News — global warming

link  Biden and the USFS protect the immense 16 million Alaska forest

"one of the world's largest intact temperate forests, the Tongass National Forest stores more than 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon and sequesters an additional 10 million metric tons annually, according to the Alaska Wilderness League.

The carbon held by the Tongass amounts to about 8% of all carbon stored in trees in the United States, says Defenders of Wildlife" 

Summer is here!  Here are some great links & information about what is going on in the world of environmental activism :  Good News!

The first wolf pack in 80 years – 6 wolf pups are now living in CO with their parents. Colorado voters approved a ballot in 2020 to reintroduce Wolves to CO.


Celebrate the cancellation of the Byhalia Connection pipeline, which would have carried crude oil over an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million people. Intense community opposition stopped it.  Democracy Now Article 


Biden saves the Alaska's Tongass Forest . He will stop Trump's selling off the forest. This red and yellow cedar, Western hemlock, and Sitka spruce forest is over 800 years old. It provides homes for bears, eagles, and fish. And it is one of the world's biggest storehouses of carbon, reducing climate change.
Also, the Tongass Coalition has asked Biden to protect all large trees and mature forests on federal lands.  NYT Article by Coral Davenport on 6-11-21


Trees cool the Earth by providing shade, lowering air temperature by 10 degrees, bringing up water thru evaporation, storing water, preventing flooding by absorbing floodwater, storing carbon, reducing climate change, reducing the electricity demand, blocking wind, providing food for wildlife, and filtering and cleaning the air.  NYT Article  “Trees Save Lives”


Wind, Solar, and Battery Storage are cheaper and healthier than oil, coal, and gas.  Electric cars are fun and save a lot of money.  Electricity costs about 1/3 of what gas costs per mile.  So you save about $1000 per year on gas for 15,000 miles per year, plus you save $4600 on maintenance over the life of the car, say $500 per year over 10 years. So you save about $1000 + $500 =$1500 per year- AND you have cleaner air and water and better health as long as we shut down oil, natural gas , and coal and switch to wind, solar , and battery storage.
Also, you save $2.7 trillion and get 2 million jobs by building more wind, solar, and battery storage. This information is from a Ken Regelson talk on 4-28-21.


Tony Seba shows that rooftop solar and battery is going to cost less than transmission of electricity from a power plant!  So every house and business will save money by installing rooftop solar and batteries.  Youtube - “Batteries and Solar Win”
He also shows how electric cars and trucks last 5 times longer and have 1/10th to 1/100th of the maintenance costs and cost 1/10th to operate. So soon electric cars will cost $12,500 and go 200 miles.
The only barrier is regulatory, which matches with Greenpeace's interview with EXXON's lobbyists, who say EXXON will stop the green infrastructure bills and stop the taxes that would pay for the infrastructure bill.  The EXXON lobbyist talks every week with Joe Manchin's staff and is lobbying with other senators susceptible to pressure which include Senators Manchin, Sinemas, Testers, and Coons.  The EXXON CEO is talking to Coons, a friend of Biden. Later they talk to those up for reelection:  Hassan, Kelly, Rubio, Kennedy, Daines.  Exxon got such large tax cuts under Trump, along with permits to drill all over, and relaxed regulations, etc., that it can spend billions to bribe congress to stop the Green New Deal, green infrastructure, rooftop solar, and battery storage. 
Democracy Now - Exxon Blocks Climate Action
Rolling Stone - Exxon Lobbyist Anti Climate Actions

Rooftop Solar is more resilient and better than more transmission lines controlled by greedy utility companies.   Utility companies want to build transmission lines and get 10.5% profit.  Environmental groups want rooftop solar and battery storage- cheaper, more resilient; not subject to fires,  price manipulation, and monopoly control; smaller, more local.  7-11-21 NYT  "More Power Lines or Rooftop Solar Panels: The Fight Over Energy’s Future"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/business/energy-environment/biden-climate-transmission-lines.html?searchResultPosition=1

Voting Rights-For the People Act, HR 1, passed the House, but is stuck in the Senate, It protects the right to vote and ends gerrymandering.  Ask your senators to support it.  Also, end the filibuster and support DC statehood.  Please ask them to support the Green New Deal and the Civilian Climate Corps.  Go to Join Democracy Movement  and click on your state and to find out groups working to protect the Vote, such as the league of Women Voters and CommonCause.


