess the impacts of Pebble on Bristol Bay's waters, salmon, and people," according to the Anchorage Daily News.</p><p>The mine will be located in two watersheds that feed fish-spawning rivers. Opponents say traces of heavy metals and other contaminants left from the mining operation pose risks if they leach into groundwater or if dams holding back the tailings fail in an earthquake, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/climate/pebble-mine-alaska-environment.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>Opposition to the mine has been widespread, both in the region and statewide, for nearly two decades, with concerns about environmental damage and the potential harm to the area's salmon, which are the main traditional subsistence food for many of the Native Alaskans in the region and the crux of both sport-fishing and commercial fishing in the area, according to The New York Times.</p><p>The open-pit mine calls for a large dammed area to trap the tailings from mining operations that would be toxic to the fish. It also calls for the 80 new miles of road to carry the concentrated tailings away to Cook Inlet. Additionally, the mining company wants to build a 165-mile natural gas pipeline for a generating plant to power the operation.</p>
<p>According to the Corps, the operations would permanently destroy more than 2,200 acres of wetlands and waters, and 105 miles of streams. The EPA indicated earlier this year that it would not block the project at this point, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>Opponents have argued that the environmental impact statement was not rigorous enough, as they highlighted hazardous risks, including the potential for a tailings dam failure that could contaminate waterways used by spawning fish and harm the Bristol Bay fishery, which employs about 15,000 people. They also note that Alaska is the most seismically active state in the nation, and critics said the Corps had not taken sufficient account of the risk of earthquakes or volcanic activity, and that its analysis of the dam designs was inadequate, particularly since a few of the dams would be hundreds of feet high, as The New York Times reported.</p>
<p>Taryn Kiekow Heimer, who leads the the Natural Resources Defense Council's effort to stop the project, told The Washington Post that the administration's push to greenlight a massive project that is opposed by neighboring <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">Indigenous</a> communities amounts to environmental injustice.</p><p>"It's especially embarrassing for the government and appalling given the current social context we are in," she said of the accelerated approval process. "It's just another example of the entrenched and systemic racism that this government is showing to people of color and indigenous people in particular."</p><p>The Pebble Mine, like logging in Alaska' <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-wildfires-trump-alaska-exploitation-2640082295.html" target="_self">Tongass forest</a>, the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/keystone-xl" target="_self">Keystone XL</a> pipeline, and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-pipeline-shut-down-2646355663.html" target="_self">Dakota Access</a> pipeline, is a gift to industry that the Trump administration has tried to fast track. All those projects could be reversed if a Democratic administration takes office in January, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/24/pebble-mine-alaska-trump/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p>
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The Huntley coal plant in Tonawanda, New York, contributed to the local economy — and pollution levels. youtu.be
The Huntley coal plant in Tonawanda, New York, was once the area's biggest polluter. But it was also the town's biggest taxpayer.
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/15116651/height/45/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" height="45" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>So when the plant was slated to close, the town was concerned about job losses – not just for company employees, but public sector workers like teachers and paramedics.</p><p>"Those tax dollars that company pays … goes to the folks picking up garbage, and goes to people fixing the roads, and helps fund special ed," says Rebecca Newberry, executive director of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cacwny.org/">Clean Air Coalition of Western New York</a>.</p><p>To ease the transition, her group partnered with the town, local businesses, unions, residents, and community groups.</p>
<p>Together they created <a target="_blank" href="http://tonawandatomorrow.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/08/TonawandaTomorrowPlanJune15SinglePages.pdf">an economic development plan</a> to help the town make up lost revenue over time. It's designed to grow local businesses and create new jobs, especially in manufacturing and technology.</p><p>The group also helped convince the state to provide funds that fill the more immediate gap in revenue.</p><p>The plant closed in 2016, and Newberry says that since that time, "not one public sector employee, to our knowledge, has lost their job because of the closing of this plant."</p><p>So Tonawanda has moved away from a coal-powered economy while helping protect the community.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/how-tonawanda-ny-protected-its-economy-after-its-coal-plant-closed/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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