Water Protectors Arrested in Minnesota After Chaining Themselves Inside Enbridge Line 3 Pipe
17h
Energy
Environmental activist Winona LaDuke (C) and water protectors stand in front of the construction site for the Line 3 oil pipeline near Palisade, Minnesota, on Jan. 9, 2021. Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
Water protectors were arrested Thursday after halting construction at a Minnesota worksite for Enbridge's Line 3 project by locking themselves together inside a pipe segment.
<p>"After moving to Minnesota to attend college and study environmental science, I was excited to be in a place where people valued protecting the Earth and finding a viable future. What I found, however, was a state that had formed 'ambitious' climate goals yet endorsed one of the dirtiest fossil fuels, tar sands oil," water protector Abby Hornberger said in a statement. "I realized that Indigenous ways of knowing and practicing harmony with the environment are continuously ignored."</p><p>KFGO <a href="https://kfgo.com/2021/01/14/2-arrested-during-latest-line-3-protest/" target="_blank">reports</a> that Cass County Sheriff Tom Burch said two protesters who were taken into custody on Thursday now face charges of trespassing and obstructing.</p>
<p>Hornberger explained that "the Line 3 pipeline far outweighs all clean energy initiatives and progress being made in renewable energies. Line 3 will destroy Minnesota's essential clean water resources for future generations and will ultimately drive us into climate doom. Education and spreading awareness is no longer enough to create meaningful change for me."</p><p>"Enbridge's last-ditch effort to build fossil fuel infrastructure is killing people and the planet. I refuse to be complicit in settler colonialist practices, and feel that I have to put my body on the line to protect Indigenous communities' sovereignty and all of our futures," Hornberger added. "This is not just an issue relevant to some, it affects each of us on a deeper level that goes beyond our daily lives. It determines if we will have a livable future."</p>
<div id="5204b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4238296ced019235c5ebedb5c4188673"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1349769464896745473" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Water Protectors Lock Down Inside Line 3 Pipeline to #StopLine3
(Backus, MN) Thursday morn… https://t.co/NWH4lBcyJY</div> — giniw collective (@giniw collective)<a href="https://twitter.com/GiniwCollective/statuses/1349769464896745473">1610645092.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Indigenous and environmental activists have long opposed the Canadian company's efforts to <a href="https://www.enbridge.com/projects-and-infrastructure/public-awareness/minnesota-projects/line-3-replacement-project" target="_blank">replace</a> an aging oil pipeline with a larger one running from Alberta, through North Dakota and Minnesota, to Wisconsin — noting Enbridge's <a href="https://www.stopline3.org/resources" target="_blank">track record on spills</a> and that cultural maps <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/01/14/water-protectors-lock-down-inside-line-3-pipeline?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">indicate</a> "numerous sacred and significant sites lie in the path of the Line 3 project."</p><p>Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/12/nightmarish-indigenous-and-climate-leaders-outraged-over-minnesota-permits-line-3" target="_blank">has come under fire</a> from Indigenous and climate leaders in recent months as the state has approved key permits that Enbridge needs to complete the new Line 3, especially given the Democratic governor <a href="https://twitter.com/govtimwalz/status/1095374006071504896?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said publicly</a> in February of 2019 that projects like this one "don't just need a building permit to go forward, they also need a social permit."</p><p>As some water protectors on Thursday protested inside a pipe segment a few miles from a man camp in Backus, "dozens more held space," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/01/14/water-protectors-lock-down-inside-line-3-pipeline?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to</a> the Giniw Collective. The group also pointed out that "Enbridge is working 24 hours per day at several worksites, as a pending injunction to halt work while tribally led lawsuits are heard has yet to be decided."</p>
<p>Water protector Andrew Lee said that he participated in the action against Line 3 on Thursday "to protect the treaties that my ancestors failed to uphold."</p><p>"I've learned over the course of this year that Tim Walz isn't going to protect us, the government of Minnesota isn't going to protect us, and the federal government isn't going to protect us," Lee continued. "I believe it is my duty, as a colonizer and as a person with the privilege, to do so, to put my body on the line to stop the Enbridge Corporation from building this pipeline."</p><p>"It breaks my heart and enrages me to see how these people are desecrating the Earth and the lengths they will go to leech every last dollar they can from its surface," they said. "But for as much as I'm here in anger and fear, I'm also here in love."</p>
<p>Thursday's action came after eight people were arrested on Saturday, when <a href="https://www.stopline3.org/news/january092021" target="_blank">scores</a> of water protectors and Anishinaabe jingle dress dancers gathered at the Mississippi River, then walked onto a Line 3 worksite. <a href="https://www.stopline3.org/news/january092021" target="_blank">According to</a> a statement from organizers:</p><blockquote>After praying and sharing a healing jingle dance, water protectors went to Haypoint, Minnesota, where Enbridge is actively boring under Highway 169 on its way to the Willow and Mississippi Rivers.<br>Construction stopped as water protectors held space and documented <a href="https://fb.watch/2YA1x0szE0/" target="_blank">irregularities</a> in the pipe being put into the ground. Nearly 30 police squad cars from multiple counties and the Department of Natural Resources were onsite.</blockquote>
<p>The statement, which confirmed the eight arrests, also said that "one arresting officer in a Cass County uniform without a badge refused to put on a face mask and grinned at the crowd as he held a zip-tied water protector. Enbridge's worksites and man camps have quickly become hotspots for Covid-19 in Aitkin County."</p><p>While critics of Line 3 and similar projects have long raised health and safety concerns — including about the <a href="https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/native-american-and-women-s-organizations-request-un-help-on-sexual-violence-_srxHIWjqEmyrmz9OPMmZw" target="_blank">well-documented connection</a> between man camps and the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women — the pandemic, which has hit Indigenous communities hard, has further fueled opposition.</p><p>"We saw Minnesota's police officers protecting a Canadian tar sands pipeline being built by mostly out-of-state workers, for sale on foreign market," said Tara Houska, founder of Giniw Collective. "We need good-paying jobs up north that don't require us to destroy our environment. Where is the investment in the north land? Where is the upholding of treaty rights? Where is the Walz administration on this pandemic pipeline?"</p>
<div id="94ce5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="384e44bc9a6701e11c25627380232d6f"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1347984613700984833" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We are here to protect the water. Hundreds of us today at the Rally for the Rivers and more every day. We will… https://t.co/ww5HOuF6ZI</div> — MN350 (@MN350)<a href="https://twitter.com/MN_350/statuses/1347984613700984833">1610219550.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Activists are <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/15/biden-urged-stand-against-line-3-water-protectors-battle-dirty-tar-sands-pipeline" target="_blank">calling on</a> President-elect Joe Biden to stand up for those "on the frontlines of fossil fuel racism and the climate crisis" by stopping Line 3. On Thursday, more than 75 Indigenous women leaders <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/14/over-75-indigenous-women-urge-biden-stop-climate-wrecking-pipelines-and-respect" target="_blank">wrote</a> to the next president, urging him to block Line 3 and two other projects that "pose grave threats to Indigenous rights, cultural survival, sacred water and land, the global climate, and the public health crises within our communities, which have been greatly exacerbated by Covid-19."</p><p>As Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe and a signatory to the letter, put it: "The Biden administration can uphold their climate justice claims by acting to stop Line 3, stop Keystone XL, and stop Dakota Access Pipeline, now."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/14/arrests-minnesota-after-water-protectors-chain-themselves-inside-pipe-section-halt" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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An offshore oil platform in West Africa. Cavan Images / Getty Images
For the first time, researchers have identified 100 transnational corporations that take home the majority of profits from the ocean's economy.