Fight Climate Change by Joining an activist group- find meaning, power, and connection by protesting and acting.
Take action today by supporting or joining one of these groups: Extinction Rebellion; Fridays for Future USA; Sunrise Movement, and 350.org


Sanders wants to pass major budget reconciliation bill to help our country.  We need to fix the child care system, pre-K, college debt, physical infrastructure, climate change, the health care crisis, the USA's highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, housing crisis, half the people living paycheck to paycheck, do something to help the working class.
NY Times - The Ascension of Bernie Sanders


“Tax the Rich! Also the Very Affluent! But mainly the Rich!” -- Raise money for retrofitting buildings to make them energy efficient, to replace lead pipes, and build new infrastructure. This would only charge more taxes if someone makes more than $400,000 per year and more estate tax only if their estate is more than $11 million - Rolling Stone July 2021

Under a White Sky:the Nature of the Future interview  Elizabeth Kolbert in her new book visits cases where humans have "shot themselves in the foot" and examines whether attempts, such as geoengineering to block the sun and cool the planet, are crazy or better than not doing anything.  She goes into the problems of rabbits and cane toads displacing many creatures in australia and of canals allowing invasive species  such as zebra mussels to spread. -

Scientists now consider using genetically modified gene drives to wipe out introduced species such as mice, rats, cats, snails, or goats that are themselves killing off native rare species such as albatrosses, ducks, which have evolved on islands and have no adaptation to survive the introduced species.  What could possible go wrong?

NPR's Science Friday 3-12-21.

Article by Elizabeth Kolbert

Examples and stories of building local movements for renewable society, carbon neutral, with local food, tree planting,  and economy.  New stories.  

Cost Rica did  massive tree planting:"Now on track to become a carbon-neutral country, Costa Rica has restored 60% of the country's tropical forests in the last two decades by passing strict forestry laws, ending cattle subsidies, and promoting agroforestry and ecotourism."

"They're about rebuilding our local economies in ways that restore our relationships with nature and our communities, and regenerate the ecosystems we desperately need. 

This process is not about terrifying people with apocalyptic images but bringing them into the loop with stories, starting with people on the front lines of environmental ruin and injustice who are struggling for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—that's at the heart of understanding how we will survive in an age of climate emergencies."  

Electric Utility Corruption  they are paying $200 million fines for bribery etc. 

The 8-3-20 NYT editorial, “When Utility Money Talks”, illustrates the corrupt side of electric utilities.

“citizens are getting a clearer picture of what they are up against. They are not just fighting dirty energy — they are also fighting the dirty money in politics that keeps it alive.”


" in Illinois, Commonwealth Edison, admitted in federal court to bribing political figures in that state and agreed to pay a $200 million fine”

“in Ohio “operating a $60 million political slush fund to elect their candidates, with the money coming from one of the state’s largest electricity companies”

“In New Orleans, the utility Entergy was caught hiring actors to show up at City Hall and pretend to be citizens in favor of a controversial gas-fired power plant; the company was fined $5 million. A big Arizona utility, Arizona Public Service, has become embroiled in repeated political scandals, including pumping millions in dark money into a campaign to stack the state regulatory board with its lackeys.”

“the big message from all these scandals is that you cannot assume your state government is working in the public interest as it oversees the energy transition.”

Article  "the slow work of listening to and learning from one another; of building relationships and a shared vision of a new world. The number of people truly benefiting from the existing system is quite small, so it can undoubtedly be improved.

The choices Holthaus blames for the state of the world are the choices that leaders make to build economies based on unlimited growth in a limited world. Choices that leaders make to perpetuate a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. Choices that leaders make to exacerbate inequities and avoid course corrections.

Because these are choices, they are remade every day. And every choice, he says, is an opportunity to either repeat these mistakes and maintain the status quo, or to make changes.

“The status quo is comfortable for a reason,” he writes. “It makes daily life easier to manage, especially when the alternative doesn’t yet exist—or, more accurately, when those in power are actively opposed to making a better world a reality.”

Holthaus argues that people need to be brave in imagining something better. For starters, he says, success needs a different metric. Rather than endless growth, how about thriving? And in place of innovation and efficiency, Holthaus argues for a focus on repair and maintenance."

"mostly by women of color. And so in his reporting, he aims to center the stories and voices of those communities doing this work, in the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, and other places where climate change is not some future fear, but the present."

"the best “technology” for decarbonization is social movements. Care work and conversations are the tools to enable a society to change course. And that’s going to have to happen at the individual community level"