<p>Referred to as the "Ocean 100," the corporations accounted for 60 percent of $1.9 trillion generated from core industries in the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">ocean</a> economy in 2018 alone, according to an <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank">article by the Duke Nicholas Institute</a>. The <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabc8041" target="_blank">research</a> was published Wednesday in the journal <em>Science Advances</em> by researchers at Duke University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.</p><p>If the group were a country, it would be the 16th-largest economy in the world, <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank">researchers found</a>. Out of the eight industries examined, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling">offshore drilling</a> generated the most revenue.</p>
<p>"Now that we know who some of the biggest beneficiaries from the ocean economy are, this can help improve transparency relating to sustainability and ocean stewardship," the lead author John Virdin, director of the Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, said in an <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank">article by the Duke Nicholas Institute</a>. Some of the identified corporations included Saudi Aramco and Brazil's Petrobras, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-environment-oceans/ocean-100-profits-from-worlds-seas-dominated-by-100-companies-idUSKBN29I2XF" target="_blank">Reuters reported.</a></p><p>More than three billion people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods, <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/sustainable-ocean-for-all_6bcb3e94-en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to a report by the OECD</a>. Yet across eight industries studied, including offshore drilling, seafood production and processing and cruise tourism, researchers found that just 10 companies in each of the industries generated 45 percent of the industry's revenue.</p>
<p>"The fact that these companies are headquartered in a small number of countries also illustrates that concerted actions by some governments,could rapidly change how the private sector interacts with the ocean," co-author Henrik Österblom, science director at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank">said</a> in the article by the Duke Nicholas Institute.</p><p>Due to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/overfishing">overfishing</a>, pollution and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>, the ocean is becoming increasingly threatened, <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/sustainable-ocean-for-all_6bcb3e94-en" target="_blank">the OECD reported</a>. This has degraded the ocean's fish stocks, habitats, ecosystems and biodiversity.</p><p>In response, the international community adopted the <a href="https://unctad.org/webflyer/advancing-sustainable-development-goal-14#:~:text=In%202015%2C%20the%20international%20community,marine%20resources%20for%20sustainable%20development." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015</a>, which for the first time sought to "conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development."</p>
<p>But such agreements overlook the ocean's potential to mitigate climate change, Janis Searles Jones, the Ocean's Conservancy CEO wrote <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02832-w#:~:text=The%20ocean's%20potential%20to%20mitigate,higher%20than%20terrestrial%20forests%20can" target="_blank">in a Nature article</a>. "We need greater ambition to give the ocean a fighting chance," she added.</p><p>The researchers' identification could help environmental groups like the Ocean Conservancy pressure corporations into adopting sustainability goals that include climate mitigation strategies.</p><p>"Senior executives of these few, but large companies, are in a unique position to exercise global leadership in sustainability," <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank">Virdin added</a>.</p>
<p>In 2015, Österblom and his colleagues <a href="https://stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2015-05-27-keystone-actors-shape-marine-ecosystems.html" target="_blank">published a paper</a> that analogized transnational corporations to keystone species, according to the article by the Duke Nicholas Institute. They noted both have a major impact on how ecosystems function and disproportionate power to determine how other species in the ecosystem operate.</p><p>"Just knowing who they are is the first step in getting them involved in what needs to be done," <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-environment-oceans/ocean-100-profits-from-worlds-seas-dominated-by-100-companies-idUSKBN29I2XF" target="_blank">Österblom noted</a> in Reuters.</p><p>But depending on corporations to adopt sustainable practices may not be enough to reach international sustainability goals.</p>
<p>"In 2018, Chevron announced it would invest $100 million that year in lowering emissions through its new Future Energy Fund," Michael O'Leary and Warren Valdmanis <a href="https://www.vox.com/21509913/climate-change-bp-microsoft-investors-shareholders-accountability" target="_blank">wrote on Vox</a> on holding companies accountable to their climate commitments. That same year, Chevron invested $20 billion in oil and gas.</p><p>"For those who put their faith in corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a panacea for our ailing society, we have the unfortunate reality: This kind of allocation of efforts is not uncommon. Superficial public commitments on issues like sustainability and diversity are much easier for companies than substantive action," they <a href="https://www.vox.com/21509913/climate-change-bp-microsoft-investors-shareholders-accountability" target="_blank">added</a>.</p><p>Oceans will play an increasingly critical role in the global economy, the researchers <a href="https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/articles/ocean-100-small-group-companies-dominates-ocean-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">note</a>. Whether pressuring the ocean's major actors to adopt sustainable practices will translate into tangible corporate responsibility will reveal itself sooner or later.</p>
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><em><br></em>
<h2>Why Organic Hemp Oil Matters</h2><p>Hemp is a unique plant, not only for its rich cannabinoid content, but also for its ability to absorb a wide variety of components in soil. But this trait poses great risks when it comes to the creation of CBD products derived from hemp.</p><p>Because hemp has a high capacity for compound uptake, this means that the plants can retain <a href="https://www.remedyreview.com/industry/lab-test-results/" target="_blank">harmful chemicals like pesticides</a>, heavy metals, and other residual solvents. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic chemicals that are more toxic to humans, and difficult to remove once they have been absorbed by the hemp plant.</p><p>Organic farming practices help reduce the risk of hemp crops absorbing harsh chemicals that may later end up in CBD oil after extraction. When you're taking CBD as a wellness supplement to help alleviate your symptoms or improve your overall well-being, the last thing you want is to ingest compounds that might negatively outweigh the benefits of CBD. This is an important reason to look for third party lab test results when shopping for CBD products since these certificates of analysis can show the full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a hemp extract, as well as test results that search for the presence of any residual solvents.</p><p>In addition to creating a better end product, organic farming practices are also better for the environment. Sustainable and organic farming methods may <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy</a>. The use of natural pest deterrents as opposed to chemical pesticides is also better for nearby animal populations and ecosystems.</p><h3>Organic vs. Natural</h3><p>While there are only a select few companies offering certified organic ingredients in their products, almost every brand in the CBD market creates "natural" products. The term "all-natural" or "plant-based" does not mean that a product is organic, and since hemp oil is a natural derivative of hemp plants, these products are often referred to as all-natural. However, there are some synthetic CBD oils that should be avoided because they are chemically constructed and may produce unwanted side effects that are not caused by naturally derived CBD extracts.</p><h2>What are the Benefits of Organic CBD Oil?</h2><p>There's a long list of potential CBD oil health benefits, and some of the most common wellness advantages include:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2503660/" target="_blank">Chronic pain relief</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/" target="_blank">Anti-anxiety effects</a></li><li>Better sleep</li><li><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201901/cbd-oil-mental-health-should-you-take-it-too" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Improvements in mood</a></li><li>Internal balance and regulation</li></ul><p>When dealing with pain, inflammation, sleep issues, and mental health struggles, it can be hard to find sufficient treatment options. The use of certain prescriptions can cause unwanted side effects, yet they are often the only solution for patients with these medical conditions. In search of other therapies, people have started to flock towards CBD oil as an alternative remedy for a variety of conditions. However, it should be noted that CBD products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and you should seek your doctor's advice before using CBD if you have a serious medical condition.</p><h2>Look at the Labels Before You Buy CBD Oil</h2><p>When you go online to buy CBD oil, you'll quickly realize there is an overwhelming number of brands that are saturating the market. It can be difficult to determine which products are truly as good as they make themselves out to be. Always look for up-to-date third-party lab tests so you know you are getting a great product, and don't hesitate to contact the brand if you have any additional questions. And if you're intent on purchasing 100% organic CBD oil, it's best to look for certified products or brands that are held to strict regulatory standards.</p><p><strong>Melena Gurganus </strong>is the Reviews Editor at EcoWatch. She is passionate health and wellness and her writing aims to help others find products they can trust. Her work has been featured in publications such as Health, Shape, Huffington Post, Cannabis Business Times, and Bustle.<br></p>
Spruce
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CBDistillery
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FAB CBD
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NuLeaf Naturals
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Charlotte's Web
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United Airlines Boeing 737 takes off from Los Angeles international Airport on November 11, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. AaronP / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images
United Airlines is seeking to reduce its net greenhouse gas pollution by investing in carbon capture and sequestration instead of merely buying carbon offsets.
<p>"Traditional carbon offsets do almost nothing to tackle the emissions from flying. And, more importantly, they simply don't meet the scale of this global challenge," United CEO Scott Kirby <a href="https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/e2t/tc/VVwX-F15lXC6W5S51M24xf-vDW2F3lfm4lQvmpN44_D9w5nxGrV3Zsc37CgXMBN73z2pGSXvxjN8kfft4QjbMPW1ZvRvv7Fkdv9VRkkt36hRtQ9W3lrZQp3mF4GmVsxHX234ZRP-W5ffGJ25PQXd6W2NB3-c6wZplZW3cZxkB6KDP6mV51H3M45vG6lW7l6SfH8SPVMTW7vR4G32Nf9rhW2s1Bqv7X6G2_W2zTx-j97QzPxW20zcC066r0qTW5n50tb371xQNN93zdsRQhjlMW5SSg-P33j9gmN6RVlg2SwWr3N1GRjqdCh4_8W7clJBC7qxXxxW8nHnhZ84qdMmW5QfcCq4-kc0qW1dsPRv7CN951N7mj0G0TKv2XN37VKH_VryySW74_Vqc49vqRqW8jvGQf79SlRyVx1flY48S5JWW2-LC9J6kcxFNW3HTlQ24K0jHsVSCXYZ85rpzSW4_0zQ718J38xN79fp3q9gJ1x34my1" target="_blank">wrote</a>. </p><p>United will partner with 1PointFive, a carbon capture firm founded last year by a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum and Rusheen Capital Management. </p><p>The carbon capture plants, each about 100 acres, will use direct air carbon capture to pull 1 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, equivalent to the amount of carbon captured by more than 40 million trees. </p><p>Aviation is among the hardest sectors to decarbonize: Battery- and solar-powered aviation technology is nowhere near ready to make a dent in the market, and lower-impact biofuels are limited both by production constraints and plane's fuel mixture requirements.</p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p>United: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/01/12/climate-solutions-united-airlines/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=106540840&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_C3fEH0oBFPE7XajUw1QeHAsXQdB1mrZPUhbtRQ0DlWagy1OWm5gFpplf7AhgxkezKmlFevSDbbwE-pV5lI0ZPji8plp-s9HKDp0wMYXdJLHk1Dus&utm_content=106540840&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>; Direct air carbon capture: <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/direct-air-capture-climate-change-technology_n_5fffa043c5b691806c4f1c02?ncid=NEWSSTAND0005&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=106540840&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9zS-0aJocfEZrQY3hjGhttvxj23ee-e5VckGV-An-F8REOWXaLqzmNHamxb2pVY3mnpwQj82TYA0zO9xAy0TzNn_63EHT8YjL2ju2aVOV-7PDY2Y0&utm_content=106540840&utm_source=hs_email&guccounter=1" target="_blank">Huff Post</a><br/></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Singapore is cited as one of the many cities facing light pollution issues. leungchopan / Getty Images
By Tim Schauenberg
When the Earth shook the Los Angeles region on the night of January 17, 1994, many houses, bridges and power lines were toppled. At that moment, the brightly illuminated metropole was plunged into darkness.
<p>People torn from their beds emerged to the reality of having been hit by an earthquake. They also, according to local observatories and police stations who reportedly received phone calls to this effect at the time, emerged to alleged sightings of a "giant silvery cloud" in the sky. What they were seeing was actually <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/milky-way-gobbled-up-smaller-galaxy-in-cosmic-crash-astronomers-find/a-49706252" target="_blank">the Milky Way</a> and stars which until then, had remained obscured behind the dazzling city lights.</p><h2>From a Revolution to a Pollutant</h2><p>The 19th-century invention of electric light was a genuine revolution, and over a century later, it is hard to imagine a life without it. Yet today, more than 80% of the world's population live under light-polluted skies. In Singapore, for example, nights have become so bright that people's eyes now struggle to adapt to real darkness. </p><p>Christopher Kyber, a scientist at the Potsdam-based German Research Center for Geosciences, describes the introduction of artificial light as "one of the most dramatic changes we've made to the biosphere."</p><p>He says throughout evolution, there was a constant signal coming from the environment. "This is daytime, this is nighttime, this is the lunar month. In areas that experience strong light pollution, that signal has been dramatically changed."</p><p>Scientists estimate our planet is becoming 2% brighter every year, with the consequences of that increase growing ever more visible. </p>
<h2>Is Light Making Us Sick?</h2><p>People living in big cities are likely to be most affected by too much artificial light. </p><p>"It's just horrible. You can see the orange glow across the whole of Mumbai," said Nilesh Desai, an IT worker and light pollution activist in India's second-largest city. </p><p>"Lights used to be on until 12am or sometimes until 3:00am," he said, in reference to illuminated billboards, floodlights and streetlamps. "I used to get disturbed by those lights, you know, bright lights coming into my room, my bedroom, and it definitely impacted me because I could not sleep."</p><p>When he lodged a complaint with the authorities in 2018, they ignored him.</p><p>Science shows links between artificial light and eye injury, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/technology-that-helps-us-fall-asleep/a-44540273" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sleeplessness</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/study-obesity-cuts-life-expectancy-by-up-to-10-years/a-19398951" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">obesity</a> and in some cases, even <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/53-million-germans-suffer-from-depression-each-year/a-46506088" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">depression</a>. A US study on shift workers from 2007 even makes a connection with breast cancer. It is all related to melatonin, a hormone that is released when it gets dark.</p><p>"When we don't get that hormone, when we don't produce that hormone because we're exposed to so much light in our apartment, or as a shift worker, then the whole working of this biological clock system becomes problematic," Kyber said.</p>
<h2>Lighter Nights Affect Biodiversity </h2><p>It's not only humans that need a natural day-night rhythm. Wildlife also struggles to adapt to the use of artificial light at night. Corals, for example, don't reproduce as usual, migratory birds can lose their sense of orientation, and, rather than walking towards the sea, newly hatched turtles have been found walking inland, where they die. </p><p>"There is a tremendous change because the increase of brightness at nighttime is new to evolution," said Sibylle Schroer, a scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin. </p><p>Insects are also affected. One study suggested that an estimated 100 billion nocturnal insects die in Germany each summer as a result of artificial light. Usually reliant on the moon for orientation, the critters become so distracted by bright streetlamps for example, that they fly around them all night. They then die from exhaustion, are too weak to reproduce or become easy prey for predators.</p><p>Another report published in 2016 showed that plants growing near streetlights are pollinated significantly less often at night and produce less fruit than their unlit counterparts. Even trees feel the impact of light at night, budding earlier and with later leaf fall than others.</p>
<h2>The Climate Impact </h2><p>With fossil fuels still the main source of global electricity production, the unnecessary use of light at night also <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/delhi-is-choking-on-its-smog/a-41309472" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">contributes to air pollution</a> and climate change. According to Pavan Kumar, a scientist at the Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, "More than 12 million tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere each year due to extreme nighttime light." </p><p>With better light management and urban planning, those emissions could be significantly reduced, and resources and money could be saved, he continued.</p><p>So far, movement on such measures has been slow. France and Croatia have taken the lead, introducing legal limits on excessive nighttime illumination by imposing bans on lights in eco-sensitive areas. In some places, like in parts of France, there are set times when lights in public spaces have to be dimmed or switched off.</p><p>Back in Mumbai, after protests from citizens like Nilesh Desai, city representatives have indicated they are willing to reduce light pollution. In a victory for Desai, a stadium close to his home has been told to remove its floodlights. As there is very little legislation around the regulation of light pollution, Mumbai politicians have also called on the Indian environment ministry to implement laws. </p><p>Desai hopes it won't take a blackout to see the Milky Way over his city one night.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/light-pollution-the-dangers-of-bright-skies-at-night/a-56209536" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2649940234#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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The Parc del Fòrum, a public open space with a massive solar panel in Barcelona, Spain. Enrique Díaz / 7cero / Getty Images
By Francesco Starace and Jean-Pascal Tricoire
Why is it so important to decarbonize cities? And how can we do it?
<p>The first question is easy to answer: The cities in which more than half of us live account for nearly two-thirds of the CO2 emissions that lie at the root of our planet's looming <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>. Skyscrapers in megalopolises, shopping malls, SUVs in the streets, air conditioners in a growing number of places throughout the globe – all consume a vast amount of high CO2-content energy.</p><p>The answer to the second question is to take an integrated approach: leveraging clean electrification and digital technology to harmonize urban energy systems, while also thinking beyond individual projects to consider their impact within the surrounding communities and the built environment.</p>
<p>In fact, urban energy, transport and building infrastructures are gradually becoming greener: There are <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2020" target="_blank">more electric vehicles on city streets</a>, better water treatment and recycling schemes, and more <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar">solar</a> panels on rooftops around the globe. According to <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2020?utm_content=buffer061dd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin-Birol&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">International Energy Agency estimates</a>, renewables like solar and wind are set to become the largest source of electricity generation worldwide by 2025, supplying one-third of the world's electricity and ending coal's decades-long dominance of the global power mix.</p><p>All this is, of course, welcome.</p><p>But with climate change accelerating, we need more comprehensive decarbonization actions on three fronts. First, we need even more energy to come from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable</a> sources. Second, we need more cars, heating and other activity to be powered by clean electricity. Third, we need everything from factories, to office buildings, homes, transport systems and consumer devices to become more energy-efficient.</p>
<p>This third lever might not as headline-grabbing as the rise of solar panels or electric vehicles. But it is a big piece of the decarbonization puzzle, with an even larger potential enabled by digital technologies.</p><p>Consider, for example, the technologies that make buildings more energy-efficient, by automatically adapting the amount of cooling, heating or lighting to occupancy levels at any given moment. Or digital tools that allow the operators of a manufacturing site in Sweden or a public utility in India to run their operations or distribution systems more efficiently and even remotely, rather than in person (a feature that has proved critical in these times of social distancing and lockdowns).</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQzNDUzNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzEwMDEwN30.PFj06PUl54BGCMlbb0etzgnp-P2-zB1a3v5RNcG2BYw/img.png?width=980" id="57d4e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8cdbcd37ddf921991f9393f268d33296" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1526" data-height="986" />
<p>Imagine how much more we could achieve if we digitally integrate ultra-efficient buildings, public services – e.g. transport or lighting – and electric vehicle charging stations into a wider, highly efficient urban system, delivering better quality services for citizens and accompanying benefits such as local job creation, health, and well-being. Integration and interaction between assets are the key to disrupt the traditional equation of energy and efficiency in cities. An EV battery can store power not only for just one car, but, while a car is not in use, also for the surrounding community thanks to smart-charging infrastructures. Excess power generated by an office building's or warehouse's rooftop solar panels might be used to help power the wider neighborhood.</p>
<p>The technologies, digital tools and data analytics capabilities to enable this efficient urban system already exist, as do concrete examples of such an integrated approach. Therefore, integration and collaboration of systems and stakeholders are the fundamental drivers to accelerate and scale the transition in cities.</p><p>Integration of energy, buildings and mobility requires cross-cutting industry collaboration, ranging from utilities and real estate, to technology companies and financial institutions. City- and state-level administration can enable and facilitate such collaboration through public-private cooperation. The public sector can drive on governance, policy and licensing, while the private sector provides agility, technology and resources. This cooperation can share and balance risks and liability between stakeholders for mutual gains and value creation for the broader community.</p>
<p>All of this comes against a backdrop of great urgency. Epidemics, climate and economic pain have all created unique challenges in 2020. But combating climate change must remain top of mind. Cities lie at the heart of this fight and have now the chance to build back better. We have joined the World Economic Forum in the effort to promote dialogue and mobilize action together with a group of global leaders. As co-chairs of the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/projects/systemic-efficiency" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Net Zero Carbon Cities initiative</a>, our ambition is to accelerate a sustainable transition in cities, supporting mayors in creating value for their communities. It is up to all of us to ensure we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/cities-climate-decarbonize-integrated/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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A windmill park in the Oaxaca, Mexico. Stephan de Prouw / Moment / Getty Images
By Tara Lohan
When Shalanda Baker stopped in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2009 to brush up on her Spanish before heading to Colombia, she didn't realize it would be a life-changing event. She'd just left her job at a corporate law firm with the hope of lending her expertise to communities fighting coal mines or other dirty energy projects in South America.
<p>But in Oaxaca she met <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">Indigenous</a> community members fighting a different type of energy project: large-scale wind development.</p><p><span></span>"Their struggles echoed the stories of countless communities around the world affected by oil and gas development: dispossession, displacement, environmental harm, unfair contracts, racism and a litany of concerns about impact to culture and community," she writes in her forthcoming book <em><a href="https://islandpress.org/books/revolutionary-power" target="_blank">Revolutionary Power: An Activist's Guide to the Energy Transition</a></em>.</p><p>And she realized that in the pursuit of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">clean energy</a> and climate solutions, we were on course to replicate many of the same injustices of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fue</a>l economy.</p><p>"I knew, in that moment, that this tension — between Indigenous rights and clean energy, between the rush to avert catastrophic climate change and social justice — would form the foundation of my work as an activist and scholar. It would also become my life's work," she writes.</p><p>Baker is <a href="https://www.northeastern.edu/law/faculty/directory/baker-s.html" target="_blank">currently a professor</a> of law, public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University and cofounder of the <a href="https://iejusa.org/" target="_blank">Initiative for Energy Justice</a>, where she continues to work on making the clean energy transition more just.</p>
<p><em>The Revelator</em> spoke with Baker about why we can't solve our current climate crisis by following the same energy playbook and what it means to put justice concerns first.</p><p><strong>"Energy justice" may be a new term for people. How do you define it?</strong></p><p>I feel like it's helpful to distinguish it from environmental justice as well as climate justice. They're interrelated and, I think, inextricably intertwined.</p><p>Environmental justice is a product of the '80s and '90s, where people began recognizing the harms that Black and Brown communities disproportionately face due to industry, including the energy system. The movement was really aiming to remediate those harms through policy.</p><p>We had seen landmark environmental legislation passed in the 1970s which largely failed to address energy distributional concerns and largely left communities of color to fend for themselves through regular civil rights claims to sort out those burdens. And that actually didn't work out.</p><p>So the environmental justice movement continues and on their shoulders is the climate justice movement, which very much recognizes that island communities and other communities in the Global South, as well as environmental justice communities including in the United States, will be the first and worst impacted by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate change</a>.</p><p>So they're really working to create policies that respond to that vulnerability.</p><p>But energy justice for me is the most hopeful aspect of this because it's forward looking. To me, it's about dreaming and saying, "What system can we create that not only remediates or helps to remediate some of that environmental harm, but can make us less vulnerable in the face of climate change?"</p><p>Rooftop solar, batteries, things that allow us to bounce back more quickly in the face of climate change — this hopeful terrain of energy policy that is reflective of energy justice principles is where I like to do my work.</p>
<p><strong>You write in your book about how you first got into this work because you worried that we were going to make the same mistakes with clean energy that we made with fossil fuels. How have you seen this play out?</strong></p><p>My first experience witnessing it was Oaxaca, Mexico where I met the Indigenous peoples fighting against "big wind." And there was this moment where I thought, "Oh my gosh, we're doing this the same way." We're relying on the same logic, the same structure, the same financing models. The same entities and corporations are basically just changing hats and changing names to be able to participate in the clean economy.</p><p>They're still relying on extraction, exploitation and getting it done for the lowest cost, which often means massive projects that can really change the shape of communities.</p><p>That's what was happening in Mexico in 2009. It's still very much happening in Oaxaca, which is the windiest place in Mexico. It's also happening in the Yucatan peninsula in a place that I went to in 2016 to do a Fulbright.</p><p>The second time I saw this was in Hawai'i in 2014. At that time Hawai'i was embarking on its own ambitious energy reform project. But it was approached as being about just a technical change — a switching of fuels to renewables. They were basically, again, replicating the inequality baked into the system.</p><p>In Hawai'i folks pay the highest costs for electricity in the country, poverty rates are high and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] communities live amidst fossil fuel generation. But BIPOC communities had no real say in shaping the energy future and were structurally excluded from it.</p><p>Moreover, communities were not viewed as stakeholders with an authentic economic interest in the projects that were slated for development. Because of this exclusion, I witnessed a lack of community participation in the overall development process, large-scale renewable energy projects going into BIPOC communities and rural communities without authentic community engagement, and a failure to think creatively about economic benefits (such as ownership) available to communities through clean energy development.</p><p>For me, the more tragic part was that the stakeholders and policymakers didn't see the transition as an opportunity to create social change and to remediate structural inequality.</p><p>This approach mirrored Mexico's wind energy development, and I saw, in Hawai'i, a real missed opportunity to allow communities to design the new energy system in service of their vision and in service of the deeper principles of economic and social justice.</p>
<p><strong>What response do you get when you talk about energy justice now?</strong></p><p>If you had asked me that six months ago, I would have said that it's very hard. No one's listening, it's terrible.</p><p>But since the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the murder of George Floyd, we have seen this sort of awakening, for lack of a better term, with respect to the multiple layers of oppression and inequality that certain communities face.</p><p>We know that communities of color are more likely to be environmental justice communities, breathing in toxic fumes. We know that they're more likely to experience energy burden, paying more of their overall income to meet basic energy needs. And now we know that they're more likely to die from a pandemic and that the likelihood of having the worst effects of COVID relates back to the energy system.</p><p>So now there's an opening, there's an opportunity. Since June there's really been more of a willingness to learn about this — and not in just the typical places, but with policymakers, with folks from departments of energy around the country and attorneys general offices.</p><p><strong>Are there examples of energy justice in action you've seen around the country?</strong></p><p>I think it's still too early to tell.</p><p>Rooftop solar was one way that people could have more control over their energy system and make some economic gains by creating their own energy and selling it back to the grid or offsetting their own use. But that opportunity and policy framework has largely left out a lot of Black and Brown folks.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQzNDEwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzU3NDgwNn0.KA7s7lZ3GggE68srQDargEsvM_IdcNtnnBNGOJ5sL6Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="87002" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0700b42409b8ee3738ae0b4846cc0aa9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="800" data-height="519" />
Solar PV panels covering the roof of a home in Oahu, Hawaii. Tony Webster / CC BY 2.0
<p>The alternative was a model called community energy. Sometimes it's about communities coming together or a church or another kind of institution in the community saying, "let's create an energy project and we can all share in it."</p><p>But unfortunately, I think we need more research to really know if it's actually benefiting low-income folks and Black and Brown people.</p><p>So the jury is still out for me on how energy justice is manifesting. But I do think there are a couple of policy wins that we've seen.</p><p>One is in New York through the <a href="https://climate.ny.gov/" target="_blank">Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act</a>, which was signed into law about a year ago and was very much a product of grassroots advocacy. A coalition called <a href="https://www.nyrenews.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NY Renews</a> made sure that that law included a carve-out for environmental justice communities [requiring] that 35% of climate investments have to go back to those communities.</p><p>We see similar things in California with <a href="https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/sb535" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Senate Bill 535</a>, which is essentially a redistribution of the benefits of that state's cap and trade policy to so-called "disadvantaged communities."</p><p>So there are wins here and there, but we have to keep fighting.</p>
<p><strong>What needs to change in terms to regulations or financing to help move that fight along?</strong></p><p>There are two pieces of the financial story. One is the utility story. We have massive investor-owned entities that are essentially companies that are regulated to be able to provide power and get a reasonable return on any investments that they make in the infrastructure.</p><p>So as we move toward more distributed resources, there's a pushback by these entities because they want to continue to own all of the assets and they want to continue to be able to get a return on any investments that they make in our electricity infrastructure.</p><p>But in an ideal world, we'll see individuals and communities owning more of their energy assets, and then being able to share them across a grid that may be managed by an investor-owned or publicly owned utility.</p><p>And I think we need regulators to push utilities to behave in the way that we want them to behave.</p><p>We also need to think about how we organize our rate structure. Right now rates are generally regressive and they have higher impacts on the poorest folks.</p><p>The literature around energy burden says that we should be paying around 6% of our household income to meet energy needs. But some households are paying upwards of 40% or even 75%.</p><p>One problem is that low-income folks often live in housing that isn't properly weatherized and energy is lost through holes in the walls or inefficient windows. Our standard programs for weatherization assistance are not reaching the places they need to be reaching.</p><p>I think the other part of this is how we get households access to rooftop solar. One study has shown a huge racial gap between those who have rooftop solar and those who don't.</p><p>That gap is persistent even when you correct for home ownership, even when you correct for income, which indicates that there may be a racial dimension — maybe <em>racism</em> — with respect to why people just aren't getting approached for rooftop solar or why they're not able to put it on their homes.</p><p>We need to understand this problem more.</p>
<p><strong>You write in your book about how the goal for many activists has been "climate first, justice later." But you advocate for justice first. Why?</strong></p><p>Bringing in the voices of folks who've been historically colonized and excluded for hundreds of years is just the morally right thing to do.</p><p>But I think more and more, we're starting to understand that our fates are linked. And we cannot leave behind certain squads of the population in pursuit of our own gains. We have to make sure that they have a voice at the table and are able to bring life to their own vision of what the energy system should look like.</p><p>Or else we'll get kicked by it at the end of the day. We'll be hit by the realization that we've left out this entire segment of the population that can't pay their electricity bills or that now has to move because of climate change. That will ultimately create substantial social costs down the road.</p><p>So for me, it's about making a stronger society.</p><p>I really want ordinary folks — our aunts or uncles, our friends who are not in energy or environmental law and policy — to engage with these ideas and to see the ways in which energy is such an intimate part of our lives.</p><p>I want people to get curious and begin to organize around a just energy future. And to also maybe even get a little upset about the deep injustice that is embedded into not just the fossil fuel system — because that's a story we know — but into this clean energy transition, where we are not only replicating but in some ways exacerbating inequality.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/energy-justice-baker/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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No major oil company offered a valid bid on the land leases. Pat Gaines / Getty Images
The oil industry responded to the controversial and last-minute sale of oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with a collective 'meh' on Wednesday.
<p>The federal government received bids on just 11 of the 22 leasing tracts on offer, and nine of those were purchased at the legal minimum price of $25 per acre by an Alaska state-owned corporation with hopes to sublet the tracts to other oil companies in the future. </p><p>No major or even mid-size oil companies entered valid bids. </p><p>The ANWR lease sales are mandated as part of the GOP plan to pay for its 2017 tax cuts based on expectations that the sales and oil extraction would net the Treasury $1.8 billion over 10 years; Wednesday's lease sale raised $14.4 million. </p>
<p>Under mounting pressure from climate advocates, the six biggest American banks and five biggest Canadian banks have all pledged not to finance drilling in the refuge. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to prevent oil drilling in the refuge.</p><p>"This lease sale was an epic failure for the Trump administration and the Alaska congressional delegation," Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in a statement. </p><p>"After years of promising a revenue and jobs bonanza they ended up throwing a party for themselves."</p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/06/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-polar-bears/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9x1f4J1F0OtFhjdqNfsM2OEEcFSdUoNhoWYrJbpyKNVR97yaHYe4KgINerb1LzK1eFwrb5vCQHKFl0eDg92Mn4PGn8XLv0RxeG-jtuI75fVsTTMrs&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>, <a href="https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2021/01/06/anwr-lease-sale-brings-in-144-million-in-bids-mostly-from-alaska-state-owned-corporation/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--N4DdlAZeRNAUQwAXojgzeHRhAOStf444y0Jx4Cf7tEuhTVEOgJGRee604N1cCDfxS9Ygtj0PxR3TZwUDSnjdYaj5hk-tz5xuePEwZxBlRlRkVFy0&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Anchorage Daily News</a>, <a href="https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/auction-oil-gas-leases-alaska-arctic-refuge-draws-little-interest?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9by8khE_zPABF80OtouybI--xzLxvUvrc8iGiX3Z51eM30D-TqRQRAbBm3V7IU38bZsVAmzYnPaXf6sESSGKnxboWstbolIiIUc7nevqqHeVJMqZY&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">High North News</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/alaska-agency-is-biggest-bidder-for-arctic-oil-leases-11609963845?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_fph9IODwKLyBJHA9Jd0cmuXggeUELlXRkRuG9_uowE0Ppw2k3AGux_UT3ab16QgjNDyyqw8hJzQXhsSQkb-CY3Kjd3xTTMR7CyTNDosANFIghzBw&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal,</a> <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1063721947?t=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eenews.net%2Fstories%2F1063721947%3F_hsenc%3Dp2ANqtz-8JRd6gnk4_7ZlC1lEPJzm0OYQKJ47OdWPjR_gHMZZ6mX5HBHkaB2Am_qA1qoECGxhaBdThR59hZ6-bbDBZELxR1j53uV88yXKYPxjzCllbdfcB-pE%26_hsmi%3D105782603%26utm_campaign%3DHot%2520News%26utm_content%3D105782603%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dhs_email" target="_blank">E&E</a>,<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012021/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-leases/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8oTdWGwuuRsu4-kcaPe0tE1xFJzpGotKkd91gPFKNd9xdzKQ26xEsdjvnqlX9H9l-wcGxS_opzwwxSl6vF05NRWZ7KEp2SA8kESqUh1fSfreL3FNs&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank"> InsideClimate News</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-06/secret-bids-opened-in-rare-auction-of-arctic-oil-drilling-rights?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_BSs2y7tI3cVM-TC6vLZrluv3RL5ttNDRIlTYsRNrZm4R0Syzs2E7QQ1oOPcHrgxfOMpsRINrydj4fz63TRng-K1DvqCWF7ql666nnoK314pSa1H8&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953718234/major-oil-companies-take-a-pass-on-controversial-lease-sale-in-arctic-refuge?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--zCLhVAWMBy1Sji6yxkGlLNBvPqNktX8YSCVqNKZPah-v2-cPRYfMg7bCbtOGqTXaBDj3eCyPsuQkQva9vwDuGY7YglfjqrJzMKfBISZPy7GvK7Ds&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">NPR</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bf1c671e-a032-43a0-8471-5cfc133c8fee?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9bi3DrfICr5ifkIL-P_B3zOyjP_Y9ngzHr71OoAafNiEUyG8pkoW-Fkz70r_uuG9IflKVyGxLe-2J1CXBqB5QFsS5x5uwOdC_mz-JzD2hIgoy__Xo&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">FT,</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-oil/oil-drillers-shrug-off-trumps-u-s-arctic-wildlife-refuge-auction-idUSKBN29B0KR?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8s5zTGuBgVohzUrN6PG6pKIWl4XrUkeCar7I81uSrxV6O1KM4JspHsi1_y9pIrnrIpYNI5MrRn-wdYH3vrSaUBxtR7YJu9bx0ntQngdlT3e4wqlak&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Reuters</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/climate/arctic-refuge-drilling-lease-sales.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_cRMugNyj4Zvxbn2OcpCtJYZWmxmq0qQLcF8VugBQJVHTIxLzQyc1MxEbf0twRxjvx5SkExXvwaPMU9_HvobOY-Zl2hKMsjPRQ12Y-ySrKqh8IfzI&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">New York Times,</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55564483?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--GbPWL-EuxEvl0XsV7yquDsdDPNDirfoyv1NTj_H3nVXIPc6-unLWep9IdJLucGMsgwVwIHxPM3Rj0_m17HOJ_CbKHUOqeU5c3vhK7jtmnyfNNehE&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">BBC</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/06/trump-arctic-refuge-auction-oil-leases?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8NPyx9aOiHkL_lltqY5z42w-sez42AqcZnhTJoVIu1yU4DUdxOENKk9wno1q437aFZp6XIbsShjEfRAGHymuxULnnHK0VNtCDvfpiDsX5mAmOf4QM&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Guardian,</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/532983-trumps-sale-of-arctic-refuge-drilling-rights-earns-just-a-fraction?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9m81SWu1WXTj_iOVpcjbk0EV3FnoR8KyBLJ5aBV7NyqpPPH42G8J5PKb2R35_bqqd719_MjgENcv_71qL3zPoQsEYhJpnLlCsJ7EBf4EwzJ-q2X2E&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Hill,</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alaska-wildlife-arctic-513daddc87565b22cd5ba71f2b267a32?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8j09WFX9NfwlGeZoqWWTrR092rD3Ia8nZuwx5SATkSXCiPSmDs6noHSCBGiPUm3JZe3VhdqZ0Pm5O2ECI4-2Aiz6D84LxUTyCb2FSzgVRW2H8pwuM&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP,</a> <a href="https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2021/01/07/stories/1063721993?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_rS_50mb4LbYCZTJq5HHcsRFRmexZGHWVXKMCaaY4iXwQX8yet0hk_PXS6HoPjWv6MU5fObU9Xm2hqzR2gStb7Z6tcpfHJU24foFBYv-WK9dVmlf8&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">E&E </a><br/></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Biden Is Urged to Ban ANWR Drilling After Court Approves Auction of Fossil Fuel Leases
07 January
Climate
Polar bears are seen in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Kaktovik, Alaska. Sylvain Cordier / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
President-elect Joe Biden is facing renewed pressure to deliver on his promise of a bold climate agenda after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could move forward with a Wednesday auction of fossil fuel drilling leases for federally protected lands in Alaska.
<p>After decades of national debate over oil and gas development in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Republicans in Congress opened up the region to drilling with a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/08/gop-tax-scam-attacks-renewables-while-nurturing-nuclear-and-fossil-fuel-industries" target="_blank">provision</a> in the so-called "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/22/corporations-are-literally-going-wild-says-trump-he-signs-tax-bill-most-americans" target="_blank">tax scam</a>" that President Donald Trump signed in 2017.</p><p>Late Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage <a href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20441489-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-order-on-preliminary-injunction" target="_blank">declined</a> to issue a preliminary injunction to block the auction. The request came from environmental groups and Indigenous people who are opposed to drilling in ANWR, which is home to <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/wildlife_habitat.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">over 280 species</a>.</p><p>In a statement Wednesday, Mitch Jones, policy director at the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, urged Biden to prevent fossil fuel development in the refuge—and beyond—when he takes office in two weeks. The president-elect has previously <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2020/12/05/with-oil-drilling-in-anwr-advancing-and-a-possible-end-to-pebble-mine-what-could-change-for-alaska-under-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a> he "totally" opposes drilling in the ecologically sensitive region.</p><p>"Trump rushing through these lease sales as a final handout to his cronies in the oil and gas industry is outrageous, if not surprising," Jones declared. "Trump's consistent, willful ignorance of the realities of climate change has pushed our planet towards decades of increasing climate chaos."</p>
<p>"President-elect Biden can reverse these disastrous oil and gas industry plans by keeping his promise to ban fossil fuel extraction—including fracking—on our public lands and waters," he added. "This is a step he can, and must, take upon taking office."</p><p>Jones' call for Biden to intervene to protect ANWR's coastal plain came after environmental and Indigenous leaders expressed disappointment with Gleason's decision not to block the auction while also emphasizing that her ruling doesn't mark the end of their fight against drilling rights in the refuge.</p><p>Four lawsuits have been filed since August challenging the lease plans, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-lawsuit/u-s-judge-denies-effort-to-stop-drilling-auction-in-arctic-refuge-idUSKBN29B071" target="_blank">according to</a> <em>Reuters</em>. The National Audubon Society and other groups had argued that the auction shouldn't go forward until the broader challenge to the drilling is resolved.</p><p>The <em>Anchorage Daily News</em> <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2020/12/05/with-oil-drilling-in-anwr-advancing-and-a-possible-end-to-pebble-mine-what-could-change-for-alaska-under-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reports</a> that Erik Grafe, an Earthjustice attorney representing the Audubon Society, said the case "is by no means over."</p><p>"The court concluded only that for now there is no harm that justifies an injunction. It also recognized that such an action could come very soon with issuance of seismic permits," he said. "We will continue to press our case that the agency approved the program unlawfully and that its decision should be overturned."</p>
<div id="4b52a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2fc64a53f75e68a880e2293893243cb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1346838449593212928" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We #StandWiththeGwichin in our collective fight to #ProtectTheArctic.
Trump's last-ditch effort to extract fossil… https://t.co/uhaPPWiL6T</div> — 350 dot org (@350 dot org)<a href="https://twitter.com/350/statuses/1346838449593212928">1609946284.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, which represents some of the area's Indigenous people, similarly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-alaska-lawsuit/u-s-judge-denies-effort-to-stop-drilling-auction-in-arctic-refuge-idUSKBN29B071" target="_blank">said</a> Tuesday that "today's ruling is disappointing but does nothing to change the strength of our lawsuit or our resolve."</p><p>Demientieff's people have <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/24/coalition-files-suit-stop-trumps-slapdash-and-tragic-plan-drill-arctic-national" target="_blank">relied </a>on the region's Porcupine Caribou Herd for thousands of years. The Gwich'in <a href="https://ourarcticrefuge.org/about-the-refuge/the-coastal-plain-the-sacred-place-where-life-begins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">call</a> the coastal plain, which the caribou use as their calving grounds, "Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit" or "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins."</p><p>As <em>The Guardian</em> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/05/trump-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-lease-sales?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_content=20210106&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20Daily" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> ahead of the ruling Tuesday:</p><blockquote>Oil from drilling west of the refuge, at Prudhoe Bay, has fueled the economic development the state has depended on to fill its coffers and write annual revenue checks to residents. That extraction also led to the most damaging oil spill in history, when the Exxon Valdez tanker spewed millions of barrels off Alaska's southern coast in 1989.<br><br>Prudhoe Bay "was the largest oil field ever discovered in North America. Since then we have had more than 1,500 square miles of oil and gas development in the Alaskan Arctic… but [ANWR] has been off limits," said Adam Kolton, executive director of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/alaska" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alaska</a> Wilderness League.<br><br>"For us, it symbolizes just what's at stake here. If you can't draw a line at the tundra and keep this one area of the Arctic off limits, then the question is, where can you draw the line and what protected part or wildlife refuge in the United States will remain off limits?"<br></blockquote><p>For the <a href="https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2021/01/05/heres-what-to-know-ahead-of-the-anwr-oil-lease-sale/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">first-ever ANWR auction</a>, the Bureau of Land Management "plans open bids from companies seeking 10-year leases," according to the <em>Daily News.</em> "Up for grabs to the highest bidder are 22 tracts on the refuge's coastal plain, most of them about 50,000 acres. Together, the tracts represent about 5% of the 19-million-acre refuge."</p>
<div id="ef02c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="21eddea470b1f924a3e56108665ca656"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1346821784440606720" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">With the denial of the injunction lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will go forward today. The ind… https://t.co/B07NKdKD9w</div> — Ctr4BioDiv Ocean (@Ctr4BioDiv Ocean)<a href="https://twitter.com/EndangeredOcean/statuses/1346821784440606720">1609942310.0</a></blockquote></div><p>It remains unclear if any fossil fuel companies will even bid on the leases—especially given that major U.S. banks, under pressure from environmental and Indigenous groups, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/01/lame-duck-trump-pushes-arctic-pillage-bank-america-latest-bank-rule-out-drilling" target="_blank">have adopted policies</a> of refusing to finance drilling in the Arctic, including ANWR, which was designated by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/06/after-court-oks-trump-arctic-refuge-auction-biden-urged-immediately-ban-drilling" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A wind turbine on the tip of Hull, Massachusetts, with the Boston skyline in the distance on Dec. 28, 2005. Tom Herde / The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is reviewing sweeping legislation to reduce the commonwealth's greenhouse gas pollution, spur clean energy jobs, electrify buildings, and protect communities disproportionately harmed by pollution.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S2995?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9KLjgqy8pzY2U2CYNVQIQULbQKL7CfLUGUKnezJgxcf2Q2rd1QIDZh_7gutpKG-EMMAVsFtDcpnUXyaY8Y2ZNeCaR5TA&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bill</a> passed by 38-2 vote in the State Senate and in the House 145-9, but Baker has not committed to signing the bill and could use a pocket veto to let it die following the conclusion of the legislative session overnight. In addition to mandating net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050, the legislation would also boost offshore <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wind">wind</a> energy and codify the definition of "environmental justice populations." </p>
<p>It would increase fines for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipeline</a> safety violations, following a deadly series of explosions in late 2018. The bill's passage follows Gov. Baker's release of plans to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution by 2050, ban the sale of new internal combustion cars by 2035, and electrify heating in 1 million homes.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-bills-climate-change-legislation-environment-83e5c30f59ad676eb45a437e614276ad?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_6Uxh9lYGafUMkX2MNHNSghxjQGZ6s3IkzedxIjlPlsfp7D4WDL211OYOmd9MEBsILRr_mn3UYZ-g4l38pOdvRQ_Q4TA&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>:</p><blockquote>The focus on pipeline safety follows the series of explosions in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover in September 2018 that killed one person, injured almost two dozen and damaged more than 100 buildings. Federal investigators blamed the explosions on overpressurized gas lines.<br></blockquote><blockquote>The explosions led to a $56 million settlement between Massachusetts and Columbia Gas of Massachusetts and its parent, NiSource last year.</blockquote><blockquote>Newly elected Democratic House Speaker Ron Mariano said the bill sends the message Massachusetts "will empower our environmental justice communities, achieve net zero emissions by 2050, continue to lead on offshore wind, increase equitable access to our clean energy programs, and create pathways to clean energy jobs for underserved and low-income communities."</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong><br/></p><p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-bills-climate-change-legislation-environment-83e5c30f59ad676eb45a437e614276ad?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_6Uxh9lYGafUMkX2MNHNSghxjQGZ6s3IkzedxIjlPlsfp7D4WDL211OYOmd9MEBsILRr_mn3UYZ-g4l38pOdvRQ_Q4TA&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP</a>, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2021/01/05/stories/1063721767?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--PQepwlFHXxfaJxaL3K0aJre2GRaLDjYJGkSL5Wdt45SE9hH3sYRxTIL2eYcs0lJzHM4wvysho6nbovV6nR_1B2ZIUCA&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">E&E</a>, <a href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/05/climate-bill-gas-safety-massachusetts?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--BjjEGbH1BQsAGO3bDGjvdvokNJxJqpTp_0gOL8oXhLGcsZFLosb2duRh62K8wkyKiHvFcAG6FINAQLF1ZDK5l0XjKlQ&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">WBUR</a>, <a href="https://www.masslive.com/politics/2021/01/massachusetts-lawmakers-send-climate-bill-that-would-reduce-states-carbon-footprint-to-gov-charlie-bakers-desk.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_EJqBW5drcdi1xdaXgV74lD2mEi76E59DjoBEgl3epycNQvM1OKOfAEc9-0_3yKt7lH3gJV9N8teoX5ewQL6vollFLRg&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">MassLive</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/04/business/heres-look-winners-losers-states-far-reaching-climate-bill/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_NMxxZ-fHQ6jsCZp00Awb6aMiMWbXC7jlz0xrnAY0Amrd_27zXaI_-YcoQ4J6DRwhGs8Sgin5dgXbrdd2zd62qdJ6ZPw&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Boston Globe</a>; Baker administration plan: <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/532684-massachusetts-to-require-100-percent-of-car-sales-to-be?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_6SokBlmv5bkR_VOOxrXyz_QDE620lP0FEvk5yQ4Za6N6w627opWE8Osv818jshcslgoEGRauBIUW8Se5duX-b9lAE7A&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Hill</a>, <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35104768/massachusetts-ban-new-gas-cars-2035/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105503272&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8pxvLRV4Wzz2qeF-GRhWuBk0lrQqWicE5NkDJrvjOPlf1nX2FV0PNQN7306HxCnK08sjeOS1QrCtoCRn4ZF8LZwXBPnw&utm_content=105503272&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Car & Driver</a><span></span></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will no longer penalize or prosecute companies when their actions cause the inadvertent death of birds. Jeff R Clow / Getty Images
By Julia Conley
Just over two weeks before President Donald Trump is set to leave the White House, his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday finalized a rollback of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—a law that's been in place since 1918 and which conservation groups credit with holding corporate polluters accountable for harming bird species.
<p>In what the Western Values Project called a "parting gift to Big Oil by corrupt former oil lobbyist Interior Secretary David Bernhardt," the USFWS <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/climate/trump-migratory-bird-protections.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announced </a>a new rule under which the federal government will no longer penalize or prosecute companies when their actions cause the inadvertent death of birds. </p><p>In the case of oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed more than one million birds in 2010; electrocutions by power lines; ducks and other species<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/03/31/syncrude-triples-number-dead-ducks-oil-sands" target="_blank"> stuck in fossil fuel tailings ponds;</a> and illegal actions like the spraying of banned pesticides, companies will no longer be held to account as long as they don't intentionally kill birds.</p>
<div id="f0f81" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e84637ab4594c5bbe67da8bb21bc0c57"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1346517062726930433" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Antithetical to its purpose, US Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule rolling back protections for migratory b… https://t.co/sC7gB0SX7R</div> — Aric Caplan (@Aric Caplan)<a href="https://twitter.com/CaplanComms/statuses/1346517062726930433">1609869659.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>When it was passed into law more than 100 years ago, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) made it illegal to hunt, take, capture, or kill birds from endangered species "by any means or in any manner."</p><p>Bernhardt said Tuesday the new rule "reaffirms the original meaning and intent of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act," while the Center for Western Priorities called it a "radical interpretation of the law."</p><p>"The Trump administration wants to make sure extractive industries can continue to kill birds after they leave office," said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the group. "Secretary Bernhardt's former oil industry clients have explicitly asked for this policy change, and now he is delivering, just days before returning to the private sector. By finalizing this proposal, the Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country."</p><p>Conservation groups pointed to data showing that three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970, while six million fewer birds were counted by the Audubon Society in 2019 than previous tallies showed.</p><p>As <em>Common Dreams</em> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/16/ecological-disaster-massive-scale-hundreds-thousands-dead-migratory-birds-southwest" target="_blank">reported</a> in September, the wildfires that overwhelmed the West Coast last year were thought to be behind the deaths of thousands of migratory birds in the southwest.</p>
<p>"This brutal blow hits America's birds when many populations are already plummeting, so it's really the last thing they need," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Trump officials are giving oil companies and other polluters a license to kill birds. Vast numbers of birds will be electrocuted by power lines, drowned in oil waste pits and killed in other easily preventable ways."<br></p><p>Advocates say the MBTA has worked in recent years to show the oil and gas industry that it will be held accountable if its activities kills birds. The federal government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/climate/trump-migratory-bird-protections.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">reached </a>a $100 million settlement with BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.</p><p>Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), who was named as President-elect Biden's nominee for Interior Secretary last month, is expected to repeal the USFWS's rule, but that process could take time. Meanwhile, Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) introduced the Migratory Bird Protection Act last year as the administration was considering the rollback, with the aim of reaffirming the original law's intent of protecting vulnerable birds—not corporations.</p><p>Advocates also expressed hope that the federal courts will strike down what Greenwald called the Trump administration's "reckless attack on one of America's oldest and most important conservation laws," as Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/12/major-victory-court-tosses-out-trump-interiors-gutting-century-old-protections" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">did in August.</a></p><p>"There is nothing in the text of the MBTA that suggests that in order to fall within its prohibition, activity must be directed specifically at birds," Caproni <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/12/major-victory-court-tosses-out-trump-interiors-gutting-century-old-protections" target="_blank">said</a> in her ruling at the time. "Nor does the statute prohibit only intentionally killing migratory birds." </p>
<div id="b6b56" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="95790fd24d47e8369de4bd6a06d03868"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1346503503238205442" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Trump administration is kicking off the new year and its remaining weeks—and, to add insult to injury,… https://t.co/uydTahSeao</div> — Audubon Society (@Audubon Society)<a href="https://twitter.com/audubonsociety/statuses/1346503503238205442">1609866426.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Jamie Rappoport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife said the group would call on the Biden administration "to restore protections for birds immediately and affirm that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits incidental take."</p><p>"Even though a federal court already ruled that the Trump administration cannot eliminate protections for migratory birds, the administration continues its relentless campaign to undermine environmental protections and harm wildlife," said Clark. </p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/05/brutal-blow-wildlife-and-gift-big-oil-trump-finalizes-rollback-migratory-bird-treaty" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Lethal Levels of Radiation Found in Damaged Fukushima Reactor, Impacting its Shutdown
31 December 2020
Climate
The Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen from Futaba Town, Fukushima prefecture on March 11, 2020. STR / JIJI PRESS / AFP/ Getty Images
By Brett Wilkins
In what Japanese regulators on Wednesday called an "extremely serious" development, lethal levels of radiation have been recorded inside the damaged reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, threatening the shutdown and decommissioning of the site of the second-worst peacetime nuclear disaster in history.
<p><a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14071742" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According to</a><em> The Asahi Shimbun,</em> Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) reported that massive amounts of radioactive materials have been found around shield plugs of the containment vessels in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.</p><p>NRA officials estimated radiation levels at 10 sieverts per hour—enough to kill a worker who spends just one hour there. </p><p>Decommission of the reactor requires workers to remove the shield plugs, which block radiation from the reactor core during normal plant operation. This discovery has forced officials to reconsider their shutdown plans.</p>
<p>NRA chair Toyoshi Fuketa said that removing the highly irradiated shield plugs made safe retrieval of nuclear fuel debris—an already dangerously daunting task—all the more difficult.</p><p>"It appears that nuclear debris lies at an elevated place," Fuketa said at a news conference earlier this month. "This will have a huge impact on the whole process of decommissioning work."</p><p>The latest alarming find is the result of an investigation that resumed in September after a five-year pause in which the NRA took new measurements of radiation levels around the shield plugs at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.</p>
<p>Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, <a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14059716" target="_blank">announced</a> December 24 that nuclear fuel debris removal would be postponed until 2022 or later due to the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>As <em>Common Dreams</em> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/19/appalling-environmental-crime-japan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-water-pacific-ocean" target="_blank">reported</a> in October, Greenpeace and other environmental and anti-nuclear advocates <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/19/appalling-environmental-crime-japan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-water-pacific-ocean" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">expressed shock and outrage</a> after the Japanese government announced a plan to release stored water from the ill-fated plant into the Pacific Ocean. Greenpeace subsequently <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/23/greenpeace-warns-potential-damage-human-dna-risk-japans-plan-dump-fukushima-water" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">released a report</a> claiming that radioactive carbon-14 released into the ocean "has the potential to damage human DNA."</p><p>The Fukushima Daiichi disaster—the result of a 2011 earthquake and tsunami that <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/23/greenpeace-warns-potential-damage-human-dna-risk-japans-plan-dump-fukushima-water" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">killed</a> more than 15,000 people in northeastern Japan—was the worst nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union, and the worst in Japan since the United States waged a nuclear war against the country in 1945 that killed hundreds of thousands of people. </p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/30/lethal-levels-radiation-found-damaged-fukushima-reactor-will-have-huge-impact" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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IKEA has partnered with Vox Creative and tiny home builder Escape to create a sustainable tiny house on wheels. Josiah And Steph Photography
Furniture giant IKEA collaborated with Vox Creative and tiny home builder Escape to produce a tiny house on wheels that could inspire environmental- and climate-friendly changes in the housing industry.
<p>"It was a natural pairing," Escape founder Dan Dobrowolski told <a href="https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/ikea-tiny-home-project" target="_blank">Lonely Planet</a>. "We feature many IKEA products in our various tiny home designs around the country as they mirror the renewable, reusable and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/recycling" target="_self">recycled</a> materials we incorporate into the actual structures."</p><p>According to IKEA, the project's goal is to prove "that anyone, anywhere can live a more <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability" target="_self">sustainable</a> life," reported <a href="https://www.greenmatters.com/p/tiny-home-ikea?gm&fbclid=IwAR2rnTfIkXVQmPP1Vpt-uO05nxDzS7s6bY8PwGHP45TnC-piTL5kTcYKr0M" target="_blank">Green Matters</a>. As such, the model IKEA Tiny Home Project was created with that purpose in mind.</p><p>The entire trailer unit is a 187-square-foot model filled with IKEA furniture, topped with roof solar panels and stocked with an on-demand RV water heater, <a href="https://www.dwell.com/article/ikea-tiny-home-project-escape-923a72be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dwell</a> reported. According to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ikea-tiny-homes-can-help-fight-climate-change-giving-small-ncna1252431" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NBC</a>, it runs on electric and allows for off-the-grid living. The tiny building also emits zero pollution, including carbon. In fact, the only emissions come from the trailer being towed.</p>
<p>Manufactured structures are usually less wasteful than on-site constructions, according to <a href="https://pebblemag.com/magazine/living/modular-homes-ecofriendly-reasons" target="_blank">Pebble Magazine</a>. The interior's whitewashed panels are made from sustainably grown pine, reported <a href="https://www.travelandleisure.com/culture-design/ikea-tiny-home-project-escape-vista-boho-xl" target="_blank">Travel + Leisure</a>, while the kitchen cupboards are made from recycled bottle tops. There is also a compostable toilet and a collapsible desk/kitchen table, Lonely Planet shared.</p><p> Abbey Stark, IKEA senior interior design leader, told Lonely Planet that she prioritized renewable, reusable and recycled materials to make the space "functional as well as beautiful." Stark designed the space as an IKEA show home with sustainable, multifunctional, space-saving and energy-efficient products, Lonely Planet reported.</p><p>The entire build took less than 60 days to complete and models start at $47,550, Travel + Leisure reported. Curbed created a <a href="https://archive.curbed.com/ad/21417721/virtual-tour-ikea-tiny-home-sustainability" target="_blank">virtual tour</a> showcasing the eco-conscious and stylish elements.</p>
<p>If the tiny house trend becomes even more popular through new, sustainable projects like IKEA's, it could help curb climate pollution from the housing industry. Currently, the sector accounts for about five percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., not counting electricity, reported NBC.</p><p>Some skeptics note that smaller houses won't tackle the biggest climate threat from construction: concrete. The very qualities that make concrete a desirable construction material (non-modular form; low-labor requirements; capacity to be shaped) make it non-reusable and unsustainable, NBC reported. While projects like the tiny house might use more renewable materials, large structures like bridges, ports, roads and factories still use concrete.</p><p>Even so, the push toward <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tiny-house-eco-friendly-2639728847.html" target="_self">smaller, more sustainable housing</a> is leading to environmental shifts. Green Matters reported that tiny homes typically reduced energy consumption by about 45 percent and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tiny-homes-eco-friendly-2634222368.html">prompted owners to behave more sustainably</a> by growing their own crops, reducing consumption and recycling more.</p><p>"We built a sustainable tiny home from the ground up to better educate and inspire consumers to bring sustainability into their own lives," IKEA said, reported Green Matters. The company hopes the project will "[generate] awareness of the tiny home and [illustrate] the big impact that small, daily decisions can make for a better, more sustainable world."</p>
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